The Visual Lounge

What is the difference between covering a topic and actually teaching it? The best L&D designers know the answer. In this revisited episode, Matt is joined by Jonathan Hill, award-winning learning manager and e-learning developer based in the UK. They talk about designing learning that really works, not just content that gets completed because it’s a requirement. Moving beyond the ‘click next’...

Riding the wave when it comes to the advancements in AI comes down to understanding one key distinction - AI generates, humans create. In this live episode, Matt was joined by Destery Hildenbrand, Learning and Development Consultant and Instructional Designer to talk about the impact of AI in L&D, keeping the human in the loop, and organizational readiness. He captures the fundamental truth ab...

Is it time to move beyond the old pedagogical framework? Anybody over a certain age will conjure the same image with the phrase ‘educational film’ - death by talking head + PowerPoint. In this episode Matt was joined by Tiia Grøn, Senior Counselor and Video Producer, Nathalie Blomstereng, Senior Advisor and Learning Designer and Terje Bergli, Senior Tech Advisor, all joining him from UiT The Arcti...

You don't need better gear, a better location, or a better idea. You need to get out of your own way. In this revisited episode, Matt sits down with Aaron King, DeepSnap content creator, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and former professional athlete to talk about what it really takes to grab someone's attention before you've said a word. Aaron gets into why the things most creators obsess over are usual...

When you solve your own learning problems, you can accidentally build the resource everyone else was missing. In this episode, Matt sits down with Taim Dawod, a medical doctor from Norway who started a medical education YouTube channel in his first year of med school. Taim gets into his background studying anatomy and the problems he faced with the delivery of the learning. He goes on to explain t...

When content generation becomes fast and frictionless, do learning specialists need to be involved at all? In this episode, Matt sits down with Tim Slade, Speaker, Author and Founder of The eLearning Designer's Academy who discusses the human vs. the automated in instructional design today. Tim acknowledges that as content generation has become easier and faster, audiences are developing digital m...

Most small teams want to do more video. The hard part is doing it every week, without the crew, the hours, or the budget to make it happen. In this revisited episode, Matt sits down with Megan Torrance, Founder and CEO of Torrance Learning, to explore what it takes to make video work as a small team, and why the system she built years ago still holds up today. Megan’s team rebuilt their studio so...

Most teams are sitting on a stack of Zoom recordings (webinars, customer trainings, all-hands sessions) that nobody ever turns into anything. Doing anything with them seems too... messy, and a lot of people don’t realize that there’s an asset there in the first place. In this episode, Matt sits down with Carson Vestergaard, Instructional Designer at TechSmith, who breaks down why the easiest train...

The business is your customer. The learner is your consumer. If you’ve been thinking about it the other way round, this episode will make you think a little differently. Tracie Cantu, Senior Learning Leader and author of Running L&D Like a Business, opens with the idea that when L&D designs for the wrong “customer,” teams end up busy, but not necessarily effective. The result is often more...

What if the most powerful thing in your video has nothing to do with your camera, your software, or your budget? In this episode, Matt sits down with Stewart Cohen, a filmmaker and photographer whose work spans brands like Coca-Cola, AT&T, and Gatorade, to explore what it really takes to tell a visual story that resonates. Stewart does a lot marketing work, where 30 seconds is sometimes all yo...

Teaching isn’t the reward you get after you’ve learned something. For Taim Dawod, it’s been the learning method itself. In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Taim Dawod, a medical doctor from Norway who started a medical education YouTube channel in his first year of med school, with no experience in video, editing, or teaching online. What started as a way to make anatomy easier to stud...

We’re in a pivotal moment for learning and development. But is the industry ready for what comes next? In this episode of The Visual Lounge, Matt sits down with Donald Taylor to unpack the latest findings from the Global Sentiment Survey, one of the longest-running studies tracking trends in L&D, which he co-authored. With nearly 3,800 responses from over 100 countries, this year’s survey reve...

What if video could shave 20 minutes off your leadership meetings and help your team come prepared with the right questions? In this episode, Matt sits down with Chris King, Principal Consultant at CRK Learning LLC, to explore how project managers working in L&D can use video to communicate more effectively. Chris manages a multimillion-dollar e-learning project with a team of around 25 people...

How can you use the cognitive properties of media for the best training and learning outcomes? Whether you’re in training, in learning development, or you’re a creator making videos for your own YouTube channel, learning and understanding are non-negotiable. This idea especially rings true in an age when people consume media across an ever-expanding variety of channels. How do you hold their atten...

What makes a story actually stick? And why do so many professionals get it wrong? In this episode, host Matt Pierce sits down with Gabrielle Dolan, global business storytelling expert and author of eight books, to unpack why storytelling is one of the most underused skills in any professional's toolkit and what to do about it. Gabrielle shares why personal stories outperform facts and data every t...

Are you struggling to script engaging training videos? Or maybe viewers are getting confused, and you’re not quite sure how to hold people’s attention long enough to deliver any value. In this episode, host Matt Pierce shares his tips for writing training video scripts that keep viewers engaged. Drawing on years of scriptwriting experience, Matt breaks down the fundamentals of writing a strong hoo...

When you’re on camera, people decide how much they trust you a lot faster than you realize. In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Peter Hopwood, a speaking coach who works with presenters, sales teams, founders, and TEDx presenters on how to be more confident and credible on screen. Peter shares what helps people connect through a camera, especially when the usual in-person cues aren’t t...

Should AI avatars replace human presenters? In part two of this research series on The Visual Lounge, host Matt Pierce is joined again by TechSmith Senior Market Researcher Stephanie Warnoff to discuss the latest findings from TechSmith's research on AI avatars in instructional video. Building on episode 275 about AI voices, this conversation explores how different on-screen presenter styles affec...

How much does audio really affect learning? And does it matter whether that voice is human or AI? In this episode, Matt sits down with Stephanie Warnoff, Senior Market Researcher at TechSmith, to walk through new research that looks at how audio quality and AI narration influence learning outcomes, perceived professionalism, and retention in instructional video. The study, conducted by TechSmith,...

Have you ever struggled to get the information you need from a subject matter expert? Or maybe you're the expert (SME), and you're not quite sure what the instructional designer actually wants from you? In this episode, host Matt Pierce explores what subject matter experts actually need from instructional designers (IDs) to do their best work. Drawing from his experience on both sides of the dynam...

Change is emotional. Even when the strategy is solid, people still feel uncertain, skeptical, or overwhelmed, especially when the vision feels huge and the path feels unclear. In this revisited episode of The Visual Lounge (originally Episode 168), Matt sits down with Jake Gittleson, who leads McKinsey’s Learning Research and Innovation Lab. Jake shares why storytelling is one of the most effectiv...

As the new year starts, it’s the perfect time to reflect (and look forward) on how we create and communicate learning content. In this special episode of The Visual Lounge, Matt is joined by some TechSmith team members (or TechSmithies!) who share their favourite tips, shortcuts, and features in Snagit and Camtasia. These are real workflows used every day to support creators, teams, and organizati...

AI is reshaping learning and development faster than any of us expected. So how do we adapt? And what skills will matter most as tools, workflows and expectations keep changing in the workplace? In this episode, Matt speaks with Josh Cavalier, an AI and L&D expert with more than two decades of experience helping organizations modernize the way they design learning. Josh is also the author of A...

Ever clicked play on a learning video that looks polished and professional, only to finish it and think, “Wait, what did I just learn?”   In this episode, we’re revisiting a conversation with Patti Shank, an internationally recognized learning designer, researcher, and author who has spent years studying how people really take in information. Patti knows that effective learning isn’t abo...

Imagine logging in next month to find your bill for the AI tool you use has doubled, or that you've run out of credits halfway through a critical project. The explosion of AI video tools has brought incredible capabilities to content creators, but alongside these innovations comes a new challenge: complex pricing models that make it difficult to budget, explain costs to your boss, or know if you'r...