Blogsquadding and Questioning

CIPD L&D Show 2015 #CIPDLDSHOW

Like many others, I’m London bound to get ready for the CIPD’s annual L&D show at Olympia. A veritable smorgasborg of speaker sessions, workshops, taster sessions and of course exhibitors awaits the thousands who will descend there over the next couple of days.

The lovely folks at CIPD have asked some good & smart people and also myself to blog and tweet our way through the 2 days – the blogsquad! For me this means sharing what I see, what I hear, what it makes me think and generally helping to enrich & spread the learning experience. Social media will be our medium for much of this sharing and I’m looking forward to engaging both online and offline with familiar faces and people I’ve never met before.

Now I’m no stranger to tweeting and blogging but over the past few weeks my mind has wondered what on earth I’m going to write about… How will I produce content with insight, meaning & purpose? How can I balance the conversations and dialogue that I want to have with blogging throughout the two days? What do I need to prepare to make this a success? What would my clients hope to see from me?

I don’t feel that I’m far out of my comfort zone here but I know I have to trust that the writing will come with the stimulation of the conference and the speaker sessions.

I know that there are far too many sessions for me to attend and that even being selective I’m going to have carefully balance my time & participation if I’m to do this the service it deserves.

The CIPD have been generous to me in the freedom and the opportunity to be part of the blogging squad and I know that I’ll honour this privilege in my work.

As always, I know I’ll get support and inspiration from friends, peers and probably the most unexpected of places.

I may need beer at some stage in the evening…

So apart from my laptop, phone, batteries, cables and yes my notepad & pen, what I’m bringing is of course my curiosity, my insight and my professional perspectives. I’m very much open to what comes but at the same time I’m hoping for insight into some questions that I have…

How is leadership development currently helping organisations to improve?

What are organisations doing to better lead change successfully and sustainably?

How is coaching helping whole organisations respond differently to the challenges that they face?

How is team coaching gaining traction in organisations?

What are organisations getting from neuroscience?

These are very much my professional areas of interest and I believe provide some useful challenge. I’m particularly interested in the organisational value that we can create in these areas. So if I haven’t blogged specifically about these questions over the next two days then expect some blogs next week on what I discovered as well as my own perspectives.

So how about you? Whether or not you’ll be at the show in person…

What are the important questions that you have for the #CIPDLDSHOW?