Philip, thanks for your thoughts on your blog as well. Very appreciated.

Brent… we’re looking forward to 2010 DevLearn and I think we may be going to mLearn as well.

To be clear, I am NOT a natural “conference programmer guy”. That may be my current job, but for many many years I was in the trenches as an elearning developer. My ultimate goal is to create the event that I want to attend. While that may sound selfish, what I mean is that I am a developer at heart and so I figure if I program sessions that I would want to attend then I’d probably create a pretty decent overall show.

I really appreciate Aaron’s comment above. He’s does a great job of explaining some of what I am thinking and so I won’t be redundant. But I will echo the sentiment that we try VERY hard to offer a little bit of something for everyone. But like Aaron says, that’s not easy to do because we only have a very general idea of who “everybody” is, or is going to be.

I also really appreciate Rob’s comments. For many of our attendees and Guild members they are hearing about Learning2.0 for the first time. And while setting up a wiki is easy for some, others find it impossible. In my opinion SoMe was a huge topic in 2009 and so I wanted DevLearn to reflect the reality of the industry that I was seeing. My opinions were confirmed when well over 60% or our session submissions had something to do with 2.0.

I’m not just an event programmer. I truly feel like a part of the eLearning community and when the community is “telling” me that SoMe or 2.0 technologies and learning solutions are important then I feel like its my job to support that.

I also feel like perhaps I let you and a few others down by not having more advanced opportunities available. And I am truly sorry for that. Rest assured your criticism is appreciated and heard. I’ve got a HUGE job ahead of me in trying to make DevLearn even bigger and better in 2010. Your input helps IMMENSELY in making that happen. PLEASE continue to send me your thoughts and ideas. I’m already excited about what DevLearn 2010 is going to be like in San Francisco.

Thanks again for sharing!

The problem is, imho, that it’s not pervasive. Look at the sessions that were sold out on Tuesday, Chad: Articulate and Captivate. Aren’t THOSE tools pervasive at this point? Aren’t we all at ubiquity for doing rapid eLearning? The fact is that everyone’s at a different pace because the demand for anyone to skill up in any one area is fluctuating at the same time that the world outside of organizational learning is accelerating.

I think you were at the session on SCORM and Social Learning. The first question is “why?” as in why would anyone want to do that? Few could answer. Few could answer what it should look like, leave the pedagogy aside for the moment.

When I developed content, I was always ticked about going to these conferences where there was no development sessions at all. Looking back a bit, maybe I was going to the wrong conferences — I got a lot more development mojo from attending FlashForward than I ever did at MAX. The big conferences are meant to provide something for the very wide audience they serve.

DevLearn tries to accomodate a meaningful experience for guys like you and me and the people who are picking up a Rapid Tool for the first time. There’s no way to win that gambit. You need to skew down, because expert learners — people who are mastering what they do — we’re going to learn something, somehow no matter what’s offered.

LIke you wrote at the end, you got a lot out of the conference. To be candid, I don’t go to conferences for the sessions. I go for the people that the conference brings together. Being situated in the same room as you, exchanging drinks and songs — that makes the ongoing learning so much better because I feel like I know you a bit better.

Personally? I’m simply in awe of how many of my personal learning network Brent was able to pull in.

As a 1st time DevLearner and from the corp world I have a little different perspective. How hard is it to get your IT guy to setup a WIKI?…hard. Getting a twitter id….easy…getting access through the firewall…hard. Hearing from folks who have solved these problems with similar issues is really helpful. The point is that the sessions I attended on microblogging focused on those who had actually done the work in similar environments. Mark’s sessions were awesome and I found some of the sessions that took time to get into the details extremely helpful and complementary.

Great suggestions on the tracks I agree that my biggest challenge was trying to be in a few places at the same time.

It was an amazing experience that was no doubt worth the cost. I am not sure I have ever been to a conference where I got as much out as I did at DevLearn09.

Thanks again for taking the time to share.