Welcome Editorial readers to the April edition. This month the holidays of Easter and Anzac Day are causing problems for bureaucrats on both sides of the Tasman. In New Zealand there is debate over whether the public should be given a day in lieu since one public holiday happens to fall on the other public holiday while in Australia there is debate over whether there is a need for a day in lieu since one public holiday happens to fall on the other public holiday. I know this sounds like the same debate but I have checked with the bureaucrats and they assure me that the situation is quite different.

The debate is further complicated by the fact that one of the public holidays also falls on a weekend, which necessitates a day in lieu in both countries. That means that you get Good Friday but not Saturday, Sunday but not Easter Sunday because it’s already Sunday which means you get Easter Monday except in Australia where Easter Monday is also Anzac Day which means you get Easter Tuesday instead of Easter Sunday. Easter Monday is also Anzac Day in New Zealand but you don’t get Easter Tuesday because you already have Easter Monday and consequently, technically, miss out on Easter Sunday.

Subsequently, bureaucrats in Australia are wrestling with whether or not you should have an Easter Tuesday instead of Easter Monday when Easter Monday is already Anzac Day and therefore cannot be a replacement for Easter Sunday. In New Zealand the problem is whether or not Easter Monday can double up with Anzac Day so you have Anzac Day instead of Easter Sunday or if, in fact, they should add Easter Tuesday to the calendar.

See… completely different. Fortunately since the next time this occurs is a number of years away bureaucrats in both countries have been able to avoid making any decisions and the status quo will remain until such time as it is appropriate to renew the debate.

In the meantime on with the Editorial!

Learning Styles and Other Well Meaning Dribble

If you are in education or corporate training circles then almost certainly someone will have mentioned to you the idea of learning styles and the need to build teaching systems around the preferred learning style of the student. It sounds so logical doesn’t it? Each of us learns in different ways and therefore it is only sensible that we should be taught in a way that matches our preferred learning style.

It sounds logical but it isn’t.

The first clue that learning styles might be the latest piece of pseudoscience gobbledygook to work its way into the world of communication is that people are making money out of it. There are consultancies out there promising to measure the preferred learning styles of your people and then help you design training modules to match them. They usually cite what is called the VARK model designed by a guy called Fleming in 2001 who thinks that learning styles can be split into four basic types:

Unfortunately other people (Coffield and Martinez) have found as many as 70 different ways of getting information in or out of the brain which makes Flemings model look a little underdone. Either way the real problem here is that “preferred” learning style is measured by simply asking the subject what kind of learner they think they are. It’s the scientific equivalent of asking the fashion-challenged to look in the mirror and then decide what looks good on them. We have all seen the results of that on the street and we have all wondered exactly what it was these poor people thought they saw in the mirror. Same methodology being employed here and pretty much the same result. You are a Visual learner because you think you are; you are an Aural learner because you think you are and, like the fashion victim in the street, it is all in your head.

The reason it is all in your head is because regardless of what you think your preferred learning style is there are some subjects that are best taught in one particular way. If the subject is geography, for example, and I want to teach you the shapes of the countries then that is best done visually – end of story. If the subject is dance then we need to teach that kinetically and so on. Your preferred learning style is irrelevant!

The fact is learning styles are subject dependent, they are teacher dependent, they are temperature dependent, emotion dependent… in fact they are dependent on so many things that they just cannot be measured. It’s a good idea to recognize that we all learn in different ways for different subjects and try to vary our teaching to reflect that but the idea that we have one preferred learning style which must be matched to maximize our learning is a very bad one indeed.

Utility Companies – The Saving Grace of Telco’s

I am almost certain that the reassuring catch-cry of every Telecommunications Company in the world whenever complaints are made regarding their appalling service, misleading pricing or failing infrastructure is “Well at least we are not a Utility Company”.

When it comes to proving you can be immensely profitable while being completely useless at everything you do Utility Companies make Telecommunications Companies look like rank amateurs. Here is a case in point.

Our Utility Company (Origin Energy) furnished us with a rather bizarrely large quarterly bill that we were struggling to make sense of. Rather than pay this large bill we decided to query it and after spending 45 minutes on hold we were able to register our confusion and have someone tell us they would look into it. One month later we get a phone call from Origin Energy seeking payment on the overdue bill. We tell them that we are not paying it and are still waiting to hear the outcome of their investigation so they advise us to send an email which we duly do. Another four weeks later we get another phone call seeking payment of the bill and we go through the same process. Another two weeks later we get the next bill in the post with a $4,000 credit!

No communication, no explanation and no idea what the hell is going on but happy to receive the credit.

Now a little known secret of Utility Companies is that they actually don’t really know how to price their product. This is not a criticism – just a fact of life. Electricity is a very difficult thing to measure and cost so basically they just make numbers up and go from there. How incompetent do you have to be to get your own make-believe pricing model so spectacularly wrong?

If you haven’t done so recently check your bill – chances are your guess is as good as theirs.