ASTD2014 Content, Community and Global Perspectives: Getting the most out of your conference

Posted byDan Steer 1 Comment on ASTD2014 Content, Community and Global Perspectives: Getting the most out of your conference

Washington, we are go for learning!

Wei Wang, ASTD’s Director of International Relations, is kicking off the 69th ASTD International Conference and Exposition. The room is full of delegates from around the world. Some have travelled over 25 hours to get their yearly fix of content, networking and learning inspiration. I’m sitting one row down from Patricia Bal and her colleague of the Belgian Federal Government and I suspect my friend Kristof of Stimulearning may be in the room.

 

20140504-102148.jpg

 

With speakers from 28 countries, there are 250 sessions in 9 tracks over 4 days. Which means choices, choices, choices. As I said in my 2nd Daily DC Weather Report this morning, making those choices is a little like committing to a marriage: Are you going to get what you want? Will it live up to expectations? Tough choices!

 

Personally, I’ve decided to take it a little easy this year and see what comes. My mind as open as it can possibly be after a transatlantic flight, I bumped into fellow speaker, Professional Coach and CPLP certified Master Trainer Marsa C Myers, who I already met 2 years ago in Denver. We talked about the importance of open-mindedness and this got me thinking about how we choose what to follow. On one hand, we look for something new and inspiring. But on the other hand, having only session titles and speaker names to go on, it’s difficult not to gravitate towards things that already mean something to you. Perhaps things you already know. The old Citroen Xsara Picasso effect again…

 

But have no fear! With the Twitter-hashtag-feed already in full swing, you can be sure to find info from all the sessions as they happen. Just search #ASTD2014. Or you can find recordings of some sessions. And if that’s not good enough for you, check out “King of the BackChannel” LnDDave‘s awesome curated page of conference posts and resources.

 

Me? I’ll be tweeting, live-blogging and interviewing people as much as humanly possible. Today, I will follow the session on the “NeuroScience of Learning” with Josh Davis to see how we learn, the role of memory and how to make things stick. Then I’ll follow Ger Driessen from the Netherlands talking about “Big Data for Learning and Performance Support”. And I’ll finish my day of sessions with Anders Gronstedt‘s session on “Transmedia Storytelling”.

 

Turn in soon for a content-full update…

 

Thanks for reading!
D

 

Published by Dan Steer

For the last 17 years, I have been helping businesses and individuals to achieve their goals through delivery of tailor-made learning and development initiatives. Most of the time, I deliver training, coach individuals, facilitate brainstorming sessions, round-table meetings and workshops. As a consultant, I help my clients to promote and profit from the infinite learning opportunities within and without their own organisation, drawing on my L+D management experience, strategic approach and creativity, As a speaker, I inspire through story, humour and pertinent little bits of theory. I believe that the world would be a better place if people were happily working on their mission with competence and alignment to personal values. As a freelance worker since 2008, I have helped more than 11000 individuals to improve their presentation, communication, commercial, leadership and negotiation skills. I confront people with their own behaviour and convictions, facilitating and giving pertinent feedback and clear ideas on where to continue good work and improve. I seek to satisfy my clients with creative and to-the-point solutions… …and I make music, but no-one pays me much for it yet :-) First single here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ShlY95X4E

Join the Conversation

1 Comment

  1. Pingback: ASTD2014 summary: Remember the brain, revamp training and sharpen the saw | dansteer

Leave a comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: