Algonquin College Professional Development Conference for Local Businesses

Posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2015

SPRING BUSINESS AND LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE UPDATE – Registrations on now! Check out the conference website for schedule, workshops, presenters, and registration details. Every year, local businesses spend thousands of dollars sending their staff to big cities like Toronto and Ottawa to access professional development training. To secure this training, they also pay big city prices. High registration fees, costly hotels, rental vehicles, per diems for meals, parking bills and other incidental costs could be avoided if more businesses bought local. Algonquin College is going to make that point in a big way when its hosts its first Professional Development Conference for area businesses on Thursday, May 28th at its Waterfront Campus in Pembroke. The college is promising a “big city” conference here at home! By working with its Woodroffe Campus corporate training division, the College has access to some great trainers. For starters, the college has secured comedian, professional writer and change management guru Deborah Kimmett as its keynote speaker. Kimmett’s marketing title is “One Funny Lady” and she spends a lot of time on stage at conferences across North America making people laugh, while also driving home valuable messages about the importance of flexibility in the workplace in today’s high energy and demanding workplace.

Rosemarie Bugnet has built a reputation for being an expert in customer service. She’s also quite funny and uses humour to make the point that all businesses need to focus their attention on training their staff to be exceptional representatives for their brand, and that starts with anticipating and responding to customer needs. Bugnet will be one of the workshop facilitators on a day of presentations that focus on helping local businesses be smarter, more efficient and better at what they do. Chuck Doyle has been helping businesses become more efficient for almost four decades. His LEAN management workshop will help companies think about their processes and procedures that may be harming their productivity. Doyle will provide tips from things he has learned through his work with dozens of organizations. Jodi Bucholtz is primarily responsible for Algonquin College’s Waterfront Campus social media interaction. A graduate of Algonquin College’s Social Media Certificate program, Jodi has helped elevate the college’s social media presence through her work with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms. Jodi is an experienced teacher of social media best practices and is a highly engaging instructor. There will be more presenters announced soon, but consider this blog as an appetizer for what is going to be a great day of learning for local business people, and a very affordable professional development opportunity. It’s also a reminder that companies don’t need to send their people out of town to find great training available at their local community college. Posted by: Jamie Bramburger, Manager of Community and Student Affairs

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