Rachel Burnham writes: I had a great time at this year's World of Learning Summit, which took place on 4 & 5 February 2025 at Olympia, London. The conference was very well put together with excellent choices for the main speakers and these were backed up with a very good range of sessions to choose from. The conference was accompanied by a free exhibition and sessions open to all.
I participated in thoughtful sessions, had my thinking challenged, met new people and caught up with friends.
I Sketchnoted throughout the conference and will include all 8 of my Sketchnotes here. I have previously shared them on various social media platforms.
1 Opening Address by Professor John Amaechi
Super opening address at the first day of this year's event from the always challenging John Amaechi OBE exploring the power of human skills in the future of work. He identified learning as the key skill for the future of work. Here is my Sketchnote of his session.
2 Dr Nigel Paine's session 'Increase Connectivity & Productivity by Cultivating Organisational Trust & Empowerment'
One of the earliest sessions I attended was led by Dr. Nigel Paine and focused on the dangers of L&D continuing to work in our box, separated from the wider organisation and culture. He made this point in relation to the use of AI, where it is easy for us to be focusing on how we can use this technology for Learning Design, but then risk missing out on the bigger picture of addressing, with AI, Organisational Performance Outputs. He illustrated this pattern with contrasting experiences of two organisations and their differing responses and resilience through the COVID pandemic and set out 5 values we need to be addressing in organisations if we want learning to succeed and have the impact we know it can.
3 Sketchnote 'Managing successful vendor & stakeholder relationships' with Donna Verdi
In this session, Donna Verdi facilitated a number of table discussions exploring the challenges we face in managing vendor and stakeholder relationships successfully - the groups identified three key challenges: conflicting priorities for operational managers between longer term project that we are often engaged with and the press of day to day demands; complex and long procurement processes which are challenging to navigate; and the conflict between order taking and impact making. We then proceeded to share examples of what worked in tackling these challenges.
It was great to have the opportunity to focus on these relationships for once, as these are often overlooked, yet are so important in being effective in L&D.
4 'Gaining Skills Insights through Learning Design' with Polly Watt
In this session Polly Watt's shared how Learning Design and Learning Analytics are intimately connected and how one can influence the other to lead to more effective learning for individuals and their organisation.
It was great to see the emphasis on using evidence on what is effective to improve learning transfer in particular. Polly shared the value of weekly self-reporting for impact on behaviour change, the use of mono-commitments to a single behaviour change as more effective than multiple commitments to a number of changes and the use of accountability partners. In addition, she helpfully brought out how AI could be used to encourage behaviour change.
The final session on Day 1 was a very different kind of session as the conference delegates had to do the work. Robin Hoyle, the conference chair, facilitated a session in which we considered different aspects of learner engagement through discussion on tables.
My Sketchnote below reflects the discussion on the table I was sat at. We identified the challenges we faced with learner engagement, what the effects were of low levels of engagement and shared stories of what had worked to engage employees in learning. The key thing that came out of our discussions was just how vital relevance is - at a strategic level, for individuals participating in some learning and for others to appreciate the value of the learning - relevance, relevance, relevance.
Day 2, Wednesday 5th February, got off to a bang with a super session from Ksenia Zheltoukhova. She focused on the main challenge at present with AI use which is implementation. She looked at what we can practically be doing in our organisations to aid that implementation. This included being able to paint the picture based on data to shape strategy around AI; building competences in using AI; and shaping the AI mindset by utilising what works in change management.
Robin Hoyle was in the chair and enabled questions from participants. Lots to consider and act on from this session. I was discussing the session afterwards with Dr. Nigel Paine and he homed in on the importance of starting small eg with teams and getting them to look at how to harness AI. A bottom up approach which taps into the collective intelligence, which Ksenia discussed.
This panel discussion featured a stellar line up - Dr. Nigel Paine, Egle Vinauskaite Ksenia Zheltoukhova and Andy Lancaster. The session was chaired by Robin Hoyle and included questions from participants.
As you might expect a key topic that emerged from the session was about AI and how we use it, but also its wider impact on the social contract, work identities and even on how it may reshape organisations. But the session also brought out the importance of communities, connection and collaboration for the future of organisations.
This session was chaired by Jo Cook and was lead jointly by Madeleine Tierney at Google Cloud and Danielle Ware from Busy Bees Nurseries.
Madeleine and Danielle had a great partnership in presenting these two case studies and drawing out the different contexts in which they each were working and how this shaped their approach to scaling a L&D initiative, plus where the similarities were.
Rachel Burnham
13 February 2025
I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more
effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.
