If everyone’s here, we’ll start

Image from FlickR Courtesy of lrargerich
Image from FlickR Courtesy of lrargerich

So thanks to everyone for coming to this blog post today.  Please make sure you’ve signed in so I have a record of who’s here and who was late.  I won’t use this information for anything other than to count the number of attendees and latecomers.

Before this post starts, I think it’s a good idea that we agree the ground rules for today’s post.  Firstly, what’s said on the blog stays on the blog.  This, of course, limits your chances of talking to each other about specifics after the event but it protects me from information being shared outside the blog which I can’t control.  It is important I control the push of information to evaluate any increase in performance as a result of the training.

Second rule, no mobile devices.  I know you might be using them to make notes but they’re distracting (for me mostly) as I think you’re playing games and not listening to me so please put them away.

So, what other rules are there?  Get into pairs and agree what else you want to constrain the post with and I’ll put on some mood music.

I’ll now ignore your rules as they don’t fit with my script for the day.  I should, of course, have revealed that the objectives for this post are to:

  • Give you an understanding of this post
  • Give me more tally numbers to people presented to
  • Create evaluation data

I’ll now ask you to tell me what you want to get from this post, why you’re here, and who nominated you to read this post.  I will record that information next to the blank space below, taking care to ignore your comments until we get to the end of the post.

I hope you all completed the mandatory elearning course beforehand.  If you didn’t you’ll find the 50 question test now a bit difficult.  Obviously, the quiz will be easier second time round at the end of the post as I’ll be diverting the content to meet the needs of the multiple choice questions where the answer is:

a) obviously the right answer due to its length compared to the others
b) not this answer as its blatantly wrong
c) the most likely answer
d) like b).

Obviously if your score increases I’ll claim that as learning evaluation.  If your score goes down, I’ll blame the elearning.

We’ll now have some fun with an icebreaker that bears little relation to the rest of the day.  I will refer to it a little if I can shoe-horn a convoluted link in.

After that we’ll break for a coffee and when you come back in I’ll hand out an evaluation sheet with little smiley faces on it.  You’re meant to score these as day goes on to ‘reflect your learning’.  They will, of course, be hurriedly completed at the end of the post as you’ll be desperate to get out ; don’t worry, they’re a simple 1-4 scale.

If you have any comments, leave them in the box below and I’ll most likely ignore* them.

*Please leave comments; I enjoy the interaction really.

25 thoughts on “If everyone’s here, we’ll start”

  3. Thanks for your comment Craig; as you know we have no budget for sandwiches so you’ll have to make sure you make yours with fresh bread next time. As for the temperature of the blog post, many of our participants feel the same way and they’ve felt the need to complain too. once ejected from the blog they’ve found it to be much colder outside.

    Thanks Meg, we like our blog posts to be experiential.

    Like

  4. I would have liked to have seen more use of PowerPoint. Then I would have appreciated printouts of the slides so that I could file them away and forget them.

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  5. Thanks for your comment Chris. We’ve taken that feedback on board and will supply copies of everything at the end of the post. We’ll adjust the cost of this blog post accordingly by adding lots of £s.

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  8. The room was too HOT, not too cold (it’s an age thing)! And I NEED to have peanuts…can’t live without them! 🙂
    (LOVE this post! Thanks for making me both smile and cringe on this Friday morning!)

    Like

  11. I would have liked to have stayed a bit longer to finish reading this blog but I’ve got to go to a very important meeting that I can’t get out of. I am sure I have the jist but will ask Meg to fill me in later 😉

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  13. Thanks for your comment Jane; we have a blog for your manager called leaders blog that may be appropriate – attendance is the same as this plus $.
    Thanks for your comment Tracy; have you seen someone about that?
    We do have breaks bermtopia; if you want to call your office, go to the bathroom, make a drink and still talk to the other participants we’d need a breaks a lot longer than the 15 minutes in my script.
    Hi Kathy – yes! We’ll also print you a little xertificate too – just send $$.
    Thanks for letting us know tuppymagic; we’ll still bill you fiull price and not let Meg take your copy of the handouts.
    Thanks Jennifer – you’ve kept my GPA at 3.6.

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  21. I enjoyed this post, but I wish it had been much shorter. Much much shorter. My time is valuable.

    I ALSO wish it could have included more content. I wanted more of a deep dive into the material, but a “deep dive” that I can follow while I’m ALSO checking my Blackberry every 2 minutes.

    *laugh*

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  22. Thanks Bianca. We’re glad you enjoyed the post. Howeve, the length of the post isn’t something that you can change; if we allowed that we’d be setting up a situation where we didn’t control the flow of information and that wouldn’t be good now would it? I mean, you paid for x amount so we have to deliver that…irrespective of whether you need it.

    You can collect your Blackberry from the box with everyone else’s devices at the end.

    Like

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