David Holcombe is a very interesting fellow. Together with Heidi Fisk, he founded The eLearning Guild. The Guild is prospering. I forget when they came on the scene, maybe six months back. In that time, 4,000 designers, developers, and eLearning managers have become members. Registrations for their Annual Conference in San Diego are ahead of expectations.
Over lunch in the courtyard of Piatti in Sonoma yesterday, we talked about why eLearning Guild is creating such a strong buzz. David's been in the learning confrence business a long time -- he ran the Influent conferences after a stint with Ziff Davis. He attributes the Guild's initial success to focusing on the needs of a community rather than the vendors who feed on it. The conference in San Diego will be largely commercial-free. No expo. No sales pitches disguised as breakout sessions. No thank-yous to sponsors for buying you breakfast, a drink, or a bag to carry your stuff around in.
David can run the numbers on an event in his head, but making the numbers is not the Guild's goal. He's taking the high road. Essentially, it's "Serve the members; the numbers will follow."
I'm particularly interested in the Guild's future, for its goal and that of eLearning Forum overlap. Both groups are free, dedicated to building a community of practice, and vendor-neutral. Not many of us can say that!
