“The LERN Annual Conference is the best I have ever attended.”
– Terri House, Concord, California

“By far the most interactive and fully realized virtual conference I’ve seen.”
– Zahiya Rimawi, Winston-Salem, NC

New Themes!
* Streamlining Procedures
* New Tech
* Staff Shortages
* Digital Marketing
* 2024 Programming
* Operations

Only In The Virtual Conference
  Only in the LERN Conference do you and your whole staff get:

• Front row seat.
  Attend up to 15 concurrent sessions live. No rows. You don’t miss a word.
• Attend every session.
  You and your staff can attend all 45 sessions, archived, for the next 90 days.
• Presenters Not Available Anywhere Else.
  The Best Experts from all over North America present. You won’t hear them anywhere else.
• Your whole staff can attend.
  Get the best professional development for your staff.
• Earn CEU’s.
  Hundreds of attendees earn CEU’s from conference sessions.
• Interact with over 1,700 professionals.
  The largest conference in the field, network with others, meet new colleagues.
• cost just $89.
  The average Organization sends 20 people, making it just $89 per person. You can send up to 30 folks.
• Become a CPP.

Train new staff in one week. Take the Certified Program Planner (CPP) exam the next week at no extra charge. It’s the leading designation in the field.

Everyone Can Attend
One Low Price
–Best of All, up to 30 people from your organization may attend the virtual conference!  The average organization sent over 20 people to last year’s conference.

-Just one low price of only $1,795 for up to 30 people from the same organization; more on Special Request. Invite central administrators, teachers, and of course your whole staff.

-Your colleagues in your organization can pop-in on one or two sessions, or attend as many as they want.

“My first time attending and boy am I so glad I did!
-Sarah Mylcraine, Killeen, Texas

Send All Your Staff
Staff should plan to spend a good deal of time attending the conference. The average participant attends 7 sessions.
We recommend each of your staff attending at least 2 sessions a day, or 6 total.
Also invite central administrators and teachers for certain sessions.
Up to 30 people from the same organization may attend one or all sessions.

Institutions Represented
* Universities
* Public Schools
* Community Colleges
* Recreation Departments
* Any Organization doing classes

Zero Zoom Fatigue
Not one of our 1,750 participants got Zoom Fatigue last year. You will remain energized and engaged for the whole conference.

Professional Development For
Your Whole Staff
Tailor tracks and sessions for each of your staff’s particular needs and interests.
From the fundamentals to the cutting edge, get levels and specialties not found anywhere else.
Train your whole staff to become a Certified Program Planner (CPP). It is the most widely recognized training and designation in the field.
Leaders can tap into our Executive level sessions for the most current thinking on issues and strategic planning.

Results Based
Unique to the LERN Conference, you can measure what your staff learned. Over 500 attendees last year took quizzes to demonstrate what they gained from the sessions.

“I am beyond satisfied.”
-Evelynn Garcia, Las Vegas, Nevada

      Productivity

New! 5 Ways to Increase Staff Productivity

From strategies for using email and other communications tools more appropriately, to how to schedule and run meetings more effectively, to how to support staff wellness, take back practical strategies that can improve the working environment in almost any office.
Daniel Thorpe, Vancouver, BC, Canada   

Core Skills
Key Benchmarks
   Acquire the key indicators  you should monitor to judge your program’s success. Whether it’s performance or financial success, you will explore the best numbers to monitor.
This data allows you to check your past success and plan for your next sessions. These numbers will simplify your decision making.
Brendan Marsello,  LERN, Washington, D.C.

Core Skills
Optimizing Prices
   It’s not an art form. It’s a process. Know how to determine the best price to maximize both income and registrations.
Discounts, competition pricing, and image pricing will also be covered. Don’t guess about your prices. Know the steps to the best price.
   Travette Webster, LERN, Houston, TX  

    2024 Programming

New! Reaching New Audiences for Lifelong Learning Classes
By utilizing Zoom and speakers from around the nation, we have been able to grow our participation by more than 20%, implement business partnerships and expand our participation beyond our traditional local area. Join us as we walk through how you can implement these changes and launch a whole new lifelong learning class format.
Leslie Brock, Edwardsville, Illinois      

    2024 Programming

New! Building Community Through Cultural Events

Learn how to untap the hidden potential of cultural inclusivity to increase community engagement in this 30 minute presentation. Hear about the necessity of education, community buy-in and strategic partnership opportunities. A Q&A session will be available for individualized scenarios and overall discussion.
  Jennifer Kempert, Pepper Pike, Ohio 

Leading

New! Data You Should Track But Don’t

Track items that will make you stronger and better able to report to staff and boards. Track website catalog views; top viewed webpages by year and month; where your customers come from; first day/week/month registrations; and more. Collect and share more program data to build greater success.
Tim Litfin, Minnetonka, MN                    

Operations

Improving Customer Service
Crush it with the top customer service tactics from some of the best practitioners in the field. Find out how to make your customer service even more personalized for greater customer loyalty and retention.

PANEL led by Darby Lanpher,Palatine, IL; Angie Lipschuetz, San Francisco, CA; Jenny Bodurka, Minnetonka, MN.                        

5 Star Presenter

How Communication Creates Efficiencies
Avoid costly miscommunication, delays and improve the interaction of your staff with more effective communication strategies. Staff productivity, morale, and savings will follow.

Brenda Marshall, Baltimore, MD                

Staffing

New! Gen Z as Managers
They may be the best managers for the 21^st century. Explore managing in a society where ‘no one is normal.’  These kids have new strategies for retaining workers and responding to impromptu workplace situations. Get new insight and tactics for managing your staff. Gen Z managers have some answers. Your presenter is the foremost authority on generations.
Julie Coates, Senior Vice President, LERN, Portland, OR.

Leading

New! Emotional Intelligence for Leaders

Leaders set the tone and influence the climate of their organizations. The absence of emotional intelligence derails employee loyalty, retention, and success. Enhance or even transform the tenor and climate of your team and organization, improve employee engagement, and mitigate employee attrition.
  Dionne Felix, Collegedale, TN.           

Productivity

New! Streamline!

Less than 15% of lifelong learning organizations focusing on process standardization when it’s proven to result in long-term time and cost savings. Put simply, process streamlining involves identifying and eliminating roadblocks in your workflow to improve efficiency, increase productivity, and ensure proper utilization of resources. Gradual everyday improvement involves all individuals from all levels within an organization, including you!
Dr. Travette Webster, Vice President, LERN, Houston, TX   

Productivity
New! Negotiate Anything
Uncover the secrets to negotiate for a win-win.  Gain core principles and strategies with examples to start Monday morning better negotiating with instructors, community partners, stakeholders, people in your institution, team members.
Come away with tactics for a win-win with anybody, negotiating anything.
Rod Holt, Red Deer, AB, Canada  

Staffing
Staff Shortages
The Great Resignation, low unemployment, wage increases, tight budgets and options to work from home. It has created staff shortages for many programs. Share ideas for addressing the issue.

PANEL led by Tim Frenzel, Overland Park, KS; Elaine Chapman, Pasadena, CA; Scott Silverman, Santa Monica, CA; Gary Girard , Omaha, NE  

Show Stopper
Segmenting Your Email List
Segment your email list and unleash its power. Learn how segmenting your list will help send the right messages to the right customers to optimize results. Find out how this program successfully segmented its contact list and improved the effectiveness of email campaigns.
Dawn Prosser, Frederickton, NB, Canada  

Leading
Reinvention

With the external environment considerably changed by the last few years. Top practitioners are reinventing their programs to respond to the new workplace and community needs. Hear,  share and discuss experiences.

PANEL led by Angie Lipschuetz, San Francisco, CA; Joe Miera, Las Vegas, NV; Kevin Hahn, Palatine, IL; and Scott Silverman, Santa Monica, CA. 

Core Skills
Talk to Your Customers
Frustrated with not knowing what new courses to offer? Canceling too many events? Talk with your customers. It takes the same amount of time to set up a successful course as one that fails. Your customers will tell you what you should be doing. Take away the tools to make your needs assessments work for you.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, DC

Core Skills
Developing the Best Programs
Promotions and pricing are the two things’ programmers blame for unsuccessful courses. This is a myth. Know what you should focus on to improve your offerings. Understand the criteria for what you should repeat and selecting new courses.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, DC

Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing for 2024
Catch the latest in digital marketing success, trends and tips. Social media, videos, and email are now central to growing your customer base, improving engagement, and increasing retention.

PANEL led by Anna Wojewodzki Hunter, Columbia, MD; Jill Korsok, Pepper Pike, OH; Gary Girard, Omaha, NE; and Scott Cashman, Palatine, IL

Core Skills
Keep Customers Coming Back
The best way to grow your program is to get your current customers to come back next time. Customer service is essential to boosting your repeat rate. A few tweaks and you can transform your customer service into something extraordinary.

Brendan Marsello, LERN, Washington, DC

New Growth Markets
Community Needs
Discover new community needs for your program to serve. Strengthen existing relationships and build new ones for greater service and involvement. Take home techniques and experiences from your panelists, then share your own suggestions.

PANEL led by Nicola Morgal, Columbia, MD; Tricia Scepansky, Media, PA; and Elisa Waldman, Overland Park, KS

SuperStar Presenter
Really New! AI with Chat GPT
Get ahead of the curve in productivity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can dramatically increase your productivity and provide you with a competitive advantage in the workplace. Work smarter and faster. Save valuable time while increasing your output.
   Betsy Flanagan, San Francisco, CA                

New Tech
Always New! Top eTools for 2023
Discover the latest new eTools to boost staff productivity. Your presenter spends hours every day researching the web. Just one eTool can make a huge positive difference for your program.

Dan Belhassen, Neovation, Winnipeg, MB, Canada    

Best Practices
Recruiting and Keeping Instructors
Programs are reporting more difficulty in recruiting and keeping instructors now than in pre-pandemic years. Come explore innovative ways to motivate and find new instructors, as well as reward and keep motivated your current instructors.

PANEL led by Jenny Bodurka (photo), Minnetonka, MN; Ian Allen, Fredericton, NB, Canada; and Tim Frenzel, Overland Park, KS

Digital Marketing
3^rd Annual! Best Video Clips of 2023
The best promotional, orientation, how to register, and testimonial video clips in the field. Every year your presenter researches the best in videos for lifelong learning programs. Join ‘The Siskel & Ebert’ of our field for the most thorough and insightful review.

Betty Sedor, El Camino, CA

Best Practices
New! The 7 Hottest Marketing Tips of 2023
  Make more money. Make more friends. Low and no-cost marketing tips from the 2023 review of successful marketing strategies in the field. This hour alone will make your conference ROI worthwhile.
William A. Draves, CPP, River Falls, WI

New Tech
New! The Next Generation of Analytics
Introduce yourself to GA4, the new version of Google Analytics that has replaced the former software. Catch what’s new, what’s different, what’s better, and what’s not so good.  Analyzing your website traffic is an emerging ‘must’ for programs.
Kiel Cross, Palatine, IL      

Show Stopper
New! Using Good Influencers
Influencers can help you draw a crowd to your class or event. These people, usually local and unpaid, understand how to use social media to advantage and guide people to your program.  Hear how this pioneering marketing technique has been successful, including with underserved and hard-to-reach audiences.

Carlotta Wade, Riverside, MD    

2024 Programming
New! Hybrid and Flex Classes
   Hybrid and ‘flex’ classes with both in-person learners and live online participants represent a new way to increase registrations and income and reach new audiences.  Shatter past performance with lessons from two programs achieving success with the new formats.
Beth Pinargote,  Bri Maikranz, Glencoe, IL; and Jeanette Chian, CPP, Santa Barbara, CA

Marketing
Always New! Brochure Trends for 2024
Especially for younger generations, data shows it is still the most essential marketing piece you do. The print brochure generates 70% of your registrations and income. Stay current with the best new brochure ideas from LERN’s top brochure and design experts. Streamline and enhance your most valuable marketing and branding tool.

Julie Coates, LERN Senior Vice President, Portland, OR; Jordan Kivley, LERN, Portland, OR                      

Operations
New!  Researching Vendors
Assessing potential vendors, scheduling and course availability, charges and billing, minimums and maximums, student privacy, and other considerations.
Don Elliott, Baltimore, MD

Core Skills
Evaluating, Training and Growing Great Teachers
Grow the best instructors by following key guidelines. Know where to find them and the best onboarding processes. Explore ways to evaluate your instructors and how to offer professional development for them. The biggest factor in your program quality is your instructors.

Brendan Marsello, LERN Vice President, Washington DC         

Marketing
Writing Course Descriptions
Power Up your copy. It takes so little time to excite your customers and increase registrations.  The 5 simple secrets will be revealed to write and revise course descriptions.
Energize your website and brochure copy. Wow your audience in 2024.
William A. Draves, CPP, LERN, River Falls, WI.

Core Skills
Marketing Essentials
   Everything you do is marketing. Yet in our field we need to pay attention to the most important strategies. The average person spends just 3 seconds to decide whether to open your brochure. You should not be marketing to everyone.  Do you know what makes your program different from every other program?
Understanding these important marketing concepts and strategies are essential to your career, and your program’s growth.
Travette Webster, LERN Staff, Houston, TX

Core Skills
Effective Promotions
   Discover the key promotion techniques to increase your registrations.  Understand the essential task that most programs neglect that will increase your bottom line.
Then know the different promotions to use and when to use them. These actions lead directly to income.
   Brendan Marsello, LERN Staff, Washington DC

2024 Programming

Always New! Contract Training Trends
Prepare you contract training units for the future. Hear from two of the top contract trainers on the hot new trends in Contract Training and what to prepare for next.

Amy Lasack, Cedar Rapids, IA; and Jo Ann Hall, Fond du Lac, WI 

Digital Marketing

New! Take Your Marketing to New Heights with Video 
Learn how video can help you boost engagement and brand awareness and drive conversions in digital marketing. Discover cost-effective ways to create compelling video content for websites, email, and social. Take back tips to enhance your success in this fast-growing area.

Belinda Elliott-Bielecki, Naomi Robinson, Fredericton, NB, Canada 

Operations

New! Power BI
   Power BI is a data analysis tool from Microsoft that you may have, but have not utilized fully.  Learn how program leveraged this tool to create dynamic dashboards and reporting sites that have become essential management tools.
  Jessica Benedict, Baltimore, Maryland      

2024 Programming

Great Community Events
Creative and fresh community events are generating not just attendance but engagement and a sense of community as well. Take back, and share, some great community events ideas.

PANEL led by Tricia Scepansky, Media, PA; Scott Cashman, Palatine, IL; and Betty Sedor, El Camino, CA

Show Stopper

New! Generational Motivations
Customers, business people, staff and colleagues respond to different messages, depending on their generation. Smoke out the top 3 motivations, and the top 3 messages, for each of the four generations in the workplace. Slam dunk your communication and results with each generation. The foremost authority on generations in North America will show you how.
Julie Coates, LERN Senior Vice President, Portland, OR        

Leading

Always New! LERN Forecasts 2024
   Fast hard hitting predictions on what’s next for the field of lifelong learning programming and continuing education, from society’s leading futurist. He’s been interviewed with co-author Julie Coates by the BBC, NY Times, Advertising Age, and many more.
William A. Draves, LERN President, River Falls, WI      

Streamline
New! Build your Processes Toolbox

Position your program to keep up with the ever-changing demands of the 21st century. Following the Five Principles of LEAN methodology, acquire a set of tools that you can begin using right away in streamlining your processes. Understand where the true value lies within your processes. Transform the quality of products and services you offer to both internal and external customers.

Travette Webster, LERN, Houston, TX 

Productivity

Staff Morale
Anxiety, stress, unruly customers and tight budgets. Maintaining and boosting staff morale is more important than ever. Explore ways to keep your staff happy and productive.

PANEL led by Ian Allen, Fredericton, NB, Canada; Jenny Bodurka, Minnetonka, MN; and Joe Miera, Las Vegas, NV

New Growth Markets

New! Rapid Micro-credential Developments
 Fostering the rapid development of new micro-credentials has some important key benefits.   Sharing our own experience, find out the approach we took, benefits and drawbacks, and lessons learned.
Take away a new understanding of how micro-credentials may be leveraged to serve an institution’s broader strategic aims.
Adrian Lipsett, Vancouver, BC, Canada                       

Best Practices

External Community Partners
Tips for success, including holding regular check-ins. Identify risks, access costs, and then remain flexible in making adjustments and changes along the way for a win-win.
PANEL led by Elisa Waldman, Overland Park, KS; Paula Hogard, London, England; and Nicola Morgal, Columbia, MD                 

Productivity
New! Building a Trusted System
Build a ‘trusted system’ to hold all the stuff in your life so you can quiet the buzz of undone obligations. Bring focus and creativity to the task at hand. Quickly capture tasks, de-clutter your brain, make to-do lists more effective, control your email. Track everything so nothing goes missing and the information you need is always at hand.

Daniel Thorpe, Vancouver, BC, Canada

“Bravo Zulu LERN for a job very well done.”
-Margarita Silva, Rockville, Maryland

Lots of Interaction
 Our 1,700 attendees will make over 300 comments an hour. You can network and share conversations with your colleagues in:
-Sessions
-Community interest areas
-Discussions, see below.

Discussions
Trends & Issues in the Field
Group Discussions, by Constituency
(Recreation Departments; Universities; Community Colleges; Public Schools)

Hot Picks for Community Classes
New and hot new community classes. Bring 1, take 19.
Live Chat Discussion

Your Top 3 Things to Do in 2024
Live Chat Discussion

More Panels
 You asked for it. You got it.
More practitioners from the most successful programs are on Panels than ever before.

One fee: $1,795 for up to 30 people from the same organization.