So, my first week as acting editor of Training Zone has almost come to a close.

I've got involved in the site and community quite a lot and have a decent handle on what the interesting debates are and where they're happening. I've found out what the generally more contentious subjects are (stand up, NeuroLinguistic Programming) and have kind of got my fingers burnt naively thinking that I can iron out any issues, whereas any heated discussion will generally extinguish itself, maybe with a couple of helpful buckets of water from our community manager, Becky Midgley.  

But it's got me thinking that as an independent champion of the training industry, TrainingZone should encourage debate, even if it does run the risk of degenerating into mud-slinging, because we can always draw a line under that and move on. The fact is, that techniques such as NLP have a large following and deserve to be covered as a relevant method used in coaching and training. And the fact that people get a bit hot under the collar because they feel so passionately about it on both sides of the fence can only be a good thing.

So, moving on. I expect the TZ and Leadership Twitter feeds to be working overtime in a couple of weeks time as we go full tilt towards social learning month in september. An integral part of how we communicate with our membership, TrainingZone's Twitter feed is always informative and engaging, although to bring it in line with other champions of social networking such as Ashton Kutcher or Lily Allen, I could maybe throw in the odd tweet about what colour pants the TrainingZone editorial team are wearing if you like? Thought not.