Those of us who attended the 2018 Association for Nursing Professional Development (ANPD) Convention in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, experienced a convention to remember. There were so many magical moments that went along with the theme Aspire to Imagine! This year's convention set a new all-time high for attendance. With a record of 1,407 attendees, our annual convention proves to be a very important meeting place for aspiring and new nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners along with NPD practitioners spanning the continuum of experience levels. This record attendance aligns with our record membership, which at the time of convention hovered at approximately 4,535 members! A warm thank you goes out to the ANPD 2018 Convention planning committee, all of the wonderful podium and poster presenters, and all of our sponsors. You are what makes the convention an event to remember!

Several special congratulations are in order.

First, congratulations and welcome to our new President Patsy Maloney, EdD, MSN, MA, RN-BC, NEA-BC! We look forward to the years under her leadership. And with that, we extend a huge thank you to our now immediate past president Chris Wilson, MSN, RN-BC, who served and advanced ANPD in many ways during her tenure.

Congratulations to Bette Case DiLeonardi, PhD, RN-BC, who was honored with the Marlene Kramer award for lifelong achievement and commitment to NPD. This is one of ANPDs highest awards, and Dr. DiLeonardi is a deserving recipient. Her career in NPD spans many decades and includes being part of the group that formalized the National Nursing Staff Development Organization (NNSDO) which later became ANPD. Her accomplishments and contributions are too numerous to mention, but they include countless publications including several books and more than 500 continuing education presentations at national and international professional meetings among many other things. Thank you, Dr. DiLeonardi, for your leadership and support for the NPD specialty.

A round of applause is also in order for all of the ANPD convention and scholarship award winners and our ANPD Star Search winner who won a free registration to Convention 2019! You can see a listing of these winners in Trendlines by visiting this link: http://www.anpd.org/blog/2018-annual-convention-award-winners. In addition, a round of applause goes out to all of our poster winners. These winners are also listed in the July issue of Trendlines, and you can see that list by visiting this link: http://www.anpd.org/blog/congratulations-to-the-2018-anpd-award-and-scholarship-.

Although there was a lot of buzz about all of the convention sessions, I noticed a few highlights from the 2018 Convention that seemed to resonate with many of the people I spoke with. This year's presenters tapped into our imagination posing provocative questions and imagining new possibilities. One of these was the opening presentation where Dr. DiLeonardi presented some very interesting and compelling food for thought. She challenged us to think about our specialty and the broad scope of our influence. She captivated the audience as she led us through an exploration of NPD. She posed the question about whether the N in NPD is helpful, harmful, or neither. Our roles as professional development practitioners certainly have an impact that extends beyond Nursing alone. In fact, the greatest impact would be on the patients cared for by the nurses and other staff we continually develop. The audience seemed to be split on whether our future is best suited as NPD practitioners or PD practitioners. What an amazing question for us to ponder!

The "Show me the money: Demonstrating the value of NPD" session led by Dr. Karen Drenkard was like a crash course in everything we need to know about NPD financial and organizational savvy that no one ever told us. We know all too well that when care and outcomes need improvement NPD practitioners are the first to be called upon. We know equally well that when the budget needs evaluation for possible reductions, we're also the first to be called upon. Dr. Drenkard's presentation on understanding our value and making sure we capture and quantify it effectively addressed a problem that has plagued our specialty for years. As you may know ANPDs return on investment (ROI) calculator is now available via the ANPD website (http://www.anpd.org/p/bl/et/blogid=1005&blogaid=1389). During Dr. Drenkard's presentation, a walkthrough of the ROI process and the ANPD ROI tool was provided. In addition, Dr. Drenkard educated attendees on the importance of making the value connection regarding the work we do while we move away from focusing on basic methods of evaluation, such as whether attendees enjoyed the activity and whether the food and temperature was satisfactory. Rather, we should be moving to higher-level evaluation where we as NPD practitioners make the connection between our work and the positive change in clinical outcomes, which often has a quantifiable cost savings or benefit. After this session, I'm sure many NPD leaders went back home to their organizations and struck up a new or renewed friendship with a very important person, their chief financial officer.

There were so many other great presentations, including the session on The Future of Continuing Education: Outcomes-Based Professional Development and Beyond Kirkpatrick: Targeting Strategies for Evaluating Programs and People.

I admit, in years past I have left a few conferences before the closing session-sometimes to hurry up and get back to work or back home to family and other times to engage in some other activities. But if you've attended a few ANPD conventions, you know by now that our convention is not the one you want to leave before it's officially over. By the looks of the numbers of people who attended the closing session, I think many people know that what I've said is true. In true ANPD convention session fashion, Rich Bluni brought convention to an energetic and uplifting close with his presentation called the Inspired Nurse. Aside from his Studer-infused and thus highly informative content, his presentation style was the perfect blend of laughs, seriousness, and everything else in between. You know when you're trying to tell someone about how fun or exciting something was and you can't find the words to explain it, so you say, "you had to be there!" Well Rich's session was a "you had to be there" session.

There isn't enough space for me to rave about the concurrent sessions, the poster sessions, and all of the Star Search session presenters. There was something for everyone, and ideas and outcomes were shared so readily. It was just an exciting convention-ask anyone who was there!

So now that the 2018 Convention is in the books, we're looking forward to seeing you sooner than we have in the past. In response to the vast member feedback regarding the spring season being a better time for convention than midsummer, we look forward to seeing you in Phoenix from April 1-4, 2019. Our 2019 Convention will be monumental! We're going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our organization. It'll be both informative and fun, and enriching and fabulous. You don't want to miss it. Visit the ANPD website for more information. See you there!