TechnicalTrainer.org

Whatever profession you are in. Whatever industry you work in. No matter what preposition your sentence ends in. ***chuckle*** You need to stay abreast of what is happening in the world that is your career. In essence, you are either in the profession and/or industry you want to be in, or you aren’t. But, I’ll assume that if you are reading this blog, you are either in or want to be in the Workplace Learning and Performance profession. That profession serves just about every industry out there. Yes, we probably even have folks training the IRS to get more of your money faster. Yikes! What a thought. To improve your professional satisfaction and success, here are some organizations and resources you should consider.

• ASTD (used to be American Society for Training and Development, but is now just the initials): This is the organization that is defining the profession. You need to belong. Just do it! Here are some of their more important resources for the profession.
  • T&D Blog - The blog based on ASTD’s T&D magazine
  • Learning Circuits Blog - ASTD’s blog on technology
  • Learning Policy - ASTD’s website on public policy for the WLP
• e-Learning Guild - Their website says it best, “A community of practice for e-Learning professionals.” If ASTD is defining the profession as a whole, the e-Learning Guild is defining the e-Learning subset of the profession.
  • e-Learning Insider - ELG’s blog
• ISPI - Internation Society for Performance Improvement - These folks cover the subset of the Performance aspect of Workplace Learning and Performance.
  • PerformanceXpress - ISPI’s Newsletter (JEESH! I wish they had an RSS feed)
• SALT - Society for Applied Learning Technology - These folks focus on the technologies for learning. They have a more academic slant as well. But, an excellent organization that you should consider.
• Toastmasters - While not specifically in the WLP profession, these folks provide the foundational skills needed for any successful WLP professional.

I could add many more. I have a list of Associations on my website. You can refer to that for even more. Do we need more? I’m not sure. There is such a thing as saturation. But, even so, anything that adds to the profession and the professional stature of Workplace Learning and Performance is ultimately a good thing in my book.