One of the best features of Applied Net are the high-quality presentations. While session attendees undoubtedly gain valuable knowledge, presenting also offers the opportunity to learn something new. We spoke with two past Applied Net speakers, Carmela Whaley, Commercial Lines Manager with Millennium Alliance Group, LLC, and Janet Woodyear, Compliance Manager with the Signature B&B Companies, about their experiences attending and speaking at the conference.

Whaley and Woodyear both attended Applied Net before presenting – Whaley in 2016 and Woodyear in 2018. “I remember, like it was yesterday. It was exciting. It was thrilling,” said Woodyear.

Whaley also recalls the excitement and effort involved in attending her first Applied Net.

“I was lucky enough to go to Applied Net in Las Vegas in 2016. It was exhausting, but you learn so much and you meet a lot of great people. It is a lot of fun,” said Whaley.

A few years after attending Applied Net, Whaley and Woodyear expanded their presence at the conference by presenting.

At Applied Net 2021, Woodyear spoke on a virtual expert panel where she leveraged her experience and expertise on remote training during the pandemic to offer timely advice to her audience.

“There were two sessions that I led. One was on auditing, and the other was training remotely,” said Woodyear. “Those were two hot topics that were really important during the pandemic, because people were shutting down their offices. I already had experience in training people remotely, because we have a group of staff that's remote and that's how I train them. Remote training was something that people were starting with from scratch and were needing guidance on that.”

Delivering an insightful presentation was rewarding for Woodyear. In addition, she received favorable audience feedback, which made it even more of a positive experience. “The fact that it was very well received based on the feedback we got back afterward — that was knowledge that people wanted to hear what I had to say, and they got something out of it. That made it that much more rewarding.”

Woodyear built off her success of presenting at Applied Net and shared with us that she recently took on another opportunity to speak.

“I presented at our Applied Client Network Northeast Regional Conference held at Mohegan Sun. I finished my first in-person session Monday. The session was about one hour and 45 minutes and went extremely well,” said Woodyear.

For Whaley, her experience speaking at Applied Net was equally positive. She spoke at the first in-person Applied Net event in Nashville in 2022 after COVID-19 restrictions began to lift and live events returned. While remote work and pandemic adjustments were still a hot topics, her panel addressed Applied Download Services.

“We had a team of panelists and we met four or five times to prepare for our session Applied Download,” said Whaley. “It was interesting. I got asked a lot of questions from the audience and received a lot of audience participation.”

Along with being eager to learn and actively participating with Whaley during her presentations, the audience at Applied Net sought out more knowledge after the conference ended.

“What's even nicer is that a few weeks or months after I presented, I got an email from an audience member that had additional questions for me,” said Whaley. "It really boosts you up a little bit, and it helped me get to know the Download portion even better.”

In addition to receiving positive feedback, Whaley discussed the joy of receiving knowledge while presenting on her panel.

“It’s an excellent way of getting everyone's different opinion on the same matter,” said Whaley. “For instance, I believe there were four of us on the panel, and we each spoke about how we operate the same thing in a different way. You will have moments of ‘Oh, wow, that's a great idea. Maybe I should do it that way.’ You get to experience the learning aspect of it and you get a lot out of it, which is really enjoyable.”

 Keep an eye out for more information regarding this year’s Applied Net happening from October 23-26 2023 at the Aria in Las Vegas, Nevada and register today!