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Welcome to Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue
Greetings!
First of all thank you to all those who gave feedback on our new look e-newsletter. We're delighted to hear that some of you are going to investigate the presentation style of Pecha Kucha!
If you missed the story in May's e-newsletter and would like a copy, please get in touch and I'd be delighted to send it to you. Meanwhile I hope you'll find this to be a positive addition to your inbox once more.
Kind regards
Mike Glaire
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What the Prezi?
After last month's rant on the creative Pecha Kucha style of presentation, it seems that Prezi is also causing a stir, and this time at the very heart of the training world. Do you think the reality matches the acclaim?
Featured in June's Training Journal, Prezi has also blasted in to rank 24th in the Centre for Learning and Performing Technologies' Top 100 Tools for 2009. Will it develop a cult following or drop into a black hole once the initial excitement is out of the way? Please email to give us your views. More...
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Behaviour and Competitive Advantage
If, as People Management (the journal of the CIPD) suggests, getting your talent mix right and getting the most from your staff are crucial to weathering the economic storms, how does this impact on your training plans?
How much difference would it make if the behaviour, values and personality of your current and prospective employees were a better fit for your organisation? With cost-effective, online tools in the marketplace to test these factors, is there a valid argument for channelling some of your training budget in this direction? Or finding the extra budget elsewhere? More...
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What the Prezi?
After last month's rant on the creative Pecha Kucha style of presentation, it seems that Prezi is also causing a stir, and this time at the very heart of the training world. Do you think the reality matches the acclaim?
Featured in June's Training Journal, Prezi has also blasted in to rank 24th in the Centre for Learning and Performing Technologies' Top 100 Tools for 2009. Will it develop a cult following or drop into a black hole once the initial excitement is out of the way? Please email to give us your views.
What is it? Prezi is a new online presentation software product that offers a drastically different approach. Different of course to Powerpoint, which incidentally is sitting in 10th place with CLPT's Top 100 at the time of writing.
This is something you'll really have to see with your own eyes as no description could really get across the magnitude of difference between the two. As an attempt though, Prezi enables you to present in a non-linear, dynamic way.
Instead of the traditional slide show, you create your entire presentation on just one slide, using any amount, size and orientation of images, text, audio, video and PDF files. This "canvas" layout deters you from using too much text and helps to create that "wow" factor that many would claim Powerpoint lost many years ago.
Friend or foe to the trainer? Once you've created your masterpiece, you then set the pathway through your one slide, selecting the order in which you wish your audience to see different pieces of data or individual words. What makes Prezi much more compelling is the way in which you can zoom in on any one image or piece of text and then zoom out again to show how it relates and fits together.
It's all very creative and cannot fail to capture the attention of the audience. Is it the right sort of attention though, or does the medium get in the way of the message? Does this style of presentation hold great potential for the training industry or is it better left in the educational world where currently it seems to be going down a storm?
Training Zone's Jon Wilcox claims it's an exciting trend to follow and speaking in Training Journal, training and development specialist Garry Platt recommends Prezi as an effective and powerful alternative to PowerPoint.
We'd love to hear what you have to say, so please email to tell us what you think.
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 Behaviour and Competitive Advantage
If, as People Management (the journal of the CIPD) suggests, getting your talent mix right and getting the most from your staff are crucial to weathering the economic storms, how does this impact on your training plans?
How much difference would it make if the behaviour, values and personality of your current and prospective employees were a better fit for your organisation? With cost-effective, online tools in the marketplace to test these factors, is there a valid argument for channelling some of your training budget in this direction? Or finding the extra budget elsewhere?
Recruitment and selection With a 26 year HR career at the coalface, leading behavioural analyst Charlie Davidson comments that, despite evidence to the contrary, most firms still hire based on skills and knowledge and then fire due to attitude and behaviour! On that basis, the right selection tool would dramatically improve the fit of anyone you take on, and could also vastly reduce your costs for weeding out the unsuitable candidates.
Many of us are familiar with tools that indicate how a person is likely to behave, based on the DISC model of Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. And many of us have also come across different tools that measure personality.
There are tools available today, however, that combine the measurement of behaviour, personality, values and emotional intelligence all in one ... giving you the ability to hire based on attitude and behaviour, as well as skills and knowledge. This helps to secure the right talent mix upfront and eliminates costly recruitment mistakes down the road.
Redundancy The CIPD cites research from 2008 in which 1/3 of British workers said they felt unable to achieve their full potential in their current roles, whilst employers suggested that 20% of their staff would be better suited to different roles in the company. And that was before the recession really hit!
If you have downsized, or are considering it, your remaining employees will have to work even more closely and effectively together. This can be made more difficult by the effects of "survivor syndrome" - the physical and psychological impact of redundancies on the remaining staff.
Would it help to have an in-depth knowledge of the strengths and limitations of each remaining employee so that you can redeploy them into areas where they will perform at their best and be more efficient?
Further applications Having an understanding of the behavioural style of individuals can be very powerful in all manner of other scenarios, not least of which is helping trainers modify their approach to suit your delegates!
For more information on behaviour tools, click here
For more information on combination tools, click here |
 Clans and Cabers come to Edinburgh
Summer in Edinburgh wouldn't be summer
without the Edinburgh Festival. This summer, however, Edinburgh is also
hosting The Gathering 2009, the greatest international Clan Gathering
ever held in Scotland.
Come to Edinburgh on 25th and
26th July and you'll enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime spectacular,
bringing together thousands of people from all over the world to
celebrate Scotland's rich history and cultural traditions. And if
you've always wanted to see those mystical Scottish sports of tossing
the caber or putting the stone, now is your greatest opportunity!
Something for everyone Set
in the majestic Holyrood Park, you'll be able to watch traditional
Scotttish activities and enjoy the best of contemporary Scotland too.
Attractions will include Highland dancing, the Nairn's Oatcake hill
race, arts and crafts and A Flavour of Scotland, giving you the
opportunity to taste and savour the finest local food and drink,
including of course, our greatest export ... whisky.
Some of the
strongest men in the world will be battling each other to win the
Deuchars World Highland Games Heavy Events Championship.
And as
you would expect, Scotland's signature instrument, the bagpipes, will
feature strongly, played by the best bands and the leading individual
pipers in the world. Indeed if the bagpipes aren't enough for you, come
along to hear the distinctive sounds of other traditional instruments
like the clasarch and Bodhram.
Saturday night The
centrepiece of the weekend will be an unprecedented Clan Parade on the
evening of 25 July, when up to 8,000 people and pipe bands will march
along the historic Royal Mile to the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle.
There you can watch a spell-binding Historic Pageant telling the
dramatic story of Scotland's history in a specially-written theatrical
show with narrative, dance, music and spectacular lighting and
audio-visual effects.
Who are these Scottish Clans? For
any novices out there, the origins of the Scottish clans stretch back
beyond the Roman invasion of Britain almost 2000 years ago. Long before
then, they evolved among Scotland's indigenous Pictish and Celtic
inhabitants, from whose ancient gaelic language comes the word clan,
meaning family or children. Today, there are over 500 clan and family
associations registered around the world, who gather regularly to
celebrate their Scottish heritage.
The Gathering 2009 |
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Clans and Cabers come to Edinburgh

Summer in Edinburgh wouldn't be summer without the Edinburgh Festival. This summer, however, Edinburgh is also hosting The Gathering 2009, the greatest international Clan Gathering ever held in Scotland.
Come to Edinburgh on 25th and 26th July and you'll enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime spectacular, bringing together thousands of people from all over the world to celebrate Scotland's rich history and cultural traditions. And if you've always wanted to see those mystical Scottish sports of tossing the caber or putting the stone, now is your greatest opportunity!
More...
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Mike Glaire
Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue
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Complimentary Refreshments
... All day long
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For the coffee lovers out there, you know how a decent coffee can make or break your day, so we're very grateful to those of you who helped to choose our bottomless Columbian Fairtrade; you said the taste hits all the right buttons! Of course there's decaf if you'd rather leave out the caffeine.
Then again, if coffee's not your thing, you could choose from a selection of up to 28 traditional, decaf, fruit, green and organic teas - quite literally something for everyone! And have you tried adding honey to a fruit tea?
Or what about a hot chocolate? Or perhaps you'd prefer a cold drink, in which case you could have orange or apple juice, or milk, or a cordial.
If you appreciate a snack, you may fancy something healthy like fruit ... or something rather more naughty like a selection of biscuits, cakes, or chocolate bars!
Finally, don't forget that you need to concentrate on the task at hand, so you may wish to help yourself to a few of our mint humbugs or boiled fruit sweets.
Oops, nearly forgot the chilled spring water! Don't worry, that's bottomless too!
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Offer Expires: Whenever you tell us it's a bad idea!
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