From the President – By Greg Adamson
Food for thought and topics for conversation
Photos by Morton Visuals
We’re fresh off another excellent LTEN Annual Conference, and I’d like to share a few highlights with you. That’s one great thing about an event like #LTEN2024: It’ll give you plenty of food for thought – and conversation.
I hope you were able to join us, because this year we really did take things up a few notches. This year’s conference theme was “Level Up,” and that’s exactly what
we did. We innovated. We reimagined. We advanced.
- We reinvented the opening keynote and brought in freestyle+, which combined music, improvisation and lots of audience participation to bring the conference kickoff energy to a whole new place.
- We changed the formula on some traditional conference elements, like workshops, poster sessions and Learning Labs. This year, we provided numerous opportunities for attendees to engage in hands-on learning with their laptops, and our LTEN Excellence Awards poster displays went from bulletin boards to tech-based, expert-led presentations.
- Perhaps most exciting, we took a deep dive into a single important training topic and in the process revamped the final day of the conference. This year, the entire final morning of the event was devoted to AI as a training tool, complete with keynote, panel discussion and hands-on training unlike anything we’ve offered at a conference before. In the end, we had our largest crowd ever for a final day. We’ll keep the conversation going around AI for you and with you.
During the networking opportunities, I met many new contacts, spent time with colleagues and reconnected with old friends. Even better, we were able to honor
three of them.
We inducted three of my former LTEN Board of Directors colleagues into the LTEN Hall of Fame: Carol Wells, Mark Osborne and John Constantine.
Speaking of celebrating successes, I also want to call out three more board colleagues who took on high-profile tasks at the LTEN conference — serving as main-stage emcees.
Our emcees made it all look easy. Jeff Hartzler and Brittany Pilcher did a great job leading attendees through Wednesday’s busy program, including announcing the
LTEN Excellence Award winners. And, Mani Chidambaram set a new standard with our deep-dive AI day, managing the program and moderating the panel discussion.
These are just a few of the highlights that made the conference special. I hope you’ll check out the wrap-up materials we’re sharing in this issue.
I opened this year’s event sharing a personal story of a patient experience. That led to an appreciation of what we do as trainers and, more importantly, why we do what we do.
As you can tell, I’m still excited about what happened in Kissimmee. It was a great meeting; I grew professionally, and I know our attendees did as well. I’m already
looking forward to coming together again in 2025…I hope to see you there.
Greg Adamson is president of the LTEN Board of Directors and executive director, sales training, for Olympus Americas. You can reach out to Greg via email at greg.adamson@olympus.com or through www.linkedin.com/in/gregadamson-9b85ba7/.
