The WTS-Boston Professional Development Committee kicked off 2021 with a variety of virtual events.  On January 12, Paige Malott of CascadiaRail in Seattle spoke to us about Digital Butts in Seats: Creating Online Events that Don’t Suck.  Paige had an exciting presentation with various suggestions such as remembering time zones and catering to your full audience.  Her presentation was backed by research for how to keep an online audience engaged in your presentation.  With such a timely topic, more than 80 attendees were excited to participate in a lively question and answer session moderated by PD Co-Chair Ali Mattson. 

Then in February, the Professional Development Committee brought together experts from throughout WTS-Boston to host a training session on How to Host a WTS Zoom Event for our internal leadership.  Ali Love (STV), Theresa Carr (Nelson \ Nygaard), and Lindsey Vasquez (Jacobs) demonstrated to the Board and Committee leadership how to use the various tools and functions available in our Zoom account, making it easier to bring our members great programming.

March brought the opportunity for the Professional Development Committee to host a book club on The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, facilitated by Sarah Dennechuk (Massport) and Kristine Gorman (Jacobs).  One of the authors, Katty Kay, was a keynote speaker at the 2019 WTS International Conference, and her impassioned talk inspired us to explore the topic more fully by deep diving into the book.  The event started with a discussion on how each attendee felt about their own confidence and continued with offering support, tips and tricks, and networking opportunities with other attendees.  The group also discussed resources for improving confidence levels such as podcasts, articles, and related books.