Blog Post: Excavating trainers' artifacts.

It’s hard to debrief an event such as yesterday’s ASTD-Orange County Learning Event, as it was designed to be different experience for each attendee – like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.  Just as the ride provides "tracks" to follow -- Future Sight, Wealth, and Youth -- this MLE had two tracks: Training Resources and Training Tips. Each participant's experience -- dependent upon the collaborative experiences provided by the members at the table -- was unique.  Thus, the value of the event was dependent upon what each person had to offer, and what each person had to learn.

For each track, each table of 9 – 10 trainers had an opportunity to review a prepared document that lists some of the resources existing ASTD-Orange County members use for their job.  Then they discussed what they read or added to the list.  While I don’t know if things were planned this way, each table was a good mix of veteran trainers and those new to the field, so the discussions had the benefit of field expertise and innovative thinking.

Resources:

Those at my table started discussing sources for clip art, and how to obtain similar-looking clipart or photos to maintain a consistent look to one’s presentation (rather than the hodge-podge of images that often clutter a presentation because it makes sense for that slide).  We then shared our preferred assessment tools, books we’ve read, blogs we follow, and design documents we’ve used.  We used a tool the size of a business card designed to encourage follow-up with those people who’d shared something we found cool, and wanted to discuss further.  This tool created quite a bit of buzz, as it was simple and practical, and applicable right away!
 

Intermission:

We switched tables before discussion Training Tips.  Even this activity was designed to give us a new tool! We all are familiar with the practice of counting off our class participants into groups, but our facilitator had prepped each seat with (of all things) a sticker designed to disperse us to other tables. “If you’ve got the giraffe,” instructed our facilitator, “come to this table up front.  The star-shaped sticker, go to that table in the corner…” and so on.  We rose and shuffled through the Garden Room to our assigned table, meeting new people, experiencing different viewpoints, clutching the same glass of iced tea.  Some wrote down "stickers to assign class into new groups" on their notepads.

Training Tips:

What struck me was the simplicity of the tips shared by my table group. In a world where one can spend thousands of dollars on an impactful, tool-filled program, or hundreds of dollars for Trainer’s Warehouse stuff, the tips shared yesterday used plastic Easter Eggs, pennies, a ball of string, plain paper, etc.  We discussed different ways of determining comprehension, ways to illustrate different viewpoints using the mere twirl of a finger, and stories to illustrate an important point.  Nothing involving certification, nothing involving the outlay of much more than a few pennies or some office supplies.

I am being deliberately vague for two reasons.  First: we’re going to share most of these resources and tools in the ASTD-Orange County Community Toolbox, which will come laden with much better instructions of how to use them than I can provide in a blog.  Also, the ASTD-OC Community Toolbox will be available for members only, so I’m blatantly enticing non-members to join.  (We'll post when that link is up and running.)

Second: this was an event that you had to be there to get something out of.   A mere description of a tool is insufficient.  What made the event work with the collaborative nature of how all the trainers, senior and new, applied their unique skillsets and experiences to come up with different applications for similar tools.  Tables were filled with comments like: “I’ve used that, also, but this way,” or “for this purpose,” or “And if you use that with this, you can…”
 
After the Learning Event I spoke with Anthony, ASTD-Orange County Chapter President, who shared with me that yesterday's event was the future of Chapter events.  Sure, we would have speakers and seminars, networking activites and meals, but he looks to having more events that focus on the collaborative experiences provided by our members.  An ambitious plan to engage our members! Imagine the possibilities!

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