Nelson Croom's Blog

Chairman of the Bored (with apologies to Crass)

by Alan Nelson

 

Oh no! I think I really am part of the mainstream now.

First we win an award. Not just any award, but the main one for eLearning Development Company of the Year - I may have mentioned it before! Second, this year I am one of the judges. Now, I have been elected a director of the eLearning Network. This really is an end to pretending I am alternative. A proper director, with details at Companies House. And not just of my own company.

Add in that I sit on committees at ACCA and ICAEW and you have to conclude either that I have sold out or that the lunatics really have taken over the asylum. I’m not sure which I prefer!

So why have I stood for election to the Board of the ELN and what am I planning to do with my new-found power? Simple really. I stood because the ELN is a good thing and I wanted to support it. The events are well organised and interesting, the people that attend have something to say and are prepared to share, and the awards are really well run and provide both a showcase for the best of the industry and a place to highlight interesting newcomers. Over the years we have learnt a lot from the network and have profited from the exposure that the awards have given us, so I thought it was time to stand up and be counted.

What do I plan to do is a harder question to answer. I don’t have any master plan - no list of things I think need changing or ready-made brilliant ideas for new stuff. My plan is just to try to help a bit. Maybe I will feel more radical once I have been doing it for a while. Let’s see.

Anyway, must dash – I’m off to buy a really boring suit and sensible shoes!

And the winner is …

by Alan Nelson

 

So the judging of the e-learning awards is finished for the year. This is the first time I have acted as a judge, so how was it? Well firstly, it’s quite a lot of work. Overall I had forty submissions to read in two categories, which took me more than a day. Some were good, some had flaws but all were interesting. There were three judges in each category and we talked through the entries to establish a shortlist. This was fairly straight forward. Basically if the project was noticeably good in some way and didn’t fall significantly short of the mark in any of the stated criteria, it tended to get onto the shortlist.

Next was judges houses. I want the groups. I want the groups. Only kidding. Next was two days of face to face presentations, one for each category. I turned up wondering what it would be like. I have been on the other side of the fence presenting submissions, but I hadn’t been in the judges’ shoes before. I had done my research though. I had practiced being Simon Cowell (“I don’t like this.....[long pause] I love it!”) and Louis Walsh (“This is just what the elearning awards are all about”). But I quickly found that such preparation was unhelpful. What we did, for those looking for tips on how to win, was to listen to the presentations and decide how we thought they stacked up against the stated criteria for that award. Nothing more mysterious than that. If you want to win outright, you need to be good on every count.

For obvious reasons I can’t go into much detail about the entrants and our decision making but I can say a couple of things:

• I was impressed by my fellow judges. They took the job seriously and thought deeply about how to arrive at the fairest outcome.
• The quality of the entrants was high. All the shortlisted projects had something about them that was admirable.
• I was impressed with the honestly and openness of the candidates. Straight questions got straight answers, even when they weren’t exactly what they would have wanted to tell us.
• It is hard for a project to be good in every way. Was the need properly researched? Did it have a strong theoretical underpinning to the learning design? Were the outcomes measured? Did the results demonstrate clearly that the objectives had been met? And once they had scored a yes in all of those, there remained the question of whether we thought it was an example of excellence in itself?

So well done to everyone. They can’t all win and while it is true that all the shortlisted candidates are winners, having been on the other side both successfully and unsuccessfully, I do understand that the former is infinitely preferable. But I will be looking forward to the awards evening in November and the chance to celebrate the quality and commitment of all those involved with the finalists.

That'll learn yer

by Alan Nelson

 

I was recently asked to write an article for the Solicitors’ Journal commenting on the Solicitors Regulation Authorities review of the rules governing solicitors CPD. Apart from getting side-tracked into a bit of a rant against provider accreditation schemes that seem to be little more than money making exercises for the professional body or regulator, I did come up with some conclusions that are more generally applicable:

1. Systems of measurement
The debate about inputs or outputs based system of CPD seems to me to be unnecessary. The argument here is between those that support inputs, or hours based schemes, generally because they are easier to measure, and those who support outputs regimes – where you identify the professional development issues you will need to address and then report on how you have done so – because they are seen as less of a box ticking exercise. In fact the best schemes I have seen combine the two. Engineers Ireland have a neat system which is outputs based, but with clear guidance about minimum acceptable hours. Alternatively start with a number of hours of CPD but ask for a development plan as well as part of the submission.


2. Keeping up with the times
We live in a Web 2.0 world and professional bodies need to keep up with the times on what counts as CPD. I use twitter as my way of reflecting on development activity and write blogs to discuss issues that I am grappling with. The recent Bar Standards Board recommendations disallow writing blogs , leading to the farcical situation that writing a blog doesn’t count for you, but reading it does count for others! A more flexible approach is needed. No serious learning and development professional any longer believes that learning equals courses and nothing else.


3. Deciding what to focus on
With up to date technical information easier and easier to access, we need to ensure that we are valued as professionals for more than just technical virtuosity. Most consumers wouldn’t rate it as the most important issue. When I take legal advice at work or at home, I am rarely asking any hard questions. The lawyer who negotiates my contracts knows her stuff, but I am sure she isn’t the world’s expert. What I like about her is that she doesn’t upset my customers by being pompous or picky, or by scoring silly legal points. As far as I am concerned a good lawyer is one with rounded skills. Can they conduct a divorce without making the couple hate each other anymore than necessary? Can they negotiate a contract to deliver business objectives rather than simply to be “right”? Can they buy a house for me without wasting months on trivialities?

This seems to me to be true for a wide variety of professionals. I like the concept of the T-shaped professional. The vertical bar of the T is about a professional’s functional/technical skills whereas the horizontal bar represents the ability to apply knowledge across situations.

You can read the full published piece here. As always writing an article has forced me to research and to reflect and has been valuable personal CPD. Writing this blog a couple of weeks later has been a great way of reflecting.

T-shaped professionals for Engineers Ireland

by Jacqui Nelson

 

I’ve attended a number of events recently which have addressed the question ‘What is a professional?’  Professional bodies are rightly engaged with this, and it’s interesting to see how different organisations are interpreting their role.

At a recent PARN event, Aidan Harney from Engineers Ireland talked about research that they’d conducted into what employers wanted from them and how they could better prepare professionals for the workplace. Engineers Ireland had expected to find that employers wanted a fast track route to chartered status for their engineers. In fact they research showed the opposite. Far from demanding further development of technical engineering skills in their professionals, what the employers are looking for is, what Harney terms, the T-shaped professional.

The concept of the T-shaped professional has been around for the past 20years or so. The idea is that the vertical bar of the T is about a professional’s functional/technical skills whereas the horizontal bar is where a professional displays the ability to apply knowledge across situations – making a more rounded professional.

For Engineers Ireland this horizontal bar was made up of a range of broad business skills that help their engineers to operate more effectively in the corporate (albeit Engineering) world. Their research indentified four key areas:

• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Collaboration
• Creativity/Innovation

Nelson Croom is supporting Engineers Ireland in all four areas through the courses we offer. Earlier this year Engineers Ireland launched a range of our online CPD courses to their members as part of their initiative to develop T-Shaped professionals. And it’s not just in engineering that we’re seeing this. In a whole range of professions we’re increasingly seeing the professional body looking to offer business and personal skills training and not just industry technical training.

It this is something you’re interested in hearing more of, do get in touch.

Engaging with ethics

by Jacqui Nelson

 

Last week I attended an event organised by the UK Inter-Professional Group (UKIPG) on ethics and professional bodies. The event focused on the role these bodies have to play in promoting ethics in the professions, and how to get members to engage with the issues. There were lots of good examples at the event and here are just a few of the tips that I picked up during the day which, I think, Professional Bodies should consider when engaging their members with ethics.

Don't get into the detail

The first speaker of the day was from Shell and was responsible for promoting the ethical behaviour of Shell employees across the world. She felt strongly that it was important to stick to 'principles' and not get into the ‘nitty gritty’ of rules. Her belief was that the more detailed you get the more likely it is that clever people will dispute what is there, and in time justify why these rules don't apply to them.

With rules you also run the risk of never being able to cover everything. Someone will always discover some eventuality that isn't covered. By sticking to the principles and promoting attitudes, you help people make the right choices themselves rather than trying to do that for them. 

Make sure the information you give is appropriate

Ethics is a big subject. Professionals need to engage with the topic but they don't need to become experts in philosophy. Aristotle may have an important role to play in ethics but I can't see how that helps today's professional.

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) were also kind enough to share their experience of developing a website dedicated to ethics. By their own admission the site is an amazing resource, but far more information than any professional needs. This is contrasted with the University of Leeds who, to their credit, seem to have got this right. They have brought together experts in philosophy and ethics with the dental faculty to ensure that their dental students have the very best grasp of ethics from the beginning of their career. Despite involving the philosophers in teaching ethics to their dental students they have kept it relevant, providing only valid and useful information which forms a base on which to build their career.

Didactic learning isn't enough when teaching ethics. People need to learn from experience.

This is, I think, fairly obvious and what we at Nelson Croom have been saying for years. You can't make people behave ethically by telling them to. That's why our CPD courses on Ethics takes people through a range of case studies and asks learners to consider how they would behave in a range of circumstances. Once they've thought about their own personal behaviour they receive guidance from the experts and the opportunity to see how fellow professionals would behave. This really enhances their learning, broadens their thinking and opens their minds to differing points of view.  Click here to try a sample; I'd be really interested to hear what you think.

Case studies work

Unsurprisingly professional bodies reported that they got far more engagement with case studies than any other resource. During the day different organisations ran interactive sessions where we were split into groups to discuss an ethical dilemma in the form of a case study. The challenge is to replicate this type of discussion and engagement, online.

This is a challenge that I think we’ve gone a long way to addressing with our current Ethics courses.

This confirms, in my mind, that Ethics is an important topic for the professions both right now and for the foreseeable future. As well as the number of courses on ethics we've developed for specific clients we will shortly publish our own course on Ethics in the Professions. If you are interested in getting involved and/or would like to consider offering it to your members, we'd love to hear from you.

CPD Forum Conference 2011 - Professionalism and Business Success

by Andrew Turner

 

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that CPD is important for professionals in today’s fast moving business environment. But what about employers? Are they getting what they need from the CPD undertaken by their employees? This year’s CPD Forum Conference 12 May focuses on professionalism and asks ‘Can CPD meet employer, individual, customer and professional expectations?’. Once again, Nelson Croom is pleased to be able to support this event and Alan Nelson will be leading one of the sessions.

The conference will feature keynote presentations and interactive seminars covering;

• Major challenges facing the professions
• Employer expectations of professionals & CPD
• Government’s role in promoting and supporting lifelong learning
• Accessing cost-effective provision of CPD
• Transforming workplace learning with social media
• E-Learning: Online v formal learning

“We have been involved with the CPD Forum for several years and are always pleased to support them. All CPD Forum events offer a great opportunity to share experiences and best practice within the CPD world but we are particularly looking forward to exchanging ideas and stories in this extended format.” Alan Nelson, Managing Director Nelson Croom.

Anyone thinking of attending the event can find out more at www.eventelephant.com/cpdforumconference or contact Nelson Croom to find out how to get a special ‘friends’ rate.

Nelson Croom to Sponsor Two PARN Events

by Andrew Turner

 

We are pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring PARN events in April and November.  The two events, both at Woburn House in London, are “Raising the Value of Professional Body Membership” and “the Future of CPD”.

The first event, “Raising the Value of Professional Body Membership”, will pull together findings from two research projects investigating the move to compulsory CPD policies and the value of professional body membership and what members and employers value. More information on this can be found here.

The second event on “The future of CPD” is on the 10th November and as soon as we have more information on it we will let you know.

Going to Dublin

by Rachel Bruce

I was in Dublin last month to meet with two of our partners, CPA Ireland and Accounting Technicians Ireland.  As I arrived at their beautiful Georgian building, close to St Stephen’s Green, CPA Ireland was providing face-to-face training to a group of Lithuanian auditors.  I was interested to find out how this was going as it is a new initiative for CPA Ireland.  During one of the breaks, I was shown into the bright and airy training room and was introduced to John McCarthy, the presenter, who also happens to be one of our new authors that I hadn’t yet put a face to, who said that the training was going well.

I wondered how the language barrier was being overcome.  CPA Ireland showed me that each delegate has a copy of the PowerPoint slides, each copy with an English version and a Lithuanian version side by side.  In addition to this each delegate has a headset. In a separate room, while John McCarthy was presenting, two interpreters were translating the presentation which each delegate could then pick up via their headsets.  It was really interesting to see this set up, and how well it was working and being received by the delegates. 

The main reason for blogging about this though is that it reaffirmed something I have always believed throughout my working life: that even though new technologies are moving on apace, and facilitate amazing things in terms of building ‘virtual’ relationships, there is still a place for meeting people face to face.  My reason for meeting with CPA Ireland was to talk to them about the development of their online portfolio of courses from our Accounting and Finance portfolio, not to find out about their training of Lithuanian auditors.  However, in the process of meeting with them, on their turf, I found out and saw for myself one of their new initiatives in action.  This has helped to further my understanding about how our partner, CPA Ireland operates, which only serves to strengthen the bond that we have. 

Institute of Physics – record number of registrations

by Rachel Bruce

I recently met with Vishanti Fox at the Institute of Physics who has been creating and coordinating a campaign to market the online courses that we provide for them, to their members.

IOP set themselves a target of generating 400 new registrations for courses throughout the first month of the campaign. As the result of an email campaign to their members, they have had 420 new registrations in June, the most they’ve had in any one month since the launch of their portfolio at the end of 2005.

Vishanti was delighted with the result, and I asked her how she had worded the campaign.  She said that it was very straightforward and to the point:

• The online courses were chosen to meet the needs of the members
• The content was tailored for physicists
• The registration process was easy
• There were 18 new courses available

Keeping it simple clearly works.

Registration numbers are all well and good, but we also need to know that the courses are being well-received.  As part of a new initiative at the beginning of this year, the IOP courses now include a completion area with an evaluation questionnaire.  The evaluation questionnaires confirm that the IOP’s online portfolio of CPD is a success story, with plenty of positive comments and testimonials from the members.

I’m now talking to Vishanti about how we can sustain registration numbers and positive feedback on a monthly basis going forward.  So far, so good.

How we Learn

by Andrew Turner

After reading Jacqui’s thoughts on verrucas last week I begun to think about the way the general public are ‘taught’ about issues concerning things such as health through legislation.  Being a non smoker I was very interested to see how regulations to place warnings on cigarette packets would affect smokers.  Are warnings with words or images an education as to the health hazards which smoking present?  I was always doubtful, mainly as most smokers I knew were already aware of the dangers and so a warning in a large font or with a horrific picture was unlikely to discourage them.

Now I am at Nelson Croom I see that it isn’t the message that is ineffective but the way it is put across. On the side of a cigarette package surely what we’re trying to do is change people’s attitude to smoking?  And, at Nelson Croom, we’d say that you don’t change attitudes by either giving more information or by just shouting louder at people. People need to engage, experience, and consider if they are to decide to change their behaviour. Yet for some reason those charged with getting these messages across seem to ignore this. 

I saw this also in a recent article on addiction to prescription medicine.  Last month the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) called for warnings to be placed on the front of some over the counter painkillers.  This will be coupled with stronger warnings inside on the instruction leaflets. Is this likely to have an affect?  I am not saying there isn’t a problem to be addressed, rather is this the way to do it?

Personally I tend to just take two tablets of any over the counter medication believing that is the right dose, and depending on the strength of it, avoid alcohol.  This being the case I would not see the strong message inside the box at all and would view the warning on the front, as most smokers do with those on cigarette packs, with an initial shock that I slowly become accustomed too. 

How many people read the instructions for medication or similar products?  We all know Jacqui doesn’t for Bazooka and I believe it is a similar case for all.  For this reason I find it hard to believe that government bodies persist in an approach of educating people on dangers around them in this method.  I have no answers as to a better one but have a feeling one could be found that could be slightly more effective if they merely looked at how teachers, schools and learning providers across the board are shifting their views on the topic.