Our 2nd annual COGNITION event will take place from September 21 – 23, 2021, and will be a chance for thought leaders and pioneers in the customer training and education space to come together to share perspectives, challenges, and new opportunities. The conference will be live and virtual, with multiple track options full of workshops, roundtables, and time to network. More than just an event, COGNITION is a hub for community and content, and this year our roster includes several exciting, groundbreaking women leaders in the tech and customer education space.
Over the course of the conference, we’ll hear insights from inspiring leaders, including Donna Weber, President & Customer Onboarding Leader at Springboard Solutions, Susannah Simmons, The Software Adoption Doctor at ProductivIT, Michele Wiedemer, Manager of Customer Education at Snyk, Christina Lanham, Managing Director UK & Manager of Information Systems at ITI, as well as a can’t-miss panel called “Everything We Learning About Customer Education, We Learned from Marvel,” hosted by customer education leaders at Miro; Dee Kapila, Head of Customer Education, Jennifer Clark, Customer Education Manager, Matt Mulholland, Customer Education Manager, Melissa Milloway, Learning Experience Designer, and many more exciting participants.
Donna Weber on Why Continuous Customer Onboarding and Enablement is Your Key to Success
Donna Weber is the world’s leading expert in customer onboarding. For over two decades, she’s helped high-growth startups and established enterprises create customers for life. A recognized customer success thought leader, influencer, strategist, advisor, author, and speaker, Donna is known to get to the heart of the matter. She is passionate about helping customers reach their goals, because when customers win, you win. It’s that simple.
In a recent article for Customer Think, Donna writes, “During onboarding, you move new users from what’s familiar to the unknown.” Her approach to ensuring this delicate process goes well follows, “[D]etermine what you want them to think and feel after purchasing your product.
Most likely, you want them to trust they’re in capable hands…Onboarding customers in an orchestrated way is the key to building trust—and keeping your customers’ brains engaged.”
And, this process of ongoing engagement reaches a new level of difficulty when new stakeholders and users are continuously introduced to your account. In Donna’s session, she’ll walk through how to handle the seemingly constant flux of users and product updates, so your onboarding program can truly keep up. When it does, you lead accounts to ongoing quick wins as well as a continuous lifetime value of your product.
Donna Weber’s session will take place on Tuesday, September 21.
Bridging the Customer Experience Gap with Susannah Simmons
Susannah Simmons, known as The Software Adoption Doctor, is a consultant, trainer and coach with over 20 years experience in software implementation, business development and learning and development. Having worked both customer and supplier side, Susannah is more than familiar with the challenges faced by stakeholders during software adoption. ProductivIT was founded by Susannah to help people and organizations get the most from technology investments and digital transformation.
In a recent episode of her “Consult a Specialist” interview series, Susannah goes into the importance of thoughtful, ongoing touchpoints with customers that extend well beyond the point of sale, and how they contribute to true product adoption. “I think the follow-up piece is really important… deployment and usage and adoption are very different things. And actually, it’s about as a supplier being able to understand, well, are they using it? Have they actually adopted it? Do they really understand what they need to do and how to get the best out of it?” She continues, “[Th]ere’s that temptation of, ‘we’ve put it out there, we’re done.’ They’ve nodded their heads so now, on to the next thing. But actually, learning doesn’t work like that, does it? It’s an ongoing process.”
In Susannah’s “Bridging the CX Chasm” workshop, participants will learn about the impact of the frustrating gap that can emerge and exist between sales and service. The session will cover the key elements of building a strong “CX Bridge” that will ultimately drive software adoption and increase customer lifetime value. There will also be an opportunity for participants to reflect and share the strength of their own “CX Bridge” and how they could improve it using Susannah’s 7 pillars for better customer and employee satisfaction.
Susannah Simmons’ workshop will take place on Thursday, September 23.
Solving the Puzzle of a Great Tutorial Video with Michele Wiedemer
Michele has spent 15 years as a freelance content creator designing courses, creating videos, producing eLearning, and writing instructor guides, user guides, and online help for clients. She is also the author of the TechSmith Academy course, “Writing Helpful Help.” Now, she’s focused on building and managing the customer education program at Snyk.
With so much content creation experience in the learning space, Michele’s session will focus on the strategy and framework your organization needs to take your learning content to the next level.
For Michele, some tasks (like designing and producing a learning video) may seem daunting at first, but broken up into puzzle pieces, they become simpler and much more manageable. In fact, she’s developed a six-step process to create the library of hundreds of learning videos in her career. In this session, you’ll learn to prep and plan a new video project, review and discuss a couple of different script options, go over tips and methods to record audio and screen shares, and finally explore all of the strategic elements that make a tutorial video successful.
Michele Wiedemer’s session will take place on Tuesday, September 21.
Christina Lanham on Designing Immersive Learning Experiences
Christina Lanham serves ITI as the Managing Director of its operations in the United Kingdom as well as global oversight for information systems. Christina joined ITI in 2011 and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and Bachelor’s Degrees in Human Resource Administration and Computer Information Systems.
As Christina expressed in a recent interview on training during the Covid-9 pandemic, she’s come to understand the importance – and value – of great virtual immersive experiences in the last year and a half. “We’re working to bring simulators more and more for practice time in 2021 and beyond, especially for people to get crane operation certification. I definitely see virtual reality as a medium that is here to stay, and it’s a great opportunity to give people hands-on instruction, and then they can put on a headset and self-serve and get that experience.”
Up until very recently, there has been very little adoption by employers of simulation for craft workforces due to cost and lack of authenticity.
Now, with virtual reality, organizations are collaborating across industry and competitive lines.
Christina’s session will explore how Industrial Training International has approached the development and adoption of VR simulation for equipment operators and craft workers. After looking at the evolution of simulation, you’ll take a deep dive into how different companies are using VR to enhance training outcomes.
Christina Lanham’s session will take place on Wednesday, September 22.
Miro Team Panel: Everything We Learned About Customer Education, We Learned from Marvel
Dee Kapila is the Head of Customer Education at Miro, the online collaborative whiteboard platform that brings teams together, anytime, anywhere. Her team focuses on four core educational pillars: live facilitated programs, on-demand education through Miro’s Academy, contextual and in-app education, as well as Miro’s help center. Dee will moderate this panel featuring three of her team members:
- Jennifer Clark, Live Facilitated Programs Lead: An adult educator and facilitator with over ten years of experience in corporate and higher education.
- Melissa Milloway, Miro Academy Lead: An avid blogger in the learning industry, with specialties in UI/UX for learning experiences, as well as working with xAPI.
- Matt Mulholland, Contextual Education Lead: With a customer success background, Matt has seen firsthand the benefits of great customer training and now designs engaging experiences.
In this session, Dee’s team will tackle difficult questions for customer education teams, including: Which programs should we stand up? What investments do we need to make? How do we engage our learners? How do we measure success and expand our capabilities?
You’ll learn how the team at Miro built a customer education function through the lens of some of their favorite Marvel superheroes. You’ll see an overview of their core programs, an outline on customer education staffing, the content they use and key engagement metrics, as well as explore the tech stack that’s supported them along the way.
The Miro Team Panel will take place on Wednesday, September 23.
COGNITION 2021 will be filled with the expertise and experience of these women leaders – and many more. Check out the full agenda to see who else will be contributing their insights at the conference. We can’t wait to showcase, highlight, and learn from these speakers during this engaging and motivating customer learning event.
Register now for COGNITION 2021 to connect with and hear from thought leaders within client, reseller, and partner training who are overcoming challenges in measuring impact, scaling initiatives, developing engaging content and finding the right people and technology to grow their business.
