LTDX21 Week 1 Recap: Upskill People and Adapt your Organisation for Change

When you’re used to booking out two full days of your calendar to stand in an Expo hall, co-ordinating your team to generate leads, scanning badges and drinking copious amounts of coffee, a virtual event could seem like a comparative luxury. The (comparatively) late starts, the overly casual dress code and the fact that you can still feel your legs by the end are all major positives. But in the online world some things are most certainly not the same. Let’s delve into Learning Technologies Digital Experience 2021 – a two-week event that replaces our normal two days at the Excel, London, and assess how week 1 stacked up against expectations.

Firstly, like with all events in the new “virtual” age of the pandemic-stricken era, we are certainly missing the opportunity to interact with delegates “in the flesh” on our expo stand. But that’s not to say that we haven’t adapted to change. In fact, in true Cornerstone style, we’ve pivoted rather well and made it just as exciting as the invariable buzz, joshing and camaraderie that usually permeates the team during the days of the physical event. For example, the team calls in the preparation phase, and at several junctures during the week, as we assess turnout and performance, are still jammed full of banter, and it doesn’t always end there – we also have a team WhatsApp group to communicate with each other, since we can no longer simply run and fetch a colleague who needs to talk to a visitor.

At LTDX21, our focus has been on Skills – Upskilling, Reskilling, and how Learning is at the core of a connected learning experience. In Week 1 Thomas Frieldmayer delivered his German keynote session on upskilling, and David Smart and Lisa Baker also gave a demonstration of the Cornerstone platform. Over 500 people joined David and Lisa as they explained how skills underpin the modern approach to personalised development, using Learning, Develop and Careers to illustrate this in practice. The session chat box was also buzzing when the news of our Microsoft partnership and roadmap was highlighted by David!

The team has been busy chatting away and giving product demos to our audience in the same way as we would in person, albeit without the tasty coffee in hand! However, whilst LTDX is a great alternative when restrictions are in place, the general consensus has been that we cannot see it becoming a fixture any time soon – or certainly not as a replacement of the physical event at any rate!

And, as we head into the weekend, and a well-earned break from the efforts of Week 1, our minds invariably start to drift ahead to Week 2, where Cornerstone will offer three sessions to the audience. On Tuesday, EMEA Chief Executive, Vincent Belliveau, will spend 45 minutes talking about “Upskilling Your People for Continuous Adaptivity”, including answering questions live from the audience. On Thursday, he will reprise his role, this time giving his presentation in French! Also on Thursday, Cornerstone client Generali will present a case study of their WE:LEARN programme, in which they have upskilled over 73,000 employees globally – a story that is bound to inspire listeners.

So, here’s to another week of Learning Technologies Digital Experience. Even though we cannot be together in person this year, we’re still having fun and we hope that delegates are coming away feeling just as inspired and informed as if they were attending the physical event. So, here’s to a bit of downtime this weekend and we look forward to another week of more learning and inspiration in the L&D world!