Leading Learning Podcast

We often hear learning businesses say they want to better engage their learners. But what is engagement, and how does it work?

In this episode, Leading Learning Podcast co-host Jeff Cobb digs into those questions with Clark Quinn, executive director of Quinnovation and author of Make It Meaningful: Taking Learning Design from Instructional to Transformational.

Jeff and Clark talk about engagement and motivation; learners’ cognitive...

Strategy is one of the five fundamental domains in the Learning Business Maturity Model. And most learning business leaders know that strategy is important. But truly understanding strategy and formulating intelligent strategy? That’s trickier.

To help with that understanding and formulation, in this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, number 404, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele offer an audio book report on Beyond Disrup...

You can think of this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast as an origin story. Co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele talk about the relationship between Leading Learning and Tagoras, about what Tagoras is and does, and about the start of Leading Learning. Along the way they touch on the kinds of things that learning businesses need to be able to do, whether through the skills and knowledge of their internal team or by looking for...

If anything, we should all be able to agree that generative artificial intelligence is a curious thing, worthy of reflection and exploration.

Julian Stodd is a researcher, an artist, an explorer, a writer, and captain and founder of Sea Salt Learning, which helps organizations set strategy and change direction. He is also a firm believer in working out loud and a previous Leading Learning Podcast guest.

In this episode, co-host Cel...

Many skills are needed to create and sustain a successful learning business: financial know-how, marketing acumen, instructional design, to name just a few. But one area that often isn’t invested in—or invested in adequately—is business development.

Leading Learning Podcast co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele discuss what a business development professional should be able to do for your learning business and how having a skilled p...

We’re at an important point in time for lifelong learning. Much is shifting and unsettled in how humans live and work. That unsettledness means opportunity if your learning business is willing to grapple with the uncertainty and shape a vision for its role in the lifelong learning market.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele look at the current lifelong learning landscape, near-futur...

To realize their fundamental mission of developing and delivering learning products and services, learning businesses need revenue. Along with direct-to-learner fees for enrollments and registrations, sponsorship dollars are often a key part of that revenue equation.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with Bruce Rosenthal. Bruce helps organizations create sponsorships and partnerships that incr...

Learning businesses care about creating effective learning. Doing so is at the heart of why learning businesses exist. But what happens when effective learning practices clash with what learners want or what they believe is effective?

That clash is precisely what Leading Learning Podcast co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele explore in this episode, which looks at desirable difficulties and the specific difficulty desirable difficul...

Learning, education, and professional development are not the same. Similar, yes, interrelated even, but fundamentally and importantly different. If learning businesses take the parochial view of learning as merely education, they unnecessarily limit their impact and their possibilities.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele explore the strategic importance of recognizing the differen...

Everybody loves a good story. It’s what draws us to good books, good movies, good podcasts. And we know that good stories can draw prospective learners to us and the learning experiences we offer. But telling a good story is harder than it looks, particularly in the realm of business, where often too much emphasis is put on numbers, data, and building a case rather than appealing to emotions, human connection, familiar patterns, an...

Digital credentials aren’t as valuable on their own as they are in an ecosystem that uses open standards to connect learners and employers and where relevant data about skills achieved, pathways to new roles, and the needs of the job market intersect.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa talk about standards-based digital credentials being at tipping point and the need for learning business...

Learning businesses rely on the revenue that comes from their educational offerings. That means learning business professionals have to know how to determine the best pricing—the best pricing for attracting and converting prospective customers, the best pricing for maintaining and maximizing revenue levels, and the best pricing for achieving strategic goals.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Ce...

With the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, artificial intelligence broke into the mainstream and became a more practical rather than theoretical topic than ever before. AI has the potential to lighten the existing load and to enable new activities for learning businesses, particularly in the realms of marketing and personalization.

Erica Salm Rench is the chief operating officer at rasa.io, which uses AI to send personalized new...

Just as taking time to look back and reflect is a good practice, so too is taking time to look ahead and plan.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele share survey data about what learning businesses plan to focus on in 2024. You can use the data for quick benchmarking and to help you get clearer about your learning business’s priorities for the year ahead.

Show notes and a downloadable...

Reflection is a good practice, in life and in learning, especially for those working in and for learning businesses. But it’s all too easy to skip because taking time to reflect often isn’t as pressing and urgent as other things on the to-do list.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele act as avatars and model doing the behavior they encourage others to engage in periodically as they r...

Strategy and collaboration in open, loosely connected, complex networks require a different approach than the top-down planning that has long dominated organizational strategy-setting.

In this redux episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Ed Morrison, who pioneered Strategic Doing, an approach to strategy and collaboration in open, loosely connected, complex networks, and who co-authored Strategic ...

Giving and receiving feedback is harder than most people think. Learning business professionals need to take the time to study the art and science of feedback because of the critical role feedback plays in learning.

In this redux episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele discuss how to give and receive feedback effectively, common misconceptions about feedback, and the tremendous impact feedback ...

Trust is fundamental in marketing. Without trustworthy marketing, products and services, no matter how excellent, will languish because today, by default, audiences doubt what marketers say. What this means is learning businesses need to do the work to collect and use evidence to back up their marketing claims.

In episode 388 of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with Melanie Deziel about exactly how to do that. ...

Marketing has arguably undergone more change in the last decade than any other field, which means learning businesses have to stay on top of their marketing game to make sure they reach the right learners and bring in the critical revenue that keeps them humming along.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, number 387, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Greg Stuart. Having spent over three decades in the field, Greg has con...