IAB certification is useful for having paid advertisements on your show. It is an independent organization that has set standards around play and download data collection.
Picking the Right Host
I wanted unlimited storage, so I looked at Podbean, RedCircle, and Anchor. RedCircle offered free unlimited storage but lacked strong analytics. Podbean was listed as very easy to use, but unlimited storage was a paid feature. Anchor, however, was free, had unlimited storage and robust analytics—but then I found it had been acquired by Spotify.
My Advice
Host on Spotify. It’s free, has strong analytics, and integrates seamlessly with podcast distribution. (In April of 2024, Spotify left the IAB Certification. There is speculation that they are so big that they don’t “feel they need it.” This has not helped their image.) The analytics at Spotify are great, and some say they are starting their own standard. If Spotify goes away, we have bigger problems than our Podcasts not playing anymore.
People donot know, and they do not care where you host.
Make sure you pick a host that you are happy with. Try to find one you feel you will remain happy with. It is possible to switch, but you will need a backup of your episodes. You will lose the original post date if you ever switch to a new host.
I was honored to present at the first-ever (and I pray not the last) Lunch and Unlearn at:
Background
I was asked to contribute to an event with ATD CORE4. The Lunch and Unlearn is a simple and UN-SERIOUS take on the traditional Lunch and Learn, and I am honored that Bianca Woods thought of me. I did my best to not take it too seriously. This is my first dry run through to get a time for my part. I went a bit over on time in the prep recordings. I added some timers at the bottom of my PowerPoint slides, and I was right on time at the virtual LUNCH AND UNLEARN event!
“This event is ‘special’.” ~Bianca Woods
Second Dry Run
To prepare for the sessions, I made recordings of myself presenting. The nice thing about these is that they are over 4 minutes (my allotted time to speak). So, they add more context.
Seriously? Only 4 minutes?
I took this as a challenge to view my presentation in the same way. To not see it as a small thing, even though I only had 4 minutes to present. It reminded me of a learning event that a friend, Kassy LaBorie, shared with me. She had to present her entire brand and purpose on a big stage in front of a live audience. She only got 1 minute to speak. If she could do all that in a minute, surely I can do an “unlearn” session in 4 minutes. I even created a social post around my SPEAK!
Content
I wanted to start with a bit of my background, education, and work history. Then I shared a favorite TED talk for context.
Then I just had to do a mock-up of the old Learning Objective / 3-step process:
How to NOT get Credit
💥APPLY
💥BUY
💥DON’T PAY
First Dry Run
To show how Instructional Design and Facilitation is a fluid and iterative process. I want to share the original Dry Run Recording. This was from when I was still developing this program.
Overactive security led to negative participant experiences at the recent event DAVELEARN, a “smaller learning conference” which took place at the GAMELAYER.fm studios from November 10th to November 14th, 2025, in St. Louis, MO. Sources claim there was an overactive security guard on site, who reportedly refused entry to participants in the event that they could not present their badge.
CEO of the event, Dave, made a statement an hour ago from the mainstage at GAMELAYER STUDIOS:
“Team DAVELEARN apologizes for the actions of our overzealous security guard. We received some reports late last night, November 11th, 2025, that they were refused entry for having the wrong type of badge. We outsourced security for this event, and it appears that the proper vetting process for asset selection was not completed. Our sources indicate that this employee was dishonorably discharged from their local militia. We are releasing any more specifics at this point, but rest assured, this former employee was reprimanded and is no longer with us.”
Images of the imposter have been recovered from HD security camera footage.
Sources earlier this morning (11:07 AM November 20, 2025), including potential DAVELEARN Conference attendee Sheila B. Robinson, revealed on the professional Social Media app LinkedIn that “[She] couldn’t get past security at the convention center without wearing [her] badge and lanyard. ([She] was holding it in [her] hand one day, and they hassled [her]).”
A response to the post was delivered at the front doors of GAMELAYER STUDIOS by the DAVELEARN team’s Vice President of Human Resources, “Dave the HR guy,” to a sizable and eager press attendance. Due to a significant magnetic frequency disturbance in the area, there is no audio or video footage available for that official statement. However, text-based copies of the address were captured on pen and paper in real time.
“Thank you for attending this press update. Team DAVELEARN has received additional information regarding the previous employee on our security team, who is known only as ‘DAVE’, who we have confirmed entered into the position under a false identity. Our sources indicate he was only admitting attendies whose badge included the word ‘SECURITY’ on it at the South entrance. We would like to confirm that this was not the direction that was provided by team DAVELEARN, and in addition, we would like to apologize for any negative attendee experiences. This man was not of sound mind; he believed he was a reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte XIV, who recently passed away on the 10th of March, 2023. It is our promise that this will never happen again at any DAVELEARN event.”
Sources on site who witnessed the apprehension of the Security Guard formerly known as “Dave” state that he was found digging through the ashes of the stump that was lit on fire during the DAVELEARN event. The man who self-identified as a reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte XIV began to yell that he was on a crucial and pivotal mission, collecting scientific samples of the remains of the fire that needed to be analyzed by the proper authorities in what he called the “MO cave-dweller community.”
A person walking down the street where GAMELAYER STUDIOS is located observed, “Why do all these DAVES look like clones. What sort of conspiracy is this?”
The Sandbox Analogy: Embracing Unexpected Learning
Yesterday, my kids were playing in their sandbox. The weekend before, I had noticed that my daughter and her friend had shoveled all of the sand up to the slotted planked “walls” of the sandbox, and a lot of it had fallen out into the playground area. Yesterday, my kids filled that area with water, played on the slide, and got covered in mud. Now, I built that sandbox intending for my kids to sit in it, shovel sand into buckets, and play as if they were at the beach. How they chose to play in the sandbox doesn’t align with my original intention. And that’s completely alright.
AnInstructional Designer’s Journey: A Call Center Experience
When I first started exploring instructional design, I was working as a training facilitator at a call center for a popular credit card company. I reached out to an established instructional designer working at the flagship office in Ohio, to learn more about the🆔role. They shared a project addressing one of the most complicated phone call scenarios for credit granting—a situation where identifying the next course of action was particularly challenging, especially for newcomers who wanted to avoid legal missteps.
An E-Learning Solution That Became More
The designer’s solution was a basic e-learning module in a SCORM file. It featured a branching scenario that guided users through the call, complete with cute static cartoon characters. Intended as a classroom learning experience, it evolved into something more. Learners began using it as an interactive job aid during actual calls, asking clients for brief holds while they loaded up the e-learning module and then consulted the e-learning for guidance throughout the call. The instructional designer saw this as a complete success, as the artifact had transformed into a practical, continually used tool. The form of the learning artifact remained the same but the function or usage of the tool had pivoted.
Rethinking Learning Artifact Design and Usage
In learning and development, we often focus on creating artifacts that suit our own learning preferences. This natural and selfish process has been coined “Self-Hugging.” That is making learning content that we ourselves would consume easily. However, it’s crucial to design learning experiences that work for everyone, regardless of their ability or learning preference. The function of a learning artifact should be left up to the learner. Too often, we dictate how learners should use these tools, limiting their potential.
Embracing Learner-Driven Exploration
Just as children might choose to shovel all the sand out of a sandbox—not the intended use, but still valid—learners should be free to explore and use learning artifacts in ways that work best for them. This exploration can lead to valuable realizations. For instance, children might learn why keeping sand in the sandbox is important through their own experiences, rather than being told arbitrary rules. So there is a connection here between the corporate learner and the child playing in the box of sand…
Maybe they want to shovel all of the sand out of the sandbox. That’s not how I as an adult view correct play with the sandbox, but does that matter? Does that mean we can no longer consider what they are doing to be “Play?” They might find themself in a place where all of the sand is no longer in the sandbox and now it’s mixed with the wood chips, and it would be nearly impossible to get only the sand back in. Now they can’t play in the sandbox. At that point, they might realize that shoveling all of the sand out of the sandbox isn’t what they should’ve done; IF they want to play with sand in the sandbox.
The keyword here is “realization.” Simply because they did something wrong does not mean that the learning experience has failed in fact, quite the opposite. The participant will have gotten to a point where now they know why it needs to be done in a certain way because they have learned from their own firsthand experience that there is a rule for a reason. This will be 99% more effective than if you had simply told them, “Hey we do it like this, this is just how we do it because we’ve always done it like this.” In other words, there will be actual behavioral change, and moving forward, the culture will naturally align with the policy in a fortified way.
Embracing Learner-Driven Exploration
When learners have firsthand experience, they understand the reasons behind certain practices. This approach is far more effective than simply dictating rules without context. It leads to actual behavioral change and cultural alignment with policies. By allowing learners to explore, make mistakes, and come to their own unique realizations, we create more impactful and lasting learning experiences.
I recently conducted a test recording using Riverside.FM, and it exceeded my expectations. The platform asked dynamic, open-ended questions that really got me talking. Although it was just a demo, I had a blast creating it, and the end result provided a great description of my upcoming radio show, #GAMELAYER.
Riverside.fm Test Recording
Why Publish Unrehearsed Content?
Initially, I had no plans to publish my first experience with Riverside.FM. However, I was pleasantly surprised by its capabilities. It offered high-definition recordings for multiple participants and provided a range of video editing tools and open-source music. While I couldn’t add transitions to images or videos, I could fade music in and out. Overall, it was impressive for a free platform. As someone who loves using free software (much to the dismay of my computer engineer friends), I was thrilled.
What’s Next?
I’ve been working hard on editing the first episode of #GAMELAYER, which features a series of phone tag audio messages sent via text. I’m torn between using the original low-fi recordings to emphasize the casual nature of phone chats or enhancing the audio for a more professional sound. I think I’ll publish the high-quality version as a podcast and host the low-resolution version on the transcript page of my Substack newsletter.
Gamelayer.fm
I recently purchased the domain Gamelayer.fm but haven’t successfully linked it to my Substack account. Instead, it redirects to Substack’s main page, which isn’t very useful. I’m considering building a landing page with Parallax animations on Amazon AWS, but I’ve read that the process might be similar to linking to a Substack account, which could be just as challenging. For now, I have some ideas, but they’re still in development.
Build It
Currently, my focus is on recording the show. However, I might need to reach out to experts to help launch the webpage. Alternatively, I can let the podcast distribute across platforms via Red Circle for now and work on the webpage after the show’s official launch.
“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”
I am getting warmed up to start a new project. The project is about play. It is a podcast that celebrates all the ways that we play. It focuses on the science of play and the quest of learning. It is about enjoyment, it is about deep learning, and it is about gamified learning environments. I basically stopped recording VLOG videos at some point. I basically stopped writing on this blog to complete the hall bathroom I was updating, and I plan on outlining that process on this blog.
The first Fun Project
This is A quick recap video that I captured with my updated Podcasting studio and then posted directly to Linked In with Minimal edits. A “fun Project” is what I called the file. I give thanks to the people who are helping me grow and announce my new show, GAMELAYER. I say that it will launch on Halloween of 2025, but it might launch sooner, maybe even as soon as Spring Break 2025. I also share another side project I have started with my dad around building financial independence through Real Estate. This will start as a video podcast that develops into eLearning coursework. MUSIC: ANI KUNI Polo and Pan
I had just got off an introductory call with a guest on the new show I am piecing together and I was fired up. So I decided to record a VLOG post. The radio show is called GAMELAYER.
Fun Feels Good
I have had fun dipping back into my experience as a sound designer. I am feeling the creative process seeping back up like sap from my roots. It is really revving me up and by the end of the day wearing me out!
Developing the GAMELAYER Cover Art
I have created iterations of the cover art in the web-based design app canva.com and I’d like to share what I had downloaded of those here: [Click on the arrow on the right to scroll through the design iterations.]
What’s Next
I might just keep recording these short “Fun Project” videos where I dump out all the emotions and the thoughts I am having around putting together a Radio Show. They have been well received. I will keep posting them here as a means of tracking them. I am going to get busy making a Podcast now and I might be shownig less love to my VLOG newsletter here at Improvementdave.com, but I’ll be around.
Thanks for reading, I really appreciate your time and attention. Please reach out to me if you would like to be on my radio show. We all play and we all have a perspective to share. Leave a comment related to how you play. What do you play? Do you play music? Do you play games? Do you play with artmaking? How do you express yourself?
Love
Dave
“Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.” You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.” You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.
The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.”
Near the end of 2024, I developed an idea to create a blog post celebrating all the achievements from the year. I wanted to pause and recognize all the accomplishments I had achieved. As I reflected, I thought about things I had written or not written about throughout the year that I could highlight.
However, instead of actually writing the blog post, I paused and spent an enormous amount of time with my family, you can read about that and see the glorious pictures at the end of this post under Family Time Adventure.
Think about moments you could have celebrated but didn’t. How can you make celebration a regular part of your daily routine?
Professional Growth
We recently had significant turnover at work, and an engagement expertise facilitator, Tanya Zion came in via AAIM HR group to help us navigate some big transitions. The sessions were insightful, blending professional and personal development with focus groups and facilitated sessions that resembled group therapy. One message that Zion emphasized repeatedly resonated with me:
It is important that you remember to pause and celebrate after a significant accomplishment.
Often, we’re so focused on fixing problems and completing tasks that we forget to celebrate how far we’ve come. That idea stuck with me throughout the year and inspired this blog post.
Reflection on an Eventful Year
I want to pause and recall some of the achievements I accomplished in 2024. If you get anything from this post it should be that No accomplishment is too small to celebrate. You don’t have to buy yourself a car or go to the islands on a boat. Stop, take a deep breath, and shout, “Yeah, I did that!”
It’s easy to dwell on missed goals or failures. It’s challenging to be proud of achievements and celebrate the wins. Completing the tile work in our bathroom was one of those wins. As I admired the finished product, my five-year-old daughter walked in and exclaimed, “Wow, it looks so good, Daddy. Are you proud?”
I responded, “Yes, honey. I’m proud. This was hard work. It wasn’t easy for me, but I did it anyway. I finished the job.”
More Thoughts
Reflecting on 2024 reminds me of the value of pausing to appreciate our progress. We often achieve things that would have been unimaginable to our past selves. It’s important to recognize and celebrate these moments—not just for ourselves but to inspire those around us.
A contact/ mentor of mine named, Caitlin Johnson, talks about making our goals into quests. Her mission is to explore gamifying not only business strategy but our personal/professional goals. This concept works perfectly with my ideas of using Novelty to Bend Time and to me extends into the concept of artmaking as a process of religious practice.
Here’s to celebrating 2024 and looking forward to new milestones in 2025! Thank you if you made it this far, take a moment to scroll down and view the absolute novelty of my last 2 weeks of 2024, and why I chose to write this post to open up 2025, and not close 2024.
Family Time Adventure
So, first things last. I want to share what I did instead of writing this blog post before 2025 started. I attended family gatherings for the holidays, played video games with my kids, tiled and grouted a bathroom, and took several impromptu vacations.
In retrospect, the novelty of those 2 weeks could have filled five months of a normal year. When my kids were meant to return to school, several snow days extended the joy of that time. The past three weeks alone have given me plenty to celebrate.
Cooking and Crafting
Creepy Tunnel
A random adventure I generated in the moment was a hike on the infamous Bootlegger’s Trail. We even found that creepy old-time brick tunnel that our pathologist neighbor Jim had warned us about!
Gravity Paintings
At one point my kids asked if we could make gravity paintings like Daddy does. I said Let’s do that and use the old ceramic tiles we found on Uncle Mark’s farm! #Novelty!
Art in the Woods
I kept seeing advertisements for a local light installation so I randomly invited friends of the family and we all went out. I took a lot of video of the Light Cycles show, and I will post that below the pictures!
Video of Art in the Woods
Here is some video of that show.
Train to Germantown!
Somewhere in the middle of the winter break from school, we took a train ride to a local treasure: Hermann, Missouri. Hermann is a small town in rural Missouri that was built by German immigrants in 1837 who initiated grape growing for wine in the rolling MO hills, but more importantly here AMTRAK goes there. So we bought a round trip and exposed the kids to trains!
Thai Style for New Years!
We were really in the mood for the Thai version of Korean BBQ. In Thai, this is called MU-GRA-TA หมูกระทะ. We have an electric version that also simulates the infamous Chinese “HOT POT.”
In the pictures above there is a handsome devil who also happens to be bald. He is known as The Bobby. During this New Year’s Eve party, he mentioned a great meteor shower that would fly across the sky for days. That is important later when he decides to return to bed instead of going out in sub-zero temperatures to see the meteor shower covered by clouds.
4 Foot Porcelain Tile!
So, I haven’t said much about this on this blog, but it has taken over my FaceBook account. I have been laying tile in our hall bath. So, the hall bath started leaking. I tried to fix it and then it didn’t hold so I just ripped out the whole room and expanded the ceiling. The main highlight for me of the last few weeks of the year was completing all the tile and grout in that hall bathroom project, and preparing it for a glass door installation.
If you can’t tell from the pictures that was a pretty big project. I listened to the Case 63 podcast when prepping the floor. and then I listened to it again when laying the tile! It felt like I was a new person with a new task. Listen to the podcast if you don’t know why that is awesome!
Listen to Case 63!
OK, Yes Betty, you are right. AAAH, Thank you to the great Betty Dannewitz for recommending this amazing Podcast that I listened to back-to-back in 2 days on 2 separate occasions. (OK OK). …And.. Betty is my #1. (Apart from my family.)
Seriously that podcast is RAD.
New Years had passed but we still had a whole weekend before school and work started back up!
The Final Weekend
So do you recall Bobby the Bald, that handsome devil? We had plans to wake up at 2:30AM (much thanks to Bobby) to view a meteor shower, but it was cloudy when we woke up and our friends (Ahem Bobby) canceled on us. So, to celebrate completing the tile and grout work, we spontaneously got in the car at three in the morning to watch a meteor shower. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, instead of turning back, we drove across several states to Cincinnati, Ohio.
Planning as We Went
We had no plan and it was an amazing vacation. On the way, we booked a hotel and spent just a single day in the city.
Next, we went to the aquarium, petted stingrays, and saw sharks, sea turtles, and a fascinating creature I had never heard of: the stingray shark. I’m still not convinced it wasn’t a robot, but it looked impressively real.
And I also took some other pictures at the aquarium…
Who is Hungry?
This was technically not in Ohio, It was across the river in Newport, Kentucky. Right next door to the German Brewhause Hofbräuhaus! Perfect!
Ice Skating
Our hotel room in downtown Cincinnati overlooked Fountain Square, where there was an ice-skating rink.
Even though we were practically running on fumes from waking up at 2:30 a.m. Central Time, we went ice-skating. The ice was so rough it looked like a layer of fresh snow had fallen on it. Despite the poor conditions, it was the best ice-skating experience of my life.
Keep on Ramblin’
The next day, we woke up at 2:30 a.m. again and raced back to St. Louis, Missouri, to avoid a snowstorm. We didn’t avoid it, though, and drove for miles on snow-covered highways. That in itself was an adventure, but the Odyssey didn’t let us down!
We Need an Igloo in All of this Snow
When we got back the kids had snow days so we went sledding again and started on an igloo mad out of frozen water balloons.. That didn’t pan out like we had hoped.
However, Thanks so an idea from Kassy Laborie, we did manage to salvage some of the failed water ballon bricks into some lovely ice luminaries!
Think about moments you could have celebrated but didn’t. How can you make celebration a regular part of your daily routine?
Thank You
Thanks for getting this far. That last point was again just how thankful I am to have such a warm and supportive family! The journey is always better when you travel with those you love! I do a word each year, and I started with thinking I would use Balance and then thought about Action, and then Balanced Action, but now I am thinking the way you find balanced action is via #NOVELTY … It is time travel after all. Novelty just might be the way forward on the quest for improvement. Be sure to check back in to see how it goes!
How I Broke the Seal on Podcasting Improvement Dave – David Kolmer
In 2023, I revived this blog, Improvement Dave, which I originally started in 2017 while earning my Master’s Degree in Educational Technology but had since abandoned. Why did I bring it back? The answer is simple: I attended a session by Betty Dannewitz at DEVLEARN 2023 on podcasting. Her session not only gave me the confidence to think about starting a podcast but also provided logical steps to follow. Her first piece of advice? “Just keep writing.” I thought, Well, that’s easy—I can just pick up where I left off with my blog from grad school.
I posted the above passage into Adobe Firefly AI and it gave me these images:
Keep On Writing
What I didn’t realize was how much this simple act of writing would impact my personal and professional growth, as well as my sense of identity and self-worth. From participating in daily push-up challenges (Push-Ups for St. Jude) to learning 3D modeling on Adobe in just two weeks (30-Day 3D Model Challenge), writing more turned out to be excellent advice.
Feeling inspired, I reached out to Betty as both a fan and a student to let her know how much she had motivated me. She responded with kindness and even became an ally and friend. Emboldened, I pitched her a complex concept for a show exploring how the musical Hamilton relates to Learning and Development. To my disappointment, she politely declined, saying she didn’t want to open that particular can of worms.
I am a Blackstar Just Come With Me We Were Born Upside-Down I’m a Blackstar
A Hero Must Fail
At first, this rejection stung. I felt vulnerable and as though I had failed. However, after some reflection, I realized that the only person truly letting me down was me.
So, I returned to writing, regrouped, and started building a sound studio as I added an office to my home. (Building My Sound Booth). I used my undergrad knowledge of stage lighting to hang lights in my office and began vlogging alongside blogging, creating videos of myself speaking.
I kept finding ways to improve and grow. I strengthened the Improvement Dave brand I had created back in 2017 into a visual brand and a creative identity.
Eventually, the tables turned. Betty invited me to appear on her show, If You Ask Betty. For some, this might just be another item on their calendar, but for me, it was a milestone. I had reached a point where I could feel proud of my progress. Everyone’s path is unique, and while I sometimes take my accomplishments for granted, others view them as remarkable or even unattainable. The effort I had invested in developing my writing voice, building my brand, and learning new skills paid off. I was on the show. I prepared extensively, and from my perspective, it went pretty well.
This blog post celebrates that achievement and curates the content that came from this experience.
Highlights
The Teaser I Was Featured In (My favorite artifact): LinkedIn Post
The Podcast Episode: “I’m Just Ken” (Or use player below.)
Bonus Content
When Betty shared her favorite part of “Barbie” (2023) Film, I just couldn’t resist making a cartoon of it. (NSFW)
This video is not for children if you can not tell by the cover image.
Conclusion
So, I did it—I got on the show, and it all happened so quickly. I gave it 100%, even if some people may have been aggravated by my takes on social equity and gender as a social construct. I’ve moved past that now. No matter what you do, about 30% of people will dislike it, 30% will love it, and 30% won’t even know it happened. The key is to keep moving forward. Either way, I got a new friend out of the deal so it’s a win.
Next, I’m focusing on getting out there more, taking more chances, worrying less, and finding a way to launch my own podcast.
I am working on a thread on my blog focusing on things I can celebrate this year. This post, Why You Should Present at a Conference started as a celebration of the fact that I had an opportunity to speak at a conference and I revised it to be framed around reasons why we should all present at conferences.
Inspired to Be Myself
I recently was inspired (again) by Kassy Laborie. This time she was speaking on a podcast (called Business Breakdown by Al Dea Listen Here: https://lnkd.in/eAckUwmf) about her background in learning in development and how she reached a point where her reputation preceded her. While she shared her background I kept thinking, I have been there, that happened to me at work as a trainer or yes, that was me. Now I am not as far along on my path as I am ready to leave my independent contractor work to reinvent myself as a Keynote speaker but maybe I never will, maybe that is not my journey. I bring all of this up because of a personal story that Kassy shared in this interview. She was rocking her pressed red pants with her matching red kicks and as she put it, “I mean, I looked good!”. Someone approached her and stated, “Ah, we do not wear red pants at this company.”
Kassy reflected on how this made her feel small. How it felt like she was not seen for who she is. It made her feel like she didn’t belong. It made her feel like she was not in the right place. She had a choice. She could start wearing black pants and conform to the dominating overbearing culture she found herself in, or she could move on and find a space that was a better fit. Luckily for her (and for the rest of us I reckon) she chose the latter to move on. To keep on ramblin’ to keep on keepin’ on.
She done good, she even made Woody Guthrie smile…
Reminder of the Inspiration
This morning when I got into the office it was a normal work-in-the-office day. I had already had 2 cups of regular coffee at home and I was going to brew a whole pot of decaf to drink throughout the day. I ran into a colleague Erika Teneyck who was wearing RED PANTS, and it took me right back to Kassy’s story on the podcast. This illustrates how we as humans resonate with stories, but more on that later. I said Erika you are wearing RED PANTS and I am wearing my BLUE PANTS, can we take a picture!? Luckily there was another creative coworker (Michael Bollenbach, MA, MFA ) in the work kitchen who holds a Master of Fine Arts AND a Master of Arts to take the picture. He begrudgingly murmured that he did not want to take our picture but I insisted. While Mike took the picture he commented on how he had a previous role where they insisted every employee had to wear black pants.
I had Blue Pants and my Work Buddy had on RED PANTS!
So, more about Erika. When I started in my current role, we had a Holiday Party at a local brewery you might have heard of called Budweiser. It was a fun evening, but I was a bit anxious because I had not met anyone in person yet. I had just started at the company in 2021 and we were still remote. It was the time when many companies were still transitioning back into office from the COVID-19 pandemic. (We even had a mask decorating contest and I won for the ugliest mask, although in retrospect they shared it should have been most bizarre or creative.)
Die Hard is a Christmas Movie. PERIOD
OK, so my point. Let’s get to the point. My point is that Erika was at the party and she made me feel welcome. She talked to me even though I was the new guy with a very weird mask. She welcomed me even though I told her that owning a boat was a bad financial decision and I perceived it as a liability, not an asset. Then later she wore red pants and reminded me of Kassie’s strong lesson.
Broadcast my Inspiration
Now, it is worth mentioning that, Erika has her bachelor’s AND master’s in Art History and has used that to enter into the space of organizing and curating data analytics where I work. That is something worth celebrating in and of itself. 🥳
It also touches on a topic that I am toying around with for the Podcast I am crafting. How creatives, or people who are perceived as creatives, can work their way into a situation of being gainfully employed. Or in other words discussions on how creatively minded people can generate income through as opposed to despite their inventive tendencies. I am in the storming stage. I have not ironed out the details nor fleshed out the concept. I am taking my time to settle on a topic that I feel confident I will want to speak about from the heart for years to come to an audience that resonates with my true self.
“Treat every small victory like you just won the Superbowl.” -Lewis Howes
Last month I presented for the first time at a conference. I presented at the Learn Conference that was held by my local ATD chapter in St. Louis, MO. I wrote this a week after presenting but it has taken me a month to process this and get this post to where I want it to be. I have narrowed this down to three main points:
Attend the Conference for free
Slightly Heightened Status
You Connect more to ideas and people
Why Present at Conferences?
What I Learned
I have recently developed an itch to present and wondered about how that would feel. I was anxious before the conference. During the conference, I was surprisingly relaxed and after the conference, I was relieved to be on the other side of it. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. It is not the presenting that wore me out though, it was the standing, the waiting, the meeting new people, and holding professional conversations to the best of my ability. Now that I have the first one in the bag and am relatively unscathed, I want to share my experience and the benefits I see around presenting at conferences.
Attend for Free
Let’s talk about the low-hanging fruit first. The main payment for speaking at a conference is that you get to attend that conference for free. I never really thought much about this because my company paid for any conference I attended (which I should add is a limited number per year.) Maybe this says something about how much I am willing to pay for my own personal and professional development. I prefer to take the perspective that I am a frugal person. There are plenty of ways for me to improve on my own. Be it, online, the library, the Libby app, linked in learning, (and let’s be honest, the largest LMS in the world, YouTube.)
The benefit is not necessarily that you can attend for free but that you can afford to attend more conferences. So, I don’t pay for the conferences I go to, but my company only sends me to so many per year because there is a budget. I can stretch that budget further if the entrance ticket and part of the food board are already paid for.
There is a hidden benefit I just learned about too. I applied to speak at Training Magazine’s Training Conference & Expo in Orlando in February 2025. I was not accepted but put on standby. Now I thought this meant rejected but after some conversations in my professional network I learned that “Standby is Good.” Not only do you still have a shot at presenting at the conference, but you get into the show at a discounted rate.
OK, so free stuff, that’s nice.
Slightly Heightened Status
I should start here by saying that I do NOT perceive myself as a person who is motivated by status. In fact I see people who crave status as the opposite of those who peruse quality of work or seek out the truth. So, I am not naturally motivated by status.
My friend Jazmin Webster (President Elect of ATD STL) let me keep the sign!
One thing I suppose I never really noticed or thought about was that people who present at conferences are sort of the bread and butter of the event. They are creating a draw for people to attend. I have to admit I always understood this on a logical level. However, after being a presenter at a conference I had a different perspective on the value presenters add. People walked up and thanked me for my efforts and there was a buzz in just that. Sure, an unnecessary boost to my ego, but also a healthy development of my sense of self-worth and overall confidence.
In the same way, I feel like I held myself up in a different way while at the conference. There must have been something different about the way I was moving through the space. I am going to make this point by picking on a new professional connection I have. Two years ago, I walked up to the Keynote Speaker at the same event, after she gave her message and said, “Hey, I really liked what you said.” She politely smiled and thanked me and then slightly turned away from me. It wasn’t her; it was me. I was approaching her, probably standing too close, and didn’t add anything to the conversation other than I liked her. Sort of creepy, weird, awkward, yes, and maybe verging on stalker.
Who was this mystery woman you ask? Well, Justine Froelker is a speaker and therapist who has made a name for herself both locally and nationally as a training facilitator, speaker, and author. Well, she also presented this year at the same event, and when I saw her I remembered that awkward time I went to compliment her and then found I had nothing to say. I walked up to her while she was quietly enjoying a salad alone at the vendor table ATD had provided her to market her services. I smiled and said hello and introduced myself. She asked if I was a presenter and then we started a real conversation about our lives. That’s my whole point. It’s not that I approached her and had something to say, it’s that she could smell it on me. I held myself like a presenter and somehow, she just knew. (I promise I didn’t say, Hey I’m Dave I’m a presenter.) You could argue that I have grown a lot in my personal and professional development simply by rebooting this Blog and pouring my soul into it, and you would be right. I would argue that more than that my identity was altered because I had been selected to present.
You End Up Connecting More
Connecting more dots
Connecting with more people
I have saved the best part about presenting at a conference for last. This was a selfish choice, I should have led with my best point, and the one that would benefit you the most. As I have written previously:
So, I share that to simply point out that I am not afraid to break my own rules.
However, if you are still reading now you will learn about the best part of presenting at a conference. Having gotten up and presented in front of a crowd at the conference was a hit. It jazzed me up and gave me a strong buzz. I was in good spirits and overall, just in a great mood. This landed me in the growth mindset and when I attended other sessions, I was more vulnerable, more open, and more engaged.
For example, when I attended the amazing session on Gamifying business strategy by Caitlin Johnson from Bold-Bird Consulting. I spoke up in the session and shared personal information that I might not have shared if I was only an attendee. In addition, I spoke with Caitlin after the day was over at the networking event hosted for presenters and we think that we might be able to collaborate at some point.
The reason this all sparked up was because what I shared about myself was a missing piece in her process. I am an explorer in her language, and the exploration factor is her weakest link and what she is leaning into now for personal growth. I am not saying I don’t learn anything at conferences I don’t present at. I do learn at those conferences. I think the difference is the baseline mindset. Will I continue to get more out of conferences even if I don’t present at them? Maybe. Or perhaps sometimes I will and sometimes I won’t. I don’t know. What I do know is that I am still relatively new to all this conference going considering my age. Why didn’t I go to these sooner? Why not quote the Talking Heads here and share:
When I attended my first national conference in 2023 it was also my first time in Vegas. It made such am impact on me it revived this VLOG and got me on a new path. I had a breakthrough when I wrote this:
As I said, it was my first time in Vegas, and I was good, I didn’t gamble, I didn’t get sleazy and I only drank alcohol that was free (#Principles)! DevLearn was a force of nature and the whole week can easily be summarized as over-stimulation. Cognitive overload doesn’t begin to describe what happened to me that week. I will share that I didn’t hold back either. I walked all the way from the southern tip of New Vegas up through the desert to New Vegas to see the Zappos building and the Neon Sign Museum, and I would like to curate a post just on that experience. …Yet, in all of that frenzied madness, I attended a session by Renee Boydo. I entered that training room and a calm came over me.
I met Boydo the night before at an impromptu dinner I saw on the conference app., she confided in me that she was terrified because she was presenting for the first time and she asked everyone at that table to go so she wouldn’t have to present to an empty room. The next day, I went, she was calm she was collected, and she stated referencing her work as a leader, “My thing is that I just keep saying ‘It will be alright. It will work out.’” She presented a smartphone app she developed with a third party to train school bus drivers. In the class she shared that she had never presented before, she was terrified, but then came her light that “it was going to be alright.”
Conclusion
I didn’t know it then, but Mrs. Boydo planted a seed during that session. She lit a light in me. I saw that she was throwing herself into unbridled improvement. She was forcing herself out of her comfort zone in the name of learning and in the name of sharing her insights with her community at large. I didn’t want to admit it, but I wanted to do that too. I wanted to be like her. Now, I am writing this so I can share it with her and tell her my version of the story, so I can thank her for that.
Then later I attended a session by this lady named Betty Danowitz on Podcasting. Well, that whole thing is definitely for another post. Long story short, I started listening to her podcast and then started chatting with her, and I ended up as a guest on the show. Then Betty and her friends who are now my friends pushed me to present at a conference. It was ✨Kassy LaBorie who said, you need to apply to speak at conferences, so I did. I am forever grateful to Kassy. Now there is no turning back.
Improvement Dave 