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Our experience at the ATD 2018

Commit at ATD18
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by Yuko Baba, Project Manager at Commit Global

The outside of the San Diego Convention Center was flooded with thousands of people from all over the world on Monday morning; and yes, we were one of them. Who could blame us for our excitement and anticipation! Even the regular attendees of ATD were surprised about whom ATD invited this year for the opening keynote – the 44th President of the United States, President Barak Obama. This 75th year anniversary of ATD had become a very special one for us.

As President Barak Obama walked onto the stage, the crowd cheered and gave him a standing ovation.  We were sharing the same room with the former president, and it was a big deal!! The attendees could not get enough of him as he gave the opening keynote. He spoke about learning, resilience, and value as he shared his upbringing, family and experience in the White House. One of the things he shared was to hold on to values that are tested and proven by our previous generations – values that do not change: values like “be honest”, “be hardworking”, “be kind”, “carry the weight”, “be responsible”, “be respectful”, and “be useful”. He shared that such values reflect our day-to-day interactions and the kinds of habits we form which transcend any issues or situations and they, as a consequence, become our baseline and foundation. “Those are things that will get you through hard times as well as good times”, he said. Those values will “sustain effort and ultimately give purpose to what we do” which will make us go above and beyond superficial benefits like getting paid. It is easy to put those values away and seek short term results, but with those values, we become successful in life. To say that he is a great speaker would be an understatement. It was a very in-depth, insightful and inspiring speech. To be honest, we wish he would speak longer!

This year’s ATD welcomed over 13,000 talent development professionals from all over the world as they offered more than 300 sessions with 202 exhibitors. Needless to say, all of the sessions offered were about talent development and its related fields; however, it was good information to be aware of, as we provide translation services to the talent development industry. Especially, with regards to the changes in the industry trends with the upcoming technologies of virtual reality and Artificial Intelligence – how the industry’s e-learning programs and the materials will be impacted – our industry will also have to make necessary adjustments to grow alongside our clients.  It was indeed a good learning opportunity to explore how we can use those new technologies to our advantage to improve our services. Also, through sessions like “Overcoming the Headache of Video Editing and Content Reviews” by Daniel Witterborn from TechSmith and “What’s Wrong with This Course – Quality Testing and Editing Strategies for Designers and Developers” by Hadiya Nuriddin from Focus Learning Solutions,  we had an opportunity to discover the challenges and difficulties the clients face developing an eLearning program. Also, it was interesting to know that most eLearning program developers and designers do not have a formal Quality Assurance in place.  This is something we can also consider when taking on an eLearning project to provide recommendations and offer solutions to our client. Over all, all of the sessions were very interesting and will be applied to our business practice.

Commit had a booth set up along with the talent development training companies, software companies, universities and fellow translation companies giving away lots of cool swag!  We had a good networking time with the people who came by our booth, who sat next to us during the sessions and lunch tables. We are grateful for those who came to visit us at our booth. We hope you had a wonderful and meaningful conference like we did!  We hope to see you next year in ATD 2019 in Washington DC!

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