What is The eLearning Guild?

What is the eLearning Guild?

I asked a dozen people what they liked or disliked about The eLearning Guild’s first Annual Conference in San Diego. Everyone brought up learning from others who were actually doing things. By a show of hands, four out of five people who attended my presentation had seriously implemented eLearning in their companies. The few vendors who made an appearance were unobtrusive and low-key. The program was loaded with entries marked RLS, for “real life stories.”

Compared to a TechLearn or Online Learning, this event was miniscule – a couple of hundred people. When I used to attend industry conferences to promote vendors or scope out the market for them, I favored large conferences that attracted thousands of people and lots of potential buyers. Now that I do more work helping organizations get the most out of eLearning, the size of the event in San Diego seemed just right.

As David Holcombe explained to an audience of members late this afternoon, The eLearning Guild is a Community of Practice of developers, designers, and managers of eLearning. The guru is not on the stage, she’s in the seat next to you. That’s why the Guild’s website is a place where members can keep and share resources (there are 2200 resources online now). The mission is to create a venue for sharing ideas. The Guild sees itself as supplementing, not competing with, ASTD, ISPI, and other organizations.

Statistics: 5300+ members, 4400+ unique visits each week, 3500-4500 journal downloads, 29 issues of Journal, 9 member surveys completed, 4 events serving almost 400 members, 8 months old. And just getting started.

New initiatives include Local Group Directory (keen to support local groups). Job Board. Salary Survey. Guild Technology Guides. Professional Practice Papers. Ongoing Research. Events (face-to-face & online). Certification Programs.

As conferences go, I give this event high marks.

Posted by Jay Cross at November 14, 2002 08:41 PM | TrackBack