The Train Like You Listen podcast is a series of short audio clips offering insights and bite-sized nuggets on trends, cool tools and tips for L&D professionals.
You can also subscribe on Spotify!
- The Business Case for Learning (podcast)
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 of his experiences in training department during economic downturns. He takes some time to discuss how this economy is different than others in his experience, and what the business case is for learning and development, no matter what the economy. If you are interested in hearing more from Chris, be sure to check out his work and his podcast at learningisthenewworking.org Tune in this week, and every week to learn more about what other professionals are doing to push our industry forward!
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion. - eLearning Development with Ashley Chiasson (podcast)
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. Ashley shares the story of how she got started, like many of us, in a circuitous way, how she approaches stake-holders with differing visions, and she takes some time to shares some great resources!
Ashley provides our community with a wealth of information. Be sure to follow her website and blog, and find her contributions to the eLearning Heros Community.
Tune in this week, and every week to learn more about what other professionals are doing to push our industry forward!
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.If you’re intrigued by our discussion of Soapbox, sign up for a demo.
- Rapid Virtual Training Design is On The Way! (podcast)
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 way of 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 that been your experience?
This week on the podcast, we talk to Lauren Wescott and Tim Waxenfelter about how they are leading a team to release an advanced version of Soapbox to create engaging virtual training in just a few minutes. The Endurance Learning team talks about how we moved from a tool that prioritized the instructor-led experience to a virtual experience, some lessons we learned, and what to expect from Soapbox in the near future.
Tune in this week, and every week to learn more about what other professionals are doing to push our industry forward!
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.If you’re intrigued by our discussion of Soapbox, sign up for a demo.
- Connecting With the Learning Community – Podcast with Bianca Woods
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 industry.
Tune in this week, and every week to learn more about what other professionals are doing to push our industry forward!
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Getting Started as an eLearning Developer (podcast)
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 Division, talks to us about her journey to eLearning development. During this podcast, we talk about resources, inspiration, and Anne gives us some advice she has taken to make her projects successful.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- How To Design An Effective Onboarding Program (podcast)
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 in 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 Salesforce, spends some time with us to discuss onboarding. During this podcast, she takes this time to discuss onboarding as a concept and how to use that concept to set practical goals for new-hires. She takes some time to highlight important moments for new employees to consider when designing an onboarding program, gives us advice on how to design an effective program, and explains what needs to be asked of managers to make these programs successful.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- The Value of Being Active on Social Media in L&D (podcast)
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 found his way into social media and how he now uses it as a tool for himself and to share information with others. On our 22nd episode on the Train Like You Listen podcast, we learn more about how to get started with social media, who to follow, and what effect it can have on networking in-person.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Addressing Challenges and Getting Help (podcast)
How do you move forward when a project challenges you and you don’t see a clear path? 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 use when they are stuck, and why and how to ask for help.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Training In The Age of COVID (13-min Podcast)
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 dominKnow and the Instructional Designers In Offices Drinking Coffee Crowdcast (better known as IDIODC) to gather some of his thoughts on workplace change as a result of the pandemic. Brent took some time with us to point out some interesting trends we didn’t expect, share some wisdom about how to up-skill as we move forward, and gives us advice on how to be successful in our own careers.
You can join Brent every Wednesday morning on the IDIODC Crowdcast to learn more about his colleagues’ and his perspective on learning and development. If you can’t make it on Wednesday mornings, all Crowdcasts are recorded and available on the dominKnow Crowdcast page.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- How to Approach Training Like a Marketer (podcast)
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 Taylor of 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 how he lifts inspiration from the advertising industry, a few best practices on things as simple as naming your training, and his recommendations on how to begin thinking like a marketer.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Keys to Successful Training with an International Audience (Podcast)
Good instructional design may be universal, but are there considerations we need to take into account when training an international audience? This week on our Train Like You Listen podcast, Mary Cropp, Director of Learning and Development at Bluetooth SIG, joins us again to talk about her experiences working with international audiences and how that can change your approach to training design.
Mary has spent the past several years presenting to participants from various cultures, countries and continents. During this podcast she discusses some lessons learned, how to approach designing for a culture with which you are not familiar, and some things you’re really going to want to avoid in your approach.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Keys to being an effective “producer” in your next virtual training
How many people does it take to put on a successful webinar? A facilitator is obviously necessary to present the content and facilitate activities. If you want to present information while using polls, having participants white board on the screen and getting people into small groups using the breakout rooms feature all while responding to private messages in chat – both about your content and about technical difficulties – then you’re going to want a “producer”.
Unlike in-person sessions, this role isn’t the same as “co-facilitator”. An effective producer can make the difference between top notch virtual training and a well-intentioned virtual train wreck.
In this week’s podcast, we talk to Lauren Wescott of Endurance Learning and Soapbox content developer extraordinaire to talk about the very important role of the producer in webinars. We discuss how this role differs from co-facilitator, what it takes to be a producer, and tips to make your next webinar more successful with the support of a producer.
If you’d like to learn more about how someone in your organization can be an effective producer, Lauren will be leading a free webinar this week that will go into more detail about the responsibilities of a producer and will take you through several exercises to simulate the duties of an effective producer. You can register here for this session. Click on a date to get started.
Listen to this episode using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
Soapbox
If you’re ready to start designing better sessions, faster, sign up for a Soapbox demo.
- Lessons Learned in Quickly Shifting to Virtual Training (podcast)
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 to hear about a recent experience he had quickly converting a training he had planned as an in-person session to a virtual program. He shares with us how he keeps participants engaged, some cool webinar tools, and some rules of thumb he sticks to when virtually meeting with people.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Innovation In L and D
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 podcast we discuss how to connect with the Learnopalooza community, how to push the boundaries of learning, and one of the main elements that proceeds nearly all innovative solutions.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Tips For Engaging Learners From the Bob Pike Group (podcast)
A while back we shared almost 300 activities you could use to engage your learners.
Some folks say they don’t care about “engaging” training. What does “engagement” even mean, and is it important?
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 don’t add value, and some evidence-based tips on how to engage learners both in-person and virtually.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Creating an L&D Portfolio (10-min podcast)
Last week, Brian wrote about 4 productive uses of your time while quarantined. Today, Mary Cropp, Director of Learning and Development at Bluetooth Sig, offers us a fifth idea with today’s podcast: putting together a portfolio of work samples that can help open doors and turn heads as you look for your next L&D role.
Mary has spent the past several years presenting at conferences across the country about the importance of putting together a portfolio, and in this brief podcast she shares her thoughts from the perspective of a hiring manager.
During our chat, we talk about the benefits of portfolios, what kinds of things should be included in a learning professional’s portfolio and how to navigate proprietary information that you may want to include in your portfolio.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- The Path to Getting Published
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 to get past imposter syndrome as a new writer.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- How To Keep Learning Going After Training (podcast)
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 ways to engage after training. She discusses tools, resources, and a few ideas on how others can approach learning after a session.
It should be noted that this podcast was captured before social distancing recommendations were put into place. While gathering may look a little different than it did a few weeks ago, everything in this podcast continues to apply for those of us who can meet and talk virtually. Whether virtual coffee or virtual meetings, now more than ever, it is important to find ways to continue to come together in new ways.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Successfully Working in a Remote Office (podcast)
Many workers are being asked to work remotely, but how does that change the way we work? In a post last week, we looked at some resources and tips around shifting to a home office. 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 be successful in this work situation to which many workers are rapidly shifting.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.
- Trying New Things with Mel Milloway (podcast)
In a post last week, Brian asked a variety of questions, including whether people are inclined to experiment with new technologies or if they’d prefer to use their old stand-by’s. 83% of respondents said they like to experiment with new technologies.
Recently, Brian had a chance to sit down with Amazon’s Melissa Milloway to discuss how she pushes herself and others to experiment and try new things. Mel not only falls into that 83% category of people who are interested in trying new things, she takes it to an extreme. In today’s podcast, we talk about how experiments can lead to big wins… and sometimes big fails (but always big lessons), and the support system that is needed to keep pushing yourself further.
If you want to know more about Mel, check out her website Mel’s Learning Lab which contains a wealth of information about her adventures trying new technologies and best practices.
Listen using the player below. Please leave us your thoughts in the comment section or on twitter @train_champion.