Is ATD ICE the Right L&D Conference For You?

Luis Malbas  
Hello, everybody, welcome to the training learning and development community. Happy Monday to everybody out there. Thanks for joining us, we kind of have like a, I think we came up with a or Cindy came up with this idea of having this conversation was it on Thursday or Friday? And so yeah a little bit on the last minute but I was really excited to hear this suggestion from Cindy because I am curious and really would love to hear from the community and from our panelists here How was ATD ice and also in some ways like we could probably share experiences and and show people you know, whether or not the that particular event place I guess, last or week before last whether or not it's right for you as an instructional designer and so we have a few people it live in the room right now we've got to pick a Stacy, Judy is here. Darcy nice to see a Darcy Bobby, thanks for joining and I'm sure we'll have more come in now if any of you that are active in the room right now want to be want to join us on stage. I can also invite you up on if you want to share some of your experiences. And but for now, I just want to introduce everybody to Susan Neva. Is that my my pronouncing that correctly? Neva maybe I'm here nice to have you on a Tod s. And of course, a longtime supporter and somebody who helps pull together a lot of our events is Cindy Nagel. And so why don't we start with that, Susan, once you introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do.

Susan Neva  
Yeah, so hello. So I'm Susan nivo. So my background is in instructional design. And so I'll give a short version of the my career. So early in my career, I did a lot of instructor led training. And then I kind of did some training, program management and project management. And then from about 2020 to 2022. For three years I did digital instructional design. And so I've actually just accepted a new job offer so I'm kind of waiting not gonna announce it yet. But doing some, you know, learning design strategy and that type of thing. So like a little bit up leveling so. So yeah, so that's, that's me.

Luis Malbas  
Awesome. Thanks, Suzanne. And then Cindy, I think you've probably introduced yourself a dozen times here on our broadcast, but let us know who you are.

Cyndi Nagel  
Maybe not to everybody. Good morning. I am Cindy Nagel. I'm a talent development manager at Belkin international consumer electronics. Been in l&d for a long, long, long time. And I am excited to just give everybody a recap. small recap of our experience.

Luis Malbas  
Love it. Okay, so, um, were you there for the entire time, Susan? For the entire event

Susan Neva  
for the conference. Yeah, I left a little bit early. But mostly Yeah.

Luis Malbas  
Okay. And Cindy, you were there. You're actually in California. So it was probably just a quick jaunt over to San Diego for

Cyndi Nagel  
for Yeah, only about an hour and a half away for me from I'm in Orange County and San Diego's it's about an hour, nice minutes, something like that. So I was there for almost the entire week. So I volunteered. So, you know, I'm happy to kind of share what that experience was like, but yeah, I meant everything except the very first day of certification.

Luis Malbas  
Okay. Okay. Interesting. All right. So I've got like, a group of pros and cons for kind of conferences in general that I kind of want to go over. And and then maybe at the end of this, we can talk about just more specifics, your experiences. So let's start here. Susan, you're, why did you want to go to the event to begin with?

Susan Neva  
Yeah, so I wanted to go, because this was my first conference. So I'm a newbie. So good perspective here. Like I said, I've been doing digital instructional design the past three years. And so I started in 2021 with attending ATT case for the first time and I had never really attended any ATT conferences. So I attended in 2021. And in 2022. And I think also in 2022, I found out about TL DC. And I was like, when I found out about these virtual conferences, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, there's this whole world out there of virtual conferences and other communities and I need to be a part of it. And I wanted to join so it was like, wow, so I was watching a lot of the sessions. In real time, I was watching sessions like on the weekends to catch up before they went away. I joined CLDC started watching those sessions. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is so exciting. So when I heard about that, I'm in California, so I saw it. ETD Ise was going to be in San Diego said, Okay, I just have to go I'm, you know, I'm a newbie, but I'm not super new. So I think that's actually an advantage is that I already had some experience going to online conferences. So if I had just attended this huge conference of 9000 people without having prior conference experience, I would have been really lost, I would have not known like how to, you know, gracefully exit a session, I wouldn't have known like, what do I really want to get out of each session, I would not have known, like, how to choose sessions. So, you know, my, my main recommendation is, yeah, it's good for instructional designers, but it was also broader. It was it had information, you know, HR, I got invited to a, a vendor event that was a speaker with HR, and HR person. So, I mean, I can I can go on, I'm very, I was really excited to go as a newbie, just to be with my people to be around my people and to like, to just be in the flow. And it was, it was, it was really amazing to be in these rooms of, you know, hundreds of people and everybody's focused on one session, like, you can hear a pin drop, and some of them it's quiet. So

Luis Malbas  
yeah, I think conferences are at their best. That's kind of what is, you know, the the best part of that, that experience is just kind of being around all of these people with the same sort of intention. Right, and, and kind of being invigorating. And so Cindy, you have, I'm sure have been to lots of conferences. Industry vet, why did you decide to volunteer for this particular one? Have you volunteered for ATD events in the past? Or what? How did? How did that all work?

Cyndi Nagel  
I have never volunteered for a TD events. So the past I have attended, I have been a paying attendee, usually, you know, the company that I was with would would, you know, pay me for that. And I was able to go as part of like, my own education. This time, you know, things are tight at the business right now. So it was one of those things where if I was going to go, it wasn't going to be on my own or volunteer, I knew they had a volunteer situation going, I have never done it, believe it or not, in the 20 plus years, I've been in lnd, I've never volunteered for it. So that was that was my opportunity to go and so that So how it works is they open up volunteers pretty close to the conference. And I heard about it as a member of I'm I belong to ATD, in Orange County, so so they send out an email, you know, hey, we're looking for volunteers, you guys sign up fast, fast. And for every day that you volunteer, you get a free conference day, do you really, if you're if you're gonna attend the four days of conference, you can work for two of them at the event, and which you know, work, it's not that hard, it's actually pretty interesting. And then the other two days, you're free to just attend the event, you know, whatever sessions you want to go to. So

Luis Malbas  
what are you responsible for as a volunteer.

Cyndi Nagel  
So there's a number of things that you can do, but most of the time you get assigned to a session room. And so what I think at anti ATD is doing is changing the attendance for the room based on interest within the app, or you know, and so so you get assigned a room, once you get there, give me a t shirt to wear for the for the day that you're volunteering, you get your daily badge if to check in with them. And signing them in means doing a headcount. So you're just standing at whatever room you're assigned to for that day. And you do a headcount at the beginning in the middle and the end of the session, and you turn those counts in, but you get to listen to the session. And you know, hopefully, that room that that you got assigned to is something you're interested in most of the time, it's something you're interested in, so So then that's it, and then in between those sessions, so there's three sessions that you have to count. And then between those three sessions, you can kind of wander around. Yeah. And get back to your room on time. The next one, so you have to check badges. You have to just make sure they're wearing a badge, which most people are. And then the other part of volunteering is because I was in Orange County because I was a member of a local chapter. They offered up volunteers for the certificate sessions pre conference very like late so it's so they sent me a list of like seven different certification courses that I could volunteer for and I chose in a talent management one because I'm Talent Development Manager and so but there was articulate there were storyline or Captivate, there was a design certificate training facilitation certificate, you could have volunteered for any of those. And same thing, you're just checking the badge on the first day. And then you get to sit and you earn that certificate alongside with everybody else that paid probably a couple grand for that certificate.

Luis Malbas  
That's a pretty good deal, I would say. So, Susan, I love the fact that we have, like, both these perspectives to this is going to be a lot of fun. So tell me about your networking experience as sort of a new attendee to this event, and, you know, sort of getting in there with 9000 people. What was that?

Susan Neva  
That was, that was crazy. It was very chaotic. Yeah, I, I could have done a better job at my networking. And I mean, I kind of got a sense of this, having talked to a couple people like beforehand, and they, they kind of hinted at it, they were like, well, you know, I've got like meetings planned with people. And I was like, oh, okay, that's cool. And I figured, you know, they're established in the community, they already know who they're meeting with. But I didn't realize like, I could do that too. Because, you know, I, you know, I haven't network on LinkedIn, I don't necessarily know people super well. And so I'm like, in a stage where I've been focusing on my career, like in various companies, but I'm branching out into the lnt world and wanting to meet people. So yeah, had I known, I would have like, really been more specific about, okay, I want to meet this person, like, reach out to them make an appointment, because there's so so many people, it's like, you know, anybody, any one person you meet, like, may or may not have something in common with you, but they will, because they're lnd. But it's kind of like, on the other hand, I did attend, they did on Sunday, they had some community meetups, because I attended a meetup. And it was in one of the conference rooms, they had a consulting meetup in one room in one part of the room. And then the other part of the room had on your own your career Community Meetup. And I met a couple of people there that I'm going to keep in contact with. So it was a small group. And so it was it was nice. And I just wish there were a few more of those for new folks, and but I also, as I mentioned, in my introduction, I got invited to a vendor event. And that was total total surprise. And it was actually the probably the most pleasant experience that I had. Because I after I went, I went through the expo, I gave my business card to a couple of folks. And then I got an email and got invited to the vendors called Book Club. And so it was a dinner, a free dinner and an author talk by a famous HR author, Paul Falcone and me not being an HR, I had not heard of him. But it was a wonderful, small, intimate free dinner event at the hotel next door. And I made some really nice connections there had a great conversation with people at my table. And that was exactly also what I was looking for to have those smaller, smaller connections. And, yeah, there were a couple other times I could have gotten to lunch with people, but I can so overwhelmed by it was so huge, so that, you know, I just struck up conversations with people who are around me, like I sat down and like, for lunch, I was like, Okay, I just really have to sit down. So I went and sat down and talked to people at that table. So, so yeah, so definitely, this is an area where for newbies, newbies need advice about how to network. They did also have a paid networking event. I didn't attend that. So I don't I can't maybe Cindy can speak to that as she's gone. But that's another option as well.

Luis Malbas  
Interesting, a paid network event. Okay. Well, I want to hear it's Cindy, as a volunteer. I mean, you had time to you know, to do your own thing when you weren't volunteering. But how was your networking experience all together? You know,

Cyndi Nagel  
I mean, I'm always it's one of those things at conferences, where I always kind of tend to find people ask questions, I'm a natural networker. And just I will, where are you from? What do you do? What company? What How long have you been? And you know, what's what's keeping you up at night? So I just kind of naturally do that. But I understand being new to the industry, how that would be intimidating. For sure. So, so I tend to kind of find a core group that we have a lot of similar interest in in the first couple of days, and then they become my conference. Besties

Luis Malbas  
so how about some tips like if you weren't a new instructional designer, like going to an event like this? Is there anything in particular? You would you how you Yeah,

Cyndi Nagel  
well, I mean, ATD did a really good job ahead of time of setting up Some networking opportunities, like you could sign up for dinners, group dinners, and they filled up really fast, you know, so that would be the best way to like before you even pick the session, sign up for those networking events, you're going to meet people that you you will stay in contact with later, when you can sign up for a different rest, they haven't set up like you can sign up for a different restaurant every night and, and that kind of thing. And then the networking sessions that are larger because they did have these large networking sessions where it was a giant conference room with rounds, and you just had to pick a table and go sit down. So I would say pick the fullest table and go and sit down and just, I'm new, I'm new, or I'm here to network and meet people and pass out your business cards. You know, get get that out, and then say hey, I don't if you don't have if you're a loan person, I don't have dinner plans. Do you all have dinner plans can can we join together and make a dinner group and that's what I ended up doing. So I was too late to sign up for those dinner groups. So I just found a group and we would make dinner plans let's meet after the conference and you know at this spot and we'll all walk to dinner somewhere that's that's what we ended up doing.

Luis Malbas  
Oh fun. And it San Diego to I mean, there's like so many options there and that. Yeah, everything's super walkable. Yeah, yeah. So nice. I want to read Bobby's comment here. I'm networking at large events like that can be really intimidating. The great thing about l&d is the people are friendly, approachable and accommodating. If you're going to be in a crowd best be in the l&d crowd, right, they'll make sure you're taking care of which is pretty much why I continue to do T LDC is this, the l&d crowd really is accommodating. And, and I appreciate everybody here so much. Well, this is great. And I want to know, like, as far as the conference experience is concerned, where does networking rank for the both of you like? Was it a highlight? Is it something that you do you go to the event for that networking piece of it? Or? You know, is it like the top three things? How would you guys rate it? Or rank it?

Cyndi Nagel  
I mean, networking, is that the one of the top for me? Okay, you know, I ended up meeting people that I didn't know before, people that are in near where I'm at, so we can meet in person in LA or Orange County or whatever it is. And yeah, not so that that is one of the top things. Of course, the sessions are always interesting, depending on what I'm interested in at the time. And probably my favorite session was a skills mapping session with Darren new Norland from Amazon. So he was definitely my favorite lot of what he said resonated and I could take back and implement right away. You know, and so that that was interesting. Yeah, I think networking is definitely at the top of these conferences.

Luis Malbas  
Okay, so Susan, I know this was new for you. But how about networking, like in future events? Is that going to be kind of higher up on the list for you?

Susan Neva  
Yeah, it was pretty high up, I just didn't know the proper strategies to to do it. And, you know, I think for what I did accomplish, it was it was good. And you know, we can get into this as well. But I spent a lot of time like, re choosing re selecting my session. So if I had not had to spend time on figuring out what my sessions were, I could have spent more time like, actually, networking and talking to people that I see that someone in the comments is asking about the business cards. I didn't see that many business cards, it's just like, there happened to be like one or a couple of vendors that wanted them but like the the LinkedIn QR code is a big thing now, but I didn't really use that either. But yeah, I see. Yeah. She said QR code. Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
right. Right. How about Christina's question here. Were there any needs analysis sessions that people went to? If yes, were there any interesting insights? anything off the top of your head Suzanne or Cindy

Cyndi Nagel  
needs analysis, I did not attend any needs analysis sessions, there was actually a pre conference session on needs analysis from a TD, which is, you know, those pre conference sessions are free. Great. So I would, some of them are very high level, like the one I attended is, is you know, 30,000 foot view of talent development as a whole. So it was covering a lot of different facets, but when you focus on a specific content topic, it's pretty, pretty great. They will take you through, you know, A to Z of that part of that training process. So the instructional design class went through all of Addie. And then in the development process, the needs analysis sessions were were like that too.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. Nice. All right. So let's talk about sort of knowledge and skill development since we're getting on the, on the topic of topics so So how about the sessions themselves a quality things that you actually attended? How were those users?

Susan Neva  
Yeah, so I have my list in front of me. So I attended about 10 different sessions. You could attend to maybe three per day, because there were the time blocks were limited, right? So I attended a variety of things. So one of them was capabilities of talent development. So it's like futurism of what's what's going to be happening. So that was really good. I attended one on bias. So you know, inclusivity, and what, how does bias impact trainers, I also attended the session Cindy did about the future of skills. That was, that was a very full session, it was very popular. And then a measurement session. And that was, that was really good for me, because I know about measurement, having used it in instructional design, but this was kind of a higher level general overview. And I was like, This is what I've been looking for. I didn't even know I've been looking for this a whole time. Especially not hybrid training. One nudging nudging is is very big, and it's kind of a new, like buzzword. One a neuroscience principles for cohort learning. And then the last one I attended was about AI and lnd. So I, you know, looking at this list actually attended quite a variety, which I was very pleased with. Yeah.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. Um, so, but he is, it doesn't just cover instructional design. Right?

Cyndi Nagel  
Right. It's everything. Right. Right. When you say everything's in

Luis Malbas  
the What do you mean? Well, you could,

Cyndi Nagel  
you know, if you're focused on performance improvement, so, you know, AI was a big topic. You know, there was a lot of like, you know, LMS vendors obviously, the expo was huge. I think they had 650 vendors or something we're doing I didn't even see every every everyone in the in the expo was huge. So and then you also have like, the typical like leadership development type content partners, you know, Blanchard was there right front and center brand new brand new branding, they have done a branding refresh. Ken Blanchard was actually there, which was you know, amazing because it's always always amazing to see like an icon and in those those kinds of conferences so yeah, it's it's it's everything. Universities were there, you know, peddling their master's programs, Dr. programs or even benefits programs for people like me, who I coordinate the education reimbursement benefit for my company. So, so there's there's a lot of options. A lot of assessment vendors, the discs, the, you know, the predictive index, you know, lots lots of masterclass, was there with a giant booth in there and how they're, they're really pushing, selling masterclass into l&d as part of the, you know, leadership development programs.

Luis Malbas  
So Cindy has an experienced l&d professional, how did you feel about the content overall? Was it something that it was something you you know, you had you felt positive about it?

Cyndi Nagel  
Yeah, yeah. I only walked out of one session. Okay. No. So for most for the most part, the sessions were really good. I went I went several I went to one on change management leadership during challenging times, and went to the next session as well. Very interesting. Again, another one that was about making change happen in the moment or work like training in the workflow. The skills mapping learners journeys, like how to build learners journeys, you know, kind of how to keep hybrid workforce was a big topic, you know, and how to connect people in this like remote work work environment that we're doing. The keynotes were great. Adam Grant, Priya Parker. And then the last day was like half of the half of the conference left on the very last day, but you know, Mauro Odom Jr. At the very end was was great. It's nice to have a little conference or a little personal concert for us, you know, so it was it was, it was good, but the sessions overall were good. They, they they kind of scheduled it out so you could follow a track. So if you weren't sure what to go to, you could narrow the options to track because there are no way to see everything right. And you can pay for the recordings, you know, but or, if you're an Add Member, you'll eventually get access to the sessions that were recorded. That won't come until later this year. So, you know, it's, I would say, spend some time looking ahead at the session speakers. If you're worried about it being too salesy, make sure to do your research ahead of time look at who they are on LinkedIn. And you might get a better idea of what their session might see what seem like and go from there.

Luis Malbas  
Did either of you run into that at all? Any any sessions that were like, the vendor sponsor didn't realize it? And that was real pitchy? No, no,

Cyndi Nagel  
not one of the ones that I planned to go to? Because I went ahead and checked it out ahead. Yeah, you know, but definitely, when I was volunteering, some of the rooms that I were in were vendor, the room. So what I didn't know is that some of the vendors that were doing sessions, were paying for the room, and they were paying for the size of the room. So we we on the second day, sessions were filling up, you know, so when the room was full, we'd have to hold the sign that hey, you know, rooms full move on to the next and we couldn't let anybody else in because of fire regulations. So some people got really frustrated, but that but turns out that some of the rooms that were the fullest were vendor paid, and they probably just should have paid for a larger room. Yeah. Yeah. No, they didn't mark them as vendor sponsored cam now. Yeah. And

Luis Malbas  
you know, the thing Kim is, I mean, ultimately, if they're paying their money, they just want to make sure that they get as many people as possible into into their room and most organizations will, will support that just because, you know, if it's sponsored, they have to, you know, they're just trying to maximize revenue. Mmm. Interesting. And just real quick, Christina had asked about that Priya Parker. Talk? How was it?

Cyndi Nagel  
Susan, on the

Susan Neva  
previous one, yeah. Yeah, I went to that one. Um, yeah, it was good. It was yeah, just um, you know, reminding us about setting the stage at the beginning of a gathering is, is super important. And, you know, she, she brought some humor to the topic. And then, you know, she has a background in, you know, bringing together different sides, because her family background is very disparate on one side versus the other. So that's how she got interested and researching gatherings. Yeah. And you know, when one example she gave was at the beginning of a meeting, you can, if you're leading the meeting, ask the participants to share a rose and a thorn from the past week. And she didn't dictate that it needed to be about work about people's people started talking about like, their personal lives as well. So it kind of made the meetings more intimate.

Luis Malbas  
Interesting, very cool. And we have not even I haven't even got close to what potentially the cons of this event are. And we're almost at our at a 30 minute, but we're gonna we'll extend it because I really want to know about some of this stuff. Give me the quick rundown on the expo. How did you guys I mean, what did you think of the expo? Let's start with you, Susan. was obviously but

Susan Neva  
yeah, I was overwhelmed. I but I wanted to go through all the vendors because that was that I wanted to get exposure to like, who is out there, who are these folks, like so much leadership development training, that's not an area of specialize in but you know, I like to read about that too. And, you know, I'm interested in furthering my talent development, career and all that. So I actually took two rounds to go through the expo. So they opened it on Monday, after the first general session, and everybody kind of rushed in. And that's when all the vendors are doing all their giveaways, like people rushing to get all the free stuff right away. So I was like, I got a free power bank, I did a an assessment on for a company that was has an assessment about motivation. So I stood there and for 15 minutes on my phone and took this assessment, and got a free sweatshirt. And this Yeah, I got the report back. It's like, this is this is great. I love this. This is free content. And this truly describes my motivations. And yeah, so that was fun. Yeah, like I said, I took two two rounds to go through and I went back the next day and then did the rest of it. And I actually scored free for free books. Vendors are also giving away books. And yeah, yeah, in total, and I'll just mention here that I also want to give away on Wednesday for six free certificate, certification prep books. So I had this whole stack of books like I brought home a dozen books, I had to use an extra bag and check a bag because of all the free books that I want

Luis Malbas  
cheeses in like I think that next time I see you at an event we probably have to teach. Teach me on how to get all that swag that's like what do you think Cindy?

Cyndi Nagel  
Yeah, there were a lot of books. It was I came back with 24 books. And I did buy some at the store,

Luis Malbas  
you just say 24 books.

Cyndi Nagel  
No idea. So I bought a bookstore was open early before the expo and I had bought a couple of books that I that were on my list anyway. And so that was probably about five books that I had bought. And then the rest were just giveaways at different booths, you know, just crazy, crucial conversations in a way books. Yeah. Oh, my God, uh, books from Doherty, the storytelling books that they do, they were they were giving out, you know, and there was lots of lots of drawings. Yeah, to be there in person. And that was hard for me to do as a volunteer when the drawings were happening, so yeah, lots of books, lots us a lot of swag, I brought bags of Three bags full of and you know, I will typically pick that stuff up and bring it back and share it with my team, you know, pick through the stuff I want, you get your get your collection of pens for the year, really. And then and then I handed out to the rest of my team that couldn't be there along with other, you know, resources that I want to share with with that, which, you know, there was, surprisingly stuff I could give to my benefits manager and content that was specific to him and certifications that were specific to him. Yeah, things for our HRBPs, you know, through the HRCI booth that was there, nice to see them meet them in person. And for me, the expo is I have to be very targeted, because there are certain vendors that I want to see. And I didn't have a lot of time. So but I got to see everybody that I needed to see certain coaching vendors, again, the EDD vendors for educational reimbursement cornerstone, because we're implementing that LMS right now. And so I wanted, I had a couple specific questions for that team. And I knew they would have some key people there. So yeah, that's that's kind of how I tackled it. And then you can't see everybody. And then they did have a really cool LinkedIn, like, you could get a headshot for LinkedIn for for free. So that was one of the first things I went to the day of the expo opening, because I knew the line would be long. They had some kind of a call to add at play, where you could kind of, you know, take a break and either go play games or go cuddle puppies. And so there was a lot happening within the expo, someone in the comment message that there was a expos stage, there was excess, there was an expo stage where vendors were doing sessions. And those, those were good if you were interested in that particular topic that vendor was speaking to, but it was hard to hear, because of the noise Expo behind you and the music and then and so there was that. And then and I will say that not having been to a physical conference like that, and a few years coming out of pandemic was a lot. You know, I mean, there was just like, all of a sudden, you're it's just shoulder to shoulder, and people everywhere. And so that was a little overwhelming, you could see people get kind of getting overwhelmed and needing to go take a break from the noise and the in the crowds. And and it was nice that the conference had that ability, they have seating section set up throughout these, this large center where you could either go inside or outside and just go sit down and take a break from it. Because it was a lot.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. Yeah. So nice segue into let's talk about some of the cons, the cost of the event. Now I know Cindy, you volunteered, so it doesn't really apply. But you know, it does a little I mean, your volunteer experience was worth it.

Cyndi Nagel  
Totally. Totally worth it. Yeah. And that I earned was, you know, $2,300 certificate that I didn't have to pay for right you know, so it was It wasn't like a gas of me driving there and back the first couple of days. I did book a hotel for the last the actual conference days because I knew I was going to be way too tired my feet were going to be sore. And if you stay not necessarily right in the conference area and I had a car a so I stayed about 10 minutes away and hotel circle and Mission Valley I just knew to do that and it was you know, a quarter of the cost of the rooms that weren't they were charging downtown so so it's worth doing that I think if you're gonna volunteer I met another group and a couple of CLDC members that were sharing an Airbnb. So that's a great idea and we actually I was like well count me in for for New Orleans next year. I'll share that Airbnb with you guys and meet you there. So, so that's a that's a good interesting way to keep the cost down if you're going to volunteer,

Luis Malbas  
yeah. Susan, did you? Um, was that out of pocket for you? Or

Susan Neva  
it was out of pocket. But I registered, I think in September when the super early bird registration and plus I was employed at that time. And yeah, so I did stay in an Airbnb and that cut the cost, you know, 10 minutes away and Uber back and forth, it was super easy.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. Nice. Okay. So overall costs was, it was a good value for you.

Susan Neva  
I would say yes. Also, because I'm planning to watch the recordings, some of the recordings, in addition, you know, considering how now now I know, for next time to be strategic and selecting what vendors I want to go see these are two very, extremely strategic and selecting sessions. So if I, if I feel that I didn't get as much value on site, which, because I didn't know exactly what to do, at least I can watch recordings. Yeah. And so I can get a lot of value from that.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. All right, I want to ask about just the sheer amount of information that you're taking in over the course of four days at an event. How did you feel about that? It is, it's like, you know, because there's a lot and I, you know, to be honest, since I'm a conference producer, the one thing that I did when I wanted to produce my own event was I wanted to produce smaller events that were so and that were, and provide a situation that was less stressful for people to, to have to choose between sessions, and just get overwhelmed by things. So how did you feel about that? That at the event?

Cyndi Nagel  
Go ahead, Susan.

Susan Neva  
Okay. Yeah, I, I agree. I, for my next conference, I want to go to a smaller one, because I really want to still get to know people more intimately. And to have that, that more intimate experience. I'm really glad I did this, because I know what it's like, you know, and so I know to budget, if I were to ask my next employer for the, for the funding, and yeah, yeah, definitely. You have, yeah, you have to have a certain level of preparation to attend such a large event or a certain level of experience. So definitely for like people super new to the field. Like, I'm not super new. I've been in since 2008. Like, and even for me, I was kind of like, oh, my gosh, so. So yeah, so the smaller events, I think, are really the great place to get your feet wet. Excellent. Yeah. And

Cyndi Nagel  
I would say TD didn't a decent amount of like, of planning ahead of time. So they were trying to keep the sessions that were in certain sections, kind of in within the same theme, right? So if you decided to get up and walk out of one mode, more than likely you could go next door, or a few doors down, and it would be around the same topic, or, you know, learning path or whatever, they were calling it a path. I think they were calling it, but yeah, it can be overwhelming. And I think the frustrating part is, what are you going to walk in, in here a vendor session versus walking in here, like practical, like actually, like a something that you went through and did and created, and a framework that I can bring back and use? So it's really hard without doing that ahead? Ahead of like learning ahead of research? Who is the speaker? And what are they talking about? So I can see where that would be be frustrating. The other part of these conferences is I'm always surprised at sometimes, like how the presentations are actually done, you know, there, there was a lot of intention, this time with the speakers involving the audience, and engagement and activities, either breaking them into small breakout groups or doing some kind of interaction online with technology people, you know, we've seen it and before here with some of our speakers, but a lot of those people have never seen you know, slideshow and Miro and things like that, that were being used. That was nice. It was nice that people were intentional about not just reading off the slides, but we're you know, engaging the audience and asking questions and and, you know, turn and speak to the person you know, gather three together people who you're sitting with and talk about this topic, and then

Luis Malbas  
it's awesome. So you're seeing that presentation styles are changing. Yeah, I

Cyndi Nagel  
think so. You know, I mean, years ago when I attended these conferences, it was a lot of being talked at. And now it's it's really there was a real focus for people to make it more engaging, which was nice to see.

Luis Malbas  
That's great on if anybody in chat attended, you know, Margie or anyone else a few. If you have any opinion on that at all, I would love to hear it. Because I do think that that's significant, you know? Because I hear like, for instance, learning technologies in the UK tends to be like, really lecture based. You know, and that is always kind of like, Ah, I wouldn't want to attend that one because that doesn't sound that fun. Alright, so I actually have to wrap things up. I, you know, we could talk about this easily for so much longer. But I do want to know, like, Just overall, general feeling about the conference, Susan, like what? You know, would you go back? Were you, are you so you're planning on going back next year? Or are you going to try any other conferences? What's going on in your head?

Susan Neva  
Um, uh, yeah, I'm not planning on going back next year. Yeah, I want to keep digging deeper into the groups that I'm already a part of, like, I just found the until DC like I have, you know, you guys, like still have so much to like, and, yeah, so maybe in a couple years. I mean, it also depends where it's located. Like, you know how far I have to go. But yeah, I think for me, right now, some of the smaller organizations, and just really honing in on the specific connections I want to make and just being very deliberate is going to be key for me.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Totally agree. How about are you Cindy?

Cyndi Nagel  
Yeah, I mean, I would definitely go back. I am thinking about going to New Orleans next year, I'm probably going to probably going to do a speaking proposal for the first time this year, because some of the things that I have done within lnd, I didn't see a lot of sessions around, particularly mentorship and creating a mentorship program, and strategy at work. So and their and their ATD seems to be adding all these other smaller conferences to their state. There's core four, which is a little bit more about, you know, design and and solutions for learning experiences and things like that. There's a government one, there's a sales one now. So they're, they're kind of it's interesting to watch that they're kind of adding these newer, smaller events. But I probably will go back to New Orleans next year, volunteer again, and hopefully be speaking next year, hopefully. Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
definitely. So I'm playing going to any other conferences, like you're gonna go do any guild events?

Cyndi Nagel  
Yeah, I want to go to DevLearn. This year, I haven't been to DevLearn since 2016. So and that one is, is similar to this big 1000s of people, multiple sessions, plan it out ahead of time. The ATD had an app where you could look at the schedule, but it wasn't working very well the whole time. So TL DC lab, Dottie, absolutely. Nice. You know, you know how I feel about that. Let's do it. And then DevLearn is similar. They'll have an app where you can look at the sessions. But when the app wasn't working, there was no like backup, or like, people couldn't really look at the program. So they were a little lost if they didn't do the pre planning.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Oh, that's tough. That's no good. Yeah, that would be that'd be really, really difficult. All right. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and wrap it up. I thank you. The two of you, Susan, Cindy, so much for participating in the conversation. Niels floor, who is someone who basically came up with the term learning experience designer, he just sent me a message. He's hosting a conference that hill I think this one's in Europe, though, but I told him I, I'd post it out there, but he's heard it he's he's hosting a learning experience design conference. I think it might be in in the Netherlands. But if anybody's interested in going he has discounts for people. I'm just going to post that in there. And then yes, Tati, Cindy, let's just do it. I mean, come on.

Unknown Speaker  
I'm ready do a conference.

Luis Malbas  
I used to do DevLearn. I mean, that was that was one of my, my, my children. So

Cyndi Nagel  
ready, let's do it. Our Space is right by lax. It's an easy fly in fly out.

Luis Malbas  
All right, we'll talk more about that for sure. 2024. And we'll just get everybody together and have fun. And it will be one of those smaller events, which I totally appreciate so much. Because I'm more of an introvert. And when I go to the larger events, I do have to find space for myself to kind of like, really zone out after being around a ton of people. So

Cyndi Nagel  
yeah, if you're gonna do a smaller one, I would recommend learning dev camp to look into that one in Salt Lake. I think it's yeah, that was coming up right. Either next month or the month after I would if you want some smaller and more hands on. Right. You can do a lot there.

Luis Malbas  
Definitely. Yes. came in. We'd love to see you at a live event again. All right, that's it. I'm gonna go ahead and close up the session. Thanks again, everybody. And this week. We have three more member showcases Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So if you can check those out, and In the I think you can go to TLD cast.com I think I own that one and that'll take you straight to the events page and that's pretty much it thanks ever

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