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Drawing on two pieces of research contrasting employee and employer perspectives of organizational learning, Kay Baldwin‐Evans, director of research at online learning provider SkillSoft, outlines the key findings and suggests that, to really make a difference HR professionals need to move out of their comfort zones. Charles Jennings, global head of learning at Reuters, discusses his organization’s forward‐thinking approach to learning and development.

The purpose of this article is to provide an interview with Charles Jennings.

The interview is conducted by an independent interviewer.

Charles Jennings is the director of Duntroon Associates, a leading learning and performance consultancy practice focused on helping organizations build their ability to deliver maximum business benefit from their workforce. He is also a principal of The Internet Time Alliance, a think‐tank of leading learning and business performance practitioners helping organizations exploit emerging practice and informal and social learning to “work smarter”. From 2001 until the end of 2008 he was the chief learning officer for Reuters and Thomson Reuters.

Charles Jennings explores the concept of governance in learning and development and how learning and development professionals need to become involved with business strategy.

The paper reveals that learning and development professionals need to develop core consultancy skills in order to communicate and deal effectively with key stakeholders and thus help define company strategies.

The paper aims to highlight how the global head of learning at Thomson Reuters uses mind maps to keep track of the different threads and aspects of training throughout the worldwide, 50,000‐employee company.

The paper explains how mind maps work and describes how computer software can improve their efficiency.

The paper details the way in which software can help in searching for the most relevant or up‐to‐date file, since all relevant documents, presentations, pictures and so on can be attached to the map. It shows that the maps themselves can be exported to programs such as Microsoft Office, PowerPoint or Project, and that the manager, or an individual team member, can break down the big picture by selecting filters – for example, to look at just one person's tasks and deadlines or to pick up on the next set of priorities.

The paper describes how Thomson Reuters is creating a one‐stop shop for all the rules and structures used for buying and selling financial instruments in different countries, where people can check the rules, find what rules might apply to new products by reference to similar products or cross‐reference the rules in different jurisdictions.

The paper provides an example of training and development in a very topical sector.

Technology development over the past 20 years has radically increased the options we have in developing skills. Today's “new frontier” requires fresh approaches to developing agile minds and workforce capability. Experiential learning, an age‐old approach refreshed by recent technology developments, provides a key element in this new approach. A new understanding of experiential learning is essential if we are to develop new, efficient and effective learning paradigms.

This article explores the latest thinking and practice of twenty‐first century experiential learning and is based on work carried out over the past two years and presented at a private event in London in October 2009.

The key finding is that most of our learning results from the experiences we have, from practice, from the opportunity to interact with others, and from taking time to reflect on these activities. In light of this, experiential learning and an “unknowingly prepared” mindset are the two keys to unlocking workforce capability which is about action rather than information. The adage “knowledge is power” has been replaced by “access is power”. Today's technology, particularly Web 2.0 and social media, provide the oil to this powerful new engine.

There are several practical implications. Approaches to individual and organizational learning need to change. In the new world, learning is part of work and work needs to be seen as a set of learning experiences.

This paper offers a fresh perspective to how we learn. Companies that move to embed experiential learning approaches will be better‐placed to build and maintain workforce excellence and innovation.

Mass‐observation as a word was first used (without the hyphen) in the New Statesman and Nation at the beginning of 1937 when we published letters about this idea; and from the beginning we really meant what we said. It is worth having a look at the word itself, because its meaning has altered somewhat over the years. By ‘Observation’, we meant, of course, observing; and by observing, inferentially, we meant primarily observing by eye, looking at situations—though also by nose, ear, touch, using all of one's senses in fact. We did not mean, in the first place, simply asking people questions. We wanted to observe what they did, not what they said they did. In those days, any attempt to study society as it really was in England was certainly pioneering, in a way that it is difficult to remember now. The Gallup Poll had just started and was treated with a good deal of caution, as is the case again at the moment! The whole idea was novel in those days. But what captured people's interest in our case was the idea of observing. I have not changed my ideas about this, alas, though I have changed many of my other ideas in the last third of a century.

The purpose of the paper is to show that most organisations invest 80 percent of their training budgets in formal learning, while 90 percent of learning takes place through on the job training or informal learning. The paper shows case studies where organisations are redressing this imbalance.

The paper draws on expertise from two organisations, Reuters and Liverpool Victoria, which have implemented informal learning processes. This is also complemented by the views of the author, an expert in creating individual learning strategies for private and public‐sector clients.

The paper finds how informal learning through appropriate IT support can deliver learning to an organisation and its employees in a new, effective way. The paper shows how to support employees, adapt to change, create convenience and work with the “digital onslaught”, rather than against it.

The paper draws on information from Reuters, an article in The Age by Graeme Philipson, as well as a case study from New Wave Learning about Liverpool Victoria's experience of training 900 call centre employees. It provides UK, US and Australian experiences.

This paper is a very useful source for training professionals, showing how to help employees understand and learn new business critical information, at the time they need it.

The paper provides information, examples and advice, bringing together three prime sources of information, to bring valuable change to organisations and help make training a priority.

THE FUNCTION OF THE REFERENCE LIBRARIAN is to conduct requests for knowledge to known or to possible sources. He can sometimes do this by turning with arm‐length familiarity to a bay full of familiar friends —B.N.B., Besterman, Walford, Britannica, Willings ‐ and an increasing number and variety of bibliographical aids to specialized fields in current literature, but a request for wide, intensive and retrospective book coverage of a subject can set him dancing for a whole afternoon.

Great moves are afoot to ensure that the nation receives its food and milk in a hygienic condition. The first of these, affecting milk, were the new Milk and Dairy Regulations which put into effect from October 1 last the provisions of the Food and Drugs (Milk and Dairies) Act, 1944 (Appointed Day) Order, 1949, and the Milk (Special Designations) Act, 1949. Next the focus was on food, with the issue to local authorities by the Ministry of Food of model by‐laws to ensure cleanliness in the handling, wrapping, and delivery of food. Now, to complete the trio, we have an authoritative report by the joint committee of the British Medical Association and the National Veterinary Medical Association—a new co‐operation between doctors and veterinarians—on the production, distribution, and control of milk supplies. During its discussions the committee had three main principles in mind :—