One of the first things many L&D professionals learn is the basics of great design and facilitation---both key for achieving desired outcomes. But in an era of increased accountability, if those outcomes are not measurable, you might be missing some big opportunities. So you have to have tools that can move you from organizational "order taker" to strategic business partner. This is where the idea of learning transfer comes in.
ASTD has been studying learning transfer and disseminating some great content on LT for quite some time. But over the last year or so, we've been partnering with the Fort Hill Company to bring L&D professionals The Learning Transfer Conference. This is an interactive day-and-a-half workshop that kicks off a 10-week learning program. I actually attended the Arlington, VA, conference in October of last year and learned A TON with several dozen professionals from across the US, all of us broken into small groups (at round tables) enabling plenty of brainstorming, sharing, problem-solving, and of course, networking.
The essence of the program is learning to apply the Six Disciplines (or "6 Ds") of Breakthrough Learning with the goal of improving the business impact of our efforts. The facilitators, Roy Pollock and Cal Wick are terrific and very engaging (and I am an English major FYI). They do a great job of interacting us, and it doesn't all just take place during the conference itself. The online coaching element opens possibility for further interaction with the facilitators and other participants for two months after the workshop itself.
As a Community Manager, it's great to get a glimpse into what you all do each day and learn about what's important to you. This conference was a great experience for me and the attendees I had the pleasure of meeting, and I hope you'll check it out sometime this year if you haven't already. And there is still time to register for Atlanta! I dropped the dates down below.
Atlanta, GA --- April 4-5, 2012
Chicago, IL --- June 19-20, 2012
Denver, CO --- October 2-3, 2012
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