A look back at the past 12 months

Having decided to end 2019 with a review of the year, we looked back through news websites and social media. It didn’t look good, to be honest. Economies on the verge of collapse; countries at war; people taking to the streets in protest; violent clashes with security forces; racism and bigotry rearing their ugly heads; trade wars; fake news and brazen lies from all angles; emissions rising and wildfires burning.

Surely there must have been some good news in the past 12 months?

A year of change?

The problem is, it’s been a year of change but everything still seems to be the same.

Here in the UK, we’re still subject to political and economic uncertainty. Brexit has dominated the headlines again, yet the country is still in the same position, with scare stories coming from all sides, another new prime minister and another general election. (This is the one and only time we’ll mention the ‘B’ word, promise!)

But despite the apparent stagnancy and lack of change, businesses like ours have to keep evolving and moving on. Staying still is not an option!

Stepping out of our comfort zone

So in 2019, we boldly stepped out of our comfort zone and into the brave new world of blogging, social media, software simulations and virtual reality. In May, we launched our new-look websites, wrote the first blog post and sent our first newsletter.

We have also extended the type of learning materials that we develop, adding a catalogue of ready-to-use and easily adaptable elearning modules to our repertoire while continuing to develop ‘bespoke’ materials for clients.

Going mobile

We’re steadily moving away from full, detailed, lengthy elearning courses to shorter modules that cover one topic at a time. For example, on the topic of Food Safety, we originally offered separate modules. Then clients asked us to combine the modules into one complete course. Now, we’re looking at breaking it up again into much smaller, bite-sized learning ‘nuggets’ – it’s an approach known as ‘microlearning’.

We’re also developing mobile-friendly ‘learning aids’ – interactive versions of reminder cards – that learners can use when they need a quick reminder of a process or a series of facts. For instance, we have a new ‘Ask Ashford’ food safety series, on topics like The 14 Major Food Allergens and Hygienic Hand Washing. Each one includes a short reminder of the facts and a fun ‘against the clock’ challenge.

Plus ça change…

At the same time as all this change, in recent weeks we’ve seen an upsurge in requests for traditional, printed training materials including workbooks, board and card games and posters. We design and develop, and the clients deliver the training face-to-face.

In fact, looking back over our year, we can see that traditional learning materials and elearning are virtually equally in demand. Here are some of the materials we developed and produced:

So, despite the gloom that’s apparently all around (if the news and social media are to be believed), here at Ashford we’ve managed to keep diversifying – and smiling.

Here’s to more of the same – but different – next year! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.