Roots & ROI

ou can't pick your relatives. But you can pick your knowledge management systems. And FamilySearch.org—the world's largest repository of genealogical resources—has done just that. In tomorrow's keynote presentation from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Steve Anderson shows how FamilySearch.org is turning paper and film records from around the world into digital information for its 150 million visitors.

FamilySearch.org is a nonprofit service sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The organization encourages all people to find their ancestors and preserve their family histories. As such, the Church has been actively gathering and preserving genealogical records worldwide for more than 100 years. Learn how large-scale knowledge management principles can work for your own learning program, no matter how big or small. And check out the Genealogy and Family History Library tour tomorrow from 1 to 4 p.m. and visit www.familysearch.org to do some checking on your family tree.

Now that you've been immersed in technology for a few days, you also might want to check on your potential learning takeaway and return on investment from this conference. Visit www.TrainingTechSolu... and click on TrainingPayback. With this Web-based tool, participants make a commitment to apply key learning ideas to specific on-the-job demands. The first step in using this system is participants' submission of goals, action items, and measurable outcomes. Most participants agree that creating shorter or smaller goals enables quicker application and learning.

Elle Callahan, training manager, cMarket, an on-demand, online auction platform solely for organizations engaged in fundraising for nonprofit causes, utilized TrainingPayback during the Training 2007 conference. "It forced me to really boil down my objectives for attending each of the sessions," explains Callahan, whose three goals were to achieve the Training Manager Certification, to better communicate and measure the ROI of training, and to research learning management system (LMS) vendors for imminent purchase. "You can have an overarching goal when you're writing up a strategic business case, but this tool asks you to break down actions, and that was very helpful for me in terms of meeting expectations on a day-to-day basis."

Best wishes for an informative and profitable rest of the show. I look forward to seeing you at Training 2008 in February.