June 2012 Community Editorial: Post-Conference Buzz

This month let's discuss what I will call "post-conference buzz." Maybe you can relate. Post-conference buzz is the positive feeling you get as a result of several days of hard work and/or heavy learning and fact absorption with your colleagues. Your brain is full, and the ideas swirling vigorously in your head create a sensation unrivaled by coffee or, yes, even chocolate. Unlike either Starbuck's or Godiva, post-conference buzz can be contagious, depending on what you decide to do with all those great ideas, considerable inspiration, and positive energy. Most of us attend conferences with the goal of making new professional connections-building new networks and partnerships. After I returned from the International Conference & EXPO a few weeks ago, I started blogging about the impressions I'd gathered, and I wanted to start channeling my buzz energy into new initiatives right away. What exciting new things can I do for the L&D Community?

I met many learning and development professionals with great ideas for books and articles. I met people with great concepts for presentations at next year's conference in Dallas. These are all things ASTD needs and wants to do for the community. But one of the most ubiquitous things I heard from attendees was, "How can I help? What can I do to get involved?" So whether we're talking about blogging or new articles or books, many L&D professionals are sincerely interested in what they can do, as a community, to move the profession forward. They want to understand how ASTD is enabling their collaboration and collection of ideas to open up dialogue, fuel it, sustain it, and turn it into something meaningful.

I do not have the answers to these questions yet. Maybe you have some thoughts you can send me? But what is for sure is that by next year in Dallas, the conversation will have grown a great deal. What will you have to say for yourself?

\*\*\*UPDATE

I received an email from a newsletter reader who had a great question about what kind of methods people use to maintain "buzz," energy, and enthusiasm after events. What are some of your practices for taking that energy and putting it to good use?

How do you engage workshop participants when everyone goes their separate ways? How do you engage your own team in your own organization once everybody returns to the office?