Cammy Bean here. And to say that I’m excited to be heading to London this year for my very first Learning Technologies conference would be an understatement.
Why all the excitement, you ask?
Let me count the ways…
I’ve worked for Kineo (a company founded in the UK) for 15 years and I’ve been hearing about this great conference for all this time. Every year, I’ve looked across the pond from my place here in Massachusetts with a bit of envy and always that Fear of Missing Out. I’ve attended many US conferences in those 15 years, but not the premiere UK event.
Learning Technologies sounds a little different. The expo, from what I hear, is just massive – with many people only attending the expo. This is different than a US conference and it sounds like companies pull out all the stops. I’m looking forward to checking that out and interacting with the companies and seminars in the exhibition hall. This year, you’ll find me hanging out quite a bit at the Kineo booth (stand #G35, right in the middle of the hall) – I do love being on the floor, with the people – talking learning nerd stuff and making real connections. I’ll also be co-hosting a seminar in the expo with my Kineo colleague Matthew Mella:
Learning Design: Where’s the Humanity?
Thursday 18th April at 11.45am – 12.15pm
This is a free-to-attend event on the exhibition floor, in Theatre 3 (right next to our booth).
And then there’s the exclusive “upstairs”. That’s the main conference – smaller and more intimate than the expo – with high quality speakers. I have the impression that the upstairs at LTUK is a more exclusive experience than perhaps what I’m used to…
So I’m super excited to be going “upstairs” too!
This year, I get the privilege to be speaking with two of the best people I know in this space: Julie Dirksen (renowned author of Design for How People Learn and Design for Behavior Change) and Jane Bozarth (Director of Research at the Learning Guild, and also a renowned author of many books including Show Your Work and From Analysis to Evaluation: Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Trainers).
Come join us on Wednesday 17th April at 15:50-17:00 for our panel discussion: T4S3 – Instructional design in the real world: learning content for the way people learn and work. We have been having a lot of fun prepping for our session. We even did a photo shoot…
Biggest excitement: I’m going to be meeting face-to-face people from Kineo and the industry who I’ve only interacted with online all these years. I’m a hugger – but I’ll do my best to be respectful of cultural difference in that regard.
Looking out for what’s next
I’ve been doing this digital learning thing since 1996 and I’ve seen a lot of change in that time. When I got started, we were building everything custom from scratch with no easy-to-use authoring tools. We deployed on CD-ROMs. The LMS had not yet been invented, nor SCORM.
Then the world went online and we started calling it elearning. We saw even more disruption as authoring tools and LMSs came onto the scene. Then there was mobile learning and the death of Flash and microlearning. (Note to self: change is constant!)
Right now, there’s this next huge wave of disruption getting moving with a focus on AI, data, and skills. It may feel overwhelming to people who haven’t been in this digital learning space for all that long. I’m here to reassure you – we’ve got what it takes to move through this next cycle and continue to find ways to deliver better learning and performance solutions to solve the real problems of organisations.
At Learning Technologies, we’ll be connecting and learning alongside people who are deep into the practice with loads of expertise and insights to share.
I hope to see you there – come say hello, at stand G35!