Living in More Than One World

I spent seven days, from last Sunday through Friday, at three different conferences and workshops, beginning with the American Independent Writers Annual Conference in Washington, D.C, on June 13, the 100th annual conference of the Special Libraries Association/SLA, also in D.C., June 14-17, and the Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative marketing workshop, hosted by ASTD, the American Society of Training & Development, in Alexandria, Va., on June 18-19. Berrett-Koehler is publishing my first book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life, in August. I had the opportunity to meet and learn from a number of my fellow B-K authors at the workshop. I found them all to be talented, generous people. Over the two days there were many top-notch speakers and workshop leaders to guide us through such areas as marketing, publicity, selling, the effective use of social networking technology and finding public speaking opportunities. At the end of the workshop, everyone participated in a brief but intense co-consulting session, in which groups of four or five people helped each other think through something we want to work on immediately, and we had to report to the larger group what we’re going to do about it. This was a great vehicle for helping me focus my efforts on promoting the book, as we get closer to publication. Thanks to everyone who put on the workshop and ran it so smoothly, and to the many people who shared their knowledge and experience with a first time author.

My second and final day at the ASTD International Conference & Exposition, in Washington, D.C. was a big success. I met more training and development professionals, and a number of people working for vendors/exhibitors who are attempting to sell products and services to this community.  I am including links to a handful of the companies and organizations of booths I visited. Since most people reading this will not have been at the conference, checking out their websites is the next best thing. WildWorks, a Dallas-based facilitation company, is featuring a new product, Drucker Unpacked, that gives organizations the capability to conduct self-facilitated workshops around Peter Drucker’s principles. They have ten kits based around various topics of Drucker’s management concepts. As of this writing, the package is not yet featured on their site. There are also a number of interesting publishers represented at the conference, including Wiley, HRD Press (Human Resource Development Press) and Simple Truths, which specializes in short inspirational and leadership books and DVDs. And as I mentioned Monday and Tuesday, my own publisher, Berrett-Koehler has a booth. Other organizations/sites worth checking out include GS Graduate School, American Management Association and Soundview Executive Book Summaries. If you couldn’t attend this year, the ASTD 2010 International Conference & Exposition will be held in Chicago, May 16-19, 2010.

Another brief post today, as I’ll return to the Expo hall of the ASTD International Conference & Exposition, in Washington, D.C. Monday was fun and informative. Besides visiting the booth of my publisher, Berrett-Koehler, I talked to a number of people from a variety of organizations, and learned a lot more about the world of training and development. A big highlight of the day was getting to meet the legendary Ken Blanchard – who publishes some of his books through B-K –at the booth of the Ken Blanchard Companies. Blanchard is known for co-authoring many books, especially the multi-million selling The One Minute Manager. His presentation at the booth (meaning anyone in the hall could see it without charge or registration) was based on his new book Who Killed Change? Afterwards, he signed copies of a number of his books that were on sale through his company for a long line of people, many of whom had their picture taken with him.  I’m looking forward to learning more on day 2!

A very brief post today, as I will be spending most of the day at the Expo hall of the ASTD International Conference & Exposition, in Washington, D.C. I’ll be there to learn more about the training and development field, especially because I believe people in this profession will be interested in my forthcoming book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. The self-development and lifelong learning values in the book seem to fit nicely with the work they do. I’ll also be checking in at the booth of my publisher, Berrett-Koehler. A number of B-K authors will be speaking at the event and signing books at the B-K booth, and I hope to meet some of them. I plan to write about my impressions of the Expo – I am not registered for any of the seminars or other activities – later in the week. If you see me there, please introduce yourself!