Experts from All Things Digital and Google will keynote the ASTD 2011 TechKnowledge Conference & Exposition, being held February 2-4 in San Jose, California. TechKnowledge is one of the largest e-learning conferences and expositions in the learning and development industry, and attracts more than 1,000 professionals every year.
The conference's opening general session on Wednesday, February 2 will feature Kara Swisher, the co-executive editor of All Things Digital. Ms. Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997. Her "BoomTown" column originally appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section and also online at WSJ.com. Ms. Swisher co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, one of the leading conferences focused on the convergence of technology and media. She has authored two books documenting the rise and fall of AOL: aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web, published in 1998, and the sequel There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future, published 2003.
Two Google experts - Karen Wickre and Ann Farmer - will speak at the general session on Thursday, February 3. They will talk about Google's use of social tools for communicating and learning. Ms. Wickre has worked in business communications for 20 years. Since 2002, she has worked on the Google corporate communications team with a specialty in new media strategies. She developed Google's global communications framework, which today consists of some 150 blogs and 80 Twitter accounts. Ms. Farmer has been working at Google since 2006, specifically addressing the issue of finding information on the intranet. Most recently, she has worked on the engineering education team setting up systems to more effectively deliver "just in time" training.
ASTD will also unveil mobile applications to enrich attendees' conference experience. TechKnowledge offers more than 80 sessions, each designed to provide an overview of trends, best practices, case studies, emerging technologies, and hands-on experiences. Conference attendees will have two ways to
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access information: through the standard program guide and via handheld mobile devices.
For more information about TechKnowledge, including special rates and discounts that expire December 31, 2010, visit the conference website: www.tk11.astd.org.