TUESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER

So, with the bunting ripped down and promotional pens packed away, Hall 18 of Birmingham's cavernous NEC empty and desolate once again. A lot was learned and there were some truly fascinating talks given and technologies and techniques on display.

Let's start at the beginning.

Chaired by the BBC's Nicholas Owen, the main seminars and workshops were kept clipping along by his professional and likeable presence, and, being a news presenter he allowed no time for any awkward pauses or dead air, always ready to jump in with a question or three if the floor was reticent to pipe up with any contributing queries.

Ruth Spellman OBE, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute's opening address was entitled 'A New world for business', essentially was an extension of - and complementary piece to- the article that she wrote recently for TrainingZone. The focus was on maintaining employee engagement, a theme that resonated through a lot of the talks at the event, and the continuing idea that we must do more with less. To call the talk scathing would be harsh, but Spellman certainly pulled no punches when she asserted that "we have a poverty of aspiration in this country" and that "we still have the cult of the amateur when it comes to management development". "Our minimum requirements for our children's education should be higher" was also a statement which got several heads nodding, and some succinct advice for the future, "be ARMED: Attract, Retain, Motivate, Engage, Develop" before her summary, "work smarter, focus on your people, evolve approach to L&D, retain your values," drew a big round of applause from everyone inside.

Of the morning sessions, I opted to sit in on 'Facilitating and dealing with change through learning', with Adrian Price, L&D manager for TUI travel UK & Ireland (David Vachell was regrettably not able to make it). TUI, we were informed, is a merger between Thomson and First Choice. What had the potential to be a talk that highlighted the importance of change management and its place within L&D came across more as a simple advocation of the TUI brand. From this perspective it was an interesting talk on brand visibility/championing but offered very little for delegates about dealing with change though learning. A bit of a misrepresentation, I felt.

The same cannot be said for the Lunchtime Panel Debate, 'To what extent does social media have a place in learning?', featuring Twitter advocate Nick Shackleton-Jones from the BBC, Infinite Learning's Robin Hoyle (not exactly a fan) and Clive Shepherd of the elearning network, who took a more pragmatic approach, but essentially sat on the pro-social media side of the fence. All three presented extremely compelling cases for and against, ranging from the absolute (NSJ – "Twitter is my no.1 learning tool"), the dismissive (RH –"I have a problem with it because of the first word: social. they're great for sharing information but that is not the same as learning") to the accepting (CS -"We have no control over the last decade's societal change. We need to embrace social media because otherwise they will be used without us"). All handbags were thankfully left un-swung, and we left the debate questioning our previously rock solid tenets. For the better, of course.

After a short lunch and a spot of networking, We decided to have a look at something on the free seminar programme. Near to our stand David Wortley, director of the Serious Games Institute was delivering a talk entitled 'Teaching digital natives - the challenge of next generation learners'. This talk was very much in keeping with the social media flavour of the event, and also the upcoming 'serious games' and 'mobile learning' themes. Here was David's opening gambit: 'There is increasing scientific evidence that the brains of the digital native generation are hardwired for multi-tasking.' It's a fair point, and the following argument that the challenge for L&D professionals with a digital native audience is to keep them engaged, was a sound one. The talk developed into the obvious -but no less stark- realisation that the digital native is a different beast to the baby boomer, and consequently consumes and learn in totally different ways. Again, social learning and networks were declared the key to the engagement disconnect. A great talk, the subject matter of which we will cover on site in more detail in the upcoming months.

Finally to the keynote address of day one, given by Jayne Stokes, head of learning at Santander.

'Encouraging workplace learning in your organisation' reinforced a few ideas already covered and expanded on some parts other people only touched on. Jayne's first idea was that informal learning would become formalised, a contention that not many would disagree with as L&D departments seek to find a more measurable way to reach their employees in the workplace. Social media was of course touched on, as well as the idea that managers be more involved in the learning build process in future, an interesting notion that several other people mentioned (as L&D merging with OD – another theme of the conference). One of the other ideas Jayne Stokes put across was what else L&D can do outside the formal learning environment to develop their existing workforce, and the key was access. Promoting availability, a focus on the learning environment, employee choice and making time for the learning process, plus the continued move towards video over powerpoint and other similar slideshows. More of which featured the following day...