LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT professionals are in the business ofinfluencing people. I suppose you could argue that everyone is in thatbusiness. But LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT professionals are likely to have lessimpact if they don't learn to improve their capacity to influence. This can beexpressed in a large group setting, small group setting, one-to-one or evenremotely.

TheArmed Forces fascinate me. Aside from the amazing job they do in protecting thecountry, as an organisation they fascinate me. One aspect of what they do thatcaptures me, is that here we have an organisation that has to continually learnabout a myriad of topics in order to be on top of their game at all times. Thisis quite simply outstanding.

Fromespionage, to front line strategy, to firing of weapons, to defence and attackstrategies, to physical training, and more. What is amazing about all this, isthat these topics aren't just nice to haves. They are integral to their verysurvival. If they don't understand these topics, they won't be able to do thejob they do, or, in some circumstances, survive. There's no two ways about it.

Recently, the spoof news channel NewsBiscuit featured a story on a 20-year-old girl who had to abandon herattempt to reach the South Pole after becoming cut off from social networkingsites for 72 hours.

The experience was described as"chilling", with particular challenges including the inability to seeher smart phone screen due to the Arctic sun and having to pitch her tent threetimes an hour in order to see if she had been tweeted by Stephen Fry!