We definitely do a lot of virtual conferencing, emailing, portal sharing, VOIP-ing... We bet many of you do too. But you know what? We don't do business with virtual conference rooms, email clients, portals or VOIP windows. We do business with people. And that's why, ultimately, relationships matter the most to us.

Upside Learning will be there at the ATD TechKnowledge conference in San Jose on 24th and 25th January, so we can have the chance to catch up with you in person. Engaging learning solutions start with both sides understanding each other and being a good fit to work together. Come meet us, get to know who we are and what we're like. Then if you like what you see, we can talk about your training and performance needs and how to meet them.

Book a slot – we'll be there at booth 118, face-to-face and happy to meet you!

In the last edition of the Buzz, we promised you a deeper look into ways to becoming more intellectually engaged and critical. So here they are!

Companies which deploy VR based training programs have experienced a time savings up to 80%.

- From the folks over at ABI Research

If you're interested in learning and professional development, here's a superbly concise summary of the key differences between expert and novice knowing:

Yes, we're inundated with information. Yes, at times it seems like it's too much – more, in fact, than we feel capable of dealing with. So what? It's not like we can dodge all of these situations all of the times. So here's a pragmatic set of tips on how to cope in those moments.

There are 2 main sets of strategies we'd suggest, to serve 2 important aspects:

Let's break them down, shall we?

SETTING CONDITIONS FOR BETTER CLARITY

• Before starting a task, particularly a complex one involving many details, remind yourself why you're doing it in the first place – what is the point of the task? How does it help in the big picture? What are the outcomes you want?

• Step back every 10 minutes while performing the task and ask yourself if you kept track of what you're doing and why.

SPOTTING THE MAIN TRAPS

• Don't think of tasks in procedural terms, think in cognitive terms. What's that mean? - Do you have to populate a spreadsheet or track which customers who've defaulted on payments after 6 months? It's about never mistaking the means for the ends!

• When you're asking yourself "Why am I doing this?", evaluate how clear your response is. Did you just gabble some words or did they actually make sense to you? Either you're clear or you're not. If you really do know the difference, you don't need someone else to audit you on this.

• Sort out the details: which ones are really significant and how? Especially in complex tasks and particularly for perfectionists, productivity can get slammed if we get bogged down in trying to track all details through all stages of the task.

• Prioritise – not just what work or information you'll pick up, but your attention, time and effort as well. If something is actually important and difficult, prioritise your attention for the task by switching off all distractions and use strategies like note-taking or mapping. An already complex task will be overwhelming if you're trying to multi-task (which is even otherwise a lousy idea) and actually get to only focus partially and in interrupted bursts. If you wanted to torture someone by creating the worst conditions for the complex work, you couldn't top that! So why do it to yourself?

None of these tips seem in the abracadabra league, do they? But as with any other crisis that you manage, keeping a clear head and behaving reasonably and in informed ways helps massively. That's all the miracle you need!

And that brings us to the end of this edition of the Buzz. Do feel free to spread the goodness! – You can also follow us on: