What I Love About #DevLearn: Steve Boller

To help celebrate the 10th Annual DevLearn Conference and Expo, we’ve invited members of the Guild community to share what they love about DevLearn, and why they return to the conference year after year.

Today we welcome Steve Boller, Marketing Director of Bottom-Line Performance to share his thoughts about the DevLearn.

You never forget your first.

DevLearn was the first eLearning industry conference I ever attended. Coincidentally, it was also my first trip to Las Vegas. Conference attendees might be more familiar with another “first.” Bottom-Line Performance originally launched our Knowledge Guru product at DevLearn back in 2012.

While 2012 may have been our first year to join the many sponsors in the expo hall, my colleagues at Bottom-Line Performance have been coming to DevLearn for years now. It’s usually one of the main conferences our folks attend for their own professional development. Our learning designers keep returning because it’s a one-stop-shop to learn about the most cutting-edge techniques and solutions.

It might sound silly, but DevLearn holds what I would almost call “sentimental” value to me when I think about our product and where it has evolved. What I love most about DevLearn is how much our team learned just by chatting with the hundreds of attendees that have stopped by our expo booth the last two years. DevLearn attendees are smart. They ask questions and really care about the technology behind the solution.

In short, DevLearn has given us some serious collective input on how to enhance Knowledge Guru. And we’re better off as a result.

As we enter year three, we prepare to release the all new “Quest” edition of Knowledge Guru. Once again, we have scheduled the launch to coincidence with DevLearn. Once again, I expect we’ll learn a great deal about what the product can and should be simply by chatting with attendees.

I’m sure I’m echoing quite a few others when I mention my other favorite part of DevLearn: Demofest. What a unique event! What seems like hundreds (but what is probably really dozens) of organizations and vendors showcasing the learning solutions they are most proud of. It’s inspirational to say the least. BLP loves Demofest so much that we actually host our own Demofest-inspired company event where our various teams show off what they have been working on to each-other.

I know I speak for our team (and the other organizations that have been honored) in saying that winning a Demofest award is special. When your peers vote, it matters.

So whether you’re coming by way of a workshop (I hear Sharon Boller and Karl Kapp are partnering for a good one), concurrent session, expo booth, or just a professional development trip, I encourage you to soak in all that DevLearn has to offer in 2014. Whatever hat you wear at the conference, I’m guessing you’ll learn something.

If you’re interested in contributing to the What I Love About #DevLearn blog series, please feel free to reach out to David Kelly for details.