Okay, you’ve just returned from ATD ICE 2015. The glow of the conference is fading as quickly as the warmth of the Orlando sun. Because we are Rebels, we aren’t just going to let all the inspiration and renewed passion sit in the bottom of our abused tote bags. Right?
Therefore, here are 6 Rebel tips for after conference follow-up: (Be sure to list your success tips in the comment section below)
- Create an action list. This is different from a task list, or to-do list. Any person will have written out a to-do list – but you are taking this to the next level and generating ACTION from the conference. Pick that one idea out the several you picked up and build on it! #LetsDoThis! Which leads me to item…
- Schedule a brainstorming meeting. Gather your team together. Again, anyone can schedule meeting to “debrief” but YOU are going to forgo the boring, yawn inducing debrief and go straight to the money. That one idea that was simply brilliant…Brainstorm it! Brainstorm, as a team, how that idea is going to go from paper to implementation. No team? Brainstorm with your network. That being said, let’s move to…
- Talk to your new friends. You were there, tweeted, Facebooked, and all manner of other social activity. You picked up a new friend or two (or more). Regular people may be happy they have grown their social profile – but you, my Rebel friend, will take it to a new level. Gather those new friends together and create a group just for them. Be a pied piper! Many social applications allow for private group building, so pick one! Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn. No excuses, you are a Rebel now. Which prompts me to talk about…
- Send thank you notes. Rebels going old school. I can see your eyes bugging out of head from Chicago. You collected business cards. Now do something with them. If you are a business owner or vendor, I don’t have to tell you this – but for the “I gotta a day job” Learning Rebel, what better way to tell people you enjoyed meeting them. Come on, it’ll give you something to do while watching late night TV. Collecting cards, shouldn’t be about quantity it is QUALITY. Let the people with whom you exchanged information know that they were special enough to make it into your card file. (then reread #3). Wow, this ties into…
- Email, tweet, facebook message the presenters of your favorite sessions. They are people too, and they want to hear from you. They mentioned a research paper and you want to have deeper conversation about it than is allowed in the after session Q&A. You have their card. No? You have that Google Machine now put it to use. Believe me they want to hear from you, and if they don’t respond? Well, then you don’t need to buy their stuff… (evil Rebel laugh). Speaking of presenters…
- Find your story! Aggregate your notes. Shannon, that sounds HARD. It’s not. Use tools like storify to organize your notes, and then share them. Easy peasy – go to Storify, enter the hashtag or presenter handle and BOOYA! Your notes gathered in one spot about a topic you thought was fascinating. Storify puts them in a fashion so you can share. Not on twitter, but posted to Facebook? That’s okay, this awesome tool aggregates FB too. Share the best of the best. Sharing rule of thumb = Read, Think, Analyze…then share. Quality is what counts here.
What are you doing as a follow-up for the conference? Share your tips in the comment section below.
Related Post: What’s in Your Conference Bag, The Backchannel Saves the Day (Mark Sheppard Guest Post)
So what is coming next, you may ask?
As I have done in the past, I am gathering stories for my “It’s a Wrap” series.
Coming up are stories from:
- Sue Prenderville @sueprendo who will explain her experience from the backchannel
- Jean Marrapodi @jmarrapodi who will share her key learning
- Brent Schlenker @Bschlenker who will share what it’s like attending from a participant AND vendor view
- Miranda Lee @techyalater ATD newbie!
- Will Constantine @WillConstantine The point of view of an experienced L&D practitioner, what caught his eye and triggered his imagination.
Starting on Monday, May 25 and running throughout the week, you will be able to experience the ATD ICE 2015 conference from their eyes, and learn from their stories. NOW, that’s the Rebel way – sharing so we can all rise above “Learning Mediocrity”
#5 and #6 are huge for me! Share! Share! Share! I would also recommend inviting folks you met at the event, including speakers you particularly enjoyed, to speak with your teams and convey their messages in more contextual ways. It never hurts to ask! 🙂
Great idea JD! Bring the knowledge to the people! I see signs and bumper stickers…
Kind of related to #6 but I think one of the most important (for me at least!) is reflection. How do I do this? If I had gone to ATD ICE then I would have taken tons of notes always in the form of live Tweeting. Those notes aren’t any good if you never look at them so I compile those notes (using something like Storify) and then reflect on them by writing a blog post. One for each session makes sense or if there’s predominant topics then rather than session, topics might make more sense.
This not only gives you great abilities to record and synthesize in your own voice, it then allows you to create your own personal story by writing it in your blog later. Then what? Oh, did I mention by blogging about it you’re making it a permanent reference for you as a reminder, research tool, and all this with handy links so you don’t have to go hunting for those again.
It’s really a no brainier win-win cliche packed fun time 🙂 The conference I did this for has been forever engrained in my memory, and my blog which I read portions of now and again.