Thanks for your continued reading

Have you started pinning yet? Whilst initially dubious about using Pinterest, I’m now hooked. In fact I‘d say that Pinterest is the most addictive web service yet. Pinterest’s growth has been staggering, even in what many would call an overly social era. Surrounded by Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc., Pinterest has really made a name for itself.

So what is Pinterest? It’s quite simple. Imagine if Flickr and Twitter had a child together that combined the image sharing of Flickr with the social functionality of Twitter. Users can upload and share pictures with their network. It might sound a little pretentious, but Pinterest is an incredibly time efficient vehicle for sharing, commenting and simply “liking” something that a friend, colleague or contact has shared.

A new Engauge white paper breaks down the make-up of the average Pinterest user and shows that the end result of less reading is more of a focus on content curation than creation.  This whole “curation” phenomenon amazes me. As the white paper puts it, “People stare into a fire hose of information every day, and it’s having an impact. They’re actively seeking ways to not only filter and organize what they find, but also to less stressfully consume more content. That is the behaviour Pinterest exploits.” The timing of that trend, combined with a stunning design when internet users are focusing more on visual than text, has allowed Pinterest to explode in popularity.”

Pinterest is the hottest new entrant in what’s become known as the Interest Graph, An interest graph is a digital map that says, “This is what I like.” For example if you see that I follow Bill Gates on Twitter, that doesn’t tell you if I know Bill Gates, but it does tell you a lot about my interest in Microsoft or Philanthropy. Interest graphs are generated by the feeds customers follow (e.g. on Twitter), products they buy (e.g. on Amazon), ratings they create (e.g. on Netflix), searches they run (e.g. on Google) and now their pins.

The initial use case for elearning is in self authored elearning. See an image on that blog you read? Pin it and use it as a visual reference when later curating your content.  As more social & collaborative tools are adopted in education and in corporate environments, data related to the interactions and activities within these networks will increasingly be collected and analysed to help understand and measure the effectiveness of social and collaborative learning. Pinterest and other Interest Graph based technologies are just beginning to scratch the surface. Technology has become a form of self-expression. What we use and how we use it says everything about us.

I am a great supporter of robust investigative journalism, which has been a cornerstone of our democratic system from Thalidomide to MPs expenses.  However, in uncovering the darker and sometimes seamier sides of our institutions, the downside is that you rarely get to see or hear both sides of a story. It was therefore with a certain degree of trepidation that I noted the title of the Panorama programme “The Great Apprenticeship Scandal”. It was fairly obvious that this was not going to be a celebration of the many benefits and successes of the Apprenticeship programme and this proved to be the case when the programme was aired on 2 April.

With the exception of a few obvious mistakes, it was generally a good piece of journalism and no doubt made for equally good television.  There is also every justification in highlighting issues and concerns within the Apprenticeship programme. However, in attempting to do a hatchet job on a few Private Training Providers (PTP’s), the public has no doubt been left with the impression that all such organisations are money-grabbing cowboys operating at  (and sometimes outside) the borders of legality and  attempting to profiteer at the taxpayer’s expense without any regard for the needs of the learner.

Nothing of course could be farther from the truth and in uncovering a few potentially bad apples, Panorama has done a great disservice to the vast majority of PTPs who provide an outstanding service both to their clients and to their learners. By coincidence, one of our own trainers received a text shortly before the programme, from an Apprentice who had just passed their Skills For Life exam. It read  “Oh my god that’s awesome. You have really helped me chase my dream. Thank you so much’. That comment is typical of many we receive  on a daily basis from learners whose lives have been changed through the opportunity to complete an Apprenticeship programme.

Every year, over half a million people complete such programmes,   giving them the skills they will need to compete effectively for jobs in the global economy in which we operate. As such, Apprenticeships offer outstanding value to UK Plc. A recent report by the independent National Audit Office demonstrated that Apprenticeships generate £18 for the British economy for every £1 invested by the government. That represents fantastic value for money  by any standard but sadly that statistic (and many other positive ones) was missing from the Panorama programme.

Last week, I was privileged to be asked to speak at a major convention on Functional Skills organised jointly  by the Learning & Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) and the Association of Employement and Learning Providers (AELP). Unlike the tiny minority of poor providers highlighted by Panorama, the delegates at that convention were professional and dedicated individuals concerned only with providing the best possible service to their learners. Rather than tarring all PTPs with the same brush, we should be acknowledging and celebrating their work and the major contribution they have made to the undoubted success of the Apprenticeship programme.

This month I attended a networking event where the hot topic was cloud computing. I have to be honest: a year ago, I had heard the term but I was yet to buy into it. I was sceptical as to whether take-up would continue to grow in the next twelve months. However, it became clear to me shortly after becoming acquainted with the term that cloud computing was here to stay and would change the way we do things.

So what is cloud computing? Well, nothing better than dummies.com to give you a simple definition:

A networking solution in which everything — from computing power to computing infrastructure, applications, business processes to personal collaboration — is delivered as a service wherever and whenever you need.

There is a still lot to learn, but already colleges, universities and the government are starting to see the advantages of cloud computing and adoption is gathering pace. The benefits are compelling:

• Easy access to large applications without downloading or installing
• Reduction in costs
• Decrease in expenditure on hardware or software
• Access anytime, anywhere in the world
• Sharing resources

No surprise then that earlier last year, the IDC predicted that “By 2015, public cloud services will make up 46% of net growth in overall IT spending”. They were right. Back in December, key commentators dubbed 2012 the Year The Cloud Becomes Mature.

So the signs are there, and many organisations are starting to prepare for the change. The inevitable growth in the implementation of cloud computing will mean a transformation in the way people work and structure their businesses. But is everyone really ready – and will everyone be there to see it happen? The advent of cloud computing has also lead to a debate about whether it will generate or destroy jobs.

I strongly believe that rather than put a blindfold on, organisations that are looking to buy into cloud computing also need to think of the consequences, including the possibility of redundancies. I would like to see organisations investing in cloud computing also investing in their people, so that if it comes to the tough decision of having to let people go, they can also say that they invested in their talent and provided them with skills sets to help them find new employment.  Do you agree?

Oh no, I hear you say, not another social network! Well, in fact Yammer has been around for nearly four years and whilst its user base may be tiny (4 million), compared with the big boys, its growth has trebled in the last three years.  The reason you may not have heard about Yammer is that it is a private as opposed to public networking site.  Membership is open only to the employees of an individual company and as such, its value proposition is very different to the public networks.

At MindLeaders we are constantly searching for new ways to engage our people as we recognise the strong relationship between engaged employees and  satisfied customers. As such, we became one of the 200,000 companies in 16 countries to open a Yammer network several months ago. It is only within the last few weeks that has it started to catch on and our people began to understand  how they could use the platform to share information, communicate, collaborate and learn. We have deliberately kept Yammer low key – no big launch event, no dictates to join and contribute. Instead, we have let the network spread by word of mouth. We want it to become part of our culture, not an additional task on the To Do list.

To date, we have been delighted with the results. Nearly 70% of our people have joined our Yammer network in the last six weeks. We expect  the vast majority of our company to be on board by the end of the month and usage is rising daily.  Here is one small example of how Yammer is adding value. One of our managers wanted to know about the “70:20:10 Framework for learning”. She posted the question on Yammer and within an hour answers had come back from different corners of our global business. Problem solved. And of course, it also meant that everyone else on the network gained the information -  a genuine example of Social Learning in action.

We also use Yammer to share success stories,  post hints and tips and as a short-term knowledge storage site. We can of course also discuss things on Yammer which we wouldn’t necessarily want to share with our competitors. Finally , the rate of information flow has increased dramatically. Information which previously took time to filter out through the organisation (and occasionally did not arrive at all), is now available immediately to everyone.

Not surprisingly, Yammer is particularly popular with our field-based people who now don’t feel that they are working on their own and as such are brought  much closer to the heart of the  business.  Of course, Yammer won’t replace emails when communicating on a one-to-one basis but we do expect it to reduce the overall levels of email traffic. For example, have you ever sent out an email to a group of 10 people asking for  input and feedback and got 10 different replies thereby starting 10 different threads? That’s no longer necessary with Yammer.

It’s still very early days and we are still learning how to gain maximum benefit from the network. However, we think we may have found a powerful collaboration tool and certainly at the moment we are very much “Enamoured with Yammer.”

Retailers could be missing a huge opportunity to increase sales and find new customers if they aren’t using Facebook properly. There are currently over 30,488,000 active users in UK, which means that whatever the line of business, the majority of existing customers and a vast potential audience are logging in regularly.

Facebook changes the game when it comes to advertising works in a way that no other form of online marketing has done so far. Highly targeted Facebook Ads can produce a huge return from a small investment, Sponsored Stories exploit the power of word-of-mouth marketing, and Check-In deals offer a variety of ways to get customers into your stores.  In lean times, Facebook can be the most effective way to find and reach bargain-hunting customers.

However, a firm understanding of the ins and outs of Facebook advertising is critical to success – and it’s this understanding which is sometimes lacking. A recent survey found that whilst 68% of sellers found Facebook campaigns to highly effective for customer acquisition, 25% of potential sellers still don’t understand how to use them properly.

For retailers who have recently started with Facebook marketing, the revamped timeline pages may also seem to represent a challenge. But they actually offer companies an easier way than before to create splashy, media-rich pages that show off brand personality. A chronological timeline on the right side of the page lets businesses create customized pages to showcase past milestones, and a new “offers” capability lets companies place coupons and promotions directly on their page.

In the long run, creating a sustainable Facebook presence also means selling in a different way. Retailers need to be able to create and manage a community of Facebook fans that is entertaining at the same time as being focussed, more or less, on their products. That means knowing what kind of content to post, when to post it and how to create a user experience that stands out without wasting too much time.

And when it comes to community management, a lack of understanding is also holding small businesses back. New research released lasrt week by Recommend.ly found that 82% of Facebook brand pages issue less than five updates a month, and local businesses were found to be the least active.  So whilst we might all be logging on to Facebook, not all of us are thinking about its full retail potential.

The UK literacy crisis is back in the headlines following a recent speech by Sir Michael Wilshaw, the new Ofsted chief inspector.  Whilst overall literacy levels have improved slightly over the last 20 years,  every year 100,000 children are failing to achieve the expected standard by the time they  leave primary school and over 5 million adults lack the necessary literacy skills to enable them to cope satisfactorily with every day life.

Moreover, other countries are making significant improvements and as a result, the UK has dropped from 7^th to 23^rd in the world literacy rankings. Countries such as Estonia, Poland and China are now outperforming the UK.

As Sir Michael says “Too many young adults lack the functional skills to make their way in the modern world. They are more likely to be unemployed, unwell, in prison, or supported by the state.”

His concerns were echoed by Neil Carberry, CBI director for Employment and Skills policy, who in his response to the speech said that “Businesses will welcome the fact that Sir Michael Wilshaw has shone a light on worryingly low literacy levels. We need to ensure functional literacy skills are taught more effectively.”

It is both timely and appropriate that both Sir Michael and Neil Carberry used the word “functional” to describe the skills that are required. We are now less than 5 months away from the mandatory introduction of Functional Skills into the Apprenticeship framework. At the same time, the government intends to switch funding for standalone basic skills programmes to Functional Skills.

The launch of Functional Skills has been a slow and at times tortuous process but for those of us who are genuinely concerned about the literacy and numeracy crises in the UK, its introduction  cannot come soon enough. By giving young people the opportunity not simply to improve their maths and English skills but to understand how those skills can be properly utilised in many different situations, I’m sure we will start to move up the world league tables. At the same time we’ll be providing young people with the opportunity to develop satisfying careers rather than remaining in dead-end jobs, and competing effectively on the global stage.

There have been many references to a new computer on the market that costs less than £30 – the Raspberry Pi.  A computer for under £30 sounds exciting enough until you realise that it still needs a TV, power supply,  keyboard and mouse connected and that it isn’t going to run Microsoft Office any time soon.

To understand why it’s such a big deal and who it’s going to help so greatly, we will take a trip back to my misspent youth. I was one of a select few who would spend a lot of time waiting, somewhat impatiently, to use the schools “student” computer whilst the other kids were busy playing football and top trumps. On it I learnt to program in BASIC (Beginners – All purpose -Symbolic –Instruction- Code) and some machine code (binary processor code) mostly by trial and error .

Machine code is a series of direct instructions to the processor at the heart of the computer and is so unfriendly that one slip causes the machine to go into a monumental sulk that only pulling the power plug would stop.  I would have to retype my work, but that was the end of the calamity.  The nature of the beast meant that a simple reset would put everything back as it was, no damage done.

When I went home the family “Sinclair Spectrum” offered the same care free experimentation.

Fast forward several decades to today, and nowadays our laptops have many systems, cost hundreds of pounds and take hours to restore back to working order if Windows is corrupted.   My daughter doesn’t even have administrative access to my computer, to ward against that possibility.

Writing machine code (or indeed any low level code)  is now a dicey business and is best approached with tuition, experience and hopefully some time on a suitable emulator before you dare approach something as complex as a laptop.  As for entering short pieces on code on the family laptop in the same way as I used to with our family Spectrum , it isn’t going to end well.  The experimenter is more likely to be grounded than to get a grounding in programming.

This is where the Raspberry Pi comes into its own. Much like the machines I grew up with it is:

• Easy to reload should the software  be corrupted
• Built for experimentation around a single processor
• Cheap enough not to worry about.

This unit will give this generation the chance to really play with a computer and understand how it works at a base level without the worry that they might break it. In short, by eliminating risk in the same way as our Practice-Labs do for trainee IT professionals, it’s a great way to give everyone a chance to experience the thrill of programming at all levels without the cost and complexity of today’s devices  – Pure Genius!

You can register for a Pi here.

I have recently been appointed by the Association of Employment and Training Providers (AELP) as their Functional Skills Champion. I was delighted to accept that role  but was looking forward with a certain degree of trepidation to chairing  the first meeting of a Functional Skills “Special Interest Group” (SIG) run jointly by AELP and LSIS (The Learning and Skills Improvement Service).

The meeting was the best attended SIG that the AELP had ever run. Sadly I fear that this was not due to my charismatic presence, but more to the high priority which Functional Skills now attracts amongst training providers.  With over 40 providers, Awarding Body representatives and people from the Skills Funding Agency in the room, I was anticipating a difficult few hours as the usual throng of “Doom and Gloom” merchants, those who believe that the introduction of Functional Skills will spell the end of the Apprenticeship programme, vied with each other to offer depressing forecasts of an impending collapse in completion rates and the end of workplace training as we know it.

It was therefore a happy surprise to discover that rather than having to stamp down on the prophets of doom, I was surrounded by people who were taking a very positive and realistic approach to the introduction of Functional Skills. Of course there were concerns expressed, particularly around the thorny area of funding, but there were also plenty of success stories from the growing number of providers who are switching to Functional Skills before the deadline on 31^st August. Moreover, the Awarding Bodies indicated that pass rates were continuing to rise and that Private Training Providers were easily  outperforming colleges and schools. That fits well with our own experience as our first-time pass rates continue to exceed 90%.

So why is there still clearly a small band of training providers (sadly including some quite large companies) who continue to predict a disaster when Functional Skills becomes mandatory in a few months time?  I suspect that the key driver is fear of the unknown.  The discredited Key Skills qualifications have been easy and straightforward to deliver and have not required providers to escape from their comfort zones.  The thought of actually having to do something different and provide a more robust learner experience is simply proving to be a step too far for those providers who are wedded to the past.

Fortunately it would appear, certainly from my experience in my new “Champion” role, that these people no longer represent the majority of training providers.  Whilst MindLeaders have led the way in developing innovative and  exciting new approaches to Functional Skills, other providers are now starting to appreciate that they need to take a positive approach to the issue and start finding appropriate delivery solutions rather than yearning for the past. We are delighted that an increasing n umber of those providers are turning to us for support and we will continue to ensure that we lead the market in Functional Skills delivery.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the “Making Apprenticeships Work” Conference organised by Apprenticeships England, at the Honourable Artillery Company in London. It was a really well attended event with what looked like 200 attendees from across the entire spectrum of Apprenticeship delivery. I’d love to share with you some of the key themes I noted throughout the course of the day.

After an introduction to the ongoing challenges in delivery and a rallying call from Lord Knight of Weymouth (a former Schools and Skills Minister) to reduce the gap between the needs of the labour market and the results of educational outcomes, he left us with the need to work to continue to raise the quality of these fantastic qualifications. Peter Cobrin, National Education Director of Notgoingtouni, talked about the need to “have parity of esteem for Apprenticeships” and the right for vocational routes to be better represented in schools.

I must admit to some ignorance around this issue of lack of clear opportunity advice in schools. I was clearly lucky as my school had a partnership with a local construction firm who conducted mock job interviews with us on their premises, trained us in CV writing and in turn had ample opportunity to convey the benefits of vocational routes into employment. I guess I’d assumed all schools were as open-minded, but apparently this isn’t so! The head of a Bedfordshire College reported that less than 20% of schools in their catchment allowed the college in to deliver information on Apprenticeships and this seemed like a common complaint across the sector.

Thankfully, there are exceptions and we heard from one particularly enlightened Principal, Simon Carpenter of Futures College who shared the vision for his institution, which celebrates academic routes and vocational training and gives them an equal footing. He told us of some compelling case studies and we learnt about a range of opportunities for learners to learn vocational skills in a work-place like environment. His ethos was simply that he refuses to accept that any one kind of success (i.e. academic) is any more important than another (i.e. vocational). We also heard from Ruth Spellman, Chair of the Careers Professional Alliance, about plans to improve the delivery of the message on Apprenticeships into schools and for her wish to see a move away from the ‘celebritisation’ of the notion of an Apprentice so that young adults can understand that they are qualifications for all.

Scott Upton Vice-Principal of Sandwell College gave a provocative perspective on what he called “Battery Apprenticeships”. He was very against the notion of Adult Apprenticeships and shorter programmes and urged a Qualitative approach to judging success in Apprenticeships rather than purely a quantitative measure. Interestingly, Scott did challenge SFA prime contractors taking more than 15% from their subcontractor partners on what added value they’re delivering for that increased levy, as rates across the sector vary dramatically.

Graham Hoyle, CEO of the Association of Employers and Learning Providers tackled the thorny issue of Apprenticeship programmes that have recently been under the media spotlight. Graham felt that indeed some members had potentially pushed the limits and crossed the line and they needed to be called to book, but he warned against a knee jerk reaction to the majority of good providers delivering quality Apprenticeships.

In terms of quality the real issue seemed to be the need to agree what the term ‘Apprenticeship’ actually means, with Graham offering up some key points of reference including: on the job, work-place located, employer designed, independently accredited individual components. How can we decide what quality looks like until we can agree what an Apprenticeship is?

I’d have to agree a universally recognised definition would be a great help to all and can only strengthen the success in marketing the Apprenticeship brand. The issue around setting a minimum length for Apprenticeships was a fairly heated debate along with the issue of whether Apprenticeships are really the appropriate qualification for learners aged over 25. Graham Hoyle made an excellent point that the length of time should be “as short a period of time as is required to deliver a quality outcome” and I’d have to agree. He reminded us how in the media we celebrate school learners taking qualifications early and gaining degrees at a young age but when we see early success in Apprenticeships we immediately question their quality! There is a clear disconnect here.

Karen Woodward NAS Divisional Apprenticeships Director told us that the moment you see a quality Apprenticeship Programme in action you immediately understand what it is and that we should view the SASE as just the start of the quality journey. She pushed for Apprenticeship providers to deliver “what is expected of them rather than simply what is inspected of them”. Karen shared an interesting analogy between Apprenticeships and a car driving test. You take your theory test, which might be equivalent to a technical certificate, you might then go on to take your practical test equivalent to the vocational qualification to actually pass your driving test; but the realisation that you really do know how to drive comes at some later point when you’ve continued to practice those skills on the road. Passing the Apprenticeship isn’t the end of a learning journey – when embedded correctly in the workplace it should represent just the beginning.

But after all the healthy debate I think the whole conference reached a consensus that Apprenticeships are amazing qualifications that deserve to be equally signposted and promoted to all learners alongside academic routes, and as providers we should all strive to deliver quality outcomes. This was reinforced by the real life apprentices that were videoing the event on the day who spoke passionately about what they’ve gained from their Apprenticeship learning. Two young, confident, articulate, engaged and enthused Creative and Digital media apprentices showing us the value of these worthy qualifications.

MindLeaders offers blended learning solutions to support every aspect of successful Apprenticeships. Contact us today talk about designing your programme.