It is good to see offices reopening in London and elsewhere, as well as the welcome reintroduction of face-to-face meetings – nothing beats a handshake with another human being.
But as we carefully move towards a degree of normality, some weird and wonderful things have been happening under the radar that are worth a mention, including new terms and even a new language; the attention economy; crypto as the new rollercoaster; NFTs (where do I begin); and who invented tooth sensors that detect salt and glucose, and tell you off when eating cake?
In the workplace, everyone is overloaded with calls and meetings, but that isn’t so new. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in an interview with Harvard Business Review, shared a great story explaining 70% of people want flexibility in their work, yet 70% are also looking for the human connection – he described this as the hybrid paradox, so this topic hasn’t settled and is likely to run for a while.
In the learning and assessment space, I describe it as the beginning of the Lego model – the unbundling of learning into modular pieces that stack together to meet the needs of the individual. I enjoyed being part of a discussion about the optimal length of a learning segment, and it could be anything from 2 to 15 minutes, formed into playlists.
Overall, it is good to be back. Lunchtime sushi on the run has never tasted so good.
