After many years of requests for a pre-conference workshop, we're partnering with ATD Austin, the local authority on all things Talent Development, to offer a first-of-its-kind learning experience to a select few conference attendees. We want to move past the AI hype and focus on your actual needs. Through guided deconstruction and strategic rebuilding, you'll discover how AI can genuinely amplify your work. This is a hands-on workshop where theory meets reality.
Do you have any of these real-world challenges:
Bring It. Leapfrog the learning curve, and get it done right, right now.
There will be no theoretical exercises or hypotheticals; just real solutions to real challenges. You'll leave with more than ideas—you'll have a tested solution ready for Monday morning. What typically takes weeks of team time, countless iterations, and expensive trial-and-error, you'll accomplish in one day.
Perfect For:
Takeaways, depending on your challenge:
Space is limited to ensure each participant receives focused attention. Early registration is essential as this session will fill up quickly!
Josh Penzell is what happens when you cross a futurist, a systems strategist, and a musical theater director—and give him a prompt.
As the founder of Imagination Applied, Josh helps organizations design AI-enabled systems that behave, speak, and adapt like real collaborators—not just tools. He’s the creator of TheaterThink®, a metaphor-powered framework for navigating complexity using the logic of the rehearsal room, and Human Caffeine™, a communication method built to energize clarity, attention, and action at scale.
Josh has led strategy and innovation work with organizations including Amazon Alexa, Zillow, Skillsoft, ELB Learning, and Microsoft. His sessions feel more like rehearsals than lectures—designed to break open assumptions, surface stuck behavior, and rebuild what works.
He holds degrees from Northwestern (BS), Brooklyn College (MFA in Theater), and the University of Illinois (MBA).
Curious to know more? Chat with his AI assistant at JoshPGPT.ai—just don’t ask it to tap dance. Yet.