Learning While Working Podcast

How do you make sure a virtual event runs smoothly and is engaging? Your event producer is key to a successful virtual event but what does a producer do?  In this podcast, Robin is talking with Karyn Gleeson about this question. The podcast focuses on large events but producers are also key to small events. In smaller groups, producers can help new online facilitators, support the learners with te...

Conference style events have a different set of problems to events that are designed for small group learning, they are even harder to make engaging.  For Barbara Covarrubias Venegas the key to making an event memorable is the connections between the speakers and audience and connections within the audience. In this interview Robin is talking with Barbara Covarrubias Venegas about approaches to bu...

 Scenarios are a powerful way to ensure your learning is performance focused.  Using scenarios moves your online sessions away from being information dumps to being active and engaging experiences, where participants are sharing and problem solving together.  One approach Ray talks about, is working with the group to bring out their experiences and basing the learning on those scenarios instead of...

Conversations are at the core of how we learn with each other, too often live sessions both face-to-face and online are presentations not conversations.  Moving online does make designing learning around conversations more challenging but not impossible.  In this interview Robin is talking with Joshua Davies from Knowmium about what a conversation architect does.  Powerful conversations helping pe...

Everyone who is working remotely knows the experience of Zoom fatigue and the negatives of video conferencing; pixel vision, seeing yourself all the time, and what sometimes feels like an ocean of blank faces; but video conferencing also has many powerful possibilities for learning.  These are the possibilities that Robin explores with Chad Owen in this latest interview. One of the themes that oft...

Great live virtual learning sessions happen with a combination of facilitation skills, learning design and visual design. L&D professionals often struggle with visual design. In this podcast, Sprout Labs visual design lead Iona Dierich, talks about the importance of visual design in online facilitation.  Iona has a unique set of skills, as well being a visual designer and an occasional instruction...

 In this podcast Robin is talking with Nancy White about how we can rethink how we work and learn online.  Nancy is one of the pioneers of virtual communities, social learning and online facilitation. She now works mainly in organisation development focusing on how we meet. Nancy’s interview gives a different feel to other interviews in this series, it's less about formal learning and more an expl...

In this podcast Robin and Lori Niles-Hofman are talking about performance consulting. This podcast is another in our series on live online teaching and facilitation being recorded in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. Many organisations have rapidly switched from face-to-face learning to live online facilitation which feels like a fast agile way to get learning to employees who are remote. There a...

 In this podcast Robin is talking with Patti Shank about blending learning design for live online sessions. Patti Shank focuses on transforming research into learning with tactics and practical approaches we can use in workplace learning.  A lot of her recent focus has been on assessment and she uses examples in this podcast from her Writing Learning Assessments course.  The rush to provide live l...

This is another podcast in our series on live online teaching and facilitation. In this podcast Robin and Ben Faranda explore what is safe online and what it means to be human in online sessions. Ben is an experienced face-to-face and online facilitator who has worked with some of the biggest tech companies in the world.  Robin and Ben talk about what safety means online and then move into talking...

 In this podcast Robin is talking with Cheryle Walker on the future of live online learning. Cheryle is an experienced online facilitator who helped get Sprout Labs’ webinar program up and running. The title of the podcast is the future of live online learning but that is not where the discussion started, Robin and Cheryle started with exploring how live online learning can reach more people and t...

In this podcast Robin is talking with Michael Gwyther about pivoting to online training. Michael often works with Sprout Labs on online facilitation; he was the host of one room for our first virtual conference. Michael has been helping a number of training providers in the Australian vocational education system to pivot rapidly to live online learning.  The discussion is an insight to what is hap...

This is another podcast in our series on live online teaching and facilitation. In the podcast, Robin is talking with Jo Cook about designing interactive virtual sessions. They start with what an interactive virtual classroom session looks like and then move into how to design engaging, interactive virtual sessions. This podcast is full of practical tips and ideas about designing more interactive...

This podcast is the start of our series of podcasts on live online teaching and facilitation. Sprout Labs has been busy helping organisations rapidly move from face-to-face learning to live online learning during the COVID-19 crisis.  Virtual facilitation has always been in the background of what we do at Sprout Labs. Virtual classrooms are often a core feature of the learning ecosystems we design...

We are in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis; the world is full of uncertainty, organizations have rapidly moved workforces home, and we are isolated and distanced. Before this started, I talked with Beatrice Bekar and Juan Casasbuenas from Nesta about research they were doing on the future of learning. ‘ The Make it FutureFit: Four ways to design better adult learning ’ report focuses on preparing...

This podcast about agility for the internal people experience is a discussion between Robin and Dan Mottau from Zendesk at LearnX 2019. It’s also about placing what people need at the centre of an organisation's culture. If the agile principles are new to you there is a link to them in the notes. Links from the podcast Find out more about the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto Find out more abo...

This is the next in the series of podcasts from LearnX. The interview is with Jake Phillips, Senior Manager, People Capability, ANZ Bank NZ and Matt Proud and James Crosby from Immersive Solutions. The interview focus is a project where ANZ New Zealand has been using virtual reality to simulate interactions with an aggressive customer. The conversation focuses on the learning experience not on tec...

This is the first of a series of podcasts recorded at LearnX in October 2019.  This podcast is an interview with Matthew Stephenson Design Manager from BUPA Health Insurance. The project Matthew talks about is a series of major reforms to a key process. He talks about the way they worked in a holistic, data-driven manner to achieve the reforms.  The way they used data included robust learning chec...

In this podcast Robin is talking with Danielle Wallace from Beyond the Sky about approaches that marketing uses to design engaging video experiences and how these approaches can be used to increase the impact of your learning video. One of the themes Robin often explores on the podcast is the link between marketing and learning. This conversation is a deep dive into how marketers use video and wha...

In this podcast Robin talks with Yishan Chan about the idea of personal talent stacks and how to develop your own talent stack. Often on the Learning While Working podcast we focus on designing learning and an organisational viewpoint on learning. This conversation with Yishan is a switch to focusing on how individuals learn. Yishan has a great podcast called Digital Learner where she talks with p...

In this interview, Bianca Baumann talks about how marketers design engaging experiences and what L&D can learn from these strategies. She summarises the key strategies as being: focusing on emotional impact communicating visually engaging writing The interview explores each of these strategies in more depth. Useful links on marketing and learning Find out more about Bianca Download Bianca Baum...

As workplaces and work are changing rapidly, people need to be more in control of their own learning and learn while working. Self-directed learning is a key skill for the future of work. In this podcast Robin talks with Catherine Lombardozzi about fostering self-directed learners in your organisation. Catherine’s approach to self-guided learning identifies 10 pillars organised into three differen...

This podcast is an exploration of measuring the impact of learning ecosystems with Steven Foreman, the President of InfoMedia Designs. The podcast starts with Steve outlining his ecosystem model and then he talks about measuring impact. Steve talks about the strategic work that L&D need to be working on and how it leads to a layered approach to measurement. The layers are: the business metrics...

This podcast is with Jeremy Roberts from Infinitude Creative Group on using the Fogg Behaviour Change Model for designing learning solutions that are easier to use and more engaging. The model takes into account your audiences’ motivation, their abilities and prompts to engage them. Jeremy uses some great examples of the model in action. He encourages L&D professionals to go beyond looking at...

This the start of a series of interviews with the speakers from Learning Solutions 2019. This podcast is with Jenny Saucerman on what is broken with assessment in eLearning. L&D is more becoming focused on performance based learning, but the missing element is often assessment. There is often a gap between learning and on the job performance. Jenny has some great thoughts about this challenge...