Imagine how rewarding it would be if you could gather at least 5 new connections at the next event you attend with ease?

Attending a conference or an event represents a significant investment in your time and professional development.

But...

An investment in skills without an investment in relationships is incomplete.  

Many of us dread the "work" in "network." Swapping business cards or reciting a rehearsed elevator pitch feels transactional, not relational. And frankly, it doesn't work. You end up with a pocket full of cards from people you don't actually know.

Tonight, we are going to explore how to strip away the corporate veneer and show up as your genuine self.

✨ Embrace Serendipity: Break the ice and open up to chance connections by dropping preconceived notions.

✨Understand Authenticity: Understand why being authentic is crucial for building genuine, long-lasting trust and authority in your network.

✨ Refine the Connection: Apply this authenticity to a core networking tool—the elevator pitch—making it powerful and memorable because it's genuinely you.

By the end of this session, YOU will be able to:

✅ Overcome initial hesitation to network and connect with others authentically

✅ Prepare for an upcoming event with a list of curious, observations, and context-based questions

Agenda:

AUGUST 19 - PLEASE NOTE THE DATE CHANGE TO THE
3RD WEDNESDAY! (Why'd we do that?)

6:00 PM — Welcome / Informal Networking 

6:10 PM — Structured Networking

6:30 PM — Main Event

7:00 PM — Structured Networking

7:30 PM — Closing/Informal Networking

What To Bring

Pack light for this event. Bring your genuine curiosity and a fully charged smartphone with the LinkedIn app ready to go.

We are using digital handshakes to lock in your new network, allowing you to stay present and authentic in every interaction.

The Administrivia

Demand for creative thinking is currently outpacing supply. Despite that need, creative thinking is one of the skills most lacking in job candidates. The good news is that creative thinking is a trainable skill. 

In the September 2025 issue of TD at Work, Gerard J. Puccio and Pamela A Szalay explain the nature of creativity and present six strategies to enhance creative thinking.

We're facilitating this session using a virtual roundtable approach.

During this discussion, we'll:

Join us September 23, 2026 to share your thoughts and connect with your L&D peers as you discuss methods for enhancing your instructional design capability!

PowerTable Format:

For each PowerTable session, ATD-Orange County Board members will facilitate the discussion around a designated TD at Work issue.

During our roundtable discussion, each attendee will be encouraged to share their insights on the given TD at Work topic. 

All ideas are welcome. Your thoughts are encouraged.  

Do you need to be a Power Member to attend?

Not really. But it helps. The TD at Work issue being discussed is $19.95 without an ATD National membership.  

What is "TD at Work?"

Order the issue HERE, and remember to use our Chapter Code CH8091 at checkout!

Or join ATD National, and get access to the entire library of TD at Work issues for free! And if you are an OC chapter member, you save $40 off membership. Call ATD National at 1.800.628.2783 and tell them you are an Orange County chapter member to get the discount. And give them our Chapter Code CH8091.

Rates:

	Reg thru 9/19	Just in Time
Members	Free	$5
Members of Other Chapters	Free	$5
Non-Members	$5	$10

ATD Capability Model

Each ATD-OC Learning Event will be aligned to at least one Talent Development  Capability, as identified by ATD National.

This program aligns with:

To find out more about the ATD Capability Model for the Training and Development Profession, visit http://tdcapability.org.

Earn Professional Professional Development Points

This program is worth .5 Professional Development points.
Find out more about APTD/CPTD Certifications here.

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Accessibility

ATDOC events are accessible to all participants. If you have questions or require special accommodations or auxiliary aid related to a disability for you to participate in the event, please notify us at least three weeks in advance by message to ocoffice@atdoc.org, with subject line "ADA Accommodations," outlining your needs and request for accommodation.

We will make every effort to work with you to accommodate your need.

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PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO RELEASE

By registering for this event, I hereby give the Association for Talent Development, Orange County Chapter, its clients, agents, and assigns, full permission to use, publish and copyright photographic images, film images, video images, sound recordings, and any reproductions from these materials of me and/or my property or any part thereof, either in conjunction with or without using my name, and make changes or alterations therein and/or alterations thereto Worldwide in perpetuity. Some places these images and recordings may be used and posted include, but are not limited to, the Internet, emails, social media, etc.

If I do not provide permission, I understand I will not activate my web camera during the session.

Your culture is already influencing your people.

It is teaching them what to say, what to avoid, who to trust, how much risk to take, whether to collaborate, and what behaviors truly get rewarded. The question is whether that culture is being shaped intentionally or by accident.

This highly interactive workshop is based on Ed Cohen’s new ATD Press book, Transforming Teams: Build Teams That Connect, Collaborate, and Achieve. Built from 25 years of hands-on implementation in more than 150 organizations worldwide, this session challenges leaders, HR professionals, OD practitioners, and talent development professionals to rethink one of the most common assumptions in business: that performance comes first and relationships follow.

The opposite is true.

Relationships first. Performance follows.

You will move beyond culture slogans, engagement surveys, and values posters to examine how culture is created: through the behaviors people demonstrate daily, the decisions organizations reward, the conversations teams avoid, and the systems that either reinforce trust or quietly undermine it.

Through reflection, dialogue, and practical application, you will experience selected elements of the Transforming Teams™ framework. You will explore accidental versus intentional culture, the Transforming Teams six phases of Assess, Discover, Articulate, Activate, Integrate, and Transform; and, The Relationship Chain™.

Why attend?

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

Pricing:

Lunch, snacks, and coffee will be provided.	Early Bird thru 9/2	Regular 9/3 to 9/23	Just in Time from 9/24
Member	$179	$199	$219
Members of all other ATD chapters	$199	$219	$239
Non-Member	$229	$249	$269

About our Presenter:

Ed Cohen is a globally respected leadership strategist, executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose work helps people and organizations grow, connect, and thrive together. Over a career spanning almost 50 years and work across more than 75 countries, Ed has served as an internationally known executive, consultant, and thought leader, holding senior roles at Booz Allen Hamilton, Satyam Computer Services, now Tech Mahindra, and SprintRay.

Ed began his career in education, where he learned that transformation starts with people, not numbers. He later helped design one of IBM’s first global desktop training programs and founded one of the earliest firms preparing employees for the personal computing era. At Booz Allen Hamilton, he founded the Center for Performance Excellence and helped embed learning into business strategy. Under his leadership, Booz Allen rose to #1 in both the ATD BEST Awards and Training Magazine’s Top 125. As Chief Learning Officer of Satyam in India, Ed helped scale leadership capability across the enterprise, launched the Satyam School of Leadership, and led the company to the #1 ranking in the ATD BEST Awards.

Together with his wife and partner, Priscilla Nelson, Ed co-founded Nelson Cohen Global Consulting, advising organizations including Amazon, Western Union, Aon, Novo Nordisk, Yahoo, Farmers Insurance, CGI India, and others in building relationship-centered, high-performance cultures. In 2020, he became Chief People Officer at SprintRay, where he applied the Transforming Teams™ methodology during hypergrowth to strengthen engagement, reduce turnover, and support an intentional culture.

Ed is the creator of the Transforming Teams™ framework, a six-phase, behavior-based system for embedding psychological safety, peer accountability, and intentional culture into daily practice. His work has contributed to 50 ATD awards and citations worldwide, including two #1 ATD BEST rankings, more than 50 ATD Excellence in Practice recognitions, ATD’s Talent Development for Good Award, and the World HRD Congress Lifetime Achievement Award.

He is the author of Transforming Teams: Build Teams That Connect, Collaborate, and Achieve, published by ATD Press; Leadership Without Borders; and the forthcoming memoir Vulnerable: One Man’s Journey from Abuse to Abundance. He also co-authored Riding the Tiger with Priscilla Nelson and Worlds Apart: A True Story of Courage, Connection, and Change with Devi Boddu.

Outside his professional work, Ed grows and shapes bonsai, a practice that reflects much of his leadership philosophy: patient cultivation, intentional design, respect for what is already alive, and the discipline to help something become enduring, resilient, and beautiful over time.

Connect with Ed:

Earn Professional Professional Development Points

This program is worth 4.5
Professional Development points. 

Find out more about APTD/CPTD Certifications here.

ATD Capability Model

This program aligns with the following Domains and Capabilities: 

Building Personal Capability

Developing Professional Capability

Impacting Organizational Capability

Talent development professionals should be able to implement a multilevel, systematic method for gathering, analyzing, and reporting on information about the effectiveness and effort of learning programs.

To find out more about the ATD Capability Model for the Training and Development Profession, visit http://tdcapability.org.

Accessibility

ATD-OC events are accessible to all participants. If you have questions or require special accommodations or auxiliary aid related to a disability for you to participate in the event, please notify us at least three weeks in advance by message to ocoffice@atdoc.org, with subject line "ADA Accommodations," outlining your needs and request for accommodation.

We will make every effort to work with you to accommodate your need.

PHOTOGRAPHY RELEASE

As part of your registration, you will be required to indicate your acceptance or rejection of the statement below:

By registering for this event, I hereby give the Association for Talent Development, Orange County Chapter, its clients, agents, and assigns, full permission to use, publish and copyright photographic images, film images, video images, sound recordings, and any reproductions from these materials of me and/or my property or any part thereof, either in conjunction with or without using my name, and make changes or alterations therein and/or alterations thereto Worldwide in perpetuity. Some places these images and recordings may be used and posted include, but are not limited to, the Internet, emails, social media, etc.

If I do not provide permission, I understand I will be seated outside of the field of video.

Do your employees complete the training... and then go right back to doing things the way they always have?

You're not alone. And the problem might not be the employees.

Join us for a live, open conversation where L&D peers come together to tackle one of our profession's most persistent challenges: training that gets completed but doesn't actually change anything.

We'll kick things off by walking through a real-world case study to get us talking. It's the spark for an open, unscripted discussion where your experience, your frustrations, and your ideas are exactly what we're there to hear.

Here's what we'll be talking through together:

Cameras on, mics open, real talk welcome.

Think of it less like a webinar and more like a roundtable with your peers.  No slides to sit through. No chat-box-only participation. Just a genuine back-and-forth among people who are asking the same questions you are.

Come ready to talk, listen, and leave with ideas you didn't walk in with.

About Your Facilitator

Diksha Carron has over 10 years of experience in talent acquisition, partnering with leaders to support employee development and create meaningful learning experiences. She is passionate about bringing professionals together to connect, share ideas, and learn from one another. Diksha is excited to facilitate this discussion on microlearning and other engaging, bite-sized training strategies, and looks forward to exploring new ideas and best practices with the group.

ATD Capability Model

Each ATD-OC Learning Event will be aligned to at least one Talent Development  Capability, as identified by ATD National.

This program aligns with:

Developing Professional Capability:

Talent development professionals must have the ability to identify, select, and implement the right learning and talent technologies that serve the best interests of the organization and its people. Practitioners should be able to identify opportunities to adapt and leverage the right technologies at the right time to meet organizational goals.

To find out more about the ATD Capability Model for the Training and Development Profession, visit http://tdcapability.org.

MEDIA RELEASE

As part of your registration, you will be required to indicate your acceptance or rejection of the statement below:

By registering for this event, I hereby give the Association for Talent Development, Orange County Chapter, its clients, agents, and assigns, full permission to use, publish and copyright photographic images, film images, video images, sound recordings, and any reproductions from these materials of me and/or my property or any part thereof, either in conjunction with or without using my name, and make changes or alterations therein and/or alterations thereto Worldwide in perpetuity. Some places these images and recordings may be used and posted include, but are not limited to, the Internet, emails, social media, etc.

If I do not provide permission, I understand I will be seated outside of the field of video.

We invite all of our Learning Community to be a part of this culminating event! Celebrate your successes, connect with your peers, and set a vision for the future with us!

During this winter get-together, we will:

We will also take a few moments to have our Annual Membership Meeting, giving you an overview of the coming year.

And guess what? A delicious meal, door prizes, and parking are included!

Come share in the festivities, connect with fellow members, and let’s make some great memories together.

We can't wait to see all of you there—let's celebrate what we've achieved and look forward to what's ahead!

The Schedule for the Evening:

Menu:

Things to Bring:

Parking: Free parking in the lot

Deadlines: 

Monday, December 1

Cancellation/refund deadline is Monday, December 1 at 5 pm. No shows will be charged in full.

Earn Professional Professional Development Points

This program is worth .5 Professional Development points.
Find out more about APTD/CPTD Certifications here.

ATD Capability Model

Each ATD-OC Learning Event will be aligned to at least one Talent Development  Capability, as identified by ATD National.

This program aligns with:

To find out more about the ATD Capability Model for the Training and Development Profession, visit http://tdcapability.org.

PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO RELEASE

By registering for this event, I hereby give the Association for Talent Development, Orange County Chapter, its clients, agents, and assigns, full permission to use, publish and copyright photographic images, film images, video images, sound recordings, and any reproductions from these materials of me and/or my property or any part thereof, either in conjunction with or without using my name, and make changes or alterations therein and/or alterations thereto Worldwide in perpetuity. Some places these images and recordings may be used and posted include, but are not limited to, the Internet, emails, social media, etc.

If I do not provide permission, I understand I will not activate my web camera during the session.

Under the backdrop of ATD's recent State of the Industry report, we discuss the Learning and Development trends that impact the strategic focus of local L&D leaders.

Each year, ATD's State of the Industry establishes consistent baselines for key performance indicators, including direct learning expenditure per employee, total formal learning hours, delivery channels, and trainer-to-employee staffing ratios.

But national L&D benchmarking reports rely heavily on data from large enterprise organizations with dedicated training budgets. Our local panelists bring clear visibility into what Orange County business owners actually invest in employee growth relative to operational overhead.

This month, our panelists will explore the latest trends that are reshaping L&D strategies. But more than that, we'll discuss how these trends are shaping their organization's strategies for the coming year.  

You'll hear how they align learning initiatives with business goals, ensuring their organizations thrive in an ever-changing environment.

Discover Insights from Industry Leaders

Panelists:

Agenda

Register Early, Save with a Friend!

When You Register...	Member Only	Member & First Time Guest	Non Member Only
More than 2 weeks early	FREE	Member FREE  &  Guest $5.00	$10.00
2 weeks early	$5.00	Member FREE  &  Guest $10.00	$15.00
2 days early	$10.00	Member $5.00 &  Guest $15.00	$20.00

To take advantage of this offer, contact Denise at ocoffice@atdoc.org or 714.527.4785.

Deadlines: 

Early bird -Friday, February 7 

Regular - Monday, February 24

Cancellation/refund deadline is noon on the Monday before the meeting. No shows will be charged in full.

Earn Professional Professional Development Points

This program is worth 1 Professional Development points.
Find out more about APTD/CPTD Certifications here.

ATD Capability Model

Each ATD-OC Learning Event will be aligned to at least one Talent Development  Capability, as identified by ATD National.

This program aligns with:

To find out more about the ATD Capability Model for the Training and Development Profession, visit http://tdcapability.org.

PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO RELEASE

By registering for this event, I hereby give the Association for Talent Development, Orange County Chapter, its clients, agents, and assigns, full permission to use, publish and copyright photographic images, film images, video images, sound recordings, and any reproductions from these materials of me and/or my property or any part thereof, either in conjunction with or without using my name, and make changes or alterations therein and/or alterations thereto Worldwide in perpetuity. Some places these images and recordings may be used and posted include, but are not limited to, the Internet, emails, social media, etc.

If I do not provide permission, I understand I will not activate my web camera during the session.