Greater Atlanta Chapter of ASTD

Atlanta Conference & Expo 2013!

The theme for this year's ACE is "Learning and Development (L&D) as a Value Creator." The conference is an opportunity for participants to address two key questions about their Learning and Development function and/or solutions: Are your L&D solutions creating value?; and How do you know? No matter what role or title you have, we’re all a part of the value chain and need to be sure that we can prove the value of our solutions. Our goal this year is to help all L&D leaders and practitioners continue to build this capability. So if you’re a Performance Consultant, Instructional Designer, OD/OE Consultant, Trainer/Facilitator, Leadership Development professional, Learning Leader, Technologist, Training Coordinator or LMS Administrator, this year’s conference will help you better align what you do to business objectives, improve individual and organizational performance and measure the impact of your efforts and solutions.

This year, we are excited to have two of the leading experts in learning measurement and evaluation as keynote speakers.

          Jack J. Phillips           Jim Kirkpatrick

           

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Conference Agenda

9:00 AM

On-site Registration begins

10:00 AM 

Conference Welcome and Opening

10:15 - 11:00 AM 

Opening Keynote - Jack Phillips, ROI Institute

11:15 AM - 12:30 PM 

Concurrent Sessions

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM 

Lunch 

(included as part of paid registration)

1:30 PM - 2:45 PM 

Concurrent Sessions

2:45 PM - 3:15 PM 

Sponsor Expo / Afternoon Break

3:15 PM - 4:30 PM 

Concurrent Sessions

4:45 PM - 5:30 PM 

Closing Keynote - Jim Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick Partners

5:30 PM

Closing Remarks

5:45 - 6:45 PM

Networking Reception

ACE 2013 Speakers and Topics

This year we have MORE speakers to bring you additional learning and value!

Speaker	Topic & Description
Robb Bingham	What the Heck is My ROI For This Project? Have you always been a bit puzzled by how to measure the ROI (return on investment) of your training projects? If so, this could be one of the most practical and strategic 75 minutes you will spend on your professional development this year. To participate in this session, bring two or three project ideas currently (or soon-to-be) underway. This hands-on working session is designed to help you crack the code on practically measuring the impact of your project to the organization as you: identify key metrics to your project sponsor; explore key questions to gain the support of your project stakeholders; and build a simple project plan to help you execute your ROI measurement strategy.
Crystal Kadakia	Training Evaluation Strategies for Gen Y In this session, we will first explore how training evaluation is evolving in the 21st century and its impact on Gen Y as they enter the workforce globally. We will then provide specific techniques and strategies for generation and region specific evaluation, including both new and modifications to existing evaluation methods. By the end of the session, you will walk away with specific, implementation-ready strategies for today's global, cross-generational training environment.
Michael Leimbach, Ph.D.	Are Your Training Initiatives Adding Value? Prove It! Smile tests don’t cut it. Companies today want to see that their training investment is resulting in measurable business value. Training and development is a serious investment of resources – not just money, but time, effort, and attention that could be spent on other priorities. How do you measure these business results? As organizations take on major efforts to improve performance, it is critical to build in methods to monitor the progress and measure the results. When the inevitable question “Was it worth it?” comes, you already know that it is - and you can prove it! Join us as we explore ways to measures results beyond Kirkpatrick Levels 3 and 4. We will provide a real example of a Training Impact Evaluation with multiple measurements, gain clarity on the factors that ensure the performance results you seek and leave with ideas that you can apply to your own training evaluations.
Jeffrey Berk	How To Build a Business Case for the Formalization of Learning Analytics This presentation will offer practical yet credible advice on how learning leaders should go about the process of building a business case to formalize learning analytics into the L&D organization and budget. We will discuss examples of L&D metrics value to the organization, review techniques (KPIs, pilot/beta tests, financial analysis) to create business case, and provide an overview of the attributes necessary to create and sustain L&D analytics. We will cover critical tools and techniques to establish relevancy for learning measurement and positively create a culture supportive of learning and development measurement.
Brent Darnell	Training is For Dogs: How To Use the Latest Neuroscience and Learning Techniques to Create True Behavior Change In this session, we will discuss the latest neuroscience findings on how people learn, retain, and apply information. Using real world examples and case studies from Leadership Development Programs, we will demonstrate what works and what doesn't work in the classroom. We will discuss the latest techniques using improvisation, kinesthetic learning, storytelling, and involving as many of the senses as possible. We will also discuss accountability and follow up and how it relates to results and creating true and lasting change. We will examine before and after assessments for groups and individuals and see how these changes in scores reflect changes in behaviors and increased performance. Participants will be able to walk away with practical information they can apply in their work place and their training programs in order to create positive changes in their employees.
Melanie W. Hudson	Connecting the Dots: Supporting Human Performance to Achieve Business Goals This session will provide the outline of an evidence-supported coaching model to improve human performance. This approach is based on principles of adult learning, including self-directed learning that supports employee engagement, or "buy-in," while targeting business goals. The process includes collaboration and ongoing assessment of performance gaps, yielding solutions that are tied to overall organizational strategies. Through interactive activities, session participants will learn how to use collaboration and principles of self-directed learning to develop individual human performance goals that support business goals. They will also practice providing constructive feedback, including difficult conversations, self-assessment techniques and re-tooling of individual goals to address performance problems.
Kelly Vandever	The Serious Side of Storytelling: Using Business and Personal Stories to Increase Learning Retention As a trainer, you know that stories connect you and your course content to your learners. You know that stories can create legends, inspire action, and change the way people think, act and feel. In this session you’ll apply techniques for unearthing stories from within an organization that will help learning come alive. You’ll uncover and craft personal stories to reinforce the classroom learning. You’ll be able to apply a framework for spotting more stories in the future. And you’ll be able to edit stories to ensure they’re original, succinct, and effective. Storytelling is serious business. Learn how to use business and personal stories to help your training stick.
Todd Wilmore	You don't pay your plumber for effort. Badges, portfolios, and artifacts of learning. W. Edwards Deming said that 97% of what matters in an organization cannot be measured and studies indicate that 70-80 % of learning occurs outside a classroom, so how can we expect to evaluate learning using traditional classroom based tools and methods. Some newer approaches to demonstrate learning achievement are through the use of badges and portfolios. In this session you will learn to describe a model for evidenced based learning that uses badges, portfolios, learning contracts and resurrects the use of the skill matrix as an assessment tool to help assess learning outcomes. You will leave with the ability to create a basic skill matrix and learning contract.
Karen S. Mitchal	Using Outlook To Achieve Annual Objectives Outlook is an amazing tool that is often underutilized. At the same time, workers over use one function - email. This session will show how users can evaluate email messages, assign them the proper importance and use the other functions of Outlook - the calendar and tasks - to hold themselves and others accountable. Bring your laptop and let's learn.
Dave Basarab	Predictive Evaluation Companies often struggle to justify training's effort and expense because they can't predict definitive business outcomes. In lieu of a crystal ball, trainers need some way to prove that training is worth the investment. By adding the element of prediction, they can demonstrate - with high confidence - the additional value that training will deliver, including increased revenue, sales, savings, and/or profit. Essentially, it creates a business forecast for training. Basarab's Predictive Evaluation (PE) methodology is the first and only training and evaluation approach that adds the element of prediction. Trainers and business leaders can use PE to successfully predict training's results, value, intention, adoption and impact to make smarter, more strategic training and evaluation investments. Basarab, who (literally) wrote the book on Predictive Evaluation, regularly helps his clients maximize their training ROI by as much as 200 to 300% - and he can show you how to accomplish this too.
Heather Goff	High Performance Teams Through High Trust Relationships A team or leader with great relationships can move exponentially faster and have much lower costs than a low-trust leader especially in a highly matrixed organization. When leaders have high trust across the organization, their teams give more discretionary effort, are more engaged and get better results, faster. When trust is low in an organization, processes bog down, communication becomes guarded, and decisions are put on hold. The consequences of low trust exert a toll on your organization's ability to succeed. Learn how to build a foundation of trust and integrity based on the 4 Cores of Credibility and the 13 Behaviors of Trust.
David Ryback	How Emotional Intelligence is Changing Business Around the World (and How You Can Change Along With It) Emotional Intelligence (EI) is experiencing a renaissance across the globe. Statistics on its success has built to the tipping point: EI really works and there are plenty of numbers that prove it. We'll explore why this is so and how to apply the successful applications to leadership, sales and communications across the globe.

Post-Conference Reception - Before heading home, join our speakers, ASTD Board Members, sponsors, volunteers and guests for cocktails and hors d'ouvres.  The Networking Reception will begin at 5:45 PM after the closing remarks.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Early Bird Registration - Register by July 16, 2013 and receive a discount on conference registration.

Registration note: Some of the options on the registration page may be grayed out as they are only available to current members.  If you are a member, you may have used an email address on the prior screen which is different than the address we have on file in your membership profile. 

To correct this, please use the email address we have on record, or update your profile to include the proper email address.

If you are NOT a member of the chapter, but wish to become one as part of your ACE Registration, please select one of the bundles shown to the left which includes membership and you will be asked to update your profile once it has been activated.

BEST VALUE - Register for the conference and join both local and national ASTD for only $299! This represents our best value registration option this year!

Is your current membership about to expire? Take advantage of the savings by combining it with your ACE registration!