Here’s a look at some of the projects that were shared during DevLearn last month: 

Immersive 

• An Instructional Designer from Houston Methodist Hospital showcased a course that uses pictures and video to explore the hospital’s new crash cart. The course culminates in an immersive quiz designed to simulate urgency in locating items on a crash cart in a real-world situation. 

• The Tech Curriculum Designer at Boston Scientific presented a virtual reality experience for a stent and electric cautery delivery system designed to enhance procedural awareness and clinical decision-making.  

• At Ninja Tropic eLearning they built immersive cities using Storyline 360 and shared with attendees how tools like 360-degree image function could be used for virtual exploration in e-learning. 

• Developers at Bluewater Learning built a retract simulation for a car wash company, teaching new employees how to set the computer to avoid vehicle damage  

Games and Gamification 

• eLearning Design Developers from The Nature Conservancy presented their Walk of Life game to demonstrate equity vs. equality in conservation activities. In this unique activity, learners receive a character and are presented with conservation opportunities and obstacles based on the character they choose.    

• L&D professionals from Delta Airlines showcased two instructor-led classroom games that they created using Storyline. 

• Artha Learning Inc. shared “Outbreak,” a gamified learning experience for nurse practitioners to triage patients in high-pressure situations  

AI 

• A graduate student at Commonwealth University presented “The Agency Algorithm,” a project on artificial intelligence and moral decision-making in medical triage, algorithmic warfare, and surveillance  

• Third Term Learning turned an in-person training on SWOT analyses usually done with partners into a gamified solution where the learner works with AI agents instead of partners to practice creating a SWOT analysis.  

• By incorporating AI and custom code in Storyline, The Learning Camel & EngageTrainBrain built a course for their client on “relationship fitness” based on Harvard’s happiness study. 

Personalized Learning 

• Two managers from IHG’s learning team showcased their luxury and lifestyle loyalty course, which was developed in HTML and wrapped in Storyline to track completion. This exciting course features 104 personalized pathways and 13 different languages.  

Video 

• The Compliance Training Associate at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey showcased the hybrid live-action and animated musical video they made to deliver training content through songs. 

If you’re interested in seeing the presentations from some of the DemoFest winners, join the Best of DemoFest webinar on December 9, 2025.  

The post 12 Learning and Development Projects That Actually Moved the Needle  appeared first on Learning Guild.

We asked learning and performance improvement leaders at the Learning Leadership Conference last month, “what makes a good leader?” See if you agree with the answers from your peers or if they thought about something you didn’t: 

How expert leaders view employees 

One attendee discussed how high-quality leaders foster an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcome and valued. Another expanded on this by saying that a manager needs to see employees for who they really are and recognize that everyone is different because they are a sum of different experiences. 

How they handle the tough stuff 

Another theme that emerged was ideal leaders being receptive when people come to them with issues. Attendees used words like “approachable,” “trustworthy,” and a “good listener” to describe this type of leader. A fourth attendee characterized it as a person who has the ability to talk through challenges effectively.  

How they unite the team 

One attendee mentioned that it’s important to inspire and empower your team towards a collective, meaningful vision. But it’s not enough to just do this when with the team. Another attendee said that the leadership you provide has to carry over when you aren’t present with the team, so that everyone is consistently working towards a shared goal. 

How they communicate 

The final theme that emerged is what effective leaders tell their employees. One attendee said that it’s important for a manager to be accountable to their staff when necessary. Another attendee encouraged leaders to be authentic with their staff whenever possible.

The post The DNA of a Good L&D Leader appeared first on Learning Guild.

At the Learning Leadership Conference in October, Jess’ significant contributions to the learning and performance improvement industry were honored with the Guild Master Award. Following the ceremony, Jess shared her reflections and vision for the future of L&D leadership. 

Contributing her expertise to the community 

“I’ve been in the learning and talent development field in some way, shape, or form for 30 years,” Jess began. Based in the Phoenix area, she brings decades of professional experience to her current projects, which include the L&D Must Change podcast (she recorded a live episode at the conference). Jess also recently published her book L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner with her formula to transform your L&D team into a critical partner in shaping the future of your organization.  

Her vision for industry growth 

“I’m very, very passionate about the learning and development community continuing to move forward and continuing to elevate our profession,” Jess said. She elaborated that collaboration across the L&D community is essential to get the industry where it needs to be. “One person can’t make that change happen,” Jess emphasized. “All of the changes that are happening in our world and the changes that need to happen in our community won’t happen if we aren’t all playing a part.” 

What’s next for Jess 

You can see her speaking virtually or in person at many events this year. “I’m almost on a tour right now,” Jess said with a smile. She’ll also be continuing the L&D Must Change podcast with valuable conversations for the learning & performance improvement community. Throughout it all, her mission remains clear: to inspire practitioners to embrace change and take practical steps toward a more connected, empowered learning profession. 

See the full interview:

The post Meet the Newest Guild Master: Jess Almlie Profile  appeared first on Learning Guild.

Q: What are your current responsibilities at Chick-fil-A? 

A: Right now, I’m the learning strategy lead on the learning strategy and transformation team. And this team is made up of someone who owns learning standards, someone who owns learning innovation, and then there’s me, the learning strategy lead. Essentially, my role sets the stage for innovation. 

I’m creating a holistic learning strategy three to five years out for Chick-fil-A, and that sets up the roadmap of innovation for us to get to that destination. One of the primary deliverables right now that I’ve got an alpha version of is the learning forecast and trends, and that focuses on putting together everything that’s happening in learning outside of Chick-fil-A. So it’s an agnostic QSR learning forecast and trend document that will go into this learning strategy. I’m not entirely sure what it will look like yet, but I am also working on an alpha version of that, so hopefully I’ll have more before Devlearn.  

My leaders have seen this trend with L&D, and I think a lot of people can relate that L&D has been an order taker to the business. So if someone says, “I need training and this is how I want it,” then L&D is expected to deliver. And I think there’s some tension that’s been happening over, like, probably a decade. There’s a lot of science to learning and development, and there’s an art to it. And so, how do we show up as credible strategic partners in the business? We’re seeing this transformation from L&D being an order taker to L&D as consultants. I haven’t heard of a business who’s mastered this yet. I’ve created a measurement strategy to help get feedback from our clients and stakeholders. So that’s in the works right now to be turned into a standard at Chick-fil-A to help L&D truly become a trusted advisor in the business. 

Q: Out of all those things, what is your favorite part of your role? 

A: What’s really cool about this role is that it didn’t exist previously. I was a Learning Designer, and I thought that Chick-fil-A needed someone looking across the business at learning holistically because we were very siloed in the way that we supported the business. If I were on a team that was assigned to the learner audience of our field consultants, I didn’t know if what I was doing connected to what other people were doing. I was thinking about this role before it even came to be. So that, in and of itself, is my favorite part, really getting to see it come to fruition.  

But there’s a leader at Chick-fil-A, his name is Shane Benson, and he was doing this talk one time, and he said, “We get to do this”. And so it changed my mindset to “this doesn’t feel like a job”, even though we get paid to do this. I get to be a part of the world’s most caring company. I get to partner with people who are focusing on the future, and I get to partner with people outside of and within Chick-fil-A, focusing on the future.  

Q: What are some of your current challenges? 

A: I’ve been in a very reactive world. If there’s a business challenge that requires learning, it’s all hands on deck to get it done. So, everyone’s very much thinking about the present, and when someone comes in and starts talking about tomorrow, it’s hard to connect to that. When I was a Learning Designer, I was the same way. So my biggest challenge that I’m trying to navigate right now is how to support the team, serve their needs right now, and really listen, then help them come up with a plan to get us to the future.  

Q: You’re going to be part of the AI for Learning Summit pre-conference activity at DevLearn, so what’s your advice for L&D professionals who are just starting to use AI? 

A: This is advice for L&D professionals, including myself. I have to tell myself this every day. You don’t have to be an expert in AI, because whenever you start learning about AI, you’re going to be behind. It’s moving so fast. It’s kind of a mindset change for a lot of people to like being a lifelong learner and just knowing that you’re not going to know everything. 
But you do know your company. You do have your own experiences. AI hasn’t lived these experiences. It might be able to create a great story, but you’ve lived the experiences. You know what it feels like to be a human. So channel what you know, and you can find out what you need to know about AI. People need to know that it’s going to be really hard to be an expert, so don’t put that pressure on yourself, and just collaborate and be open-minded to all the possibilities that it could bring. 

Q: Without giving too much of a spoiler, what can attendees expect from your DevLearn session? 

A: I really had to think about what content I am going to give them that will stick on a Friday at 8:30 a.m. It’s about knowing your audience, knowing the environment that your humans are in, and then incorporating that care into your learning. So it’s more about what AI can do and what you uniquely bring as a human. AI is not living your culture. So how can you focus on the culture, use AI to help support that, and then put them together and truly make a remarkable learning experience? 

The post Q&A with the Learning Strategy Lead from Chick-fil-A appeared first on Learning Guild.

Q: How did you get your start in learning and development? 

A: It all started with an internship. So, one of my very first work experiences was with creating Machinima, which is the art of creating video and film inside of a gaming environment. We were creating Machinima specifically to raise awareness about global issues.  

I loved it so much that I went on to help facilitate a virtual online summer camp for youth. In that summer camp, I taught youth how to create machinima and create narratives around the Convention on the Rights of the Child, one specific thing they felt passionate about. And that’s really where it all started. I really love being in this field, and I love being able to creatively leverage technology to educate others and to bring awareness to the things that we feel most passionate about. 

Q: What’s your favorite part of working in training? 

A: My favorite part of working in learning and development and training is the fact that there is just endless exploration of so many things. There’s a lot of novelty. So if you’re a person who really enjoys exploring new things and not having a day that’s just a repeat of yesterday L&D is a great space to be in because you will always be surprised. You will always have to take on a topic that you know nothing about and master it so that you can articulate and communicate it in a way that others can easily understand. I love that it inspires me to learn so that I can inspire others to learn.  

Q: In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges currently facing L&D professionals? 

A: I think one of the biggest challenges is that for a very long time, we’ve had a VUCA environment where there is a lot of volatility and change. But at present, in most organizations, people are experiencing a level of change that they’ve never experienced before. And when we’re in this constant churn of change, it’s really hard to be in a learning mindset because you’re just trying to learn what today will look like and how that differs from yesterday. So the hardest part for me is to get people excited and engaged in learning because people feel like maybe it’s not worth the investment because tomorrow, maybe we won’t do this anymore, right?  

I think AI presents yet another factor: it’s an opportunity, but it’s also a creator of chaos in some way or another. I imagine that many organizations are having a really difficult time getting a lot of AI tools approved through the organization. Because in order to use AI, especially generative AI, it has to be able to take your information and store it so it can learn from it. That’s the foundation of machine learning. Unfortunately, that creates a lot of legal barriers because folks who work in industries where they’re working on proprietary data find it really hard to use the super innovative technology that everyone’s interested in. I think it’s just one part of the rainbow of change that we have, and it’s quite difficult to navigate and really get into that growth and learning mindset. 

Q: You touched on AI, what else do you think is bringing this volatility and change to the industry? 

A: We’re just in a time of lots of uncertainty. In the global atmosphere and in the US economy, there are a lot of changes. So, I think it becomes difficult to know what the right space to invest in is, whether that investment is your time or your money. 

Q: Without giving too much of a spoiler, what will you cover in your DevLearn session? 

A: I’m really looking forward to my DevLearn session because I’m looking at AI in the instructional design space in a way that I’m hoping people will find meaningful to them. What I really want to do is think about how we can look at AI and think about how we as individuals meaningfully use AI throughout the instructional design cycle. So it’s not about the tool and how you do this faster and better. There’s going to be a tool to do that throughout the design cycle. But it’s really a reflection of how you, as an individual, use it effectively so that you can still do the things that you really love and the things that you humanly do really, really well. 

There are times when AI can actually slow us down because it’s working off a generic. So when you use it to do the thing that you do really well and really quickly, it’s going to give you something that’s not so great. But there are things where… if you really struggle with script writing or starting a script—that blank canvas is really hard for you to work with—that might be a good time to use AI to draft something for you. So it’s really a reflection of where your strengths are and how you best leverage them to keep doing what you do best while fortifying your areas of growth by leveraging and augmenting them with AI. 

The post Working and Training in a VUCA Environment  appeared first on Learning Guild.

Q: What was your learning and development career journey? 

A: Well, it’s a bit of a lark. It wasn’t intentional. I finished my undergraduate degree in political science and history with the intention of taking a master’s degree in history and having a career in that field. But I decided to take a gap year and  teach English as a second language in Europe. 

What was supposed to be a semester ended up being six years. And in that time, I taught everything from kindergarten to university. I fell in love with the field of education, and I fell in love with training, teaching and helping, especially children, understand the way forward in life. 

What really changed the trajectory of my career was when I got a job in Continuing Education at a business school. The students had families, jobs, even their own companies, and they were in school on their weekends. The students had a clear idea of what they wanted out of school, and it made me understand, as a teacher, what my role was and how I could help them get there. And that’s where I really fell in love with adult education 

I came back to Canada, did a master’s in education and really got into technology and education. That’s what led me to corporate training and that’s really where my passion lies, helping adults navigate their way through the business world, getting the skills and competencies that they need. 

Q: What are your responsibilities in your current role? 

A: ENMAX is a diversified electricity company. It has a distribution and a transmission business, and a generation business with power plants and wind farms. I work on the generation side. My role as a technical training specialist is to make sure that folks are getting the training they need to do their job safely and correctly.  

We’re always looking at our training and asking, “How do you streamline it? How do you put it into the workflow? How do you ensure that people are still technically competent?” 

How can we ensure they’re getting the skills that they need while making it accessible and limiting the disruption to their work day. 

Q: If you had to pick from everything you do, what is your favorite part about being in L&D? 

A: It’s the innovation. I did a master’s degree in education with a  specialization in technology. I’ve always been an early adopter, I was one of the first people on what is now X,  at that time Twitter,  because a classmate asked us all to go on,-  nobody was there-  but it opened up a vast arena for us to discuss the potential of social media in learning and development 

The technology component in learning has always been of interest to me, and I am very lucky that one of the core values of our organization is innovation. So there aren’t many barriers when we want to think about how we can use technology, how we can be more innovative in the way that we do training and in the way that we disseminate learning. 

Q: What are the current challenges that you’re facing? 

A: Technology, the thing I love. I don’t just mean AI; the software I’ve used to create eLearning for years is now launching updates and addo monthly. And as an L&D professional, you have to think, is this worth my time learning? How will it help my development? How will it help my learners? So you’re always discerning, trying to figure out what is going to help us. 

And then, of course, there is AI. What in AI is going to help us? And I have to admit, I would have said five months ago, “Man, I’m still not scared of AI. It’s making images with six fingers.” But now, it’s unbelievable what technology can do, even in the XR/VR space. It’s a totally different space now than when we began our VR pilot four years ago.  

So we have to think about how technology is impacting what we do as instructional designers. And beyond that, what is the role of the instructional designer in this new world? Someone once explained it to me as a wrap versus a burrito. If you want a wrap, you can plug everything into AI and get a course. If you want a burrito, you get an instructional designer on board. We have to look at what is the value that we bring as instructional designers within and outside of that technology. 

Q: Without giving too much of a spoiler, what can attendees expect from your DevLearn session? 

A: Don’t expect to just be an attendee. Don’t expect to sit passively. What I am hoping is that this is the start of a real community. One of the things that we found as we’ve gone through this VR project is that we felt very alone as instructional designers.  

There arelots of companies out there that are in game design, and they know all about game design; . however, as instructional designers, we have feltvery unclear about our role in these projects 

I will step through each piece of ADDIE during my presentation. We did a lot of great things on our project. I think there were places that we fell short and places that we felt lost. So, I really am hoping that I have a group in the room that can talk about what the role of the instructional designer is in a VR/XR/AR project, because it looks very different than the traditional linear storyboard on a 2D online learning project. 

The post From A(I) to X(R): A Technical Training Specialist Shares All appeared first on Learning Guild.

1. Think Differently – By disrupting traditional approaches and reimagining the ordinary, we can create moments that grab learners’ attention and inspire deeper engagement. The best content creators look for ways to defamiliarize the ordinary to make a greater impact. 

2. Be Curious – Asking questions and challenging the status quo is the key to thinking critically about the best way to create and deliver learning. Intellectual curiosity can also help you solve complex design issues that arise during the course creation process. 

3. Make Time – It’s easy to prioritize activities that lead to measurable outcomes like promotions, pay raises, or project completions. Setting aside intentional time for creative exploration can lead to breakthroughs that ultimately deliver long-term ROI. 

4. Become Child-Like – As children, we naturally approached life with fresh eyes and endless imagination. As adults, we often suppress those instincts and need to figure out ways like writing in crayon or sketching out ideas to bring that child-like passion, creativity, and innovation back into our lives. 

5. Don’t Solely Rely on Experience – While expertise and years of practice provide a strong foundation, they can also lead to fixed ways of thinking. Creativity requires blending knowledge with imagination to break free from “the way things have always been done.” 

The post 5 Ideas to Boost Your Creativity  appeared first on Learning Guild.

Q: How did you get started in learning and development? 

A: I transitioned from teaching. I used to be a language teacher, and observing how my students were struggling with a one-size-fits-all approach triggered me. The demands and mandatory requirements of the administration, such as saying that you just have to stick to a syllabus regardless of the needs of the students, triggered me to pursue formal education.  

I did my masters in instructional technology, which gave me valuable insights and a strong foundation. And hands-on work experience really helped me grow in my career. So, the master’s degrees I did in instructional technology really helped in terms of building foundations, but then the work experience, as I worked in different organizations and different countries, really expanded my insight and experience. 

I decided to eventually shift to fully to learning and development and strategizing, and for that I pursued my PhD where again my work experience somehow coupled with my education. 

Q: What current work are you doing in learning and development? 

A: I am in the strategic side of consulting within the organization. I’m with Northeastern University at the moment, but I have also been a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO). 

I have been advising Northeastern University on their strategic decisions in terms of choosing a solution for learning, and currently, something that I am using a lot is actually doing industry research to have a better understanding of where the needs are before just jumping into coming up with a new course or a graduate certificate, or even a full training course. 

I try to do my best to persuade the stakeholders to use research and form strategies, something which is really minimally considered whenever a training or a learning program is considered for learners. We want to tailor something to the needs of the students, specifically the skills that are required by their industry. 

Q: What are the current challenges your clients within the university face? 

A: They all have different views. They’re totally different in terms of how they view learning for students. So, there are a variety of challenges within the same organization. 

One thing I am repeatedly experiencing is information overload and knowledge dump. People are giving more and more content to learners rather than using practice-based learning or project-based learning. Learning sciences don’t seem to be translated into the final product. It’s really the resistance or the lack of awareness of effective, impactful strategies that can help the learners not just retain what they learn but also use what they learn.  

Q: Without giving too much of a spoiler, what can attendees expect from your Learning Leadership Conference session? 

A: It reflects my personal experience of transitioning from a teacher to trainer, then to an instructional designer, followed by a learning professional, and finally an L&D consultant. 

In addition to my personal experience, I’m also going to be sharing insights, tools, and strategies based on my formal education to transition from an order taker and grow in your career. 

There is this hype about AI, and many people assume that the job of an instructional designer is going to be gone because they’re just going to get an AI to do that job. I personally do not really agree. If an instructional designer wants to still be an order taker who’s just converting a few PowerPoint slides into an eLearning course, then yes, maybe. But I want to share with my audience how to be a strategic advisor, not just an order taker. That way, we can gain a competitive advantage for ourselves and also for our organizations. 

Even if AI weren’t there, I would have still shared this session. When I worked as an instructional designer, providing more training seemed to be viewed as the solution to build skills. But there is really more to it, and we, as instructional designers, need to be at the table when these decisions are actually being made. So, I could see a transition in my own career where I got involved in those conversations with leadership and how impactful it was to serve our learners and even the company. 

Q: What perspective are you going to bring to your Leadership Insight Forum discussion at the Learning Leadership Conference? 

A: Each of the speakers has a unique perspective in terms of using evaluation matrices for performance evaluation. I’ve started to feel that many of these measurements are actually fuzzy, both for an employee who’s being evaluated and their supervisors for evaluating them. So this is where I would like to share how we can use more diagnostic matrices and also what kind of approach we could use so that we not only get the buy-in from the leadership but also benefit the employees within the teams. 

The post Confessions of an L&D Consultant appeared first on Learning Guild.

The opening keynote will be delivered by Wendy Gates Corbett, bestselling author of The Energy of Belonging.  Her keynote: “Connected, Respected, Successful” will explore how creating a strong sense of belonging can elevate employee performance, empower individuals, and strengthen teams. An especially important message as organizations navigate disruptive AI-driven transformation. 

“Wendy Gates Corbett’s keynote sets the tone for a conference focused on connection, innovation and forward-looking leadership,” noted Lenore Higgins, Sr. Event Director. “While AI is reshaping our work, leaders must prioritize the human side of work: support, guidance and knowledge sharing – all of which is enhanced when there is a sense of belonging among workplace teams.” 

During this time of swift AI-related change and innovation, a connected workforce will give organizations a clear advantage, including:  

• Reduced Resistance to Change: AI implementation will disrupt traditional workflows and spark uncertainty. When employees feel included and valued, they are more likely to trust leadership decisions, stay engaged, and embrace change.  

•  Psychological Safety: a sense of belonging encourages open dialogue, which leads to a workplace where teams feel able to experiment, and mistakes feel less risky. Employees will also be more open to feedback, and organizations benefit from greater innovation due to shared input.  

• Collaboration Across Teams: whether AI related projects are led by L&D, IT, or HR, a sense of belonging drives collaboration, which helps align new tools with actual user needs, and boost adoption through peer support.  

• Enhanced Skill Development and Retention: successful AI adoption requires reskilling. When employees feel supported, they are more likely to embrace continuous learning, stay committed to their team’s AI adoption plans, and apply AI in meaningful ways.  

The 2025 conference will also include dozens of sessions, and new features designed to strengthen relationships among the learning leaders in attendance, and drive deep insights, including:  

• Industry Based Networking: these curated gatherings will foster meaningful conversations with L&D peers facing similar challenges and opportunities. Industry conversations will include – hospitality, healthcare, retail, insurance, banking and finance, government, technology, manufacturing, and other industries.  

• Learning Leadership Insight Forums: these expert-guided discussions are designed to be informal, yet impactful. Every discussion is focused on a different hot topic for modern L&D leaders including improving leadership skills, boosting the impact of learning with AI, thriving through constant change – and much more. The best part, attendee questions drive the conversations, which will lead to valuable benchmarking opportunities and takeaways. 

The Learning Leadership Conference is a must-attend event for chief learning officers, talent development executives, human resource executives, instructional and learning experience designers, and those interested in learning innovations enabled by AI.  

Attendees will gain insights from learning and talent development trailblazers from ADP, Boston Scientific, Cisco, Dell, Estee Lauder, Genentech, Kellanova, Northrop Grumman, ServiceNow, Southwest Airlines, The World Bank and many more speaking at the conference.  Attendees will leave with fresh perspectives on leveraging AI, a renewed sense of purpose in their leadership roles, and actionable strategies to share with their colleagues.  

Those interested in attending are encouraged to register for the conference by September 5 to secure $500 savings with the advanced rate at www.TheLearningConference.com.  

The post Learning Leadership Conference 2025 to Spotlight Workplace Belonging in the Age of AI appeared first on Learning Guild.

Q: What’s been your Learning & Development career journey?  

A: My learning and development career journey has definitely had its mountain peaks and valleys. It all started in middle school or junior high, when I was always leading groups through learning things, whether it was music, math concepts, or whatever it may be. But it never really dawned on me that it might be a long-term thing. Fast-forward to college, when I was a teaching assistant. I thought teaching students was a lot of fun, but it wasn’t my ultimate goal. 

Then, fast-forward to Graduate School work, and I’m working at a hospital. I find myself constantly onboarding and upskilling people in different areas. One of the departments was doing a very large initiative for the enterprise, and they wanted me to lead the training team. I asked why, and they said they saw what I built and how I was able to get people from this point to that point, and that I had a great skill set for that. So, I said yes, and that was my first real job in the learning and development space. 

Now I have cultivated process improvement and quality standards in seven different industries, and I think I’m on the trajectory towards a Chief Learning Officer type of role. That’s where my journey has taken me so far, and who knows what’s next. 

Q: What is your favorite part of your current role at Southwest Airlines? 

A: One of my favorite parts of my current role as a strategic learning partner over the corporate portfolio of learning programs is meeting with customers. At the very initial stage when they think they have something that needs a training touch, I go through and I do a lot of discovery, ask a lot of questions, and just have a conversation with them. I’m not dictating to them, they’re not dictating to me, and I’m taking notes in real time. 

It’s really building that customer relationship and helping them see sometimes training or learning seems like a good path for what they’re wanting to do and sometimes it’s not but letting them get to that point of making that decision. Sometimes by the end of that initial intake journey, we know exactly what we want to do, or we’re not really sure, and we come back to it. 

It’s really that customer relationship building that I love. I’ve made some great friendships through it. Even customers I don’t work with anymore, we still meet up for lunch and just chat. 

Q: What are your team’s current challenges? 

A: I think in the current economic environment, every organization is really struggling through how we deal with where we are right now and looking at what that also means for tomorrow or next year, whatever that is. 

So, some current challenges we’re having are rethinking and realigning what we want our learning area to be. And figuring out how we take what are the best bits of it, and how do we make it into something different but not so radically different that we don’t recognize ourselves. And so, I’m very heavily involved in helping shape that transformation by writing the policies and procedures and working with the different areas within our teams. 

I think that’s probably the environment every learning department is in right now. Asking, “What do we do? Where do we find our value? How do we utilize the tools that are out there, including AI? What are those use cases?” So, I’m researching all these new tools and how we use them to get our people skilled, cross-skilled, and up-skilled. 

Q: Your Learning Leadership Conference session is going to focus on Agentic AI. For those who don’t know, what is Agentic AI?  

A: Agentic AI is AI that has agency, meaning you can pre-program it to a point, but it can then learn and adapt and adjust by itself without you having to go in and keep tweaking it. You can tweak it, but it has the agency to make decisions or do things based on its base model.  

For example, something you may have seen if you use Gmail is that Agentic AI is already built in; they have tabs for your primary, your social stuff, your promotions, and it’s automatically filtering things out. Agentic AI could go to that next level and look at your e-mails, then condense them at the top, which is something that’s been happening very recently, at least in my inbox. For example, if you have a trip coming up, it could create a summary of everything in the entire inbox about that trip. Then you’re not having to search for the information; it is taking that agency to do it itself to help us out.  

Another thing with Agentic AI is predictive text on phones and emails. It offers what it thinks you might want to say. It may automatically draft an email for you depending on what you could say. That’s Agentic AI in a nutshell. 

Q: Without giving too much of a spoiler, what can attendees expect from your Learning Leadership Conference session?   

A: The main premise of this talk is to upskill and reskill our people. Utilizing Agentic AI as a tool to get us into tomorrow and forever, or maybe not forever, but for a while. We’ll even look at a few use cases where I’m going to use AI live to show you some possibilities that you can implement today. 

Q: What perspective will you bring into your Leadership Insight Forum on building a data-driven learning strategy? 

A: I’ve implemented learning strategies in four different industries. I’ve learned that we need to go back to basics as far as creating a learning strategy with data. So, for example, we can talk about training hours all day. That does not tell us anything really. It just tells us how long people have been doing things. But is that good? Is that bad? I don’t know. It’s a vague data point.  

My perspective going into that is that we need to identify a singular goal or outcome. And that’s what we need to drive towards. It may not be for the entire department, which is fine, but that gives us something to get our first foothold into that data-driven strategy. And once we’re there, it’s a lot easier to snowball into expanding out that strategy to create concurrent goals across the organization. But first, we’ve got to identify that one thing that gets everybody on board, then we can start building from there. 

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