Creative Writing, Recognition

MA Professional Education & Training Graduation

I am extremely happy to have attended my official graduation ceremony from UCL for my MA Professional Education and Training.

Thanks to UCL Institute of Education for putting on a wonderful virtual graduation ceremony to round off a fantastic Masters degree experience!

Attending at 3am over Zoom in my pajamas with a DIY mortar board made out of duct tape by my wonderful partner isn’t quite the way I imagined it would go when I started this degree, but it was a very heartfelt and memorable ceremony that I will remember fondly for always.

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Recognition

My 2019 Roundup

I’ve had a awesome crazy amazing 2019, and I wanted to share a few highlights, personal and professional, that have made my year!

Finished my Masters degree in Professional Education & Training

This degree saw me become a part-time hermit, read so many research papers that I thought my brain would explode, and cry on more than one occasion.

More than anything though it gave me an appreciation for how much of a journey professional learning is. How much learning is irrevocably linked to our egos, identities, and preconceptions. How much we box up and pigeonhole learning into professions and tight areas when really it’s learning along the boundaries between them that’s full of the most tenacious issues. How much learning is vulnerable, and messy, and if you’re doing it properly, it can sometimes make you feel really crappy.

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Learning & Training, Recognition, Work

I’m in Forbes! My commitment to Working Out Loud

I always said a life goal was to be published in Forbes, and happily, today my friend Dan Gingiss posted my CX New Years Resolution along with a compilation of resolutions from other CX friends to Forbes. This was a nice thing to see today. I’m still determined to get published by Forbes in my own right one day though! 😛

Here’s the post, thanks Dan!

My CX New Years Resolution, as mentioned in this post, is to do more working out loud – which is simply about giving voice to what you’re doing at work. There is an entire movement, a book, and peer support groups to help, which I must admit I haven’t explored a lot yet as my #1 goal for now is just to build a good writing habit.

Why is working out loud important?

Primarily I want to build better relationships, get more feedback, and become more open to collaboration. But also, I’m concerned about the impact of people hoarding information, and I want to make a stand against that.

As a trainer, I’ve come up against instances where SMEs are afraid to share what they know for fear that they will become less necessary. I get that. Work is relational and political, no matter what type of organisation you work within. And so many of us work in industries or companies with unstable job security, or in cultures that discourage collaboration. Whether that’s through forced rankings, open plan offices, or any other management practices which kill communication and pit us against each other.

If you’re a busy professional, it’s not always easy to share, either. It takes time and thought to communicate knowledge, especially knowledge that’s tacit – that which we have intuitively learned.

But if we care at all about keeping our organisations and professions healthy, useful and growing, I believe we all have a duty to contribute to developing our collective knowledge.

Not only because I have a utopian idea that professional knowledge and education should be accessible to everyone, no matter who you are, and that everyone should get the chance to be whatever kind of professional they wish if they are prepared to put in the work and the effort.

But also because humanity would have achieved next to nothing had we not shared our stories, ideas, thoughts with each other. Communication and sharing are how we achieve growth and change in the world.

My commitment

This year I want to share more, and more frequently. This is as good a place as any to share, and I will be breaking with my previous posting style to try and build a blog that’s a little warmer and more thoughtful than the cross-posted content I usually throw onto here.

I’m hoping to write a lot more about both CX and L&D, but I’m also not limiting myself to that. I’m a little tired of the notion of needing to maintain a professional persona that’s ‘strictly business’ (because I don’t agree with shaming people who don’t comply) so I might post about other things too.

I hope that all of this means that I can bring others closer while providing thoughts and ideas to muse upon. I want critique, conversation and for my mind to be changed. I’m looking forward to getting started.

Customer Experience, Learning & Training, Recognition, Work

Promotion Update & Lucep’s Top 50 Customer Experience Blogs and Influencers

I’ve been quiet over the last few weeks – life has been busy since I got promoted 😊 I’m now Learning & Development Manager for Comm100.

Our business is growing fast and getting mature enough now that we really needed an L&D lead to drive internal and external training initiatives.

I’m extremely happy to be that person and I’m looking forward to helping Comm100 to grow and learn even better!

I wanted also to post a link to Lucep’s list of their Top 50 Customer Experience Blogs and Influencers, which I’m pleased to be a part of.

Being on the list nestled between the awesome CustomerServiceLife blog and CX & Social media expert Dan Gingiss (as well as so many other CX superstars) is just beyond awesome really, and I’m always humbled and honored when I receive recognition for my writing and ideas.

Thanks Lucep!

Read more at Lucep’s Blog

Customer Experience, Recognition, Work

I’m a CX Accelerator Community Organizer!

Very proud to announce that I’m now a community organizer for the awesome CX Accelerator community on Slack!

I’m a big promoter of communities of practice to support professional learning, so it’s a real pleasure to be involved with this group and to be able to support the good work Nate and the team have put in to expand and share knowledge relating to CX, both inside and outside of the contact center.

If you haven’t yet checked out the community, click through to take a look at what it offers, what others say about it, and see how you can join.

I’d love to see my blog readers sign up and join in the fun and learning – please do mention that I sent you!

Learning & Training, Recognition, Work

Sutherland Labs June 2018’s Coolest Things

I don’t usually share shout-outs and smaller mentions of my writing on this blog, but I felt like this article was especially worth sharing as there’s a lot of other good articles linked there too, alongside my Zendesk blog on icebreaker training activities.

I loved the ideas on how to shake up your to-do lists with a new formula to help you get organized.

The article around the links between language and mental health is something I find fascinating and relevant for customer experience, as we all know how much the words we speak and hear contribute to building meaning.

It’s always brilliant to hear of instances where my ideas are changing how other teams think and work, so I was really pleased to see my article drummed up some discussion!

Read Sutherland Labs June 2018 Coolest Things here.