Collection of Sketchnotes from World of Learning Summit 30 & 31 January 2024

Rachel Burnham writes: I spent a very interesting two days at this year’s World of Learning Summit, which was held in January 2024, at Olympia, London. I was fortunate to be able to attend the conference to Sketchnote a wide range of sessions, but of course also enjoyed meeting and speaking with people in between sessions, over lunch and whilst wandering around the exhibition. 

The sessions I participated in were on a real mix of topics – AI and its importance for L&D, skills-based organisations, learning in the flow of work, neurodiversity, reverse mentoring, the advantages of curiosity and developing our digital skills as L&D professionals. 

The sessions that were most effective from my perspective dug deeper – for example Kerry Richardson from Thames Water presented an excellent case study (see Sketchnote later in post), which was about ‘Learning in the flow of work’ as advertised. But she also set out clearly how to run an effective pilot, including focusing the intervention clearly on a business need – in this case reducing complaints with clear success criteria and showed how to cost the results generated from the pilot. There was so much useful stuff in this session – not necessarily new, but practices that are important and often don’t get done. 

Some of the less effective sessions attempted to cover far too much material and so skimmed over the surface. I think it is easier to get more depth if sessions involve just a single presenter or case study or if sessions are slightly longer and I would encourage conference organisers to take this on board. 

 Here are all 8 of the Sketchnotes that I created live over the two days. 

The Opening Address on AI 

Not surprisingly, the first two inputs at this year's conference were on AI and how L&D can be making use of this. My favourite bit was the Crawl, Walk, Run and Fly stages that Trish Uhl outlined that we need to go through in our learning about how to get the most out of AI.

The Skills-Based Organisation 

This is from a session by Asi De Gani and Dani Saadu, who each talked about their organisations' approach to taking a skills based approach to Learning & Development. People I talked to about this session had very mixed responses - some feeling that this was bread and butter L&D and wondering how it was different from a competence based approach, whereas others found it incredibly helpful for the journey that their own organisation was in the midst of. 

Have a look and see what you think. 

A practical look at learning in the flow of work 

Great session from Kerry Richardson, Thames Water detailing how they ran a pilot to add a learning in the flow of work element to the mix using 'Clever Nelly' to pose questions. So many super things about this approach - it taps into both 'retrieval practice' and 'spaced repetition', they focused on addressing a key business needs - reducing complaints - and identified success criteria ie what success would look like, they carried out a pilot and compared with a control group, and costed the results sharing their workings out. Kudos to Kerry and her colleagues for such a rich case study. 

Navigating the spectrum in a neurodiverse world 

I am so excited to be able to share my Sketchnote with you from the session led by Leena Haque and Sean Gilroy from the BBC, titled 'Navigating the spectrum in a neurodiverse world'. Leena described her experiences of autism and of the challenges of school and finding her way into the world of work - she used pictures and video clips to vividly communicate her story. Of course as a Sketchnoter, my favourite bit was when she told us about how she drew pictures at school to process her learning! This is something we can all do and benefit from. 

Sean also explained about the initiatives the network they co-lead had taken at the BBC to address the needs neurodiverse people had identified - training to increase awareness, changes to the built environment and to technology to make it more accessible and to build community. 

I know a lot of people in the session were very moved by this presentation. 

L&D skills for the digital world 

Here's my Sketchnote from Jo Cook 's session 'L&D Skills for the Digital Word' which was getting us thinking a bout the Digital skills we need now and how to future proof are skill sets. 

The curious advantage 

Great conversation about curiosity and how it benefits organisations and how to nurture it. So good to hear Peter Ashcroft, Garrick Jones and Tim Munden discussing this. 

The evolution of reverse mentoring 

This session was co-delivered by Emily Cosgreve from 'The Conversation Space' and Mark Taylor from RSM UK. They shared their experience of using reverse mentoring to stimulate intergenerational conversations at work and they included lots of helpful detail about the way they did this. 

I hope you have found it useful to see summaries of the sessions in Sketchnote format. I am always interested to hear what people think of them. 

If you are interested in learning to Sketchnote yourself or have colleagues who would find this of interest do get in touch – my next open workshop is online from 1pm on 29th February. Or get in touch if you would like to commission me to create a Sketchnote for your organisation. 

Rachel Burnham 

2 February 2024

 

I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.