Last week saw the great and good of UK L&D descend on the city of London for a day and a half of talks, networking and of course, lots of Quality Street.
It's probably more difficult than ever to bring something new to the table in the world of L&D events, such is the saturation of the market but last week at the newest of the etc venues in St. Paul's, the LPI did just that with Learning Live.
Whether you were there to browse the supplier stands and get involved in the workshops on day one or go the whole shebang with the networking dinner and the full day two conference programme, Learning Live had a real buzz about it this time, in its supposedly 'difficult' sophomore year.
Topped and tailed by the unflappable Donald Taylor, the conference opted for a different format to most events, with a sort of one-and-a-half day structure to it. A free exhibition and half day of talks and workshops on day one, and then a full day of paid-for sessions on day two.
From the more theoretical, more abstract sessions such as James Bannerman's 'Smarter Thinking, Smarter Learning', to Nigel Paine's 'Six Learning Trends that You Cannot Afford to Ignore' (which actually turned out to be nine!), the overall theme of the event appeared to be loosely focussed on CHANGE.
And why not? Companies of all shapes and sizes are being asked to do more with less, but framing that as a purely reactive task bound by budgetary constraints isn't as helpful as saying 'this is the future, these are the tools we can use to deal with it', and Learning Live did that very well indeed.
