Lex McKee Biography and Publications

Lex McKee BA (Hons), MCIPD

Presenter, Author (including e-learning materials), Producer (Audio and Video)

Founder of LearnFast World Ltd; iCademy Ltd, Lex Studios Ltd; Analogica Ltd and Metamorphosis Records Ltd.

Lex McKee has been in the business of making training entertaining since 1982. Weaving entertainment and training together, he believes in the importance of ‘Entertrainment®’ – making learning enjoyable, engaging and enduring. Naturally-entertraining-learning stimulates the intellect, the emotions and long-term memory. This means that entertraining experiences last longer and promote higher motivation, leading to more sustainable change. Entertrainment® is a sound neurological investment that simply makes sense in the serious business of thinking.  Lex says, "If you're laughing, you're learning!"

Lex has worked for well over a decade with Vanda North, founder of the former Buzan Centres Ltd. Buzan Centres championed brain-friendly learning through Tony Buzan’s techniques of Mind Mapping, Speed Reading and Mnemonic systems. As a Buzan Master Trainer, Lex was responsible for Buzan trainer-training in the UK for six years before moving to head up corporate and teacher training responsibilities. He then worked extensively with The Learning Partnership (a Community Interest Company) and the Students‘ Charity, UNIAID.  Nowadays, Lex runs his own group of companies and associations specialising in the applications of accelerated learning AND in the development of media rich learning support materials.

Alongside trainer-training, Lex specialises in three key Leadership Development areas: learning, influencing, and creative thinking – the three fields most strongly associated with sustainable success in life. He has pioneered competence-based assessment in Accelerated Training methods for The Registry of Accelerated Trainers, enabling training professionals to design and deliver learning in soft and hard skills in a faster delivery time, with longer lasting retention, and with deeper learning mastery. To demonstrate this he wrote the programme ‘Touch Type in Two Hours’ which has now become a successful software product, and ‘The Accelerated Trainer’ (Gower) - recognised as one of the most comprehensive and accessible guides to the application of Accelerated Learning for teachers, tutors and trainers.

Strategically, he is now working on the concepts of "Living Organisations®", using biological, ecological, psychological, and even theological models to propose a fresh paradigm for business vitality and longevity. (You can find out more at http://www.learnfastdirect.net/page.aspx?p=livinghome or by clicking on this hyperlink)

As a Consultant, he has worked with such household names as Barclays Capital, British Gas, British Telecom, Burmah Petroleum Fuels Ltd, Clarks International, The CIPD, Colgate-Palmolive, DHL, Dundee City Council, Elsevier Science, Fenman Publishing, Gilead Life Sciences, Hackney Council, Haden Freeman Ltd, Hill Samuel Investment Group, HSBC (development of e-Learning), IBM, J P Morgan, John Mowlem Construction, various NHS Trusts, Price Waterhouse, Rotring UK, Royal Mail and the former Safeway Stores plc. All this work has been rooted in boosting the Intellectual Capital of these organisations, helping Thinking Organisations get the most from their human resources. While much of this work is direct training, he backs up the training through personal coaching, writing, audio review materials, and through the expression of corporate concepts using Mind Mapping.

Lex runs a recording and photographic studio to support direct training with ‘accelerated’ audio-visual productions. There he composes music to support his relaxation and integration recordings as well as producing recordings with other key-note presenters. The techniques pioneered in the studio utilise a unique approach to enhancing the listener’s state-of-mind through blending layers of music, natural soundscapes, brainwave entrainment, empowering language, and binaural recording. The studio also offers a Graphic Design service for educational materials.  2007 heralded the Studios‘ expansion into professional video.  In partnership with Apexweb.co.uk and Addimage.net, the services now include full web-design and hosting.

Publications

Lex is the author of ‘ The Accelerated Trainer ‘ (Gower; ISBN 0-566-08077-X).

Described as "The World‘s Leading Evangelist for the Marriage of Soft-Skills with Software" - this is something Lex has championed through his belief that everyone on the planet should be able to sort their lives out with a Mind Map, on the back of a napkin in a restaurant... but also be able to transform their businesses through the use of Mind Mapping Software.  He was the first to coin the distinctive phrase ‘Analogue Mapping‘ for hand-drawn mind mapping, and ‘Digital Mapping‘ for software-based solutions, and he is the pioneer in the use of 'template maps' to save time organising, analysis and articulating ideas.

Lex Studios Ltd is currently the only company to effectively champion both the best of analogue and digital mapping at this level of business sophistication.

 

Other publications include:

  • 7 Ways to Upgrade Your Brain (currently in e-book format and available from this site)
  • Mind Mapping for Trainers (article published in Training Journal)
  • Speed Reading for Trainers (article published in Training Journal)
  • With the Body in Mind (article published by Fenman in ‘Train-the-Trainer‘)
  • Empowering Language (article published by Fenman in ‘Train-the-Trainer‘)
  • Entrainment (article published by Fenman in ‘Train-the-Trainer‘)
  • Psychological Types (article published by Fenman in ‘Train-the-Trainer‘)
  • Accelerated Learning modules of HSBC‘s in-house e-learning solution
  • Top Tips for Tiny Tots (contributing author and designer for the e-learning project)