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The aim is to expose shoddy and unprofessional thinking and activity amongst some trainers.

The paper uses dictionary definitions and experience to expose linguistic errors by trainers who label their courses as workshops – when they are not.

The analysis shows that trainers mis‐use the English language in order to promote their courses.

The practical implications for the buyers of learning and development activity is to beware of trainers disguising their courses as workshops.

One implication is the waste by organizations on courses that masquerade as workshops – hence reducing practical application and transfer of learning.

No‐one has written on this subject before.

The paper is aims to promote both dialogue and action around learning in organizations.

The basis of the paper is in the collective experience of the 13 authors who produced the Declaration.

The paper argues for the central importance of learning for all organizations.

The research for the paper is in the collective writings of the 13 authors.

The practical implications of the ideas promoted can be considerable. Very few organizations practise what is suggested in the paper.

The paper is of value to anyone working in organizations, not just learning and development professionals. It can be the basis for developing organizational learning strategies.

Discusses case examples from organizations which reveal a customer focus. Examples cover retail, airlines, manufacturing and service firms. Places service and quality of service firmly in the forefront of competitive advantage. Considers factors such as the importance of existing customers; the need for a clear view of the customers on whom the company wishes to focus; and methods for building customer relationships.

The book has generated a passionate dialogue-disagreement (mostly but not entirely) with the book. Dialogue-disagreement is based on challenges, disagreements and rebuttals between opponents, often belonging to different, even irreconcilable, paradigms. The goal of dialogue-disagreement is not so much to convince the opponent to change their mind but rather to critically examine and problematize the two involved paradigms: the authors’ and the reviewer’s. By taking the generated challenges and disagreements seriously, both irreconcilable paradigms can grow through their replies. Dialogue-disagreement gives the participants–opponents the gift of revealing their own paradigmatic blind spots, which are often invisible from within their paradigms. Dialogue-disagreement is exploratory and based on an agnostic relationship between frenemies, i.e. “friendly enemies.”

This is a critical book review essay of Self Managed Learning and the New Educational Paradigm (Cunningham, 2021).

The reviewer views Ian Cunningham’s Self Managed Learning educational paradigm as a hybrid of Progressive and Democratic Education, while the reviewer sees his/her Self-Education paradigm as entirely Democratic (and Dialogic). Elsewhere, the reviewer discussed and critically analyzed the Progressive Education paradigm, which generally involves channeling the student’s learning activism and subjectivity toward learning outcomes desired by an educator. It uses the educator’s manipulation of the student’s subjectivity to make them study what the educator wants them to study. In contrast, the paradigm of Democratic Education assumes that the educatee is the final authority of their own education. The educatee decides whether to study, when to study, what to study, how to study, with whom to study, where to study, for what purpose to study and so on. The educatee makes these decisions by themselves or with the help of other people at the educatee’s discretion and conditions. The reviewer charges that Ian’s Self Managed Learning paradigm is a hybrid of both paradigms, with the Progressive Education paradigm taking the lead and exploiting the Democratic Education paradigm.

The book presented a unique, innovative practice worth a critical analysis. The reviewer’s dialogue-disagreement with the book reveals a particular hybrid of Progressive and Democratic Education which is common to some innovative self-directed learning.

This is a troubled age for democracy, but the nature of that trouble and why it is a problem for democracy is an open question, not easy to answer. Widespread wishing for responsible leaders who respect democratic norms and pursue policies to benefit people and protect the vulnerable don’t help much. The issue goes well beyond library contexts, but it is important that those in libraries think through our role in democracy as well. Micro-targeting library-centric problems won’t be effective and don’t address the key issue of this volume. The author can only address the future if we recover an understanding of the present by building up an understanding of actually-existing democracy: (1) the scope must be narrowed to accomplish the task; (2) the characteristics of the retreat from democracy should be established; (3) core working assumptions and values – what libraries are about in this context – must be established; (4) actually-existing democracy should then be characterized; (5) the role of libraries in actually-existing democracy is then explored; (6) the source and character of the threat that is driving the retreat from democracy and cutting away at the core of library assumptions and values is analyzed; (7) the chapter concludes by forming a basis of supporting libraries by unpacking their contribution to building and rebuilding democratic culture: libraries are simultaneously less and more important than is understood.