Many of us are captivated by the number seven. It’s supposedly lucky (more on the reasons behind this were discussed on this NPR episode) But what happens when we ditch it? Look at a survey with respondents asked to rate a product or service on a scale of 1-10. When…
Browsing Category Education
KPIs: The slide snap
Here are couple of simple KPIs for all the teachers, facilitators, and keynote speakers out there. 1. How many times audience members take photos of what’s up on the screen. 2. The slide that get the most snaps. These sound like strong metrics. Or are they? Do they in fact…
Are you running a meetup or a workshop?
The corridor of uncertainty, and not getting what you came for. A few weeks ago I ran a pilot of a new event. This event came about because of a blog post. I’m not sure how often blog posts are the catalysts for events, but that’s what happened here. I…
Back to business school: the new case study
Almost every form of school and education is getting questioned, queried, unbundled, and rethought. The same is happening in business – people are starting to as what is it for; what does purpose really mean; what’s sustainable; what’s right; what are the 2nd and 3rd order effects of what this…
Bonus Content
TV shows, self-help gurus, car salespeople, and yoga certification courses all offer bonus content of one kind or other. Behind the scenes footage. 5 steps to greatness in a handy PDF. Tinted windows. Advanced yoga poses DVD. When it comes to experiences, especially those where we are enrolled to learn…
Learning Styles: 3D Mapping a Conversation
One of the learnings from being a student again has been around my own learning style. Other than a few short courses and MOOCs I haven’t done much classroom-based work since university – and that was nearly 15 years ago. The delicious irony here is that much of my work…
Signposts and Surprises
One of the principles of adult education is that adult learners like to know what’s going to be happening next. As facilitators and teachers we’ll usually do this by signposting in some way: an agenda at the beginning of the day, or a nod to the hands-on activity we’ll be…
Cultivate your questions carefully
Last week I went on a training course. In these situations I tend to be either very engaged or very agitated. As this course was well designed and facilitated, I found myself highly engaged and time flew by. There was just one occasion where I felt out of sync. A…
The two workshop danger zones
A few years ago, researchers from Ben Gurion and Columbia universities examined over 1,000 decisions made by Israeli judges who ruled on convicts’ parole requests. At the beginning of the day, the judges granted 65% of the parole requests. As lunchtime loomed, the approval rate dropped to almost zero. After lunch,…
Dress Up, Dress Down.
Since 2015 I’ve been a workshop facilitator and teacher serving all sorts of groups: teenagers, graduates, mid level managers, senior directors, and C-suite executives. Many of the larger sessions I’ve done have been 2 day bootcamps. Sometimes they’re for members of one company, other times they’re open to anyone who…