There’s been a lot of talk of change lately. On May 6, at the ASTD 2014 International Conference & Exposition in Washington D.C., ASTD President and CEO Tony Bingham announced that ASTD was rebranding the association. Our new name is the Association of Talent Development (ATD). If you missed the announcement or want some more information, check out astdnews.org.
A change like this is takes time, and I think it’s an exciting opportunity for us, our members, and the industry. Since I joined ASTD in 2007, I’ve seen the organization expand its arsenal of resources on leadership, management, coaching, mentoring, onboarding, and many other areas. Indeed, when you look at the Competency Model you see just how broad and deep this profession is. As an industry, we’ve moved beyond “training”—designing and facilitating classes. Instead, we’re helping support better performance throughout our organizations and seeking to develop people at all stages of their careers. We believe this new name reflects the growing needs of this dynamic profession.
So, what does this change mean for the Learning Technologies Community of Practice?
I’m happy to say that Learning Technologies will be just as big a part of ATD as it has been of ASTD (actually bigger, I hope). TechKnowledge will continue to be our premier learning technologies event, and we’ll continue to grow and develop the learning technologies track at the International Conference. Our focus in recent years has been on e-learning, mobile learning, social media, games and simulations, and the virtual classroom with a healthy mix of trends thrown in. That won’t change—we’re still focusing on bringing you great content and resources that help you learn and develop and hopefully do your job better.
There’s a lot of good discussion going on about the rebranding, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t point toward some of those conversations.
- David Kelly’s blog post, “What’s in a Name? Plenty,” examines the change from many angles.
- Tony wrote a post “ASTD’s Transition to ATD” that seeks to answer some common questions.
- This post from OpenSesame talks about trends suppliers are seeing.
It was great seeing some of you a last week at the Conference. While Twitter is pretty great, it’s always good to catch up in person. Please drop any questions or thoughts into the comments below, or feel free to message me on twitter @astdLearnTech or via email at [email protected].
