Just about every business we've spoken to in the last 7 years has told us they want a culture of continuous learning and improvement. And community-driven learning can be a huge asset when it comes to supporting that kind of culture. In fact, I'd argue community building is the ONLY way to have effective continous learning and improvement in an organization. The challenge is that many organizations have this idealized vision of a culture of continuous learning and improvement without the structures in place to support it. Or they have the right culture, but they lack the strategic planning tha ..read more

by Rocio Granela & Katie Hynes Picture this: A cozy home office, cat purring on the windowsill. Dusk. Threat of a storm. The room lit by a computer screen.  You stare at an open Word doc, lips pursed, eyes fixed on the blinking cursor.  All work and no play… Then, a flash of lightning. A thunderclap! “I’ve got it!” With a wild look, your fingers fly across the keyboard. Tight shot of cat with side eye.   You’ve studied your audience and mulled over the learning objectives. You can see it now: A relatable situation, evocative details that bring the scene to life, a relevant c ..read more

You’ve got transcripts from your interviews with SMEs, PowerPoint decks from prior trainings, links to some relevant articles and videos… and now all you have to do is spin this into gold—i.e., video scripts and scenarios to support a program on providing effective feedback, which your company is running for senior managers.   And the deadline is coming up faster than you can say holy 93 days until my next vacation, Batman!   Throw in some good old-fashioned writer’s block, and your stress levels are curving like a hockey stick.   Depending on your company’s policies around usin ..read more

You've got mirror neurons.* Do you know what they do? Mirror neurons on the magical brain cells that trigger us to imitate-- or mirror-- other's behaviors. They enable us to acquire new behaviors, understand the intentions of others, and develop empathy. If your toddler ever sassed you with your own words, you've seen mirror neurons at work. If you've ever found yourself using an expression a colleague says all the time, for sure, your mirror neurons were are at work. If you've found yourself matching someone's volume and pacing of speech in a meeting, your mirror neurons were at work. Highly ..read more

Reflection is a critical component of deep learning. And for us, our annual reflection exercise is an opportunity to explore who we've been and who we are becoming as an organization. Where We Started At the top of 2023, we proudly declared "We are a social learning agency." We left behind the old ways of working and sought to inspire people to connect through learning and collaboration. What We Accomplished We worked with 8 clients on 11 projects including: needs analysis training audit certification program design and development interactive instructor-led workshop design and development co ..read more

The Original Problem Every year, managers at your organization need to complete leadership development training. Traditionally, the program has taken the form of a two-hour self-paced e-learning module. The data shows everyone grudgingly checks the box at the last minute, clicking through content about conflict resolution or effective delegation or coaching strategies or whatever is featured from the training library in a given year. Other than green check marks appearing next to people’s names in the LMS, there’s no indication that the material has changed anything. Not this year! You’ve paid ..read more

You’d like to tap the power of social learning and gather your team digitally to work together on upskilling in key areas. But you’re understandably concerned: What if barely anyone participates? What if only a few voices dominate? What if momentum fizzles and people get bored, distracted, checked out? We get it! The same concerns guide the team at Your ID when we design, build, and manage digital cohorts and social learning networks. That’s why we were excited to book-club The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker (2018). Full of brilliant solutions for the many what-ifs that spring up when bringi ..read more

Social learning experiences, like cohorts, communities, and social learning networks, create spaces that can support organizational efforts to be inclusive. BUT... Just sticking people in a room-- whether that room is physical or virtual-- will not do the work of helping them feel connected or the much harder work of repairing relationships. You need to create genuine opportunities for allyship and cooperation. So let's talk about how to do just that. Take the spotlight off the facilitator. As Robert Cialdini points out in his book, Influence, we learned in school that to do well we had to com ..read more

Drawing Insights from Audience Analysis Data You’ve planned your analysis events, conducted your user interviews, and you have a big pile of data about the audience you’ll serve. But data is just data until you start to draw insights from the trends you’re observing. In the ideal world, you’ll have Learning Analysts and Organizational Psychologists trained in statistics, data analysis, as well as qualitative and quantitative research, to make sense of the information. But in the real world, most training departments lack these roles. So let’s talk about some preliminary steps you can take to m ..read more

We've talked about the big picture when it comes to audience analysis in our last blog post. Today, it's time to get into the weeds with practical strategies for interviewing audience members effectively. Interviews are one of the most common forms of qualitative data gathering used in learning and development. With digital tools, they can be a very cost friendly solution. You want to use your time with participants to get as many useful insights as possible. Let's talk about how to do that. Before the Interview Do a little research. This is the step most people forget. While you don't want to ..read more