Instead of hopping on planes or trains most days of the week, I haven’t moved from my home office since coming back from skiing in mid-March. But I’ve still trained hundreds of people. This made me smile, and sums up my thoughts!

I’ve just bought a book that will keep me busy for a while!  I’ve wanted Kenneth Adams’s book for ages but it wasn’t available in the UK until now.  It’s the most comprehensive text on contract drafting that I know of, and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in!

It’s been a rollercoaster few weeks, and we’re not through it yet. Interesting to see how my clients are reacting. At the start some were cancelling sessions, especially international ones. Now, more and more are realising the need to keep developing and challenging their people, especially while they’re isolated at home.
Ten days ago I’d done only one webinar in my life. I’ve now delivered six full seminars (1-2 hours) and many shorter coaching slots by Zoom, WebEx, BlueJeans, Lync, Skype, MS Teams, Loop-up and others! What a baptism of fire!   I’m also training people every day on how to use Zoom (including some of my competitors).  We need to pool our resources at times like these.

I write this sitting in my home office where I’ve been all week.  On the first morning I was full of anxiety because I’d had nothing but cancellations of training sessions, first abroad and then also in the UK. But it’s amazing what can come out of adversity.
On Monday I signed up to Zoom and began thinking about remote training.
On Tuesday I delivered my first training session by Zoom, pushed to do it by the client. It was interactive and lively, with twelve delegates, and the feedback was great!
On Wednesday a good client offered to partner with me to develop some e-learning drafting training. This has given me the momentum to get going with something I’ve wanted to do for ages.
Today I’ve had Zoom calls with eight different clients and contacts – it’s just nice to see a friendly face when you’re otherwise working alone. Oh, and I’ve done an hour’s one-to-one coaching with someone I was already working with.
Tomorrow I have three back-to-back coaching sessions with lawyers from a Portuguese law firm. I’ve already trained them face to face, so it will be easy.
I’m wondering how I ever had time to travel all over the world to deliver live training! But there’s room for both in the world – I don’t think the remote training will ever disappear.
I’m now working on offering some public webinars – more on this soon. If you’d like to talk to me about remote training or coaching for your people, I’d love to hear from you!

Three things happened recently:
– I received a highly appropriate birthday card from my sister: great example of the “grocer’s apostrophe”.
– I read a new (to me) a book called “Grammar snobs are great big meanies” by June Casagrande. Such a great title, and a really good read. I learnt plenty about grammar in the US.
– I worked one to one with a lawyer this week to brush up his grammar. It’s amazing how many highly intelligent and accomplished professionals lack confidence in their grammar and punctuation. A whole generation of us missed out on proper grammar teaching at school unless we studied another language. But it’s never too late!