Experts from All Things Digital and Google will keynote the ASTD
2011 TechKnowledge Conference & Exposition, being held
February 2-4 in San Jose, California. TechKnowledge is one of the
largest e-learning conferences and expositions in the learning and
development industry, and attracts more than 1,000 professionals
every year.
The conference's opening general session on Wednesday, February 2
will feature Kara Swisher, the co-executive editor of All Things Digital. Ms. Swisher
started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San
Francisco bureau in 1997. Her "BoomTown" column originally appeared
on the front page of the Marketplace section and also online at
WSJ.com. Ms. Swisher co-produces and co-hosts
D: All Things Digital, one of the leading conferences focused
on the convergence of technology and media. She has authored two
books documenting the rise and fall of AOL: aol.com: How Steve Case
Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War
for the Web, published in 1998, and the sequel There Must Be a Pony
in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a
Digital Future, published 2003.
Two Google experts - Karen Wickre and Ann Farmer - will speak at
the general session on Thursday, February 3. They will talk about
Google's use of social tools for communicating and learning. Ms.
Wickre has worked in business communications for 20 years. Since
2002, she has worked on the Google corporate communications team
with a specialty in new media strategies. She developed Google's
global communications framework, which today consists of some 150
blogs and 80 Twitter accounts. Ms. Farmer has been working at
Google since 2006, specifically addressing the issue of finding
information on the intranet. Most recently, she has worked on the
engineering education team setting up systems to more effectively
deliver "just in time" training.
ASTD will also unveil mobile applications to enrich attendees'
conference experience. TechKnowledge offers more than 80 sessions,
each designed to provide an overview of trends, best practices,
case studies, emerging technologies, and hands-on experiences.
Conference attendees will have two ways to
-more-
access information: through the standard program guide and via
handheld mobile devices.
For more information about TechKnowledge, including special rates
and discounts that expire December 31, 2010, visit the conference
website: www.tk11.astd.org.