Learning

Going “rogue”

/ Melanie Marttila

Thanks to the colleague who helped me to introduce my idea, I started to attend free training and learning Webinars that were offered by various magazines and firms.  I was doing this at work.

Learning by Doing

Learning by Doing (Photo credit: BrianCSmith)

It was professional development, and I didn’t doubt, question, or waver a bit in my decision to take advantage of them.  Since March 2011, I have been attending, on average, about two of these Webinars a month, and they’ve been most instructive.  I’ll even chat about some of the things I’ve learned from them in this blog from time to time.

Then my manager got me signing up for some eNewletters, essentially subscription feeds from some very interesting blogs by learning and development professionals.  I’ve linked to some of my favourites under Learning Blogs 🙂

Some of the articles I receive are fascinating, and the links to other resources within them have often led me on a merry chase over the Interwebz, yielding even more resources, sites, and blogs of interest.

When I signed up to attend a course to become a certified trainer in my organization (I know, I’ve been training for three years, and now I’m getting certified …) I picked up a few more resources.  And so the catalogue grows.

I’ve become a social learner, a rogue learner, a mutant learner, and I’m in charge of my learning, by and large.  There are still formal courses to attend, and hoops to jump through, but I’m getting so much more from reading a handful of interesting articles regarding learning theory and design and attending the odd Webinar, than I ever did from institutionalized education …  Mind = Blown 😉

Not that I’m knocking formal education.  Entirely.  It’s gotten me where I am today, but social learning is going to take it from here.

“… second star on the right, and straight on ‘til morning.”  J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

So … what has the world of social media brought you?  Any surprises?

An idea that didn’t go anywhere …

/ Melanie Marttila
"Here Lies a Good Idea. Don't Let Your Id...

“Here Lies a Good Idea. Don’t Let Your Idea Die. Put it in the Suggestion Box Today” – NARA – 514482 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So last year I had this idea for a way to evolve training for both our clients and our staff.

Essentially, the idea was to have online, self-study, or asynchronous, courses for our client groups, to teach them about our business, what we could do for them, and how to make the most of our service offerings.

A secondary tier, or phase, of the training would have introduced clients to the way we do our work, a kind of insider’s guide, which I termed a certification program.  Taking some of these more advanced courses could have been an asset for our hiring group, so that when jobs were posted, the links to these courses could be included, and completing them could give applicants an advantage, because they would have some knowledge of our business and the work that we do.

Internally, our training products could be converted to online, self-study materials as well, designed to harmonize with the public ones, and in conjunction with informal learning strategies like coaching and mentoring, replace the costly and time-consuming, in-class training we now provide.

I contacted a colleague to get her opinion, and she graciously offered to give me a venue to discuss the concept and get some feedback.  I had never written a proposal in our business before, nor did I know how to go about gaining approval for my idea.

While the session was great and I got some serious validation for the idea, I didn’t get much with respect to next steps.  There was a plan in the works for a kind of online suggestion box for employee ideas, but that wouldn’t be up and running until sometime in the next fiscal year.  Aside from that, I really didn’t have any kind of internal platform to promote the idea, gain support, and move forward with it.

I did follow up with some key management figures from other departments, and tried to escalate the idea through my own management team, but didn’t get much response with respect to who I could approach next, or support with respect to how I could present the idea.

I had to be set it aside for the time being.

Though the suggestion box was eventually launched in September of 2011, and I submitted my idea in early October, I haven’t heard anything since.

Maybe my employer isn’t ready to enact my idea yet.

Still, I think it was pretty good, and even if it doesn’t go anywhere, I consider it to be one of my accomplishments.

Have you had an idea that you weren’t sure how to promote or what to do with?  Who did you approach and where did it go from there?

Adventures in SharePoint

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Breaking open the mind: Mellie got a SMART Board.  New tool, new game, and boy does the learning mutt like to play 🙂 (Fetch, girl, fetch!)

I’d just got started, or restarted with the SMART Board when my attention was drawn to Microsoft SharePoint.  I think I mentioned in other posts that I’m a little ADHD?  I’d just taken an introductory course in August 2010, and in December, I decided that I needed to refresh my memory, or lose all of that wonderful learning.

Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The thought had been with me since September, when my acting manager arranged for the shell site on our employer’s server before leaving for another acting assignment.  Unfortunately, I was about to co-facilitate six sessions of systems training to staff across the province.  I wouldn’t have time to look at SharePoint, or the site again until after I’d wet my appetite for the learning with the SMART Board.

Come December though, I went to town.  I reviewed all the training material, and read the text that had been given to us with the course:  I played.

After populating the site with a few document libraries, a picture library, a wiki library, some announcements, a discussion group, setting up emails for lists, and playing with the content types to install templates into some of the libraries I created, I put together a wee utilization document and a survey to find out how my team might want to use SharePoint in their work.

Given the limitations placed on us (the best I could hope for was design privileges, and those would be curtailed by security and other concerns) I laid out what I thought were the options at the time.  They turned out to be dreams and hopes, but at least I got my fellow trainers thinking about SharePoint and the course that they’d taken.  It would be important in the coming year.

I got five responses, and then my team got its first permanent manager in more than two years and new priorities demanded my efforts.

Do you use SharePoint at your workplace?  For what purpose?  What do you think of it?  I’ll have more adventures in SharePoint coming and I’ll let you know then what I did with the tool next.

It wasn’t even my birthday

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

I started working in my current position in April of 2009.  For the most part, I was coaching new staff, post-training.  In June, I co-facilitated my first class, and I really enjoyed it.  My years as a poet, giving public readings, and my years teaching composition at university helped me immensely.

One thing I learned is that most trainers, like most writers, are quite shy.  We don’t like to be in the spotlight, but once there, something happens.  In my more poetic days, I thought of it as the goddess of poetry.  She inhabited me for a while and when I left the stage, she’d move on to the next wallflower.

Now I understand the phenomenon a little differently.  I let the passion for the subject I’m teaching take the reins.  When you love what you do, it isn’t hard to be dynamic, entertaining even.  I pour on the happy, sunshiny energy in public situations.

I got my first taste of Participant Centered Training in August, and then in December, became one of three trainers delivering systems training via NetMeeting to all of our staff in the province.  It was a grueling month of 3-hour session after 3-hour session, morning and afternoon, every day.  I’m surprised I didn’t get laryngitis.

Ultimately, that first year was just about getting acclimatized to the unit and my place in it.

In January and March of 2010, I co-facilitated a newly redesigned version of some of our operational training.  Of course, there was more coaching to do, a never-ending stream of it 🙂

Then, in May of 2010, I received a present: a SMART Board.  Our department received six of them; each delivered to a separate location.  To my knowledge, I was the only one to unpack the boxes, assemble the SMART Board, call IT to install the drivers and software, and give the dear thing a test run.

Basic functionality was all I had time to master, however, as other priorities emerged.  Involvement in a working group, the development of a brief introduction to the SMART Board for my colleagues, an in-person team meeting (I work on a virtual team), training in SharePoint, and preparation for and execution of three and a half months of intensive training kept me busy until the end of November.

When I finally had a little time, I returned to the SMART Board, registered the operating software, updated it, and learned a little bit about Notebook.  Then my hungry mind found something else to play with.

Have you received a work-related present, or a new toy that was a game-changer for you?  What was it?  How did it change your game?

 

Monkey around already!

/ Melanie Marttila

Today, I attended a Webinar sponsored by TrainingIndustry.com and presented by G. Michael Maddock.

In business, there are often synergystic pairings: Walt and Roy Disney; Wilbur and Orvil Wright.  One is the creative genius and the other is the business mastermind.  Maddock calls them the idea monkey, and the ringleader respectively.

At work, I identify with the idea monkey but I also have the focus and vision of a ringleader (I think).  I had to ask the question: can one person be both?

The answer: yes.  If the entrepreneur is in business for herself, she has to be both.  I think because of my writing, which is essentially self-employment, I’ve learned to be self directed as well as creative.

Other interesting learning bits:

Dr. Edward Hallowell, whose research influenced Maddock.  His primary area of research is ADD/ADHD and some of his research has identified similarities between highly creative or innovative people and those diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.

This was an interesting piece, especially given my recent postings on creativity and adversity in My history as a so-called author (A born storyteller … and Three blind mice).

The insight equation: I [statement of fact] because [reason] but [tension].  Example: I want to pay via credit card online because it’s convenient, but I’m afraid of fraud.  (Paypal’s insight).  The critical piece is the but + t (for tension).  So when thinking about a problem to solve with innovation, look for the sexiest butt 🙂

Expertise gets in your way.  Think outside the box?  You can’t read the label if you’re stuck inside the jar.

Finally, intelligence is painful.  You have to learn from your own mistakes.  Wisdom is better.  You get to learn from the mistakes of others.

It’s quite a bit to digest, but like most of the things I learn through my day job, it has implications not only for my work as a trainer and course designer, but also for my creative life.

What have you learned lately that seems to tie into your life in diverse and interesting ways?  Are you an idea monkey, or a ringleader?  If you’re a ringleader, do you like to monkey around?

Life before training

/ Melanie Marttila

I’m talking about my work life here, and before I became a trainer, I can honestly say that work was hell.

Before I go any further, I just want to establish one fact:  I disagree with the whole concept of work as something that we have to do to earn money, pay bills, and be a ‘productive member of society.’  I have no problem with work itself.  I garden; I help my spouse renovate the house; I’m writing a novel.  That’s all hard work and I don’t shy away from it.  I just don’t like the necessity of selling the better part of my life so I can live the rest of it the way I want.  It’s a devil’s bargain.

When I was young, it was retail, after school and on weekends.  In university, it was seasonal, contract jobs.  Now I can’t say that I hated all the jobs that I had.  I enjoyed working in the library, working as a student counsellor, helping students write resumes and find job placements, I enjoyed the pet stores I worked in, and the veterinary clinic.  Retail and food service, not so much.  Being a security guard was the worst, despite the canine companion.

I enjoyed some of the things I got to do, like designing Web pages (in the old type-it-out-in-Wordpad days) and desktop publishing.  I liked filming and editing horse shows.  I was good at teaching, but aside from the subject matter, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the rest of it.

The problem was that until I started working for my current employer in 2001, all of my jobs were short-term, with no future.  I was always worried where my next pay cheque would come from.  Plans were out of the question.  I ended up on Employment Insurance. Twice.

So I got my first real job … in a call centre.  Six and a half years and varied, frantic applications for internal job postings later, I became an adjudicator.  While a vast improvement over my previous position, it was still a job, something I did to pay the bills.  A year and a half later, I was successful in another competition and obtained my current job.

I started off monitoring new trainees but soon had my first experience as a corporate trainer.  I liked it!  I immersed myself in my job and tried to do my very best.  Soon, I was rewarded with further opportunities for certification, new toys with which to deliver training (SMART Board) and the means of developing a collaborative work platform for my virtual team (SharePoint).

From there, I dove into the world of free Webinars on various aspects of learning, course design, and training delivery; I started writing courses, creating videos, and designing in SharePoint.  I became a social learner, a mutant learner, and, as I’ve dubbed myself, a learning mutt.  It was my day-job that brought me to the world of social media, platform-building, and this blog.

I’m now well on my way to becoming a certified trainer through my employer’s program, I’ve taken courses on curriculum design and project management.  I’m about to become one of a group of trainers who will be delivering a newly developed business writing course.

I’m having as much fun now as I did in university and everything that I’m learning feeds my creative soul.

I still don’t like working, but if I didn’t have to work, I might still choose to be a trainer and course designer.

Go figure …

Have you found, or lucked into, a job you like?  Are you still searching?  Share your journey!