Nerd Out Interviews

Alternatively watch this podcast on YouTube.In this interview, Dash and I talk about how she got into corporate L&D, The Byzantine Empire, strategies in creating manager training, how practitioners should think about generative AI, and being intentional with learning as a parent.Here’s my favorite bit from the interview at about 18:41:My daughter's in kindergarten and she is participating in these little contests at school, like the little science fair. One of the things that we're trying to think about is how do we teach her to aspire for excellence and know that sometimes even when you work really hard and you aspire for excellence, you're not gonna get the blue ribbon because there was someone better. That's a good lesson. You know, we've all experienced that we worked really hard on something and you know, you don't get the blue ribbon and that's that's a hard thing and I don't know how to teach her that. And so I've been reaching out to folks in this community to to ask them what what are you doing like how do you how do you not focus it so much on the reward being winning because that's not always going to be there.Buy me a coffee ☕ | Give me feedback 📝 | Connect on LinkedInNerd Out is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Nerd Out at alyn.substack.com/subscribe

Alternatively watch it on YoutubeIn this interview, Marcus and I talk about how he got into corporate L&D, comparing and contrasting academia and corporate ID, improving accessibility in learning and how to measure the success of a learning program in such a way that the business cares.Here’s my favorite bit from the interview: I've grew up with deaf parents and so that's always been front of mind for me. But when I actually went through the process of going to meetings with the accessibility team and then I went to a committee meeting with an accessibility council, it was very humbling. I heard how a screen reader actually reads out the content and it was just such a gating awful experience, and that was not in line with what I wanted the learners to experience. I wanted to create a very positive easy to use aesthetic experience that communicated the learning objectives and the goals of the program. Then going to the committee meeting, I just saw firsthand how people with like very different types of physical and cognitive limitations had to like pick up pieces of paper or to get to a podium to present on their next topic, and I I just remember sitting in the back of the room just like tears in my eyes because I had just been so off base and I was just so wrong about it. So I think that was something that just stuck with me and those are very easy things that you can build into an employee's development.Nerd Out is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Nerd Out at alyn.substack.com/subscribe

Alternatively watch it on Youtube In this interview Ashley Thomas, Google Learning & Development PgM, talks about how she got into L&D, what the difference is between ID in the government vs Corporate America and the challenges that L&D professionals, especially women, face when moving up the ranks in corporations.I've been in learning development for over a decade. It's amazing how time flies. For me, I always think of the hero's journey with Joseph Campbell. There have been so many ups and downs throughout my career. I was a government contractor with the DOD. I started out in higher education. I was an English major. I got my master's from Berkeley. I got my master's in higher education administration. I was in student affairs dean of students res life. And then I realized that's not for me. So throughout my career, it's been just these ups and downs. And having been laid off in corporate education like two times, I think I've trained myself to really figure out the value prop but also accept the fact that there are certain things out of our control. Get full access to Nerd Out at alyn.substack.com/subscribe

Listen to the podcast or watch my interview with Angel Carrillo on YouTube.We discuss how he got into L&D, what were some of the cooler projects he's worked on and why we end up picking the same solutions over and over.I think we get into the habit of reusing things because all you have to do is go on the internet Google something right and then you'll see the same program recycled. It might make sense there's very good things there's no need to reinvent the wheel every time I always go to Google and see whenever I get stuck I'm like why am I stuck? I go but then you have to think about okay where is this coming from what is it this actually trying to achieve what are the learning objectives of that program and are they the same as mine? The reason why I approached that program differently was because I was designing it but I was not by myself and I had a project team of HR business partners and some representation of our employees that were all women and it was really about sitting down and discussing and opening myself up to their experiences. One of them said well it's not like women can't communicate so why do we always have to do that training over and over again right and that just opened it up for me and made it very clear that yes you're right a program for women in leadership shouldn't be about what they lack. It should be more about what they need to navigate the system that might at times be against them and that goes for any underrepresented groups. Get full access to Nerd Out at alyn.substack.com/subscribe

Listen to the podcast or watch my interview with Nicholas Whitaker on Youtube. We discuss how he got into L&D, how that combined with wellness in his career and his personal experience in L&D over the years. Find out more about Nicholas and his work at nicholaswhitaker.com“I notice a lot of leaders feel that helicoptering somebody in and doing a workshop on well-being and mindfulness will just instantly solve their well-being and mindfulness issues and then they wonder why people's well being scores are still declining and why people are still taking a lot of mental health leave…”Nerd Out is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Nerd Out at alyn.substack.com/subscribe