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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Final Stuff - ASTD 2014

Preface:  Well this is it, and I am heading home this afternoon.  I think my conference quota has been filled for another 18 years.

On to the blogging...

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8:18am - Getting ready for my first session of the day, with this one dealing with "Leadership Development in the real word" or something of that sort.  I am all for any and every bit of material I can steal, so here's to hoping for a rich harvest.  In other news, the hotel stuff is all done, and when the conference day is done I just have a 5 block walk back to the hotel to acquire my rental car and my luggage.  While I am looking forward to learning more stuff today, I confess to also looking forward to a nice long and quiet ride back home.

9:56am - One positive resulf of Catholic guilt:  almost extreme punctuality.  I am sitting in the room now waiting for the next session.  Time to jot down a few notes and check mail before, the next session, which I am really looking forward to, on the topic of Leadership Sins of Omission.  Actually these times before sessions being are among my favorite, as I can be contemplative and stuff.  Anyway, the last session was mildly informative.  I say "mildly" because I don't really have that much interest in the part of HR that involves the identification of top talent, a topic that consumed much of the bandwidth during that proceeding hour+.  No worries though, as I did get a few useful nuggets to contemplate.

8:57pm - I didn't have time to do much notation work between morning sessions, and as soon as I could I hit the road out of DC.  It was a very long drive back, but outside of New York Avenue in Washington it was more or less congestion free.  The sessions today were worth the effort.


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Post Script:  I am truly blessed to work for a company that so willingly sees fit to invest in my development.  I also see something of a moral imperative to bring a few things back to the company that might help justify this investment.  I have a few ideas in this space, but I also need some time to cultivate them.  One thing is for sure:  I am not looking to do this again any time soon.  Why?  Well it's not because it was a bad experience, because that's simply not true.  Rather, the overall experience just isn't me...be it the glitz, the group socializing or the crowds.   I love the learning part of this, that's for sure, but the cost, as measured a few different ways, makes it something that is probably best saved for something less frequently than every year. 



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