Going Global

Next week I’m going to be out of the office quite a bit as there’s the BUILA AGM on Monday, the Education UK Partnership Conference (EdUKP) on Tuesday and Wednesday and Going Global on Thursday and Friday. They are events I try and go to every other year or so just to catch up with old friends more than anything else.

In truth these upcoming events partly motivated me into starting this blog. I’m hoping to try and get colleagues of mine to share ideas of what we learn and try and capture as much as possible.

Why am I doing this? Well this post by Brad Ward struck a chord. I’m not expecting much online interaction given who the audience are but we’ll see how it goes.

I already know quite a few of the UK crowd and a handful of the overseas visitors but I thought it was worth mentioning these conferences a few days before they started in case anyone is like me and any of the key phrases set as an RSS / other types of alerts and is interested in sharing their learnings online.

I have to say was very impressed with the Going Global conference registration system (https://going-global3.marcom-education.com/) less so with the Education UK one (http://eukpconference08.marcom-education.com/). It seems different settings are being used so the Going Global registration system allows me to download my personal agenda to Outlook (and hence my iPhone), whilst the EducationUK one doesn’t – strange.

I’ve already begun to get a few emails from people going to Going Global – most are from agents but there’s the odd one or two that I’m actually interested in. One was from Michelle Caers about http://learnhub.com. It’s not a site I’d come across before but it could well be worth a bit of exploration as their stats (both supplied by Michelle and from Alexa) aren’t as bad as some of the sites that come my way.

Anyway the sessions I’ll be going to for the Education UK Conference will be:

• The Global economic review. Robin Bew, The Economist Intelligence Unit
• Transnational education
• Harnessing new technologies. Tom Savigar, The Future Laboratory
• Making scholarships work
• Brand and Identity Management – Lessons from the private sector. BJ Cunningham, entrepreneur and council member of Business Superbrands

I’ve also got individual appointments with BC staff from Singapore, Moscow, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo and Hong Kong, although I might well swap some of these.

Whilst for Going Global the sessions are:

• Opening Plenary – Rt Hon. Lord Neil Kinnock, Rt. Hon. John Denham MP Plenary Theatre
• Middle East and North Africa research: report on trends and developments – Daniel J. Guhr, Ruth Moir
• Debating agents’ secrets and new American Revolution: results from the world’s largest study of agents – Markus Badde, Mitch Leventhal
• Capitalising on China’s digital culture explosion – Andrew Disbury, Nick Jones, Sam Flemming, Zhong Weihe
• Developing partnerships with Nigerian universities – Albert Alos, Julius Okojie
• Global talent wars – George Yip
• International education partnership working at its best
• The global credit crunch: boom or bust for international education? – David Watson, Linda Yueh, Peter Engardio, Robin Bew Plenary Theatre
• Going Global: The Dimbelby Debate – Charles Leadbetter, Deng Yaping, Martin Davidson
• Support for international staff in UK institutions – Heather Timm
• Closing plenary: Leading the learning revolution – Martin Davidson, Richard Hames Plenary Theatre

There’s also some fascinating poster sessions at Going Global that I want to try and get to see as well.