With a learning and development focus to this year's programme, HRD was one event that was firmly on TrainingZone's radar. Attending only for the Thursday (it's been a busy old week), we still managed a packed day of talks and workshops.

The decision to provide delegates with the slides in the session booklets to immediately take away has both pros and cons. You could argue that at similar events the speakers' presentations being made available on slideshare achieves an equaivalent level of interactivity, but seeing as at most events it's only the most naive and trusting among us who rely on an exhibition's wi-fi signal, providing good old 20th century paper copies of speaker notes still seems like a great idea. However, for many sessions, the downside was that because what we saw on paper was an exact mirror of what we saw on the OHPs, there was an overreliance on notes and text, and it became less about audience engagement.

Not so with Premier Foods' L&D business managaer Lisa McCandless however, whose section of an afternoon talk we attended, 'Developing Leaders Who are Fit for the Future' was an exemplary display of public speaking and workshop leadership. Her big question 'are you developing leadership or leaders?' resonated with the audience and tapped into the fundamental idea of developing the person and not the concept.

By way of a more comprehensive round-up, here's a quick interview with the eLearning network's Kate Graham about this year's event, and the wider HR and L&D issues that businesses face. 

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HRD takes place every April. For more information on this year's event click here