Harald’s Curious Corner

Learning is no longer something people leave work to do. It is becoming something the work itself reveals. In this episode, I speak with Shellie Grieve , Director of Learning Innovation & Emerging Technology at ServiceNow . Shellie is helping shape an AI-native L&D strategy inside a complex ecosystem of employees, customers, partners, and product teams, which gives her a very practical vie...

"You won't exist in five years' time if you're not accelerating learning around the organisation." That line from Nigel Paine captures exactly what's at stake for every leader still treating learning as optional. As a globally recognised learning strategist, author, and former Head of Training and Development at the BBC, Nigel has spent decades advising organisations on why knowledge sharing, conn...

"You can't make people learn. You can make them do tricks." That line from Katja Schipperheijn cuts to the heart of what's broken in how most organizations think about learning. As a globally recognised learning strategist, and Co-Founder at The Learning Mindset Organization , Katja has spent years advising C-level leaders on why capability building requires more than technology, content, or anoth...

“Enablement is not content. Enablement is context.” That line from Rochana Golani captures the shift happening inside Databricks . As VP of Learning and Enablement, Rochana is helping one of the world’s fastest-growing technology companies rethink what learning becomes when the business is moving quickly and the product is constantly evolving. This conversation is about what happens when enablemen...

L&D is at an inflection point. If you can't articulate the value of learning beyond completion rates and happy sheets, you risk becoming irrelevant in the AI era. In this episode, I sit down with our L&D Shakers panel, Andy Sontag , Milica Sapic , Debora Gallo , and Lori Niles-Hofmann , for an honest conversation about what's really happening in learning and development today. From the fea...

The default response to AI in the workplace is a training program. Roll it out, tick the box, and move on. The teams getting real results are doing something fundamentally different. Gabriela Gomez and Enrique Ortega Suarez did not arrive at their approach through theory. They arrived through practice. As HRD and Head of HR Business Partner at Provident México , they have been rethinking what genu...

Most customer education teams are measuring the wrong things. The ones who are not are already thinking differently about AI. Shawn Dinnocenti did not arrive at this perspective through theory. She arrived through data. As a customer education leader at Docebo, she has spent years connecting training outcomes to business results, tying knowledge articles to support ticket volume, and turning enrol...

People are already learning with AI. The question is whether L&D helps shape that learning, or gets left handing out content no one asked for. Mirza Selimovic ’s story does not begin in a classroom or a corporate learning team. It begins with resilience. As a refugee from Bosnia, a first-generation graduate, and someone who wrote his dissertation while his newborn son was in the NICU, Mirza br...

Most L&D teams are using AI to go faster. The best ones are using it to ask harder questions. Egle Vinauskaite joins me for a conversation that sits at the intersection of AI, performance, and the evolving identity of Learning & Development. Fresh from the keynote stage at Docebo Inspire, she brings both an evidence-based and practical lens to what separates high-performing L&D functio...

How can L&D leaders use technology to drive real business impact? In this wrap-up, I summarize what went down in Docebo Inspire 2026 and discuss what truly stood out during the conference. Time and again, the focus was on how learning and development can go beyond just creating programs to becoming architects of impactful experiences. The conversation constantly returned to the need for L&...

The real challenge for L&D is not delivering content. It is helping people change how they work. Jon Harald Espolin joins me for a conversation that sits at the intersection of leadership, learning, and change. Before moving into consultancy, and later becoming SVP of Learning & Development at XXL Sport & Villmark , he spent a decade in the army, where he became fascinated by a simple...

Across these conversations with Dave Derington , John Leh , Debbie Smith , Courtney Sembler , Kristine Kukich , Dan Braithwaite , Melissa Kruminas , Clea Mahoney , and Vicky Kennedy , one question kept resurfacing for me: what actually makes customer education matter? In this wrap-up, I’m reflecting on where the season kept landing. Again and again, the conversation drifted back to the same tensio...

Customer education fails when teams rush to buy technology before looking at the problem they’re trying to solve. In this episode, I sit down with Vicky Kennedy , Founder and Chief Education Architect of Echtus , to explore why so many customer education programmes look impressive on the surface but fail to drive meaningful business outcomes. Vicky brings a rare blend of experience across higher e...

Customer education is a growth engine. If you can’t tie education to retention, revenue, and product adoption, you’re leaving real impact on the table. In this episode, I sit down with our Customer Educational Panel, Kristine Kukich , Dan Braithwaite , Melissa Kruminas , and Clea Mahoney , for a deep dive into what’s actually happening in customer education today. From reducing support tickets by...

Customer education is the key to long-term growth. If you can't connect education to customer success, you're missing out. In this episode, I sit down with Courtney Sembler , former Senior Director at HubSpot Academy , and now Managing Partner and COO at AlignedCX , to explore how customer education has become a core driver of business success. We dive into the evolution of HubSpot Academy, how th...

Customer education can’t just focus on clicks. It has to focus on the jobs to be done. That is the big question at the heart of this episode. What is customer education really for, and how do you prove it matters? To explore that, I spoke with Debbie Smith , a long-time customer education leader and current President of TSIA’s Customer Education Management Association (CEdMA) . Debbie has spent ye...

Data is power. If you can’t tie learning to revenue, you’re guessing. Customer education has moved from a support function to a growth strategy. In this episode, I sit down with John Leh , CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning , to explore how external learning is evolving into a true revenue driver. We unpack what maturity really looks like in customer education, why integration is the only w...

Customer education shouldn’t stop at “You’re trained.” It’s just the start. What truly matters is whether a scientific approach to learning drives real outcomes, transforming how customers engage with your product and the results they achieve. In this episode, I get curious with Dave Derington , former scientist turned expert in customer education and Co-founder and Co-host of CELab . Dave’s journ...

Customer education is evolving. But is it driving real business impact or just more training? In Arc 3 of Harald’s Curious Corner, I explore the connection between skills, customer education, and performance. Through conversations with leaders across L&D and customer learning, one theme keeps surfacing: training alone isn’t enough. What matters is whether learning moves the needle on adoption,...

This is a special episode of Harald’s Curious Corner, recorded right as the L&D Global Sentiment Survey 2026 is released and the conversation across our field starts to shift. Instead of a typical interview arc, this one is more of a pulse check from the survey’s results: what’s rising, what’s fading, and what it tells us about where L&D is heading next. To make sense of it, I sat down wit...

Over the past few episodes, I’ve been chasing one big question with Koreen Pagano , Dr. Sandra Loughlin , Eran Vaisfailr , Matthew J. Daniel , and Samantha Murray : What does it actually take to build a skills-based organisation that works in the real world? In this wrap-up, I’m connecting the dots. “Skills-based” can mean a lot of things, and it’s easy to get stuck in frameworks, taxonomies, and...

Too often, skills-based initiatives are implemented without clear use cases or business impact in mind. In this episode, we challenge that approach. Many skills programs fail because they are disconnected from business needs and are difficult to implement. It’s not the technology, it’s the approach. Skills programs must be integrated into the daily workflow where learning happens. To explore what...

“How do you design learning and skills experiences people actually want to use?” A lot of skills and learning programs don’t fail because the content is bad. They fail because the experience feels like extra work: hard to find and navigate and disconnected from what people are trying to get done. To explore what actually changes that, I spoke with Samantha Murray , founder of AlignedCX . Sam has l...

Imagine if learning wasn't just about courses, but about unlocking real career opportunities through the right skills. In our previous conversation, we explored the overwhelming number of systems that impact employees' ability to learn and grow. In this episode, I’m diving deeper with Matthew J. Daniel , Senior Principal, Talent Strategy & Mobility at Guild Education , on a crucial topic: how...

“How do we drive real skills transformation within a company?” That’s the question we explore in this episode with Eran Vaisfailr , former Product Owner of Learning and Development at Booking.com, now Co-founder and CEO of Plynn , a learning startup focused on turning informal learning into measurable skills. In his time at Booking.com, Eran was at the forefront of building a skills-based organisa...