After hearing good things about the Scottish Business Network (SBN) from a few of our partners, it was about time I attended one of their events and experienced it for myself. 

The highlight for me was a 60-second pitch delivered by Paul Duffy of Conveya. Conveya is a Glasgow-based software development company which simplifies the employee learning journey, ensuring that organisations and individuals can work together to maximise professional development opportunities.  

Conveya sparked my interest because it is a business that balances profit and purpose. At The Melting Pot, we firmly believe the two are not mutually exclusive. We actively seek to bridge the gap between sectors and support an entrepreneurial ecosystem that does good for people and the planet. 

I was lucky to be sitting next to Paul, so I got to find out how he really felt about standing up in front of that audience:  

Paul: “It was my first real attempt at making an impact when networking. Pitching on the stage was a conflicting feeling of excitement and nervousness. I’m confident when speaking about Conveya but that doesn’t mean that I like to have a spotlight and 100 people looking at me! If I could do it again, I’d do it better, but at the end of the day I had lots of people coming up to me afterwards (including The Melting Pot!). The connections I’ve made from that one pitch could help take our business to the next level.” 

Paul’s pitch sought to convince companies to refine the way they track professional development training programmes. He explained:  

“The businesses we speak to invest heavily in training, but the truth is they have little way of knowing how it’s going… whether it is working… who in the team is doing well, and who needs help in real time?  

Our Digital Logbooks are all about having better visibility over the investment made into internal training programmes. They bring real time visibility on how employees (our learners) are tracking. You don’t get that that when a learner does an online course or goes to a college for a day per month.”  

Let’s think about the learners for a moment. What role does the logbook play in self-reflection and mindful professional development?  

“I see Learning and Development as having two parts. The ‘Learning’ is the course you attend, the online learning you do on an LMS, the workshop etc. The ‘Development’ is the practicing of the skills you have been taught. The doing part. It’s the doing part that our Digital Logbooks focus on and that’s the part that matters.

The doing is 100% controlled by the individual, so giving them the tools that encourage practice and application of learning can have a positive business and personal impact. You are effectively asking the individuals to think about what they are doing and how they are doing it after they have learned the skills. That’s the sort of self-reflection that allows people to develop.” 

To me, it feels like tech companies like Conveya are on the cusp of scaling where and with whom they work, as well as the social impact they achieve in reaching more learners. Paul did too:  

“We’ve achieved what we have on tight budgets, and we’ve been learning on the go. We have the ‘scars’ of experience in a start-up and we have learned from them.  You need that to truly succeed…unless you are very lucky! Those learnings have allowed us to improve our tech for the end users. We didn’t have all those elements together before, so that is what makes me excited for the future of Conveya.” 

Hearing about Conveya excited me too. It’s great to know there are other companies out there, working in a similar space as our Consultancy. Companies supporting people to be the best version of themselves at work. Companies who care about creating an authentic, effective learning and development culture for their employees. Companies who deliver social impact as well as boosting productivity. 

If something in this blog has resonated with you and you have a people or productivity challenge to tackle at your workplace, I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me at [email protected] 

And if you’re keen to hear from Paul, either to discuss talent development needs, or to connect with other founders, he’s up for that too.