I am so excited! I will be speaking at ASTD’s 2013 International Conference and Exposition in Dallas on Wed. May. 22 from 8:00 am – 9:15 am. This is my first time speaking at the conference, so of course I’m excited. When I applied my friends and colleagues told me there were so many applicants, it would be unlikely for my proposal to be accepted, but it clearly was. I decided to talk about something that I think is critical in communication:

attention. I started looking at how marketers and the entertainment industry used attention-getting and-keeping devices seven or eight years ago when I read Entertainment Economy by Michael J Wolf and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. I realized that marketing, entertainment and “training” have a lot in common. Importantly, all three rely on getting keeping attention.

I’ll follow up with more on this topic as I work out the details of the session. I hope to see you there. Until then, if you have any thoughts on the topic, please comment below. Here is the link to the session.

W102 – Getting and Keeping Attention: Lessons from Marketers and Storytellers