Nearly 500 Attendees Representing almost 200 Technology and Learning Businesses Join the Continuous Learning Experience to Achieve Customer Education Success
BOSTON – October 12, 2020 – Thought Industries, the world’s leading B2B customer training platform provider, delivered its first customer education annual event and user conference, COGNITION 2020, bringing nearly 500 thought leaders and decision-makers together online October 6-7 at cognition.thoughtindustries.com to drive better learning outcomes for their own customers, partners, and external audiences. Hosted on the Thought Industries Platform, attendees will have long-term access to the content as well as post-event learning.
COGNITION launched with an inspirational video depicting the Overview Effect of earth from space and opening remarks from CEO, Barry Kelly, discussing how the customer education industry has reached an inflection point and customer education professionals have an opportunity and responsibility to make a difference in how learning is created, delivered and received. Follow-on keynotes from Mark Roberge, Steve Gross, and Vernā Myers throughout the program reinforced the message in supporting learner engagement, product proficiency, retention and growth through collaboration, optimism, and inclusion.
“Thought Industries COGNITION was an excellent opportunity to garner insights from other customer education executives, thought leaders, and practitioners to further improve our learning offering,” said Melissa VanPelt, Senior Director of Education and Community at Seismic, whose program received the Customer Training Experience Award for its Seismic University education program. “The keynotes all delivered value beyond learning KPIs and strategies typically found at such events, and the speaker sessions could each fill a notebook with actionable ideas that will help us mature our current program offering. I am looking forward to seeing our team put these insights into practice.”
“While COVID has been a forcing function for the world, driving exponentially more and new online learners to a first-time virtual learning environment, it’s our responsibility as an industry and as customer educators to create exceptional learning experiences, not only to help them migrate to it but begin to be inspired, engaged, and transformed by it,” said Barry Kelly, CEO, Thought Industries. “We founded Thought Industries with a very basic principle, that the quality of learning experiences can be better — more engaging, visually appealing, stimulating, and creative. The business and process of learning is at a very interesting inflection point. With shared responsibility, we can be agents of education evolution and change.”
At COGNITION 2020, Thought Industries customers and other customer education executives and thought leaders from around the world shared their knowledge in live streaming video, interactive online sessions, and workshops for customer training and professional learning that provided actionable insights for business strategy and 2021 planning.
Platform Updates and The Customer Education Playbook
During COGNITION, Todd Boes, Chief Product Officer, announced a major enhancement to the Thought Industries Platform, called Reflections. Similar to study guides, job aids, or prompted worksheets, Reflections offer a personalized way to guide learners through training or to reflect upon their lessons.
Delivered to attendees during a session at COGNITION, The Customer Education Playbook provides the most comprehensive, validated methodology for developing, implementing, and evaluating a customer education program based on the results of nearly 200 customer interviews on how to achieve success.
COGNITION Customer Awards
Thought Industries also announced winners of the COGNITION 2020 Customer Awards. Recognizing customers across four categories, including Overall Excellence, Innovation, Performance, and Platform, fifteen winners and their learning sites were highlighted in video vignettes between sessions.
About Thought Industries
Thought Industries powers the business of learning by providing the world’s leading B2B customer training platform. The company was founded in 2014 around the core belief that online learning experiences should be modern, intuitive, engaging, and scalable. Today, our team builds and maintains the only learning solution with completely native tools and integrations that drive higher engagement, learner proficiency, and retention rates for our customers. Headquartered in Boston, Thought Industries has offices across North America and Europe. For more information, visit www.thoughtindustries.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
