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As principal strategist at Blackboard, Scott Ready leads organizations in strategic planning for online programs and accessibility awareness. He served as director of online education at Spartanburg Community College, where he developed the nation's  first online interpreter training program.

Scott Ready

With over 14 percent of federal government employees reporting disabilities (and many more not self-reporting), there’s no doubt that ensuring accessibility for employees is the right thing to do. By creating an inclusive learning environment, you can provide equal opportunity for employee success, improve employee satisfaction, and increase employee productivity. And, with the 2018 updates to Section 508, the moral imperative around accessibility is accompanied by a renewed legal urgency.

In this webcast, Scott Ready, Blackboard’s accessibility expert, discusses the current landscape and ways to improve accessibility in government training and development programs.

Attendees of this webcast will learn:

· the value of creating a quality, inclusive program for all employees regardless of disability
· the risk associated with not complying with regulations
· the importance of a strategic plan for developing and maintaining an accessible online program.

Accessible, Inclusive Professional Development: A Moral and Legal Imperative

In my 17 years in training and workforce development, I’ve witnessed a significant transformation that parallels the technological convergence we’ve seen in mobile phones. Mobile phones began as single-use devices for voice communication, evolved to include text messaging, QWERTY keyboards, touch screens, and now host apps for nearly every conceivable need. Technologists predicted this convergence years before it became a reality, fundamentally changing user habits, creating new expectations, and facilitating our always-on, always-connected, ever-changing world.Today, the majority of the workforce was born into this digital world, yet our training methodologies have not kept pace with evolving user expectations. The pressure on learning and skill development functions is no longer annual or fixed; it’s dynamic. Products, goods, and services we train on are moving targets, and with the mobility of the modern workforce, so are our learners. Like their phones, employees expect an always-on, always-connected experience. They no longer want to navigate multiple platforms for training, communication, conferences, performance tracking, and rewards.This convergence in expectations necessitates a shift in mindset. We are no longer just trainers; we must adopt the mindset of marketers, connecting our strategies from training to communication to rewards and recognition into one cohesive, connected learning journey.The Era of Dynamic LearningThe traditional model of static, periodic training sessions is becoming obsolete. Organizations must move toward a dynamic learning model, where continuous skill development and talent nurturing are integral parts of the employee experience. This shift is driven by several factors:Accelerated Product Life Cycles: As product life cycles shorten, training must keep pace with rapid changes in technology, customer preferences, and market demands. Employees need immediate access to the latest information and skills to remain competitive and effective.Remote and Global Workforce: The rise of remote work and global teams demands flexible and accessible training solutions. Employees must be able to learn anytime, anywhere, on any device, ensuring that learning fits into their daily routines.Hyper Personalized Learning: Just as users personalize their smartphone apps to fit their lifestyles, employees now expect personalized learning paths that cater to their skills, roles, and career aspirations. Adaptive AI learning technologies and data-driven insights enable the creation of tailored experiences that meet individual needs.Integrating Training, Communication, and RecognitionTo meet these new expectations, training programs must be integrated with communication and recognition strategies, creating a unified learning ecosystem. Here’s how organizations can achieve this:Unified Platforms: Implement integrated platforms that provide a one-stop shop for learning, communication, and performance management. These platforms should offer a user-friendly interface, accessible via mobile devices, ensuring that employees can easily access all resources.Continuous Feedback Loops: Foster a culture of continuous feedback, where employees receive real-time insights into their performance and development. This approach encourages ongoing improvement and helps employees feel valued and recognized for their contributions.Cross-Functional Collaboration: Encourage collaboration between training, HR, marketing, product, and IT teams to develop cohesive strategies that align with business goals. This cross-functional approach ensures that all aspects of the employee experience are interconnected and reinforce each other.The Marketer MindsetAdopting a marketer mindset means viewing training as a holistic journey rather than a series of isolated events. It requires understanding the employee experience from end to end and crafting narratives and connected strategies that resonate with learners. Here are key elements of this approach:Storytelling: Use storytelling techniques to create engaging learning experiences that captivate employees’ attention and foster emotional connections. Compelling narratives make training content more memorable and relatable.Gamification and Rewards: Incorporate gamification elements and rewards to motivate and engage employees. Leaderboards, badges, and point systems can drive healthy competition and encourage active participation.Data-Driven Insights: Leverage unified data analytics to gain insights into learning behaviors and preferences. These insights enable organizations to continuously refine and optimize their training programs to better meet employees’ needs.Campaign-Based Learning: Develop modularity in your learning content architecture to create ongoing continuous learning campaigns. These campaigns can adapt based on market dynamics and conversion data, ensuring that learning remains relevant and effective.Embracing the FutureThe convergence of talent and skill development is not just a trend; it’s a necessity in today’s fast-paced, digital world. By adopting a holistic, integrated approach to training, communication, and recognition, organizations can create a connected learning journey that meets the expectations of the modern workforce. This shift requires a marketer mindset, where learning is personalized, dynamic, and seamlessly integrated into the employee experience, ensuring that organizations remain agile, competitive, and ready for the future.

Beyond Training: Creating a Connected Learning Journey

What is Demo Day?
This free, half-day event offers you the opportunity to see live demos from five leading AI-augmented learning tech solutions. Each 30-minute demo allows you to see the solution in action, ask questions, and request additional information. Selecting new technologies for your organization is a tough decision and a big investment. Let ATD Demo Day help you learn about the benefits of a variety of options at once.
Who is it for?
Anyone who is currently searching for innovative solutions using AI, interested in transforming their L&D workflow with generative AI, or scaling and automating enterprise training programs.
Demo Day Agenda: (All times below are Eastern Standard Time)
11:55-12:00 pm  ATD Introduction & Welcome
12:00-12:30 pm  Make Sales Enablement Seamless with Autonomous Sales Coaching (Dextego)
12:45-1:15 pm   Exploring AI Workforce Transformation with Pluralsight Skills (Pluralsight)
1:30-2:00 pm     Embrace the AI Paradigm Shift: Empower Your Team Today (ELB Learning)
2:15-2:45 pm     AI Enabled Skills Management: Make Personalized Skills Development a Reality (CYPHER Learning)
3:00-3:30 pm     Use Generative AI to Achieve Your Strategic Goals (Strategy.ai)

Session Descriptions:
 
12:00-12:30 p.m.
Make Sales Enablement Seamless with Autonomous Sales Coaching
In today's sales world, relationship-selling skills drive revenue. Struggling to develop these skills due to time constraints and scalability issues? Discover how Dextego's Autonomous Sales Coach ensures compliance without friction by delivering personalized coaching in the flow of work. Join us to future-proof your coaching approach and gain a competitive edge in today's dynamic market.
Join this session to:

Discover how AI-driven coaching can revolutionize sales methodology adoption and compliance, ensuring seamless integration into existing sales processes without friction or resistance.
Learn practical strategies for leveraging real-time, personalized coaching to empower sales reps, foster continuous skill development, and drive measurable improvements in sales performance.
Gain insights from real-world success stories using AI-enabled sales enablement.

Speaker: Ioanna Mantzouridou Onasi, Co-founder & CEO, Dextego
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12:45-1:15 p.m.
Exploring AI Workforce Transformation with Pluralsight Skills
Whether you want faster innovation, better customer experiences, or cost-cutting automation, those solutions require teams skilled and savvy in AI. Pluralsight offers the tools to equip your people-or yourself-with the skills you need to make the most of AI tools and tech. Join us to learn why leaders, learners, and organizations choose Pluralsight for mastering the artificial intelligence solutions of tomorrow.
Join this session to:

Explore how Pluralsight skill assessments can be used to benchmark organizational tech skills and identify knowledge gaps and strengths.
Learn how Pluralsight’s vast library empowers organizations to produce key business outcomes through its curated learning paths, hands-on labs, and sandboxes to enable technologists to develop stronger proficiencies through step-by-step instruction, practice exercises, and projects.
Discover how to track skill development progress through insightful data, ensuring the necessary skills are in place to deliver on key initiatives.

 
Speaker: Merwin Moss, Principal Solutions Consultant, Pluralsight
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1:30-2:00 p.m.
Embrace the AI Paradigm Shift: Empower Your Team Today
Discover how ELB Learning’s AI tools and services help employees connect new technology to their day-to-day work. ELB Learning’s approach to AI training goes beyond prompt engineering—it's about empowering your team to embrace change and solve real-world problems. In this session, you’ll learn how ELB Learning’s approach to AI ensures your employees are not just AI-ready but actually applying new tools to drive business results.
Join this session to:

Discover why our AI tools and services offer impactful learning for all levels: from foundational to advanced.
Identify how we tailor content depth to suit your team's needs, ensuring everyone can leverage AI for enhanced productivity and efficiency.
Explore use cases that lead to growth and innovation.

Speaker: Scott Provence, Senior Learning Strategist at ELB Learning
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2:15-2:45 p.m.
AI Enabled Skills Management: Make Personalized Skills Development a Reality
In today's evolving business landscape, staying ahead requires a workforce that is continuously learning and adapting, but traditional methods of skills management and development are no longer sufficient. That’s where AI-enabled skills management comes in. This transformative approach leverages AI to revolutionize how organizations assess, develop, and optimize their talent.
In this session, we’ll explore the cutting-edge technologies and strategies that are making personalized skills development an attainable goal for businesses of all sizes. Attendees will gain insights into how AI can enhance every aspect of skills management, including identifying skill gaps and recommending tailored training programs. Plus, you’ll get to see AI in action as we build entire courses of your choosing – on-demand – in mere minutes using CYPHER Learning’s new AI-powered Copilot technology.
Join this session to:

Understand AI’s role in skills management.
Find out how to implement personalized skills development.
Distinguish how CYPHER AI 360 can streamline and enhance attendees' skills management initiatives.

Speaker: Jennifer Geisler, Chief Marketing Officer, CYPHER Learning
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3:00-3:30 p.m.
Use Generative AI to Achieve Your Strategic Goals
Strategy.ai is an industry-leading artificial intelligence platform that empowers talent management teams with private, secure, and powerful AI tools to deliver personalized training to employees within their daily workflow. Discover how to leverage AI to dramatically enhance the value delivered by your team.
Join this session to:

Discover how and why AI can transform your approach to talent management. 
Learn why providing your workforce with generative AI tools is essential for achieving your strategic goals.
Identify how leveraging AI can triple the effectiveness and satisfaction of your internal customers.

Speaker: Andrew Leong-Fern, Founder and CEO, Strategy.ai
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ATD Demo Day: AI-Powered Solutions

John Zorbini has spent his career helping organizations understand the strategic link between effectively managed human capital and successful business results. John’s unique background and experiences as a senior executive, professional speaker, and certified leadership coach, combined with his collaborative and results-focused approach, makes him ideal to consult, coach and facilitate all levels of leadership. For Stewart Leadership, John specializes in working with clients in such areas as succession planning, full-cycle strategy planning (business & talent review, succession review, leadership development review), human resources consulting, and executive leadership coaching.For 30 years, John held various leadership roles for three of Wisconsin’s largest employers, spending 25 of those years in the chief human resources officer position. Having an intimate understanding of the complexities and daily challenges of boards, executives, and other leaders, has enhanced his ability to quickly relate to and assist those with whom he works.As a professional speaker, John has delivered hundreds of workshops and presentations and continues to be a much-in-demand facilitator and speaker. Additionally, John has over 20 years of university-level teaching experience (undergraduate and MBA) as an assistant and adjunct professor at Marquette, Concordia, Cardinal Stritch, and Mount Mary Universities.John received his bachelor’s degree from West Liberty University in West Virginia and his master’s degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee. He completed his fellowship for executives at the Advisory Board in Washington, D.C.He has served as a board president or board member for governmental agencies, civic groups, and not-for-profit organizations, including former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Council for College & Workforce Readiness (where he represented all businesses in Wisconsin); current Governor Tony Evers’ Career Development Committee; the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s Workforce Development Council; the Mount Mary University Board of Trustees; and others. He currently serves as Chairman of the Washington County Ethics Board.John has always been an active member of his community. He has been the recipient of his community’s Citizen of the Year Award, and two school district’s Friend of Education Award. He and his wife, Pam, reside in Erin, Wisconsin.

John Zorbini

Change Management Lessons From Reading and App Updates

Being Successful Starts With Books

Today’s high-performing learning programs are adapting to the evolving needs of learners by replacing one-size-fits-all learning programs, with adaptable solutions purpose built to meet the needs of the individual learner. Learning programs must be flexible, aligned with business objectives, and results-driven, while also managing shrinking budgets and learners with limited time and attention spans. In this webinar, we’ll talk about the top five trends disrupting the future of learning and discuss how learning programs have to evolve to continue to meet the needs of modern learners.
During this webinar, you’ll learn how to:

Use data-driven metrics to measure learning ROI.
Meet the unique needs of individual learners.
Identify why learning in the flow of work is key to closing the skills gap.
Understand characteristics of high-performing learning programs.

Primary Capability Covered: Future Readiness
Participation in this event can be reported for one (1) point of professional development for initial eligibility or recertification for the APTD or CPTD credential. 
 

Top 5 Trends Disrupting the Future of Learning

Marshall Goldsmith is the author or editor of 35 books, which have sold more than 2 million copies, been translated into 30 languages, and become bestsellers in 12 countries. Along with the bestselling Triggers, he has written the New York Times bestsellers Mojo and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There—a winner of the Harold Longman Award for Business Book of the Year, and one of the BookScan top five bestselling management books of the past 10 years. Marshall’s other books include Succession: Are You Ready?—a Wall Street Journal bestseller—and The Leader of the Future—a Businessweek bestseller. Three of his books have been American Library Association Choice Award winners for Best Academic Business Books of the year. Marshall received a PhD from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and he teaches executive education at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. He is one of a select few executive advisers who has worked with more than 150 major CEOs and their management teams. Marshall served on the board of the Peter Drucker Foundation for 10 years, and has been a volunteer teacher for U.S. Army generals, Navy admirals, and Girl Scout executives, along with international and American Red Cross leaders. His professional acknowledgments include: Harvard Business Review and Best Practices Institute—World’s Number 1 Leadership Thinker Global Gurus, Inc., and Fast Company magazines—World’s Number 1 Executive Coach Institute for Management Studies—Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching American Management Association—50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years Businessweek—50 Great Leaders in America Wall Street Journal—Top Ten Executive Educators Economist—most credible executive advisers in the new era of business National Academy of Human Resources—fellow of the academy World HRD Congress—global leader in HR thinking.

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