ATD23 News has conducted impromptu interviews with ATD23 attendees in San Diego. In this installment, hear from Miles Smith, senior manager of talent management at Rush Enterprises.

On his role: So, I’m actually new to this role. I moved into it just a few weeks ago, so I’m trying to get up to speed. But it entails implementing performance management systems, kind of overseeing succession planning, pipelining, anything that involves strategically aligning talent within the organization.

On ATD23: This is the third one I’ve been to. I started at my company six years ago, and they immediately sent me to an ATD conference.

On how COVID-19 has changed the conference from his perspective: I think there’s been more subtle integrations of things like the live polls in these sessions now. You know, more QR coding now where the conference has become more robust. More quick, easy availability of materials and access to the information. Things like that.

On the first day: It’s been great. I’ve really enjoyed it so far.

On what he’s looking forward to during the conference: \[laughs\] I’ll give the cheesy answer: Learn as much as I can. But looking at the menu of options, I think it does seem really timely for me with the diversity of topics and where things are focused. It’s keeping up with what everybody’s talking about and what everybody’s concerned with right now.

On how being in a new role changed his perspective: Oh, absolutely. Completely overhauled the list of things that I want to see. Before, I would’ve done a whole lot of stuff about training facilitation and instructional design. And now, I focused on leveraging data, measuring performance outcomes, and getting into the nuts and bolts of how you motivate people across the company. How do you make sure that the talent is allocated correctly?