Juno Journey reposted this
Today, I’m celebrating a very special birthday. The birthday of The Learning Table community ❤️ 2 years ago, we hosted our first dinner in San Francisco, not knowing it would become something much bigger. Today, we’re a global community of almost 2000 HR & Learning leaders. This is the story of how it happened. Chapter 1: Start with something Start with something. Anything. For me? It was a dinner table with 8 people. Don’t get me wrong… we had smaller ones too 😅 (One event had 3 attendees. I call that “character building.”) But then NYC happened. 20 people showed up. And I kept going. Flying. Landing. Jetlagging. Commuting. Lights. Music. People. Convincing amazing people to join. Watching them fall in love. Watching them bring others. City by city. San Francisco grew fast. NYC was magic. DC taught me resilience. Austin stole my heart (and a jacket). Boston: amazing people, still figuring it out. San Diego: incredible crowd. Chicago: warm from day one. San Jose: tiny room, huge conversations. LA: sunshine and brilliant humans. One rule the whole time: Don’t stop. Chapter 2: Stop doing it alone Eventually, it clicked. This was never meant to be built alone. So I stopped trying to. Collaborations. Real ones. L&D SHAKERS ❤️ achieve Engagement 🙌 The amazing energy of Melinda Stallings, SHRM-SCP, CPPC’s from DisruptHR. More flights. More cities. But suddenly, it stopped feeling like networking. It felt like coming home. Chapter 3: A global table Then came another realization: This community was global from the beginning. So we opened our laptops too 😅 Online sessions. Community-led conversations. People openly sharing what’s working, what’s failing, and what they’re learning in real time. HR leaders in New York are learning from leaders in Berlin. And just like that… we grew. Chapter 4: Europe Relax after all this? Not my vibe 😅 Amsterdam was the start of our HumAIn dinners, together with the amazing Shlomit Gruman - Navot and Practi Then Berlin. Lisbon. Next: London and Munich. And finally… Israel. My hometown. 😍 After building this community around the world, bringing it home felt emotional in a completely different way. And somewhere between all of that: 63 flights. 182,300 miles. 344 hours on airplanes. Jetlag, I stopped trying to calculate 😅 All to help HR and L&D people feel a little less alone. And honestly, I’d do it all over again tomorrow. Happy 2 years to The Learning Table ❤️ Dor Nachshoni, you know I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you to my biggest supporters 😍 Stephen Galloway Gina Maria Markelov Patrick P. Nathalie van 't Hek Jamie Brawer Jared Levitt Eric Grant Nick Bilotta Malvika Jethmalani Jonathan S. George Boone Walker Stone Zach Golan Ari Paskoff Sally Bolig Aimee Raphaeli Matt Donner Joaquin Reyes Julia Uéchi Terry Mark Eckstein Wesley Chiha, M.IDS Trae Diede Perri Katz Laura Mahalel Jennifer Young Heli Nehama Ozery Hana Chen Zacay Anyssa Villegas Shanna Goodell