Park Lane Group
Park Lane Induction
Driven by personal frustration with existing industry events, LearningCon (The Learning Conference) was conceived in 2020 as an online conference dedicated exclusively to intermediate and advanced Learning Designers. The mission was to create a global, vendor-free, no-sell zone where practitioners could find genuine inspiration and practical, expert-level knowledge to create better learning experiences.
The conference was built on the core principle of “How did they do that?”, focusing on practical sessions, real-world examples, and expert-led creation and discussion panels, directly addressing the community’s need for targeted, relevant content.
The project was a personal initiative aimed at filling a significant gap in the professional development market, defined by clear, research-backed goals:
Content Relevance: Create a conference where 100% of sessions were targeted specifically towards intermediate and advanced Learning Designers, satisfying the needs of 98% of potential attendees identified in research.
Format Innovation: Prioritise highly interactive and practical formats, such as create sessions, showcase events, and discussion panels, which were the most popular interests identified in the research.
Integrity: Establish a strict “no-sell zone” policy, ensuring all sessions were focused on imparting expert knowledge rather than being vendor sales pitches.
Brand Authority: Develop a modern, unique brand that stood apart from traditional Australian learning conferences to attract high-calibre Keynote speakers and give attendees confidence in the experience.
As the one of the founders of LearningCon, my role was comprehensive, spanning strategy, design, marketing, and development, effectively functioning as the Conference Director and Lead Digital Developer.
My key responsibilities included:
Strategy & Research: Conducting market research to validate the conference concept and define the content and format requirements.
Branding & Design: Creating the modern, distinctive brand identity and design aesthetic for ‘The Learning Conference’ (LearningCon), including the full website design.
Content Curation: Securing high-calibre Keynote speakers and curating the entire practical, non-vendor-led session schedule.
Marketing & Collateral: Creating all the polished social media collateral across Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter using Adobe XD.
Show Development: Conceptualising, producing, and editing the ‘The Show’ Learning Design competition, including all video production and editing.
App Development: Developing The Learning Conference App to serve as the central hub for attendees (schedule, speakers, resources, recap videos).
The approach for LearningCon was iterative and heavily informed by community research, ensuring the final product delivered exactly what the target audience demanded.
Discovery & Validation: Began with essential research that identified two critical market needs: a lack of content for intermediate/advanced practitioners and a desire for highly practical session formats.
Branding & Attraction: Focused on designing a visually modern and distinct brand to immediately differentiate LearningCon from the competition. This unique brand was crucial for giving the best Keynote speakers in the industry confidence to get onboard.
Content & Community Engagement: Launched ‘The Show’ competition early in the build-up. This initiative served a dual purpose: it created high-engagement, competitive video content and directly involved the learning community in content creation and judging.
Digital Execution: Developed the website, produced all video assets (promotional and conference content), and then built The Learning Conference App as the central attendee resource hub for schedule, resources, and video recaps.
Community-Validated Content Model: The conference content was directly validated by research, ensuring 78% of attendees felt the sessions were specifically targeted towards their needs, addressing a major industry pain point.
The Learning Conference App: This bespoke application served as a crucial solution for the online environment, providing attendees with a centralised, mobile-friendly platform to review the schedule, learn about speakers, download resources, and access recap videos.
The Show: Pre-Conference Engagement: The design and execution of ‘The Show,’ a 64-participant Learning Design competition, was a unique marketing and community-building solution. It created highly engaging, user-generated content and allowed the learning community to choose the winner of the Best Learning Designer Award.
Rapid, Polished Marketing: Utilised Adobe XD to develop all social media collateral quickly, ensuring a polished, professional, and consistent brand appearance across Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
LearningCon successfully proved that a practitioner-focused, vendor-free model could thrive, generating high engagement and meeting its core mission of providing relevant, expert-level knowledge.
High Engagement: The ‘The Show’ competition successfully engaged 64 participants who battled for the Best Learning Designer Award, demonstrating strong community buy-in and interaction.
Mission Achieved: The conference successfully operated as a no-sell zone, fulfilling the commitment to attendees and allowing speakers to focus entirely on imparting expert knowledge.
Brand Success: The modern branding and unique format attracted some of the best Keynote speakers in the industry, validating the conference’s position as a place of inspiration for Learning Designers around the world.
Website & Branding: Check out the website gallery to see the unique, modern brand that differentiated LearningCon from other industry events.
Video Content: Watch ‘The Show’ to see the high-quality video production and editing involved in the 64-participant Learning Design competition.
Marketing Collateral: Review the posts gallery to see the polished, consistent social media assets created using Adobe XD for Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
