Yesterday I spent some time at the Summit in London. My overall impression was one of disappointment. The exhibition was quite small and the whole event not terribly well attended. Judging by the number of free bags that were still available when I left at lunchtime on the second day, the organisers were expecting many more people to attend.
As usual with most exhibitions, the exhibitors seemed reluctant to try to engage with the attendees, preferring to spend time talking to each other or working on their laptops. Congratulations to the gentleman from The Results Driven Group who actually asked me what I was looking for at the exhibition. No one else seemed interested!
I was impressed by the technology on display in a couple of booths.
Course Check (www.coursecheck.com) provide an online way of gathering training course feedback which looked like a very effective way of ensuring that you receive it and to save time in analysing it. However, it costs a minimum of £49 per month so you need to be doing a lot of training to justify that price.
Powtoon (www.powtoon.com) is a quick and simple way of creating videos. Using templates and existing tools, you can quickly and simply create videos for all sorts of purposes. This starts from $180 per year which looks like great value.
From the Learning Magazine that was being handed out, I saw a couple of things that were interesting.
With so much technology now being deployed to support learning and development, “emphasising human connection is a radical yet essential act.” I still find it hard to believe that people involved in helping human beings to develop have forgotten what we are. We are social creatures and like interaction with others. We cannot and must not just rely on technology. We learn so much more through discussion, doing and teaching others than we will ever do from technology dependent training.
A new book, The Curious Advantage, has a central premise that curiosity is vital for flourishing organisations amidst rapid technology shifts. Anyone who has watched Ted Lasso will know how important curiosity is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ4YSXv6Xkg) but it is certainly critical in sales and always has been.
Finally, I need to mention the fantastic presentation by Talk Magic (www.wearetalkmagic.com) who give talks and run workshops to inspire open conversation around topics such as storytelling, creativity and mental health using their skills as magicians. Naturally, they used magic throughout their presentation which was both entertaining and frustrating! Based on what they were saying, I think that their workshops would be excellent ways of improving creativity, problem solving and story telling.