CEdMA Spring Conference, May 16-17, 2023
Conference Details
Join us in person for CEdMA Spring Conference – a gathering of Customer Education practitioners, innovators and thought leaders. Be inspired by our breakout session speakers, keynotes and real-life customer education transformation stories. Gain new ideas, enhance your industry knowledge and network with the CEdMA community. It’s all happening on May 16 – 17 at the Boston Marriott Newton. We hope to see you there!
Conference Themes
This year’s conference theme is "Innovating on Your Customer Education Strategy.” We know our members are doing great things and we want to showcase their products, programs, successes and lessons learned. We're planning two tracks at the conference and here are topics we're working on:
Strategy
- Aligning programs to organizational goals and/or proving program value
- Partnering with leadership
- Developing high performing teams
- Measuring team output and business impacts
- Using new technology, like digital adoption platforms, to create value and impact
- Pricing structures in Customer Education
Building Learning Experiences
- Adopting new educational approaches and creating new learning experiences
- Designing and producing with efficiency
- Using AI for content development
- Improving the VILT experience
- Getting and incorporating learner feedback
- Design Thinking successes
We know that sharing our experiences, successes and lessons learned with our peers helps strengthen our community as a whole.
Our Agenda
We're working with Sponsors and Speakers to bring you an engaging and exciting event. Based on feedback from previous events, our Agenda includes:
- Ample networking breaks to meet your peers
- 15 minute transition times between many sessions to refocus or check your emails
- Show & Tell sessions where our peers show us their solutions and tell/answer our questions
Here is the full conference brochure with all sessions, speakers and activities
Monday, May 15th
Time |
Event |
4:00pm - 6:00pm |
Registration |
4:00pm - 6:00pm |
Welcome Reception |
Tuesday, May 16th
Time |
Strategy |
Learning Experience Design |
7:00am - 8:30am |
Breakfast with Sponsors |
|
8:30am - 9:00am |
Welcome and Introductions |
|
9:00am - 10:00am |
Keynote: Lessons in the Journey to a Mass-Scale Free Learning SiteRaghu Viswanathan - VP of Education, Academia, and Documentation, MongoDB |
|
10:00am - 10:30am |
Networking Break |
|
10:30am – 11:15am |
Five Ways a Certification Program Can Grow Your Technology BusinessBuzz Walker - Chief Revenue Officer, Kryterion |
Beyond the Education Tech Stack: How Braze Uses Structured Content to Work Smarter, Not HarderMatthew Chamberlain - Manager, Education Technology, Braze |
11:30am - 12:15pm |
Super-Charging Customer Education: How a Headless LMS Powers Customization and GrowthJessie Gold, VP of Product, Thought Industries |
5 to 50! Effective ways of building a white-glove customer education program (and scaling it up!)Sylvia Pereira Senior Learning Experience Designer - Customer Education, Alteryx |
12:30pm - 1:30pm |
Lunch with Table Topics |
|
1:30pm - 2:15pm |
Output from the 2023 update of the CEdMA Member Techstack SurveyTechMike Dowsey - Librarian, CEdMA |
The Influence of Learner Feedback/Metrics on Future Course DesignDavid Sacco - Learning Experience Manager, Red Hat |
2:15pm - 3:15pm |
Networking Break |
|
3:15pm - 4:00pm |
Customer Education & MarketingShannon DeLange - Customer Education Manager, Vanta |
Building a User Research Practice in Customer EducationSilvie Liao - Manager, Learning Technology, Contentful |
4:15pm - 5:00pm |
Show & Tell: Your Tech Stack |
Show & Tell: Your Academy, Courses, or Badging |
5:15pm - 5:30pm |
Day 1 Wrap Up |
|
6:00pm - 7:30pm |
Dinner |
Wednesday, May 17th
Time |
Strategy |
Learning Experience Design |
7:00am - 8:30am |
Breakfast with Sponsors |
|
8:30am - 8:45am |
Welcome to Day 2 |
|
8:45am - 9:30am |
5 Key Concepts for AI in LearningKristine Kukich - Director, Customer Marketing, Thought Industries |
|
9:45am - 10:30am |
From Cost Center to Business Impact: Unleashing the Value of Customer Education - A Case StudyDaria Lenina - Senior Manager, Customer Education, GeoComply |
Having a great LMS as a strategic enabler to customer education: The Siemens EDA ExperienceBonnie Willoughby - Director, Learning Services and Deb Taylor, Operations Manager, Siemens EDA |
10:30am - 11:00am |
Networking Break |
|
11:15am - 12:00pm |
Panel Discussion: Generative AI in Use |
|
12:00pm - 1:00pm |
Lunch with Table Topics |
|
1:00pm - 1:45pm |
Show & Tell: Your Metrics |
Show & Tell: Your Design Tools |
2:00pm - 2:45pm |
Keynote: The Future of Customer Education and CEdMA |
|
2:45pm - 3:00pm |
Farewell |
Boston Marriott Newton
2345 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, Massachusetts, USA, 02466
Conference attendees enjoy a special rate of $209/night by booking here. Valid until April 24, 2023.
We strongly recommend that you use our link to book your stay as it also includes discounted parking and rooms in our pre-selected room block.
Thanks to our official sponsors:
If you are interested in being a conference sponsor, please reach out to sponsors@cedma.org
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Bronze Sponsors
In Spirit
-png.png?width=260&height=76&name=Skilljar_Logo%20(1)-png.png)
Registration Information
Conference fees:
- Members: $995
- Non-Members: $1195
You'll get:
- Inspiring keynotes
- Breakout sessions, panel discussions & workshops
- Multiple networking opportunities
- Exhibitor hall
Why Attend?
Why Attend the CEdMA Conference?
by Kristine Kukich, CEdMA Board
Networking
By far, the most common reason to attend the CEdMA Conference is to meet others who do what we do. Immersing ourselves in customer education with others that build, market, develop, instruct, strategize within their programs allows us to share in ways that regular daily interactions don’t. We can talk about specific programs, celebrate successes, commiserate on failures, and learn from each other.
CEdMA has a strong board of trustees that bring significant knowledge to the conference, along with the speakers over the two days. This will give an opportunity to meet and talk with some of the most noted professionals in customer education, as well as meet practitioners new to the space and speak from your level of expertise.
Last year I was so impressed with the people I met. Some were new to the practice, some were experts. Some were colleagues I’ve known for many years, others are colleagues I will now know for many years.
Expand, Learn, Improve
The sessions this year are divided by strategy and practice, which means you get an opportunity to level up based on where you want to go with your practice of customer education. Expand your knowledge by interacting with the speakers, having lunch with someone new and discovering they just rolled out the same type of program you’re agonizing over right now, and joining a discussion group on your latest success.
Take notes, have conversations, learn how to improve your program and expand your influence.
Last year I was immensely impressed with the presentation by Shellie Grieve, and thrilled to get a chance to talk with Cynthia Stegall, and catch up with Debbie Smith and Dirk Braun.
Learn about latest trends
Take an opportunity to note what’s hot right now (AI anyone?). What tools are people using? What does their tech stack look like? How are they leveraging more with less? These are the questions I always ask, and these are the types of questions the speakers are answering.
Last year I was excited to see the progress AI is making in the various ways we use machine learning in customer education. I’m super excited to see what this year brings.
Meet the stars
The conference is small enough that you can really have great discussions with the speakers and ask meaningful questions that pertain to your practice. Lunches, dinners, networking, will all give opportunities to meet with the names that you want to meet.
When I first started attending CEdMA conferences, I was lucky enough to meet Adam Avramescu, Daniel Quick, Debbie Smith, Sharon Castillo, Niyati Shah, Lauren Thibodeau, Donna Weber, and more. Some of them became people I worked with, or clients, but mostly, they’re consistent resources for anything I do moving forward.
Transfer the knowledge
And all of these things can turn into knowledge and activities you take back to your team to build better, stronger programs. Connections you make here, whether through people, or content, will help you plan, enhance and execute when you return to your team.
After my first conference, I had to present what I had learned. Now, I am fortunate to be able to call on the people and resources to help research and build new things.
And that’s why I attend the CEdMA conference whenever I can.