This month, I’ll take a quick look back on ASTD 2013 in Dallas. Firstly, if you weren’t able to attend the conference, the backchannel is still available, and there is information online about accessing the recordings as well.

If I had only three keywords or themes to apply to this year’s event, I would choose: social, collaborative, and interestingly, results. Social and collaborative are no-brainers, perhaps because these trends have been creeping into popular consciousness for quite some time…and for good reason! The conference itself gets more social every year, and tools, theories, and platforms for supporting collaboration are big hits, from the session rooms to the EXPO. Results, however, was the most interesting theme that carried through, and it was extremely encouraging. I think an emphasis on results essentially says, new methods and tools are great; but what performance results do my colleagues in the industry see, and how do they measure them?

I hope you’ll take a look at the list of recordings from this year, and share some of the top themes you see here in the Comments section. I hope that summertime is off to a fun start for everyone. Next month, I’ll share some info on a couple of exciting upcoming events in the second half of 2013.