Conference Reports: Recent CSTD and ASTD Events

As I've done in the past here at Element K Blog (see the Industry Events for many conference report postings), I wanted to provide a brief report on a couple of Learning and Development industry conferences.

First up was the annual Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) conference
, held at the Sheraton Centre Hotel, in Toronto, Canada. I had attended and spoken at the excellent CSTD Symposium held in Halifax in May, so I was very much looking forward to this larger CSTD event. And this year's event was even more intriguing, as it was both the annual conference for CSTD and for the International Federation of Training and Development Organizations (IFTDO). In my view, this two-in-one aspect made up for any decrease in attendance that otherwise might have been apparent from the poor economy and tighter travel budgets. Every session that I attended or even walked by seemed to be very well attended!

As with the smaller CSTD symposium, I can definitely recommend CSTD events. For those leaders in the L&D industry in Canada, they are a no-brainer. But they offer much that is of interest to L&D leaders from the U.S. and the rest of the world as well—after all, most issues, challenges, and opportunities in our field are universal in nature. For instance, all of the headliners—the keynote speakers and those in the "Thought Leader" series—were well-known speakers presenting on topics of common interest to our industry (Allison Rossett, Harold Stolovitch, Patti Shank, Peter Senge, and others.)

The conference's program designers also made a brilliant move in dedicating the first day of the conference (not an optional pre-conference day) to the theme of "Research to Practice." These sessions helped to highlight the latest research in the field, but did so in a way that attendees could take those insights back to their work and apply them in practical ways, thereby reducing the common dichotomy between theory and practice.

Also on this first day was a "Trading Post" event, where about 15 speakers presented and led discussion three times, in 20-minute segments, on a very specific topic. I've done this before at other conferences (e.g., several eLearning Guild events), and I always find it effective for the attendees, as they get a high dose of information on three topics of their choosing, in a very short period of time. I was one of the speakers, and I introduced about 25 learning leaders to the worldwide phenomenon of Twitter, making it relevant for them as professionals and giving them the info they need to get started. Other tables focused on instructional design, the use of gaming in learning, the future of training departments, and other great topics.

The bulk of the program was naturally composed of the breakout sessions, and again the program committee did a great job of spacing these out by general subject area (leadership development, technology focus, etc.), so that those with targeted interests almost always had a session of interest in each time slot, but didn't find themselves having to choose between competing sessions in the same area. There were several outstanding speakers in this part of the program, including folks like Gary Woodhill, Harold Jarche, Jane Bozarth, and many others. I again spoke for 90 minutes on "Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning," and the audience had great questions both during and after. It is a topic that so many in L&D are struggling with, but as the many examples I shared demonstrate, a lot of real progress is being made.

Alas, I had to leave this conference early to catch a flight to Phoenix, Arizona, where I was one of four speakers at the regional American Society for Training & Development chapter known as ASTD Valley of the Sun. Their annual conference was on Friday, October 23 and had the theme "Web 2.0: A Social Learning Conference." Being a regional conference, it was of course smaller than national or international events like the CSTD event I had just come from. But this was an innovative event in its own right, as nearly 100 percent of attendees brought their laptops, and participated in a lively "back-channel" throughout the day. People were looking up resources, sending each other links, and most of all using Twitter (with live tweets displayed on a side wall for several of the sessions). If you have never experienced this kind of event, you might think this kind of approach would be distracting or chaotic. But it really isn't; instead, it was a positively energized event with greater learning occurring.

Bill Fournet, President and CEO at The Persimmon Group, led things off with a stirring keynote presentation, and then David Wilkins of Learn.com, Christy Pettit of ODScore, and myself each gave two nearly two-hour presentations each on various aspects of Web 2.0 in a learning and development context. Again, the energetic participants did not just soak up the experience and knowledge we were sharing, but fully participated with questions and discussion; it was phenomenal. The ASTD-VOS chapter is now off and running with a better understanding of Web 2.0/social media technologies, and how they can use them both as an ASTD chapter (e.g., they now have a social networking site for the group), but more importantly how they can use technologies such as wikis, blogs, and forums in their own organizations. Congrats to all involved for taking this major step forward!
 
—  Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)

Comments

[Sylva Leduc, Leadership Strategist]

At two previous annual conferences for the Phoenix chapter of the ASTD, I was a presenter. Each year, after presentations were over, people who would say they wish we could have stayed on topics longer, rather than having to rush to the next presentation.

I can attest to the difference this year at the ASTD-VOS conference. With fewer presentations, attendees were able to go deeper and learn more.

After each presentation I captured a few words from the speakers with my FlipVideo. Those "Roving Reporter" videos reside at http://www.sageleaders.com/videos/astd-vos/

Many thanks to you, Thomas, as well as Bill, Christy and Jason.

Cheers,
Sylva Leduc
www.sageleaders.com
Twitter: windowsyl