Photo Album

We gathered:

Flights converged on Silicon Valley from Ontario, Connecticut, Virginia, Georgia, Texas, and Southern California.

We met:

Agilent Technologies hosted our meeting at their Palo Alto headquarters.

Agilent's Elad Levinson got us started, along with Pat Ross on phone and Webex from Maryland. (Nadine Rothermel also participated from Los Angeles.)

The technology was nearly seamless and I'm certain we'll increase the extent and frequency of our virtual meeting components in the future.

Malcolm Roberts of BMO Financial fascinated us with his description of their in-depth project to understand the costs of training, allowing their executive sponsors to make informed decisions on "the spend."

He also shared their Learning Processes and Infrastructure initiative, now in-progress.

Harry Wittenberg shared his "Models for Building a Learning Infrastructure" which we had initially planned to deliver as a webinar. The discussion between Harry and Malc added a lot.

Additionally, Judy Allen described Agilent's Executive Onboarding initiative. And, though we had far more roundtable topics than time, we did have an excellent discussion on the role of training and development in fostering innovation.

We dined:

Agilent hosted Thursday's dinner at nearby Cafe Riace. We dined outdoors in the warm California evening.

Clockwise from the left front, at dinner we had Pat Golden, Judy Issokson, Marty Jordan (a potential member from CSAA), Mike Dickinson, Malcolm Roberts, Jane Roberts, Donna Parrish, and Russ Sharp. (And me, of course.)

I don't know about you, but I find it disconcerting to have a large naked guy standing over you with burning eyes and a sword during dinner. "Make sure you eat those vegetables!" (Yes, sir!)

As we left, Mike coveted this scooter. The faces in the background seem to covet it too.

We Noodled:

Friday morning was devoted to a workshop led by Jane Stallman and assisted by Dennis Jennings. The official title was, "Designing Meetings and Facilitations for Change". Judy Allen, Mike Dickinson, Judy Issokson, Wendy Miller, Christine Landon, Linda Burkhart, Russ Sharp, and Donna Parrish participated.

We used STEP as the content domain and began a process of introspection and change that we'll open to the entire group.

We departed:

Thanks so much to our Agilent hosts! Special thanks to Denise Goodie for on-site coordination. Thanks too to all who attended for your contributions to valuable discussions.

I flew home early Sunday. By way of closing I'll share this shot of the Rocky Mountains just west of Denver. For much of the flight, there were heavy clouds below, but the sky opened just briefly to reveal the snow-clad mountains of the continental divide.