The Art of Imperfection

Rachel Burnham writes: When I was 11 or 12 we were set homework by our art teacher each week.  We were to draw, in pencil, an object that she specified – a tea cup, a pair of scissors, a chair.   She marked each drawing out of 10.  If we received less than 5, we had to do the drawing again the next week – alongside the drawing homework for that week.  By the end of the first term, I was having to do 8 drawings a week.   I remember the chair particularly well.  I drew it over and over and over.   After I finished that year, I didn’t attempt a drawing again for 40 years.

Actually that isn’t entirely true, I doodled.  Incessantly.  When on the phone.   In lectures.   When thinking.  And constantly in meetings.   Faces, shapes, houses, patterns and lots and lots of flowers and leaves.  But I never counted that as ‘drawing’.

Years later, I joined Twitter and I saw pictures shared, particularly by Doug Shaw and Simon Heath (You can find them on Twitter @dougshaw1 and @SimonHeath1).  One day in the summer of 2014, whilst doing Harold Jarche’s PKM programme, we were set the task of putting his Seek, Sense, Share model into our own words.   I had had a particularly wordy work week and at the thought of trying to write something over the weekend, my heart sank.   But as I pondered over the model and dawdled in the garden that summer’s day, it occurred to me to draw what it meant to me instead.  And this is what I drew.

And I shared what I drew not only with my fellow course participants, but on Twitter.

Later that year, I was contributing to an event and co-facilitating a session alongside two colleagues, so I decided to draw little pictures of each of us to illustrate the welcome slide.  A year on at the CIPD NAP conference, I took along some coloured pencils and a notepad and started putting my doodling to good use by drawing points from the various sessions at the event.  I then took photos of the pictures and shared these on Twitter.   I was overwhelmed by the positive response they got. 

Over the summer and autumn I practiced at every event I went to.  Gradually switching from A5 notepad to A4.  Working out how to get all the points onto a single sheet.  Thinking about layout.  Experimenting with how best to use colour and combine graphics and simple pictures.  Realising that you can’t capture every point and that careful listening is key.   Letting go of an expectation of perfection.  I had started Sketchnoting.

Last week there was a very interesting thread shared on Twitter about ‘imposter syndrome’ by Gem Dale – here is the link to the storify. ‘Imposter syndrome’ - that fear that so many of us have of being caught out, of not really having the expertise that is required of us, that somehow we have got where we are by luck, rather than as a result of our skills and hard work.

Alongside that, there is also the self-talk, that stops us from even starting something.  That holds us back and tells us that we can’t do that – that we aren’t artistic, or athletic or wouldn’t have anything to contribute to an online Twitter chat or whatever the limit that we have about ourselves.  If we never have a go, it we never experiment, we will never know whether we just might have those talents?

And in most things it isn’t a question of absolutes – it isn’t that   you are either exceptionally talented or nothing.  I think we can all draw.  Not everyone will be Georgia O’Keeffe and that is OK.  Sometimes it is fun doing something even when you aren’t fabulous at it, just for the pleasure of doing.  And by doing it, you can get better at it and develop those skills.   We know that great artists, musicians, writers, athletes all have to work hard for their talent to blossom.

This is one of my very favourite pictures – I am very proud of it – not because it is my best picture, but because I tried something out.  I drew it two years ago on holiday in Greece with my son.  I very often draw from life – sometimes I get a bit stuck doing that and I love this picture, because I drew what I felt, rather than just what I saw.  It captures the feel of the narrow streets and their vibrancy.  I am really happy that I tried something different and did it whole-heartedly.  

Actually, when I look at it I can also see that the perspective is all off.   It is OK to try something and for it not to be perfect.

There are parallels with  Working Out Loud (WOL), the idea of sharing what you are working on at an early stage, partly so that you can benefit from other people’s input and partly so that other people can learn from and be inspired by what you are doing.  Sometimes our self-talk holds us back from Working Out Loud – ‘ I don’t have anything special to share’, ‘I’m not an expert’, ‘What if look foolish?’  It was WOL by Doug and Simon that inspired me to start drawing and it was the positive feedback and support of my contacts on Twitter, my Personal Learning Network, that encouraged me to continue.  If I hadn’t shared publicly what I was doing, I wouldn’t have benefited from that encouragement.

This picture began as being about seeing the world through rose-coloured lenses, but ended up as the much more exuberant rose-covered glasses - probably in need of some garden maintenance!

I have found that I love to draw.  I am so glad that I took the risk and shared that first drawing publicly.   I have learnt so much as a result about how to draw.  But I know my learning is much broader than just about drawing. 

I have discovered that if I want to get better at doing something then:

• ·       I need to make a start
• ·       It is OK not to be perfect – forgive yourself for mistakes and spend time enjoying what you are doing well
• ·       Iterate and improve
• ·       Work with a generous spirit – share  with others
• ·       Nurture the people around you and you will be nurtured in return

Rachel Burnham

28/1/18

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I do this through: writing & design commissions; facilitating learning to update knowhow, 1:1 and bespoke ‘train the trainer’ programmes; and the use of Sketchnoting to facilitate learning.

Five (ish) books about performance, learning and working out loud

Rachel Burnham writes: Here are some reviews of recent books I have been reading for work over the last few months – some of them I read because of particular projects I was working on and some because they might be of interest to the students I work with on the CIPD Foundation Certificate in L&D. 

‘Conversations at Work: Promoting a Culture of Conversation in the Changing Workplace’ Tim Baker & Aubrey Warren (2015) Palgrave Macmillan

‘5 Conversations: How to transform trust, engagement and performance at work’ Nick Cowley & Nigel Purse with Lynn Allison (2014) Panoma Press

Both of these books are written against the backdrop of an increasing dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of traditional approaches to performance management and in particular the annual performance review and at the same time an increasing interest in introducing a more informal, frequent and conversational approach to managing performance at work.  There is a lot of overlap between these two books – they are the reason for the 5ish element in the title of this blog. Both books argue for the centrality and value of conversations in the workplace and set out the benefits of this approach to individuals, managers and organisations.   Each book has much to offer in terms of frameworks for different kinds of conversations in the context of a managerial relationship and skills development.  

The Palgrave book has more on barriers to communication and more specific sections on different elements that make up the skills of conversation such as listening, perceptual positions and the art of inquiry.  The Panoma Press book links conversation more broadly into the development of engagement and trust in organisations and so goes beyond performance management and the line manager relationship.

I found myself both in agreement with the basic argument of these two books, but then rather dissatisfied by the way that each book set out a series of specific conversations each with a distinctive focus.  This seemed to over-complicate and introduce almost a ‘management by checklist approach’, rather detracting from their simple central point about the need for more effective conversations in the workplace. 

‘Neuroscience for Learning and Development: How to apply neuroscience & psychology for improved learning & training’ Stella Collins (2016) Kogan Page

Stella Collins very quickly explains that this book is not just looking at what we can learn from neuroscience to improve learning, but much more broadly at lessons from behavioural, cognitive & social psychology.  It is written specifically for an L&D audience and aims to both inform and also to suggest practical actions that can improve the way we design and deliver L&D programmes.

The book is broken down into accessible sections and makes good use of diagrams, mind maps and practical insights from practitioners.  It includes a helpful section to challenge our thinking on how we react when something is labelled neuroscience so that we are able to respond more critically. 

I think this is a very practical addition to the material available on neuroscience and psychology for L&D practitioners and would recommend it enthusiastically.

‘The Mentoring Manual: Your Step by Step Guide to Being a Better Mentor’ Julie Starr (2014) Pearson

I bought this as I had been mentoring a fellow L&D practitioner for a number of months and thought it would help me to reflect on how this mentoring was going and what I could do to be more effective.  And it did.

It is a detailed guide to the whole process of being a mentor or even to setting up and managing a mentoring programme. It is both accessible if you are brand new to mentoring, but also provides enough to get you thinking more deeply if you have already some understanding of mentoring. 

The book is well structured, so that you can either read cover to cover or dip into particular sections that meet a particular need.  There is a very practical section on the various stages of a mentoring relationship including very detailed material on how to structure initial meetings.  My favourite parts of the book though were the sections on principles and on what good mentors do well.

Though at times I felt slightly over ‘checklisted’, I found this a helpful book that got me to do some useful self-questionning.

‘More than Blended Learning: Designing World-Class Learning Interventions’ Clive Shepherd (2015) The More Than Blended Learning Company

This is essentially a guide to designing learning programmes effectively and these days this is always going to include some consideration of how the learning might be blended to be as effective as it possibly can be.  It is both an introduction to designing for those new to the whole process of putting together a programme from start to finish and also provides a challenge to think more broadly about what effective learning programmes involve for those already with some experience of designing.

It has some great case studies with practical examples of how organisations have put programmes together and also considers a broad range of design elements including both learning methods and choice of media.  I also liked the way it looks at the type of learning – skills, knowledge or what Shepherd refers to as ‘big ideas’ such as new approaches.

If you are relatively new to designing L&D programmes or want to design more effectively beyond workshops then this is a good place to start.

‘Working Out Loud – For a better career and life’ John Stepper 2015 Ikigai Press

This is an introduction to the idea and practice of ‘Working Out Loud’ (WOL) – it is almost a course in a book, with practical activities and ideas to get you started.

If you haven’t come across the ‘Working Out Loud’ approach before, it is the practice of sharing either with colleagues or more widely, what you are working on in a spirit of generosity.  This is often done whilst your work is still at the ‘half-baked’ stage, so that you can incorporate ideas and contributions from other people.  And it is also about you contributing to other people’s work.

John Stepper’s approach to Working Out Loud very much links this concept with building a network.  I was a little surprised by how much of the book was about the process of networking through Working Out Loud and the use of social media.  Initially this rather threw me – I hadn’t expected this emphasis on networking.  However, the approach has gradually grown on me and I can see its value.   It very much links to the idea of networking as a tool for learning and so has contributed to my understanding of Personal Learning Networks.   

Whilst some people may find the approach taken by the book to be too instructional, others may find it provides a helpful step by step approach.  If you are new to ‘Working Out Loud’ or want to develop your networking skills this may be just the book to guide you.

So, these are my views on these books – I would love to hear your views. Why not share these by adding a comment?

Rachel Burnham

6/12/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

Networking: What is a Personal Learning Network?

Rachel Burnham writes: Thank you very much for all the comments and feedback on the blog post I wrote last week ‘Networking: How my perceptions and practice have changed’.  It seemed to reflect a lot of people’s experiences both with  ‘traditional networking’ and how this has been changing to a more positive and helpful approach to networking as a vehicle for learning.

So, I thought it might be useful to explore in a bit more detail what a ‘Personal Learning Network’  or PLN means to me.  For me, a personal learning network is ‘those people who you learn from and with’. 

It is a network, which is loose and open, rather than a defined group of individuals.  Some of the connections are close and frequent, some more fleeting and transient.

The first part of that definition, ‘those people who you learn from’ is perhaps what we might immediately think of when focusing on networking for learning.  People who we learn from because they share useful information, put us in touch with resources or other people that are helpful or share articles and ideas that help us to become better informed or extend our networks. It can also include people who inspire us, who we may seek to emulate in some respect – perhaps to try out a specific tool that they have used, or to develop some aspect of a skill that they excel at or to adopt a behavior or approach they use.  These are people who are role models, sometimes in big ways and sometimes in small ways.

One of the people who responded to my previous post was @MJCarty, who had previously written in his blog that the idea of PLNs made him feel uncomfortable or twitchy and that the concept of a PLN ‘could be interpreted as a framework for consciously using people for just one purpose’.  This got me to question my thinking about PLNs more – could you use a PLN to ‘suck the learning out of other people’? Perhaps as it was Halloween this week, I heard this in more of a blood-sucking way than I would have done otherwise.  But it made me realise, just how integral for me to a personal learning network are the values of generosity and mutuality.

I think what makes me ‘twitchy’ is the idea of ‘thought leadership’. That there are some people set up – by themselves, by other people, by particular platforms – I’m not quite sure – but I know that it doesn’t sit well with me.  That setting apart of some individuals to lead the thinking of others is in my view, almost completely the opposite to the idea of a personal learning network.

I think the most important part of a personal learning network is the learning with other people.  It isn’t enough to just take learning from others, I think the joy – the magic, if you like – really happens when you are also contributing.

That may be through sharing resources; helping people to make connections; acknowledging others contributions and through this encouraging them in their explorations; and sharing from your own experience.  This links it with the idea of Working Out Loud (WOL).

I think that learning with others is at the heart of a personal learning network and this involves dialogue and doing.  The dialogue can come in many forms – in person conversations over a cup of tea, a quick tweet or two, exchanges within a twitter chat – I know I learn so much from participating in the regular Friday 8am – 9am (GMT) #LDInsight twitter chat.   Dialogue can be quite spaced out - reading someone’s blog, reflecting on it and some way down the line writing your own take on that topic - that is a conversation too – with more time for reflection than we usually allow within an in person conversation and it may be all the better for that! 

A conversation may begin with one group of people and continue with someone else in a different setting. Some of my learning has come about from dialogue that started out in MOOCs or other on-line courses that I’ve participated in and have spilled out into other forums and conversations.  There are colleagues who I work with who I rarely see in person, but we share ideas, offer feedback and just talk through an almost seamless mix of texts, phone calls, emails, tweets and Dropbox inclusions.  Through this dialogue the focus may transmute, the prism through which you see a question or topic may change and something quite different can emerge.

Just as important, is learning by doing. Taking some insight or idea and incorporating into your practice or experimenting with it. Our personal learning networks include our colleagues and clients who we work with on a daily or occasional basis. The trusted practice partners who we try out new approaches with.  The people we seek feedback from and those who generously offer it, even when we haven’t asked. The colleagues or clients who are willing to take a risk or who sometimes place demands on us that push us into learning something new.   

So, for me my Personal Learning Network is all those who I learn from and with.  And that includes you! 

Rachel Burnham

6/11/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

Networking: How my perceptions & practice have changed

Rachel Burnham writes: I am writing this post about networking, as a number of the L&D practitioners I am currently working with have recently raised the topic of networking and its value.

I used to see networking as one of those things I ‘ought’ to do as a professional.  It was always listed as one of those things that an effective and well-rounded professional ‘should’ do. And like many things one feels one ought to do, I could never quite see the real benefit – and just like cleaning out the cupboard under the sink, it was a task that I would put off until I really had to do it.  I saw it as a necessary evil, part of the downside of freelance work, as one strand of developing potential new clients. 

I always associated it with rather awkward events where a lot of strangers would gather eat canapes, exchange business cards and try to sell to one another.  (Or possibly exchange canapes, sell cards and eat … well may be not!) Definitely not part of my comfort zone.  Made worse, by a combination of introversion and lack of practice.  Rather a self-fullfilling, downward spiral.  Hideous.

But no more! Now I see networking rather differently.  Now, it is part of my day to day work.  And I even enjoy it!

So what has changed?

The key shift for me was when I started to see the purpose of networking differently and started to see it first and foremost as about learning.   More and more people are seeing the value of their personal network for learning and you now often hear people refer to their PLN or Personal Learning Network. Why not check out #PLN for many interesting links and references?

This shift enabled me to let go of a lot of baggage and distaste towards networking, as being all about selling yourself and seeking business benefit.  Instead I am able to focus on networking as learning, which fits far better with my values.   Paradoxically, this has also allowed me to reap immediate and ongoing benefits from networking, from the exposure to new information, exchange of ideas, access to resources and opportunity to test out my own experiences against other professionals in the same field.

I have also changed the way that I network.  Using social media is a big part of this.  Using social media to network and particularly Twitter, has enabled me to come into contact with a much greater variety of L&D and HR professionals than before, both here in the UK and across the world.   And, also to make contact with people in other fields too.

I find using social media works well for me as an introvert.  I have been able to build relationships with people at my own pace and switch off when I want to.  It gives me time to reflect before responding  to comments.  And it means when I do meet people in person, I feel far more relaxed and have much more interesting conversations that I ever did before, because we are often building on an existing relationship.  The foundation has already been laid.

One of the things I do now as I network, is to share what I am currently working on. This Working Out Loud (WOL) can give networking much more value and interest.  For me this changes networking from a ‘promotional’ activity in which a glossy front is maintained, with perhaps rather superficial exchanges, to something that is a bit more real, messy and hair let down.  Not that every networking conversation is a deep exchange about L&D practice – sometimes I’m discussing growing carrots or dandelions in the lawn or what music I’ve been listening to (‘cause I’m into gardening & jazz)  – but often when we do talk work it is a bit more honest in my experience, than in those traditional networking events.

My other revelation in relation to networking, is that it is possible to network and meet up one to one!  Not sure quite why the penny took so long to drop for me with this!  I now have lots of one to one networking meet ups for tea/coffee and cake or lunch.  I find I have much more productive conversations one to one or in a small group.

But the funny peculiar thing is, now I have made those changes, I now am much happier in group networking events and so now participate in far more than I ever did before! 

I will write more on this topic shortly and explore the second part of my Sketchnote, which covers some practical tips for networking.

Rachel Burnham

30/10/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

Hurdling Tips for the Cobbler's Children

Rachel Burnham writes: In a recent Twitter chat hosted by L&D Connect we were invited to share what we took for granted in L&D.  One of the points I contributed (rather tongue in cheek) was that I took for granted that everyone in L&D will want to be learning themselves and developing their practice.   I was immediately reminded that much research shows that this is just not the case.  This has been a feature of the annual benchmarking report produced by Towards Maturity and this year again it reported that ‘This study has shown that whilst L&D teams have the vision and aspiration to deliver a modernised learning and development strategy they lack the skills they need internally to make it a reality.’ (‘Embracing Change’ Towards Maturity Industry Benchmark Report, November 2015 pg 63).

There are a number of areas that repeatedly have been identified as vital for many L&D teams to work on such as: business awareness; the skills of performance consultancy; and a range of digital skills.

I find that that the reasons offered for this gap in development for L&D teams fall mainly under three headings: limited resources available; limited time available; and limited awareness of what is possible.  I think the last one is particularly damaging and hard to break out of.  If you work in Learning & Development in an organisation where the experience of L&D (or probably training) is predominantly face to face, content heavy, powerpoint driven sessions and where there is little exposure to any other approaches to learning then it is hard to envisage the amazing range of possible alternative learning methods and just how effective they can be.  There are other challenges that we face in L&D, around our agility and particularly the way that technology is enabling learners to access learning for themselves bypassing L&D and again if your L&D world is limited to face to face delivery, then you may have limited exposure to these challenges.

So here are some practical suggestions for helping you and your team to overcome these three hurdles of limited resources, limited time and limited awareness.

Limited resources

Here are some suggestions for low cost ways of developing your skills in L&D and in fact all the suggestions in this blog could address this particular hurdle.

• Skills swaps – Get members of the L&D team swapping skills with each other or with other staff in your organisation.  This can be particularly useful for building confidence in digital skills.
• MOOCs - Massive Open Online Courses can be a great way to access free learning opportunities and there are many ones which are relevant to those in L&D, particularly in the areas of informal learning and e-learning.  Many MOOCs are offered by universities and others by commercial providers.  They often include a mix of reading, video materials, online discussions and activities.  Search online to find ones that may be relevant to you. 
• Conferences via Twitter – An interesting way to find out what is going on at the many L&D related conferences is read the tweets from attendees.  Most conferences will now identify a hashtag for the event eg this week’s Learning Technologies event has the #LT16uk and if you search for this on Twitter, this will enable you to pick out all the tweets from this event.  Check out the publicity materials to discover what hashtag is being used.  Many events also will have blogs and video recordings produced and the Twitter feed is a good way of identifying these.

Limited Time

Harold Jarche said that ‘Work is learning and learning is the work’ so if limited time for learning is your challenge, then why not a virtue of this and consciously set out to learn from your work?  Here are some suggestions to help you do that:

• Embrace small experiments – The world of L&D is changing very rapidly, new digital tools (which can be used for curation, collaborative learning and to produce resources such as infographics and videos) are always appearing and the needs of our organisations are changing constantly too, so embrace the idea of running small experiments to try out new tools and new ways of working. Test things out on a small scale and learn from this.  Testing on a small scale reduces risk and enables things to be tried out more rapidly.
• Working Out Loud – Involves sharing your ‘work in progress’ with others to enable them to learn from it and this may also generate feedback and other ideas that enable you to improve your own work.   Working Out Loud can take many forms eg sharing verbally at a team meeting, a short post on an internal organisational network, a blog, a social media post, a video clip. 
• Action reviews – This is where a team or a team plus key stakeholders takes time to review how a project worked and what can be learned from the experience to make future projects for effective and efficient.

Limited Awareness

In many ways, I think this is the hardest hurdle to cross. but I also think it is the one with huge potential benefits.  If you can unleash your and your team’s curiosity and find ways to initially feed that curiosity, then all sorts of things will open out and become possible. 

• Learning Now TV – this is a free online hour long programme that is produced once a month.  It includes a terrific mix of interviews and practical tips sessions all about L&D.   There are also audio programmes available.  You need to subscribe to the service, but it is free and you can either watch it live as it is broadcast or download and catch up with it in your own time.  If you are feeling a bit out of the loop, this is a great and easy place to start to find out what is currently happening in L&D.
• Networking – Don’t groan too much – it is a great way to find out what is happening outside of your own organisation (and even inside of your own organisation to improve your business awareness).  Networking has had a bad name, but networking with the aim of learning is a much gentler, more mutual, easier prospect than networking to make business contacts.  The emphasis with networking for learning is to build and maintain a ‘Personal Learning Network or PLN’. This network of people can enable you to find new resources, tools and enable you to share practical ideas. This can be done in person or using social media and probably works best using a mix of these two approaches.  There are people I met first on social media and then have gone on to meet face to face - I have found the face to face so much easier  because we had already have begun to know one another.  Don’t feel that you have to network at conferences or big gatherings – my favourite form of networking is meeting up for a cup of tea!
• Mentor – Having a mentor can be a great way to gain exposure to different ideas and approaches.  A mentor may be able to guide you to useful resources and challenge your thinking.  

You may have noticed that many of these learning methods involved some form of online learning – not the traditional elearning stand alone package - but some form of online learning none-the-less and so these will also give you personal experience of a wide range of modern online learning methods.  So my 10^th tip is to try out a wide range of learning methods yourself – even if they are not your favourite learning method, it will all help to stretch you and broaden your exposure to a wider range of learning approaches and build your Personal Learning Network.

I am very aware in writing this blog, that the people it would be most useful for, probably don’t read blogs, so do share this piece and the ideas within it with your colleagues and anyone you think might find it of value.  Spread the word!

Rachel Burnham

1/2/16

(originally posted on LinkedIn)

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

Creating a Sketch Note Gallery for CIPD NAP 2015

Rachel Burnham writes: Inspired by last week’s #PKMChat I found myself spending the CIPD NAP conference in York drawing pictures as sketch notes, rather than doing my usual live tweeting. I have curated all my pictures drawn at NAP 2015 in an album on Flickr. Here is an account of that experience and my learning from it as a late addition last week’s #WOLweek.

 

Sketch Note of opening keynote from Ryan Cheyne

As I often do, I set out for the annual CIPD Northern Area Partnership Conference in York having packed a sketch pad, set of pencils and a packet of fine tipped coloured pens.  I often add them to my luggage, because I like to doodle and sometimes find the odd half-hour or so when I’m staying away to work on a drawing.  My intention was to live tweet from the conference sessions as usual, but during the opening session, I found myself reaching for pencil and pad, rather than phone and drawing out a title page.

As I hadn’t planned to do this, I used my drawing pad of the moment, which is spiral bound and does work better for me as a notepad, compared to the cloth bound sketch books from which I am always losing pages.  My first pictures were drawn using pencil, but I quickly started to incorporate some colour and these are much more distinctive and reproduce better.   

 

Positive Psychology - with lily

I kept the pictures simple and didn’t think about them too much – picking out key words, using arrows and other easy to draw symbols, plus images that sprang to mind from what was said.  If you look at the gallery you will find that I often add in flowers, trees and other greenery, because that’s what I doodle when listening – even if it is not immediately relevant to what is being said!

During the session, I took photos of the pictures to live tweet.  I don’t think the quality of the pictures is that great, I kept getting the conference badge or bits of cardigan or shadow in the way, but they were useable.  

On the second day, I switched to drawing in a notebook provided in the goodie bag for the event – this felt great to draw in and is a lovely record of the event for me.  However, I think this isn’t as easy to scan as the spiral drawing pad and so is not so good for sharing electronically.

Reviewing the pictures after the event, it is very apparent that the easiest sessions to sketch note were the sessions that had the clearest messages and where the presentations were more strongly structured.

I decided to curate the pictures using Flickr and first scanned them into my PC, so that I had clearer images than those ones created during the session.   I collated the pictures into an album for the event and Flickr provided me with a shortened link to the album.    I think an alternative way of doing this would be to use Pinterest and may well try this out at some future point – but I’m out of time tonight!  

I am really pleased with this approach.  I tend to make notes at events and find that I have books and books of notes taken from various meetings and conferences – and I hardly ever look at them.  These notes at least look more attractive, so possibly might get refered to again.  Certainly I can recall them better – at this stage…

Let me know what you think of my sketch notes.  Why not have a go yourself?

Rachel Burnham

22/6/15

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD