To end the year on a high note and to continue the celebration of 100 episodes of the BLOC, I'm sharing a replay of the #1 most downloaded episode of the BLOC of all time - a chat I had with my L&D BFF, Tim Slade.

Tim Slade is a speaker, author, award-winning freelance eLearning designer, and creator of The eLearning Designer’s Academy. Having spent the last decade working to help others elevate their eLearning and visual communications content, Tim has been recognized and awarded within the eLearning industry multiple times for his creative and innovative design aesthetics. Tim is also a regular speaker at international eLearning and instructional design conferences, a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and author of The eLearning Designer’s Handbook.

I took it upon myself to recommend Tim's free community of eLearning professionals to anyone who is looking to get into instructional design.

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff

It's the 100th episode of the BLOC! On this episode, I reflect on how this podcast turned into an L&D business and how human connection is what separates us from the robots.

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff

This special episode is a replay of a live podcast recording I did with Tom McDowall on November 15 in London as part of the Learning Network's Connect 2024 conference.

You can also find the replay (with video) on Tom's The iDeas Podcast.

I also highly recommend joining The Learning Network if you want to connect with other brilliant L&D folks!

In the episode, Tom suggests everyone read Human Competence by Thomas Gilbert.

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff

In this episode, I invite all of you to join the Useful L&D Community I launched back in September. I share a little bit about why I started this (global - as I forgot to mention in the episode) safe space for aspiring, new, and expert L&D pros to connect and working together to make learning more useful.

We are having great discussions, hosting events, and we're just getting started!

Join us here: https://useful-stuff.circle.so/join?invitation_token=729b68d43899a5f480ee11363cc12b7a9b766573-aea3a980-a69c-4a70-b0f4-8d3b27a526c4

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff

In this episode, I chat with Fred Thompson, CEO of Thirst, about staying current in L&D and how he's managed to continue to take a modern approach to L&D, despite beginning his career with Flash.

Fred Thompson is CEO of Thirst and is a seasoned learning and development expert with over two decades of experience helping businesses create engaging learning environments that level up learner engagement.

Fred has spearheaded numerous initiatives that have empowered employees to learn and develop in the most intuitive way possible. His insights into the latest learning technologies and trends have been invaluable to countless organizations looking to turbocharge their learning cultures with game-changing learning platforms.

Fred has a passion for using AI and machine learning to create social learning experiences that meet the unique needs of each employee and help them enhance their skills and grow their careers.

Fred's suggestion for taking a modern approach to L&D:

• Look at what influencers and your favorite people on social media are using to create content, and try creating a prototype!!

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff

Dinye Hernanda is a distinguished practitioner in Learning & Development, known for her bold, results-driven approach.

With a proven track record in building L&D departments for high-growth organizations, Dinye has made her mark across major corporations, tech scale-ups, and VC firms. Named one of the 'Thirty Under 30' in L&D in 2021, she is recognized for her unique ability to blend strategic vision with practical execution.

Honored as Mentor of the Year 2023, Dinye is committed to elevating the practice of L&D professionals across industries. A global citizen, she divides her time between Berlin, Dubai, and Jakarta.

https://www.dinyehernanda.com/

Dinye's suggestion for learning a tool that isn't specific to L&D? Learn Canva.

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff

In this episode, I chat with my new L&D pal, Caner Akova, about how we learn in real life, how we can bring some of those best practices into workplace learning, and why it isn't happening more often.

Caner is an L&D expert with global experience in higher education and multinational corporations and he’s here to shake things up.

He’s passionate about cutting through the fluff, and uses real life learning to make workplace learning actually work.

He likes tackling the brutal truths about L&D, delivering practical, no-nonsense solutions that work without the need to invest in a ton of different software and hardware.

Connect with him on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/canerakova

Caner's advice for those who want to start making changes to learning at their organizations:

1. Watch how the people (and pets) around you are learning in real life.
2. Make one small change at your workplace (without asking for permission).
3. Assess the results, and add more changes or adjust accordingly.

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff

In this episode, inspired in part by my new friend Molly's LinkedIn post about undergoing 10 job interviews for a contract L&D position, I talk about the dreaded job interview assignment.

This episode is both for job seekers and hiring managers because I give best practices for what you should be looking for in a job interview assignment, including the following:

• Every job interview should be part of a structured process that is clearly communicated to candidates. This is what we DO as L&D professionals, we should be clearly communicating up front how many interviews, if there's an assignment, and the goal start date of the candidate.
• If given, job interview assignments should NOT be arbitrary - the assignment should clearly align with its purpose and HAVE a purpose. Is the purpose to show proficiency with a particular tool? Then, it should do that. It shouldn't be "create a 30-minute eLearning module on the topic of your choice" because that's what their portfolio is for.
• If the assignment is going to take the candidate more than 3 hours, it should be paid. Also, you should never use a candidate's work or ask for source files.

If a job interview assignment feels icky, you should trust your gut!

Thanks for listening to the BLOC! To learn more and get more great resources:

• Connect with me on LinkedIn
• Join our global Useful L&D Community
• Work with me or see what I'm working on with Useful Stuff