You’ve realised that with the changes to CPD (read more here), you have to approach your learning in a different way.

You’ve spent some time reflecting on your recent experiences and made a list of areas for development … now what?

“Chalk and talk” isn’t always the most effective way of learning and doesn’t always fit in with your everyday work, so if you want to try out new methods of learning for your new personalised learning plan, where can you start?

Here are 7 ideas for you (in no particular order)-

1. MOOCs (mass open online courses) – Future Learn, Coursera and edX, for example, all provide great courses – some charge fees and some provide certification, others don’t.
2. YouTube – there are many talks online from lecturers from Universities all over the world, and many practitioners too.
3. Articles – as well as your specialist press and the legal sector, you may find online articles from Business Week, Entrepreneur and KM World, useful.
4. Online learning providers – these could be courses from Teachable, or current awareness + testing, such as that for conveyancers from The Bold Group, or webinars, such as those from CLT or a myriad of practitioners (if you are interested in learning more about marketing for your newsletters and client-facing knowledge projects, I personally like Michelle Peters and Ian Brodie, but there are loads more). Again, some providers charge fees and some offer free webinars.
5. Write an article – choose a topic on which you need to expand your knowledge and commit to writing an article, preferably for an external publisher (to ensure that you follow through on your commitment and aren’t tempted to back out). If external trade press brings you out in a cold sweat, try a guest blog post first.
6. Embed yourself in a different department to expose yourself to new ideas or arrange a secondment in a client’s office, for a better understanding of their needs.
7. Join a group – try to choose one with plenty of opportunities for conversation and questions, and a supportive atmosphere to allow you to admit to challenges and seek answers among your peers. My KN-UK group is open to all KMers in UK, with four meetings a year in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.

The important thing about undertaking any of these forms of learning, is to

• Consolidate – block out time in your diary afterwards in order to think about and consolidate what you have learned, perhaps by giving a short talk to your team, writing a short blog post or article for internal consumption, or taking or creating a short multiple choice quiz.
• Implement – try to implement any new ideas as soon as possible or discuss them with colleagues.
• Review and revisit – diarise to revisit the learning after a month or so and reflect on whether/how your new learning has improved your practice or what other areas of learning it has highlighted.

And if you need some training in law firm KM, don’t forget that I offer 2 regular open courses (Foundations in law firm KM and KM Measurement) and many others in-house.