Hello everyone!

My name is Helen Blunden or you may find me on Twitter as @activatelearn. Many years ago, I created that name because I’m a curious learner, a passionate explorer, a builder of networks and communities.  This has allowed me to connect dots in some weird and wonderful ways that have brought me amazing opportunities and inspiring people in my life whom I would never have otherwise met.

My unique super power is that I practice what I preach.  I make time for learning every day.  I have seen its personal value and mental wellbeing to me and how it’s helped not only in my personal life but in my professional life too.  To me - personal and professional meld. There is no boundary.

Why? Because learning is as necessary as breathing.  If you’re not making time for yourself to learn something new, you’re denying yourself an opportunity to grow and develop as a person.

You owe it to yourself and your family members to make time for YOU.

To seek out activities, experiences, networks and opportunities to have the REAL you emerge.  You owe it to yourself now.

Who am I?

In my day job,  I’m a Community Manager for Adopt & Embrace where we help teams better collaborate with Office 365.  I manage an online community of IT, Change, and Business people who are helping their organisations with digital transformations using Microsoft365.  I co-authored a book we wrote called Microsoft Teams: A Manager’s Guide to Communication, Collaboration and Coordination within Microsoft Teams. As you can understand, these are very busy times for us as we help organisations roll out Microsoft Teams across their (now) distributed workforce.

I have over 24 years of experience in learning and development with a speciality in collaborative learning through the use of social networks and tools for professional development.  However, my real passion is helping people to have courage and inspiration to become continual and lifelong learners.

In 2016, I was honoured to receive the Jay Cross Memorial Award for positive contribution towards informal learning.

At a time like we are in now, I wonder what Jay would have made of all this.  Something tells me that he’s probably saying that it’s about time for “Real Learning”.

Over to you. Show us what you’ve got!

Contact:

I blog at: www.activatelearning.com.au

I tweet as: @activatelearn

I am serious here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/helenblunden

My online video album of my crazy learning experiments: www.youtube.com/c/HelenBlundenactivatelearning