Video Killed The Conference Star

It's been a busy old time recently. This last week saw a two day trip to Lincoln, coping with a hotel down a road that had been closed and a rather convoluted diversion, heavy sleet coming back around the Leeds/Bradford area which was also the site of a 50mph stretch of motorway equivalent to the distance between the borders of Scotland and Greece.

During this bit where the roadworks were only intermittantly in evidence, I was forced into the middle lane by traffic joining the motorway, where I was hassled by a maniac who thought it was a 55mph area and thought that one inch from my bumper was a safe distance. He was wanting me to pull into the left hand lane of course but it wasn't safe to do that - certainly not as safe as him pulling into the empty right hand lane would have been...

On Wednesday I spent 13 hours putting an audio commentary together and producing a short video to cover the fact I'd double-booked myself on Thursday. It took a long time but was actually really good fun to do and I must find the time to put the video up at YouTube sometime!

After that I had nine hours on trains on Thursday, going to London from Blackpool and then heading up to Glasgow following the conclusion of my business in the capital. On the way up to Scotland I spoke to the co-ordinator of the other event who told me the audio and particularly the video had gone down "a storm" and that people were wanting to be able to download it... Must have been better than me being in person by the sounds of it...!

Friday I ran a Project Management workshop in Glasgow and worked the video into it to see what would happen. People laughed in all the right places and there was a round of applause at the end that was very gratifying!

It's hand-held and horribly wobbly and the title reflects more the original conference subject than the video content. So for Change Management read Benefits Management.

So of course, it's been uploading whilst I wrote this, so have a look...

Return to Work Index

A Week On The Rails

It's been a busy week so far. I was in Leicester on Tuesday, a four and a half hour rail journey from Blackpool, though enlivened for a while as Chrissie Turkington from the JISC RSC Northwest walked past me on the platform at Preston so we spent ten minutes between Preston and Wigan, where she got off to continue to St Helens, catching up and swapping news.

I had another change at Birmingham New Street with its underground platforms - not the most pleasant of city stations, I always think.

Finally to Leicester where I joined a CAMEL workshop (Collaborative Approaches to Managing e-Learning) and joined in the conversations on communication with stakeholders, even being videoed playing the part of an Australian distant learner at one point, and ran the Change simulation, EduChallenge with them during the afternoon.

Then onto London, where yesterday I met with someone at Kings College London to discuss the sort of activities that a Centre of Expertise in Project Management might get involved with and how my organisation, JISC infoNet, might help support that with our online resources and participation in events.

Today I am feeding back on a project to a group of university and college IT Managers, who are meeting to discuss Business and Community Engagement and how IT might support that type of activity.

London is having what I'd call Blackpool weather - brilliant sunshine one minute then a monsoon and then back to sunshine!

I'm travelling back home tonight and tomorrow will be a well-earned day off!

Building Bridges

I've spent the first three days of this week in Newcastle and Gateshead.

Tuesday and Wednesday have been the Building Bridges conference for Records Managers held at the new conference centre at Gateshead College, from whose windows this view of the Millenium Bridge over the Tyne was taken.

The conference was organised by JISC infoNet and the brainchild of my colleague Steve Bailey. Records Managers from universities, colleges, local authorities and elsewhere gathered to discuss the future direction of records management and the impact that the growing use of social networking sites such as blogs, wikis and networks such as Facebook have on an organisation's ability to control its data and information.

I gave a session on communications during the implementation of change and facilitated a group discussion session as well as running round with the roving microphone for question and feedback sessions.

It has been a most interesting two days with the benefits of a records management approach pushed to the fore over compliance issues. There was some discussion as to where, in an organisation, does the Records Management function logically sit and there was some disagreement amongst the delegates when HR was suggested (because of the staff development role they usually have) or in Finance (because of the strict controlled way that accountants like to work).

What did come out strongly was that wherever they sit, the Records Manager needs the support of a senior manager committed to driving the records management agenda forward across the organisation. Someone at middle manager level sitting within one team or area does not have the necessary influence over the other functions and structural areas that exist in large organisations such as universities and colleges.

Return to Work Index

Caerleon, Roman Isca

I just couldn't resist it! Having had a twice weekly fix of the HBO/BBC version of Rome, I found myself within spitting distance of Caerleon in Wales on my way to Caerphilly (where I am now).

I have a Change Management workshop tomorrow in the college at the somewhat evocatively named Ystrad Mynach.

So I did a short detour and spent an hour looking around the roman baths - superbly helpful staff, thank you so much - and the remains of the amphitheatre as seen in the photograph.

It is Britain's most complete and fully excavated amphitheatre and backs onto the old roman fortress wall.

Caerleon was Roman Isca - a name half remembered in the name of the river Usk.

There was a large military fort here with a well-developed bath house which had both indoor and outdoor pools. The presence of an amphitheatre is another indicator of Caerleon's importance.

I found it totally absorbing. I am one of those people who can infuriate others by extolling the virtues of what they see as "a hill", but I'm afraid old stone circles, hillforts and henges are just one of my enthusiasms!

I had the place to myself and started by approaching as a viewing customer may have done. I went down a series of steps towards the arena, gaining a tantalising glance through a gateway and was then directed by a slave (imaginary of course) through an archway which led to another series of steps climbing up. At the top and turning to my right I found myself on the front row above the arena and with a climb up the terraces to my seat.

A smaller arena than the others I have visited - Deva (Chester) and the mighty arena at Verona in northern Italy. But hey! I'm nearer the action!

Back in the 21st century I left the terraces and half-circled the arena, entering through one of the two processional tunnel entrances. Horns are blowing, people standing and cheering, petals are thrown and float down. I turn to face the official in whose honour the games are being held and salute - whoops, darn, there's a bloke with a dog wondering what the hell I'm doing... Thankfully the bloke hasn't noticed...

You should never lose the child within!

Playing Catch-Up...

Agh! - I dreamed I was falling asleep whilst reading my required pre-course manual for a week long course with a [gulp!] three-hour exam at the end! At my time of life (8:05am on a Saturday morning) I thought I'd done with all that!

Have just taken wifey and daughter to the airport - they are having a weekend in London to celebrate Gill's forthcoming nuptuals (she's getting married too). I'm following them tomorrow as I'm there for the week on this course. We figured the cats might like some food over the weekend though.

A few follow-ups from previous entries.

After the entry about Ingrid's new film, I had a friend request from film director Mark Redfield at my MySpace Account which was very nice of him! Look after Ingrid for me Mark and don't believe everything she says about me!

I was contacted by someone who had attended the Change Management session at Gregynog in Wales, looking for more of the same in-house for their college.

I was contacted by my old mucka, Jackie, after the gig at Witton Park, Blackburn. She claimed I'd sent her to Croxteth Park, Liverpool - and had the cheek to send me a copy of my email proving it... oh... er... sorry about that Jackie... good job it wasn't raining then! Oh... it was in Liverpool...? well... ah... and what? You'd brought along lots of things for me to look at...? I gave myself 99 lashes with a rusty chain - she very kindly agreed that 100 was too much... "forgiven not forgotten" is what she said... The Croxteth Park gig is on Sunday 15 July - come and see a man berated... if she's dried out enough to come...

Ok - I'm off - the local garage have booked me in to have my broken wing mirror fixed, the postman tried to deliver a parcel the other day but we weren't in so that needs picking up (no idea what it may be either?!?) and must whiz my mother around the market and Tesco before getting back to the rivetting manual for this course!

Welsh Sojourn

I'm just back from a two-day trip to Wales, land of unpronounceable place names and bestest hospitality!

Clive and I were joined by Marianne from JISC infoNet at Gregynog, a hall owned by the University of Wales and used as a base for the JISC Regional Support Centre for Wales's annual conference. JISC RSCs have a new remit which has more of a strategic content and manager, Peter Scott, had invited us to deliver the Change Management workshop and EduChallenge simulation over the entire second day, with an initial input at the end of the first day.

Apart from one instance of misunderstanding the language - I said "Who has a lawn?" and my Lancashire accent caused them to think I'd asked "Who has a loan?"... Probably not the most politically correct question to have asked and of course it was a while before I understood what they hadn't - if you see what I mean...

Anyway, this was the largest group we had ever run the simulation with and it went down well, once delegates got over the usual first hour frustrations and started to make some headway. Feedback was excellent anyway and lots of folk told us how much they had got out of it.

I was glad of the SatNav getting there and the mobile phone refused to work at all, although it was rumoured there was a "hotspot" if you stood next to the third rhododendron from the left whilst holding your right leg aloft!

Return to Work Index

Wear is This?

No, my speling hasnn't gon on the blinck - this is the River Wear at Sunderland. Or just outside Sunderland anyway. This was taken last night just after I arrived in Sunderland ready for running a Change Management workshop with Clive today for JISC's RSC Northern.

I normally have a look to make sure I know where the venue is if it's somewhere I haven't been before and this was the view from over the road, so it was worth rummaging in the boot and taking the camera out. Makes walking very uncomfortable anyway...

The photograph shows the cliffs alongside the Wear at Wessington, just outside Sunderland. Clive lives in Sunderland anyway and said he used to climb them as a lad - must have been mad! He did tell me the name of them but it's gone!

The workshop went well, in fact we got almost a perfect score from the feedback forms. Thanks to the delegates - we thought you were pretty good too!

AoC NILTA Conference 2007

I'm currently at the AoC NILTA Conference in Leeds and it has been an excellent conference this year. This has been the 19th NILTA Conference if you count the "parent" organisations of NILTA, namely NAITFE, the National CMIS Board and SCITFE the first incarnation of all.

One or two people present have been at all 19 of them. I can't quite claim that, I started out in 1993 as Associate Chair of the National CMIS Board so have been to enough for people to look at me with concern, wondering whether I'll collapse with age... or perhaps waiting for me to grow up - no chance of that I'm afraid! Lots of people yesterday were saying nice things about me to my boss, some without realising who she was, so my thanks to them!

Some good and pertinent sessions and keynote speakers. I especially liked a couple of phrases by Barbara Ganley from Middlebury College in America who was speaking about the use of blogs by her creative writing students. She spoke about "learning in cycles of disruption and repair" and the need for building into your courses some opportunities to fail, so that learning can come from it. Initially this might sound strange - we want students to fail? Well not in the long run of course, we want them to achieve their qualification, but walking away with a certificate is not the only goal I hope. It's when we fail in something that we take a step backwards, assess things like what went wrong and why, learn to identify and solve problems and learn what is repeatable and what should not be repeated.

The second keynote was from Nigel Paine who gave a very enjoyable and thought provoking session. He focussed on Change and the rate of change and the slowness of many educational cultures in dealing and accepting change and embedding new ways of learning. "We have got to let things from the past go," he said - a phrase that might challenge a few cultures perhaps. The tendency can be to evolve slowly, adding and supplementing but without always reviewing, releasing and discarding those things which have become tired, outdated or no longer relevant to today's young people in Further Education.

JISC infoNet, my own organisation, is currently involved with a series of one-day workshops on Change Management, delivered by myself with Clive Alderson, which introduce strategy and techniques for supporting Change in organisations. Another of our resources which has been generating lots of interest is the Planning & Designing Technology-Rich Learning Spaces infoKit. With many colleges currently involved in new building projects or refurbishment, the kit, released last week is timely and contains many resources, including a database of images of college and university innovative building projects, hosted at Flickr.

Return to Work Index

It's Wednesday, It Must Be Nottingham...

So if I got lost in Leeds then how did I find Nottingham? Easy - it's the home of Robin Hood so just follow the arrows...!

Truth to tell there are two Premier Travel Inns labelled "City Centre" here but I did manage to find it fairly easy (only one U-turn). Apparently the X-Factor tour is here tonight so the waiter told me as I finished my meal so there's a fair number of visitors in Nottingham.

I thought Leona Lewis really deserved to win this year, she has a superb voice and a copy of her single was on my Christmas wish list last December! It will be interesting to see if Simon Cowell gives her a decent bit of publicity - he's not exactly done the last two winners proud... I've heard Shane Ward mentioned only a couple of times since his first single.

So tomorrow is another Change Management Workshop. The Leeds one was a success, though the delegates were unusually quiet - not necessarily a bad thing and perhaps caused by a fair number being from the same institution. I seemed to race through the morning's material but that gave more time to sort them into groups to prepare for the afternoon practical session. The feedback was excellent (thank you!) so as I said - not necessarily a bad thing! Thanks also to Marianne who managed all the installation of the simulation software whilst I delivered the presentation in the morning session. Tomorrow I'm back with Clive, who even now is driving up from Great Yarmouth where he's been breakdancing on the end of the pier in the light of the local lighthouse... dance a bit, the light moves on, take a break, the light comes back, dance a bit, the light moves on...