Tweeting, meeting and eXchanging at Learning Technologies 2012

Learning Technologies 2012 is almost here and for the first time in nine years I have a very different role to play. In the past I’ve always been part of a vendor team but this year sees a big change. Don Taylor asked me at the end of last year if I’d take on the role of the official ‘rapporteur’, covering the conference sessions via Twitter and curating the event and its online resources for use by the Learning and Skills Group afterwards too. A request to which I readily agreed of course and my new company, Ascot Communications, is delighted to support.

I’m really excited to share what’s going on at the conference and across the exhibition to everyone attending the event and those who can’t be there in person. The keynotes this year are interesting and bring challenging new concepts and ideas to the event (which is exactly what a keynote speaker should do of course). It will be intriguing to see how their ideas will feed into what we do in L&D both now and in the future. Across the rest of the conference is a great mix of speakers and what I’m most looking forward to hearing is the case studies and examples of what’s working – and what’s not working – in different organisations today.

The quality of the seminar sessions and debates downstairs at the exhibition also looks strong this year too. There’s definitely something for everyone and hopefully some of these presentations will be really useful. It already seems that some are trying to break the mould with live demos and participative sessions that are progress from some of the same old PowerPoints we’ve seen previously

Also this year, Laura Overton at Towards Maturity has worked really hard to pull together the first eXchange at the event. The aim of the eXchange is to bring some of the speakers and the debate that takes place at the conference into the main exhibition areas. You can find more details here. It’s also the destination for the daily tweetups that are taking place.

Hashtag
There’s been some discussion around the use of the #LT12UK hashtag. In the past 12 months, Twitter has taken hold in the L&D community in a big way. So naturally the hashtag for the event is being use a *lot* by speakers, attendees and vendors. We did think about creating a separate hashtag for the rapporteur coverage but on balance thought that we didn’t want to complicate things. It’s also pretty inevitable that any other related hashtag would end up being encroached upon anyway. So just stick with #LT12UK and you’ll be sure to catch all the action.

Rapporteur team
I’m privileged to be ably assisted in covering the event via Twitter this week by Nic Laycock, Julie Wedgwood, Susie Finch and Lesley Price. So if you don’t already follow them, make sure you do to keep up with all the latest!

Stickers
If you’re visiting the event and you’re a tweeter, stop by either the conference reception or the Towards Maturity stand (number 45) to collect your sticker so you can wear your Twitter ID with pride and meet fellow tweeters on your way around the event. There are also two tweet ups taking place and it would be brilliant to see you there:

* Wednesday 25 January, 12.45pm, Stand 45 (Towards Maturity)
* Thursday 26 January, 12.45pm, Stand 218 (Training Journal)

It’s going to be an exciting week and I can’t wait to bring you insights and updates on what’s happening. *Shameless plug alert* You can also find out a bit more about Ascot Communications by visiting my partner in crime on Stand 18! Hope to see lots of you at the event and that it’s an enjoyable and educational time for us all.

P.S….For those of you arriving in London town on the Tuesday evening, myself and a few others will be in the Hand and Flower pub across the road from Olympia from about 6pm. All welcome for a pre-event get together 🙂