From 17 to 19 November 2009 will take place one of the most important conferences devoted to trends and innovation in corporate learning.
The theme of this free conference is Convergence in Workplace Learning. The aim is to bring together people who look at different aspects of learning and knowledge work to understand better what's going on in those areas and how we should be thinking about this holistically. This year's presenters include: Tony O'Driscoll, Charles Jennings, Laura Overton, Jane Hart, Judy Brown, Clark Quinn, Janet Clarey and many others.
Tony: The LearnTrends site itself started the second year that we ran the LearnTrends conference. We started the site so that there would be an easier place to have discussions around the event. Since then LearnTrends has grown into a community that has more than just an annual event and as such the community has grown to be a richer place for discussions that are outside of the event.
Harold: This is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but why did you think we needed "yet another social networking site"?
Tony: Frankly, I don't think any of us want "yet another social networking site". In fact, there's an acronym for it: YASN. But while we probably could have limped along with how Facebook does things, it really wasn't a
good fit for what we wanted it to provide members.
Harold: I noticed that LearnTrends has almost 3,000 members. Were you expecting this kind of participation and has the community changed as it has grown?
Tony: Because of the success of the first LearnTrends conference (over 1,000 attendees), I frankly did expect this community to grow to be fairly large. Of course, some members will only participate a little bit and may not attend any particular event. But the community gets pretty active around event time.
Harold: Do you have any advice for someone new to professional social networking who is thinking of joining the LearnTrends community?
Tony: Join the conversation.
Harold: I agree. The only way to understand is to engage. Could tell us about LearnTrends 2009 - The Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations Conference, coming up in mid November?
Tony: It's probably best to look at the
program to get an understanding of the themes.
The theme/focus this year is on Convergence in Workplace Learning. We will bring together people who look at different aspects of learning and knowledge work to understand better what's going on in those areas and how we should be thinking about this holistically. I'm particularly looking forward to discussions of how:
* Enterprise 2.0
* Communities and Networks
* Knowledge Management
* Corporate Libraries
* Talent Management
These come together to form a cohesive picture. What should L&D managers be doing relative to these related efforts? How does this impact our eLearning Strategy? Heck just discussing eLearning Strategy should be fun with the right people in the room.
As always, this conference is about getting together interesting people who bring a slightly different perspective and have meaningful conversation around innovation in workplace learning. We typically get more than a thousand people signed up and at least a hundred in each session.
Harold: Thanks for your time, Tony, and I look forward to actively participating in LearnTrends 2009. My experience has been that this free, collaborative event is a better learning experience than many paid conferences I've attended.