Last week, there was a pretty large Learning Technology conference taking place in fabulous Las Vegas – DevLearn, hosted by eLearning Guild. Were you there?

I took away some good nuggets of information from this conference…I’m summarizing three of those nuggets, courtesy of some interesting people I know through Twitter:

 

1. Agile project management/development – Many Learning professionals are ditching traditional content development and project management methods in favor of Agile. I’ve been reading a lot about this lately, so I thought this post was an interesting, easy-to-implement strategy based on Agile methodology:

 

 

2. Work smarter, not harder – A great part about conferences is walking away with poignant, shareable words of wisdom from passionate, like-minded professionals. This one resonated with me…why do we make things more complicated than they need to be?

 

 

3. Naturally, the humor – First of all, can I get an amen for this particular slide?  When you get a group of L&D geeks in a room (brick-and-mortar or virtual), there will be war stories. There will be a splash of snark. There will be jokes. And, in Devlearn’s case, a breakout session with content created entirely from memes. (nicely done, @LnDDave – and thanks to @tracy_parish for sharing the tweet)

 

 

So, here’s a little confession: I wasn’t there. You read that correctly – I did not attend DevLearn. Yet I feel like I learned several things. How? It’s all about the backchannel, baby. I saved the #devlearn hashtag as a stream in Hootsuite so I could follow along throughout the conference. I actually felt like I attended sessions along with a number of good people who faithfully tweeted interesting points throughout the conference. So, to all of you who contributed to the DevLearn Twitter stream, I thank you for providing such interesting commentary! (Bonus: Since I wasn’t in Vegas for the conference, I didn’t lose any money at the roulette table!)

I’ve mentioned before that people in our industry are often like the “cobbler’s children who have no shoes” when it comes to professional development. We spend our days creating an environment for others in our organizations to learn, collaborate and grow….but when it comes down to brass tacks, we sometimes neglect our own interests and development goals. Following an event’s Twitter stream (“backchannel”) or joining a Twitter chat can be a wonderful (not to mention, free) way to reap many of the benefits of networking and social collaboration, without the travel expense or time away from the office.

If you’re unable to attend a conference or event, check out their website – you will often see the official event hashtag prominently posted. Follow it – it’s the next best thing to being there!

For regular interaction, Twitter chats are a great way to connect with others. Here are a few active chats for Learning and Talent Development professionals to check out:

#lrnchat

#chat2lrn

#tchat

 

Your turn: What is your take on event hashtags? Do you follow/contribute to the backchannel at conferences? Use the comments to share your thoughts!

 

Would your network enjoy this post? Be kind and share it!

 

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