In contradiction to the drizzle of the west London streets, the atmosphere inside the first talk of day two of this event was positively buoyant. Stephanie Davies of Laughology got a packed conference room on their feet, engaging and smiling from ear to ear. It begs the question: was this talk, 'the science of happiness', full of happy people fallen victim to confirmation bias or unhappy delegates looking for spiritual enlightenment?
Either way, laughter and smiles abound and Mike Morrison (@rapidbi) summed it up pretty well when he said 'that wasn't a case study session, that was a Masterclass.' Follow Laughology on twitter here
Talk number two, 'Learning to work: developing young employees, apprenticeships and future talent' had the potential to become too case-study heavy but both Telefonica's Abi Bracken and Visa's James Lawrence delivered an interesting talk with some good practical takeaways. Engaging millennials is always going to be a key topic both for the CIPD in general and for many of the delegates attending this event, and the session went some way in assuaging fears and dispelling myths about apprenticeship programmes and how to implement one successfully in your business if you're a newbie. After nearly two decades of very little noise about apprenticeships and a fair bit of stereotyping, they have expanded and diversified and really look like a good option for many employers' OD strategies.
The second half of the last day of a conference is the most difficult time to keep people excited. Conference/expos are a multisensory overload and so anyone who keeps the focus of an audience is doing remarkably well. So a talk entitled 'creating a culture where intrapreneurs thrive' had the potential to provide that adrenaline shot that TZ needed, if I could get past the slightly jargonistic title.
Alcatel-Lucent's Olivier LeClerc provided the first genuine case study I'd seen, making it tricky to really condense the journey of his presentation into anything tweetable, but he did give us this pearl of wisdom from AL's manifesto as a business: Innovation is the responsibility of every employee in the company. What a fascinating place that must be to work! His first slide also highlighted a few famous inventions discovered by accident (post its, Java, gmail) which set the tone for the talk.
The final session was about 'designing innovative L&D initiatives'. Talking were Deloitte's Jonathan Eighteen (tremendous name - made me think of The Prisoner or some such) and Chris Parkinson from Dixons. Here are some of the ways that Deloitte are apparently innovating in L&D: gaming simulations, digital labs, immersive learning, live video, mobile apps, learning portals. Odd that some of these are methods, some are specific technologies, some vaguer learning styles, but nevertheless it's always good to hear when larger companies embrace new ideas and technologies. It seems hard to think of bigger businesses being that agile and open; maybe that's just my preconception.
I left before the very end, but for me this was the best so far from the CIPD and am already looking forward to the programme for next year's event. Tube strike or no tube strike.
