Sunday 28 February 2010

John Hayes' E4 Challenge

As some of my IDeA colleagues will be aware, John Hayes (Director of Services and Development) is retiring later this year. However, it's not the comfy slippers or favourite armchair that calls, since John is already planning his next adventure. He is planning to walk from Tarifa in Spain to Budapest in Hungry along the route of the euro path, the E4. In total about 5,500 kilometers. There's not many 'firsts' left in this life - Everest has been conquered, the North-West Passage found, Sweden has the first Ski-through MacDonald's (yes, it's true!), but has anyone ever completed the E4 walk? That is one of the questions John has posed on his blog , which is the place to go if you want to follow his progress in planning and executing this adventure.

As a keen walker myself (Inca Trail, Mt Kinabaloo, Mt Kilimanjaro) I have to admit to being a tad envious of John in making the time and space in his life to do this. My own retirement plan of settling down in the Lake District looks very unambitious by comparison! Anyway, as you will see if you follow John's progrees, there will be opportunities of joining him for various sections of the walk. I just need to tell my wife that next year's planned holiday to Mauritius may need to be rescheduled. That will be an interesting conversation!

Posted via email from Steve's musings

Saturday 27 February 2010

Hot Seat Session on the Knowledge Hub

I’ve just completed my first ‘Hot Seat’ session for the IDeA Communities of Practice. My specialist subject “The Knowledge Hub” - a leading-edge project planned for the local government sector this year.

I think I managed to answer all of the questions correctly :-) and was encouraged to see that we had over 470 page views during the 2-hour session. I was  also impressed by the interest in this project from such a wide variety of users. Some challenging questions as well – all available at the Facilitation Now! conference 26th Feb.

Thanks to the KM team for arranging this session.

Posted via web from stephendale's posterous

Hot Seat Session on the Knowledge Hub

I’ve just completed my first ‘Hot Seat’ session for the IDeA Communities of Practice. My specialist subject “The Knowledge Hub” - a leading-edge project planned for the local government sector this year.

I think I managed to answer all of the questions correctly :-) and was encouraged to see that we had over 470 page views during the 2-hour session. I was  also impressed by the interest in this project from such a wide variety of users. Some challenging questions as well – all available at the Facilitation Now! conference 26th Feb.

Thanks to the KM team for arranging this session.

Posted via web from stephendale's posterous

Friday 26 February 2010

Facilitation Now! Online facilitation conference Day 3

Day 3 of the online facilitation conference being run by IDeA, http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/10030/blog/blog-display.do?backlink=ref&id=3394207 and I'm on this afternoon 2pm - 4pm doing a 'Hot Seat' on "The Knowledge Hub", the next generaton community and collaboration platform that I'm working on.

I was looking back at the online conversations from the previous 2 days and was really impressed by the high levels of activity, and some great insights from the facilitation 'experts' on how they've developed successful CoPs. I particularly liked the quote from Martin Stein (Workforce Matters CoP) in that facilitation is a bit like parenting and that "CoPs have a life cycle which starts with intensive care but ends with autonomy".

My only worry for the Hot Seat session is that I'm here by myself and not sure if I'll be able to keep up with the questions. But then again I might not get any....I'll wait with some trepidation!

 

Posted via web from stephendale's posterous

Thursday 25 February 2010

Communities of Practice

CoPs are not about bringing knowledge into an organisation but about helping to grow the knowledge that we need to become more effective in our jobs. My quote.

Posted via email from stephendale's posterous