We face monsters every day as training professionals. They cannot be tackled the same ways the stories of our past have taught us to tame mysterious beasts. They lurk right in front of us; on our computer screen, on our social media accounts, in our books. Staying home cannot protect us from these monsters! This week on the Train Like You Listen podcast, Mad Scientist Clark Quinn, Ph. D, Executive Director at Quinnovation, joins us to spot and fight the monsters that plague so many in our indust...
Oct 26, 2020•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast The more we can access our learners, the more likely we are to be successful in our training outcomes. This week on the Train Like you Listen podcast, Amy Lou Abernethy, President, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Strategist at Amp Creative, stops by to talk to us about how we can use learning campaigns to increase learner engagement and promote a learning culture.
Oct 18, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast As trainers, we often talk about wearing more that one hat at work. But how do you know how to navigate all of the challenges that you face when you don’t have a big team? Emily Wood, author of ELearning Department of One, joins us on the Train Like You Listen podcast this week to share some resources and tips for small eLearning departments.
Oct 11, 2020•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do you walk into every training development project knowing exactly what needs to happen to make it a success? If you are like me, probably not. As a junior trainer, a lot of my lessons were learned from failure and feedback. While those are wonderful ways to learn, it isn’t always ideal to put yourself or your team at risk for failure if it can be avoided. Is there a way to be proactive about troubleshooting your next training event? Sophie Oberstein, author, coach, adjunct professor, and L&OD ...
Oct 05, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast acilitating and training people, young or adult, to be curious is important, but is it really an outcome that can be trained and measured? On this week’s podcast, we talk to Bethany Kline from www.Rover.com about her approach to training learners how to be curious how she applies her methods to scale innovation across an organization.
Sep 28, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to engaging learners, finding the magical formula can seem like catching a mythical creature. In theory, it is absolutely attainable, however, in practice, unexpected obstacles abound. Speaking of rare encounters, on this week's podcast, Brian meets Cara North for the first time to talk about her approach to unlocking learner engagement. During this episode, she talks about the three-legged stool of engagement and why it is important not to put all of your weight on one leg, why co...
Sep 21, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Most trainers have a love/hate relationship with PowerPoint. Why is that? There are probably a lot of reasons, but one reason I see over and over is that many trainers are taking the wrong approach to creating PowerPoint slides. Mike Parkinson is not only the founder of Billion Dollar Graphics and author of A Trainer's Guide to PowerPoint, he is also one of only 36 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the world! This week, he took some time with the Train Like You Listen podcast to really dig in to how ...
Sep 13, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week on the Train Like You Listen podcast, Marci Morford, manager of onboarding, culture, and innovation programs at Salesforce stops by to talk about how to properly apply gamification to training. Marci and Brian worked together to build an on-boarding game that took new-hires through a days-long game to acclimate to their new roles. She takes some time to cover a few examples of game that work in training, how to find inspiration to gamify your next training, and discusses the why the dy...
Aug 31, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you have been in training for more than a few years, it is likely you are familiar with the Ken Blanchard Companies. The Ken Blanchard Companies have more than 40 years of in-person training experience and are a power-house of instructor-led training. Like many other companies, this group of individuals is looking forward to more agile approach to training development as our world shifts to new approaches to training. In episode 31 of the Train Like You Listen podcast, we sit down with Britne...
Aug 24, 2020•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Voice-activated digital assistants are household items for many of us. Smartphones, speakers, even watches can be voice-activated to help us with any number of things. My mom and her 81-year-old neighbor spent the weekend setting up and activating skills for several smart speakers in her house. They set up entertainment, reminders, asked questions, and set up some safety features. What else can we do with devices with a voice user interface? On episode 30 of Train Like You Listen, Myra Roldan, a...
Aug 16, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Conference season is coming up! What do conferences look like during the time of Covid-19? One of our favorite conferences, Learnapalooza, is taking things virtual this year and we sat down with Chief Innovator Erin Peterschick to hear what her and her team are planning. This conference is typically set in the Seattle area, and offers an affordable and engaging conference experience. Facing the disruption of Covid-19, Erin and her team have moved quickly to creating a virtual experience accessib...
Aug 09, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Recessions and economic downturns happen. Many of us have worked - or tried to work - through more than one economic downturn. As training departments tend to be small compared to other departments, how do we stay relevant in tough economic times? Chris Pirie from the Learning Futures Group sits down with the Train Like You Listen team this week to give us a little history on his experiences in training department during economic downturns. He takes some time to discuss how this economy is diffe...
Aug 02, 2020•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Training isn't created in a vacuum. Many learning professionals spend hours reading about and looking for inspiration and the latest trends in design and development. There are a few key people in our industry who are interested in helping all of us move forward and push the limits of engaging and creative training. Award winning eLearning developer Ashley Chiasson is one of those people. On Train Like You Listen this week, we sit down with Ashley to talk about how she found success in her role....
Jul 27, 2020•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nobody knows what the world will look like in a few weeks, months, or years. One thing is for sure, there is a drastic increase in virtual tools to facilitate meetings, and we need to be successful working with them. This time has shown many of us that virtual meetings may well be a working for many more of us than we ever anticipated. Now that we have the tools to do it, we somewhat expect our colleagues and coworkers to intuitively know how to create engaging experiences with these tools. Has ...
Jul 20, 2020•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Learning and Development community is not always easy to break into. Even in an office setting with a relatively large training team, finding one's connection into the community can be a herculean purist. In this week's podcast, we talk to someone who works hard to solve this problem. Bianca Woods of the Learning Guild discusses how to leverage free tools like Twitter to connect with like-minded, or maybe like-questioned - groups of people who have regular discussions about topics in our ind...
Jul 13, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast How did you get into training and development? Did you study for this job in school? Or, like many of us, did you find your way here unexpectedly? No matter how you wound up in your role, you started the same way we all did, green and looking for resources and a community to help you along this path. This week, we take a deep dive into getting started as an eLearning developer on the Train Like You Listen podcast. Anne Gerken, Communications Specialist at State of Montana's Gambling Control Divi...
Jun 28, 2020•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast The first day on a new job can be daunting. People are walking into a group who have already established relationships with each other and found their place a company. Like being the new kid at school, new employees may feel lost and out of place before even walking through the doors of the organization; virtually or physically. This week on the Train Like You Listen podcast, Marci Morford, manager of onboarding, culture, and innovation programs at Salesorce, spends some time with us to discuss ...
Jun 22, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast What value can learning and development folks get from being more active on social media? Well one opportunity is to talk with people like Mike Taylor from Mike-Taylor.org about all of the cool things he finds on the internet. You can also geek out with Brian Washburn about all things training and development, or Heather Snyder about eLearning design and development. You can virtually talk to anyone in our industry with a quick post. In this week's podcast, we talk to Mike Taylor about how he fo...
Jun 14, 2020•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast How do you move forward when a project challenges you and you don't see a clear way to move forward? On the podcast this week, Brian sits down with his colleague and Director of Instructional Design at Endurance Learning, Heather Snyder to dig into this topic. During this chat, they discuss some challenges they encounter during the training development process and how they can be addressed. Heather and Brian talk about a few recent projects and how they made them successful, some resources they ...
Jun 07, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does training look like in a COVID-19 or even post-COVID-19 world? A lot of people are talking about how their jobs are changing. Whether it be working from home, adapting to new norms, or changing their skill set as an essential worker, these changes are impacting the way we work and how we approach and embrace technology. In this week's podcast, we sit down with Brent Schlenker of the Instructional Designers In Offices Drinking Coffee Crowdcast (better known as IDIODC) to gather some of h...
Jun 01, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do you ever find yourself putting on your marketing hat and trying to "sell" a new process or implementation in your training? In this week's podcast, we sit down with Mike Taylorof MikeTaylor.org and discuss what instructional designers can learn from the advertising and marketing approach and apply it to training. If you are a training professional, we suggest you follow Mike on social media. He regularly puts out a wealth of information on training and design. During this podcast you can hear...
May 18, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Good instructional design is universal, but are there considerations we need to take when training an international audience? This week on the podcast Mary Cropp, Director of Learning and Development at Bluetooth Sig, joins us again to talk about her experiences with international audiences and how that can change the approach to instructional design. Mary has spent the past several years presenting to participants from various cultures. During this podcast, she discusses some lessons learned, h...
May 11, 2020•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast How many people does it take to put on a successful webinar? Facilitators are obviously necessary to engage participants and facilitate activities not matter how the training is delivered. Engaging webinars, however, require a lot of tools and technology which are difficult, if not impossible, to manage while facilitating the course. In this week's podcast, we talk to Lauren Wescott of Endurance Learning and Soapboxcontent developer extraordinaire to talk about the very important role of the pro...
May 04, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Things have changed for many of us very quickly. Many of us are at home, but we haven't stopped working. As we get used to a new way to interact with one another, the dynamics of our interactions need to change. As many people have probably experienced, an online meeting or training is a different experience than in-person and it takes a lot of creativity to engage participants. In this week's podcast, we sit down with Todd Hudson of the Maverick Institute again to hear about a recent experience...
Apr 27, 2020•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast As professionals in the learning and development community, it is important to push ourselves to find new approaches to problems. Being innovative can be defined many ways, but it isn't necessity as complex as we may think. On the podcast this week, Darren Nerland Learning Strategist at Degreed sits down with us to talk about his experiences with innovation. Both as co-founder of Learnapalooza, and a leader in the L&D community, Daren has observed several approaches to innovation. In this podcas...
Apr 20, 2020•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast What kind of activities adds value to training? Is lecture the best way to teach? How about role-play? Is it worth the sideways looks from participants when you tell them to act out a scenario? On the podcast this week, Becky Pluth author and CEO at the Bob Pike Group sits down with us to talk about how they approach learner engagement. During this episode she talks about some of the research behind how we engage our learners, the difference between activities that add value and activities that ...
Apr 13, 2020•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Creating and updating a portfolio is an investment in yourself as a professional. On this podcast, we talk to Mary Cropp , Director of Learning and Development at Bluetooth Sig, about her thoughts on learning portfolios. During our chat, we talk about the benefits of portfolios, what kinds of things should be in a learning professional’s portfolio and how to navigate proprietary information that may be in your portfolio. As this recording was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also discuss...
Apr 06, 2020•11 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Becoming a published writer can be tricky to navigate. Now that many of us are working from home and have a bit more free time, stretch goals like writing an article or even a book may feel a bit more realistic. In this podcast, we chat with Eliza Blanchard who is the Learning & Development content manager at the Association for Talent Development- ATD - to discuss what it takes to get published. She has several recommendations including how to get started, what writers should focus on, and how ...
Mar 30, 2020•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast A lot of magic can happen during a training, conference, or webinar, but what happens after the session ends? Keeping the learning going after a session enables trainers to build on what happens in a session; however designing this may not be easy. This week we sit down with Nancy Bacon of Nancy Bacon Consulting to learn how she finds way to engage after training. She discusses tools, resources, and a few ideas on how other can approach learning after a session. It should be noted that this podc...
Mar 23, 2020•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Many workers are being asked to work remotely, but how does that change the way we work? Recently, Gus Curran wrote a timely blog post about successfully adapting to a remote team. This week, Gus sat down with the Train Like You Listen podcast to dive deeper into how people can start adjust to this work situation to which many workers are rapidly shifting.
Mar 16, 2020•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
