I came to our blog this morning to write  about our forthcoming session at the  Human Resources Institute of  Alberta (HRIA) Conference on 28th April 2011.  However, I then realised that today is in fact April Fool's Day and that whatever I wrote may actually be mis-interpreted as a hoax, joke or even complete fallacy.   I will return to write about our session at the HRIA Conference, which is called 'What CEOs…

Unless you live on Pandora right now then you may not know that the Winter Olympics is being held in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Even if you live on earth though you may not know that this is the first winter olympics, since their inception in 1924, that Canada has won gold on home turf.  There were no gold medals for Canada in Calgary, 1988. I thought the timing of the gold medal fitting as we have just revamped our website to reflect our updated strategy.  We decided that Emerge Learning's…

How jolly nice of Steve Jobs to select the first day of the Learning Technologies Conference in London, UK as the day to launch the iPad, the latest learning piece of technology. The first day of #LT10UK, as it is tweeted, saw the opening address from Lord Puttnam of movie making fame (Chariots of Fire, The Killing Fields) now turned government tsar of all things learning. He gave a polished and informed delivery which set the tone of the conference. His key message to my ears was a stark warning to educators to educate differently or else. Our rapidly changing world is demanding that young people need to be digitally literate, adaptable, resilient and creative like no other generation before them. And one way that he explains we will do this is by encouraging more education through gaming.

Is Social Media really that social?  I was pondering this very question as I wrote an Instructional Design for a client who wants to deliver a classroom based course on the still relatively new and growing phenomenon that is Social Media.  I have been involved in some good examples of Social Media and some not so good.  One company I came across last year twinned the use of Twitter with a wine tasting evening.  You signed up beforehand, received 2 bottles of wine (one red, one white) in advance and…

Will you be attending what is described as Europe's leading showcase of technology supported workplace learning?  We will, or rather I will, Natalie Macaulay, Managing Director of Emerge Learning's brand new European office.  Here at Emerge Learning we combine our 25 years of management consulting expertise with our specialisation in adult learning and multi-media capabilities to design and produce the most dynamic, creative and effective learning programs. These are delivered online (elearning), in the classroom, or as a blend of both and are totally customised to engage and educate…

Imagine my chagrin to discover that my mother has more ‘friends’ on Facebook than me!  The new ‘intelligence’ age has arrived and it does not discriminate based on age.  Did you know that the sale of Nintendo’s Wii is strong in the 55+ age category?  How will this ‘intelligence’ age, which has taken over from the information age, impact our businesses? Instead of Managers managing ‘me’, is there not the desire to manage ‘we’?  I hope you will forgive my wordplay here but it is demonstrating a point that…

Are you any good at riddles?  I am a source of communication. I am a way of meeting. I wink at you. I am known as the "Great Gossiper." I am intellectual. What am I? Before we get to the answer of the riddle I had to use ‘sic’ in this issue’s title for fear that you might think I couldn’t spell.  Do you know the origins of [sic]’?  It is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", "as such", or "in such a manner.  However when it appears in…

[caption id="attachment_48" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Wolfram Alpha"][/caption] Have you heard of it?  No it isn’t the latest movie from Disney nor a new computing language.  It is a revolution in terms of the way you and I will extract data from the World Wide Web. If you have searched the web lately you will know that the sheer amount of data contained on the web nowadays is phenomenal and only set to grow further.  The web has evolved from a really useful research tool into an inefficient one because of the sheer…

Video on demand, TV on demand, Publishing on Demand - are these terms you are familiar with?  Gone are the days of only 4 TV channels operating within set hours.  Our lives are an ongoing exercise in customisation to meet our own unique needs, wants and desires - and technology is helping us.  In the current global recession we are seeing some interesting trends in training budgets.  In the UK the CIPD’s 2008 annual L&D survey reported that the average training spend per employee was £220.  Overall, training spend…

Did the title grab your attention?  It isn’t a by-line from the latest Sunday tabloid, rather an interesting array of subjects that we have learned some pretty scandalous facts about recently. Learning seems particularly relevant at this time of year as we try and remember what we learned about the gifts we gave last year.  Did you actually see that expensive present worn that you bought for a certain someone?  ‘The season of goodwill and glad tidings to all men’ also means that we tend to commit some…