The CLTC-C team from SKYLIGHT at Languages and Business 2008
The first day of Sprachen und Beruf, or Languages and Business conference was as successful and exciting as it invariably is every year.
Languages and Business is, without a doubt, the definitive conference for language and intercultural communications in business contexts. The event features the very latest in learning technologies, methodologies and business language products, all of which are showcased by experts in their fields. The interactive demonstrations, the spectrum and quality of topics presented and the excellent networking opportunities to connect with the best in the branch make this conference an absolute ‘must’ for professionals who want to stay ahead of issues in international HR development, business communications, business language publishing, teaching technologies and quality standards for business language learning. The only drawback to the conference is deciding who to talk to and which workshop, presentation or demonstration to attend during an intense three days. U.S. English Services has participated in every Languages and Business conference since its inception; each year, we can hardly wait to attend the next one.
I really have been having a great time at the conference so far reconnecting with some fascinating people in the business English learning/ blended learning community. The event is like a who’s who of the international Business English world. Let me make a list of the people (in no particular order) I have talked to so far to give you an idea of the calibre of the attendees and presenters. Keep in mind that I was not on a hunt, so to speak; the atmosphere of the conference is really just naturally conducive to connecting with well, communications specialists! :
- Meg Engelmann and Ian McMaster of Business Spotlight;
- Christal Schneider, ICC Europe;
- Tim Phillips, Timo Sartoris, Ben Zimmermann, Iris Wangermann and Anne Sass of SKYLIGHT GmbH;
- Heike Phillip LANCELOT School;
- Barbara Heidinger of Bosch;
- Gabriele Eilert-Ebke of Henkel KGaA;
- Dr. Isable Schneider, Hartmuth Brill, Christoph Graupner-Dietrich of Cornelsen Corporate solutions;
- Sabine Schnorr and Ralf Jedermann of Auralog;
- Gabriella Hirthe of ISD;
- Genevieve Besser of Besser English
- Shelly Steinhorst od Dive in Languages
- Stefan Gee of Gee language Services
- Rebecca Sprengel of International Communication
… and this is all in one day!
At the conference, I also had the opportunity to speak at some length with Barbara Heidinger of Bosch and with Gabriele Eilert-Ebke of Henkel KGaA. These two are familiar faces at the event and have been untiring pioneers in the promotion of more effective and higher quality language teaching in the business context. As a natural extension of this drive, both have supported blended learning in corporate learning field even before the term ever existed. These two really understand the relationship between language and professional and business development with such clarity and depth that talking to them is truly as inspiring as it is enjoyable.
I met face-to-face with my business associate, co-mentor and head of the Lancelot project, Heike Philip. This is a little unusual because we are both so used to meeting virtually in Adobe connect, Webtrain and a variety of other web conferencing tools – or even Second Life. It is a little strange somehow – but always a distinct pleasure – to actually meet in person. Heike presented a workshop on second life and, although some participants didn’t realise it, I was talking to them f2f while a camtasia recording of my avatar was flying around on the screen in front of them at the same time. It was a little eerie. These 3D worlds are sometimes like tromploi paintings of theatre plays within theatre plays in parallel universes; I often wonder how are we going to keep track of all of the virtual levels of reality? It can be a little frightening at times and I know it can be confusing and disorienting to newbies.
Let me give one brief example of what I mean when I mentioned levels of virtual reality: Last weekend we ran a (Lancelot) train-the-trainer session in Second Life with international participants from as far away as Japan, China, Finland, Italy, the USA and Bulgaria. Some participants did not have the computing power to run Second Life properly, so Heike patched them into the Second Life session via the adobe connect virtual classroom by screencasting a Second Life window. So, if you can follow,
- in one browser window I was flying around and talking in second life to the 10 participants
- in another browser window I was running the Adobe connect virtual room where we were screencasting the Second Life window (which was actually the perspective from Heike’s second life avatar) talking and text chatting with other members and
- simultaneously skyping with the other participants in the session who were having audio trouble with Second Life.
It is a good thing that I unplugged the phone before the session and that I have two big flat screens aligned to give me a panoramic workspace. This session was an incredible experience and adds a new dimension to the concept of multi tasking.
More on Sprachen und Beruf later….