to - Blogs - DPG Community2024-03-28T11:08:56Zhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/feed/tag/toImagine a World Without Emailhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/imagine-a-world-without-email2018-10-04T15:54:17.000Z2018-10-04T15:54:17.000ZAdy Howeshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/AdyHowes<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/127795039?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p><strong>Just imagine a world without email.</strong></p>
<p>For some, cold sweats might already start breaking out as they wonder how we’d survive. Others might be doing a jig as they imagine a world where they no longer must step on the treadmill that email has become.</p>
<p>How did we get here? How have we found ourselves in a position where a technology devised in the seventies is still the method of communication so many seem to rely on?</p>
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<p><strong>I dream of a world without email.</strong></p>
<p>Email has become my least preferred method of communication.  I can’t shake off the feeling that we’d all be better off without it. Don’t get me wrong, I get some lovely emails. Being community manager here at DPG many people contact me with feedback, questions and ideas. Those emails, I could receive all day long.</p>
<p>Most people I talk to though are trapped under a constant swamp of emails ping-ponging with threads, replies and follow ups with discussion that span over days, weeks or even months. Stuff just takes too long. Wouldn’t it have been quicker to just talk?</p>
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<p><strong>The statstics tell me...</strong></p>
<p>Yes. It would have been quicker. For a while now, I’ve been looking at data on my own personal email. Sad, but true! Currently, my average response time to an email is four and a half days. It’s quicker to send me a letter! To make it worse, consistently more than 95% of emails I don’t even reply to.</p>
<p>Yet on my professional emails I know that I just wouldn’t get away with that level of performance. I don’t want to let people down or ignore people. That’s not my thing. I want to be part of the conversation and there to help.</p>
<p>So instead, probably just like you, I spend hours working with email. Sifting, organising, prioritising, replying and deleting. It’s one hell of an in-tray isn’t it? A bottomless pit. Then there’s that overwhelming feeling when you return from holiday knowing another pile is waiting for you. The carefully crafted <a href="https://ooogenerator.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">out of office message</a> has done zilch to discourage people from adding another few to the pile.</p>
<p>But what about the impacts to the organisations we work for? Multiply the number of employees by the hours spent on email and you’re running into some serious cost, right? And what about communication? What sort of barrier is created when we choose to write to people rather than speak to them? That’s not healthy for interpersonal relationships, team work or collaboration is it?</p>
<p>The customer experience is often shot too. I see organisations create email address after email address after email address of different points of contact for customers to use depending on the nature of their enquiry. A whole directory of email addresses. Putting my customer hat on, is it really my job to figure out your complex communication pathways so that my enquiry gets diverted to the right desk?</p>
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<p><strong>What are the alternatives to email?</strong></p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago, I was exploring <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/1040991145948573696" target="_blank" rel="noopener">alternatives to email</a> in a conversation with my personal learning network and I got some interesting responses. Getting off the email bandwagon is something many are trying to do. Here at DPG we’re on a continued journey of digital transformation using tools like Slack and Trello to help us collaborate as an alternative to email. We make it easy for our customers with alternatives too. Our online DPG Community is a great place to connect and discuss in small study groups or as part of a wider network of almost 10,000 professionals. We also use our channels on <a href="https://twitter.com/dpgplc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/development-processes-group-plc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Linked In</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dpgplc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a> as ways to interact with our brand.</p>
<p>The video I’ve just posted in the <a href="https://community.dpgplc.co.uk/the-LD-zone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">L&D Zone</a>, ‘Outside the Inbox’, was made by Luis Suarez a few years ago. He’s a guy I’ve certainly learned a lot from when it comes to communicating in today’s modern organisations beyond email.</p>
<p>It’s well worth a watch.</p>
<p>And once you have….. imagine a world without email.</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="video-container"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gnv6K5JmpTM?rel=0" width="853" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
</div>Events to Develop Yourselfhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/events-to-develop-yourself2017-03-09T12:30:00.000Z2017-03-09T12:30:00.000ZAdy Howeshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/AdyHowes<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217201?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>As well as doing <a href="https://www.dpgplc.co.uk/" target="_blank">professional qualifications</a> there's a need to continually develop ourselves. There's webinars, conferences, hangouts, meet ups, round table discussions the list goes on. But with so much out there, how do you keep track of the key events to help you continually develop yourself.</p>
<p>That's where our new section on the DPG Community will help you. We've launched our new events section which is already building. You can access the new events page directly from the menu on the left hand side of the site. You'll also find a summary of the up and coming events towards the bottom of the home page.</p>
<p>We'll keep you updated in the weekly community email which all our members receive. If you're not signed up and receiving these, <a href="http://community.dpgplc.co.uk/main/authorization/signUp?" target="_self">sign up free today here</a>.</p>
<p>To find out what events are available to help you develop yourself, visit the <a href="http://community.dpgplc.co.uk/events-to-develop-yourself" target="_self">events page</a>. </p>
</div>Can everyone see my Tweets?https://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/can-everyone-see-my-tweets2014-02-19T09:57:27.000Z2014-02-19T09:57:27.000ZAdy Howeshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/AdyHowes<div><p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5">Can everyone see my Tweets?</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357411?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357411?profile=original"></a><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">For those new to Twitter a question often comes up as to whether Tweets are visible to everyone, or just those that follow you.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5"><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">The default setting on Twitter is that "Tweets" are publically available to anyone regardless of whether they have a Twitter account or not. Often this is of great benefit, if you are sharing information. Twitter is a great way of researching and discovering new information. There's an article here that explains <a rel="nofollow" href="http://community.dpgplc.co.uk/profiles/blogs/how-to-search-on-twitter" target="_self">How to Search on Twitter.</a> So the fact that tweets can be viewed publically is great when you are using Twitter in this way.</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5"><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">However, as an alternative, Twitter offers a "protected tweet" setting where you can "approve" who follows you, your tweets are only visible to those who you have approved to follow you and your tweets can't be re-tweeted by another user that you haven't approved. </span></span></p>
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<p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5"><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">Whether or not you choose to have your Tweets public or private is entirely up to you. Personally, I have mine set to public to allow people to view them and choose whether or not to follow me.</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5"><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">You can find a more detailed explanation of public and protected tweets on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/14016-about-public-and-protected-tweets#" target="_blank">About Public and Protected Tweets article</a>.</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5"><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">Hope this helps</span></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5"><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">Ady</span></span></p>
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<p></p></div>How to search on Twitterhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/how-to-search-on-twitter2014-02-19T09:30:00.000Z2014-02-19T09:30:00.000ZAdy Howeshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/AdyHowes<div><p><span style="color: #008000;" class="font-size-5">How do you search on Twitter?</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">When I first started with Twitter, I didn't really get it, how it could be used or how it could benefit me. Nowadays, I find it to be often a first port of call when I'm doing some research on a particular topic.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">Searching on Twitter is straight forward. On the PC website you can use the search bar at the top, on a mobile app, Twitter tends to have a magnifying glass to click on for you to search.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3">On the screen shot here I have searched for the term CIPD.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;" class="font-size-3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357414?profile=original" target="_self"><img style="width: 606px;" class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357414?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" height="320"></a></span></p>
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<p>Now have a look at the top left hand side where there are the categories everything, people, photos, videos and news. These are filters that allow you to show people that contain, in my example, the search term CIPD. It should be no surprise that CIPD themselves and Peter Cheese, CEO of CIPD appear at the top. If I click on photos, videos or news then my results will be filtered to show items that are relevant to my search term. For example just now when doing this search, I can see that one of the "hot topics" around CIPD right now is in relation to CIPD's most recently published report entitled "The End of the Pay Rise" which you can find just here: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cipd.co.uk/pressoffice/press-releases/end-pay-rise-cipd-warns-until-increase-productivity-130214.aspx?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=social" target="_blank">CIPD Report "The End of the Payrise" published 13th February 2014</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>So that's how you search on Twitter. Have a go. See who you can find (people) what current inforamtion you can find (news).</p>
<p> </p></div>How to post audio clips on to the DPG Communityhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/how-to-post-audio-clips-on-to-the-dpg-community2014-02-18T11:48:31.000Z2014-02-18T11:48:31.000ZAdy Howeshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/AdyHowes<div><p>So I've been rambling on about audio blogging and audio sharing this week. So.... </p>
<p><span style="color: #008000;"><strong><span class="font-size-5">How do you add audio to the DPG Community?</span></strong></span></p>
<p>The easiest way I've found is firstly to record the audio (interview, short explanation or whatever) on a smart phone. Then email it to yourself.</p>
<p>On a PC or laptop, access your email and then save the recording you emailed to yourself. Create a new blog on the DPG Community and give it a title and perhaps a couple of sentences to explain what the audio recording is all about.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357409?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357409?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="198" class="align-right" height="171"></a></p>
<p>Then you need to click the paper clip icon that appears next to the "Add" row of buttons</p>
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<p>In the pop up window, click the choose file button and choose the recording that you saved earlier.<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357431?profile=original" target="_self"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357431?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1357431?profile=original" width="471" class="align-right"></a></p>
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<p>And that's it really. It's as easy as that.</p>
<p>So what (and with who) can you audio blog about today? We look forward to HEARING from you!</p>
<p>(visual and kinaesthetic learners most welcome too!!)</p>
<p>Ady</p>
<p></p>
<p></p></div>HRD Level 5: Knowledge Management Assessmenthttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/hrd-level-5-knowledge-management-assessment2013-11-17T12:03:46.000Z2013-11-17T12:03:46.000ZAdy Howeshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/AdyHowes<div><p>Hi All,</p><p>I've been doing some work on my Knowledge Management Assessment for HRD Level 5. I've put below a few useful links if you are working on this. But also, could do with some help...</p><p><strong>Has anyone got, or can point me in the direction of, any useful reading on "knowledge productivity and competitive advantage"</strong> I need to understand what these mean and how they relate to the world of knowledge management. </p><p>Drop me a comment below if you know any resources where I can read more up on this.</p><p>In the meantime, some useful reading for you on the subject of Knowledge Management:</p><p></p><ul><li>Peter Senge founder and director of the Society for Organisational Learning and author of the book The Fifth Discipline (2006);</li><li>A blog on Knowledge Management (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://knowmgt.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/difference-between-tacit-and-explicit.html">http://knowmgt.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/difference-between-tacit-and-explicit.html</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cipd.co.uk/onlineinfodocuments/journals/byatoz.htm">“Diagnosing cultural barriers to knowledge management” by clicking here.</a> (Academy of Management Executive; Nov2000, Vol. 14 Issue 4, p113-127</li></ul><p></p><p>Thanks</p><p>Ady</p><p></p><p></p></div>