General Sessions & Keynotes:

2009 will be remembered as one of the most challenging years in modern times for organizations of all kinds. Leaders, managers and HR professionals are going to have to work harder than ever to keep their workforces engaged, motivated and productive. Still, in times like these, the productivity of the workforce is what will make separate future success stories from the also-rans, and the continued development of internal talent is a critical factor. The question is: can you anticipate the trends and issues that will arise in the workplace this year, and if so, how will you turn those challenges into opportunities?

Join Kevin Oakes, CEO for the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) as he explores:

• Workforce trends as uncovered from i4cp’s research
• Talent development implications on organizational success, and
• Solutions to keep your workforce engaged, productive and profitable

Be honest: How effectively do you tie competency management to your talent development programs? You know it all works together, but optimizing the relationship between concepts can be a daunting task.

Join keynote presenter Ann Hackett as she shares experiences from H&R Block that underscore the real importance of competency management. She’ll also focus on ways you can improve talent development through a better understanding of employee competency data.

You’ll learn critical tips and techniques on:

• Using leveled competencies to unite your talent development processes, from performance management to learning programs
• Applying competency data to build talent development programs that strengthen the workforce

For decades, the American Cancer Society, the Atlanta, Georgia-based organization committed to saving lives from cancer, battled the triple threat of talent development: They had multiple business units vying for custom learning systems and issues with user adoption of learning programs. And, to achieve its lifesaving mission, it was critical for the Society to use existing resources efficiently. Today, they’ve tackled these problems successfully. What they learned along the way might help your company overcome obstacles as well.

Join presenter Angela Rose, director of talent process at the Society, as she covers the organization’s selection and implementation of the SumTotal ResultsOnDemand solution. She’ll highlight proven best practices – including creating a common need, organizing nationwide teams, taking an elective system approach, and utilizing automatic intranet log in for easy accessibility.

You’ll walk away with valuable insight on how to:

• Answer to the needs of many using one solution
• Get buy-in by changing your approach
• Incorporate a creative theme to engage users

In today’s economy, every business wants to do more with less, and get more from what they have.  How do we get to this level of efficiency? By aligning the workforce with business goals. While processes and technology provide partial solutions, they only represent the “science” of performance management. The real challenge for most organizations is the “art” of performance management—or the people aspect. Workforce performance requires leadership, communication, and feedback. You must identify purpose, set expectations, ensure capabilities, provide resources, and establish measurement. Leadership’s understanding of this mix of people, process, and technology is critical to achieving a high-performance organization. Join SumTotal’s partner, Stranix, to explore the new “science and art” of performance management, and learn how your company can achieve new performance heights in a changing world.

As the name implies, e-Learning includes both technology and human resource disciplines. This multi-disciplinary status requires e-Learning Project Managers to face a number of complex tasks when overseeing an e-Learning project. Join SumTotal’s partner, Pinneast, for an informative session on the key elements and best practices that should be included in your next e-Learning project management plan.

Ready to turn your LMS into a more successful tool for employee development? Join SumTotal’s partner, GP Worldwide, to discuss issues commonly faced in developing and implementing an in-house “Corporate University”—including the frequent mistakes and pitfalls that can reduce a program’s overall effectiveness. Key take-aways include strategies for extending learning initiatives throughout your organization, ongoing ways to grab the low-hanging fruit and cut costs, and tips on how to engage your employees through a culture of continuous learning.

Are you attempting to train a multigenerational workforce? Today’s employees can differ in age by as much as forty years, leaving us with a serious question: How do we effectively design and deliver training to suit tremendously diverse learning needs and preferences? This session, presented by SumTotal partner, Vivid Learning, explores the specific training needs of three generations in today’s workforce: Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials. We’ll discuss the implications these differing needs have for employee training, while giving you strategies for creating multigenerational training plans that address all your workforce requirements.

Much has been said about the rise of Social Networking in Organizations.Several questions immediately follow: Is there Business Value associated with this phenomenon? Does the Learning Organization have a role in helping create this value? In this session SumTotal Partner, rapidLD, will help define (with examples) what Social Networking looks like, the role of the Learning organization in its development and maintenance, and how Business Value can be created with Social Networking (with examples).