Future-Focused with Christopher Lind

Ah yes, the classic corporate dilemma of investing in employees. What if we train our employees only to have them take a hike? What if we don’t and they STAY? For me, the answer is obvious, but I understand many concerns and fears of being used as a steppingstone. I truly believe that organizations that recognize that good human resources are as important as products are MORE effective in building sustainable competitive advantage. In this episode of Learning Tech Talks, I’m joined by Michael Brown, Chief People & Culture Officer with SchooX to talk about how he is helping organizations grow their community culture with their innovative talent development platform that allows users to go beyond simply managing learning processes, but EMPOWERS them to learn, develop skills, and drive business growth.

Jack of all trades, master of FUN! At least that's what I am to my kiddos. After doing this podcast for almost two years, I finally feel that I’m beginning to hone my craft. My repertoire of guests has given me the vocabulary to dive deep into conversations; balancing REAL discussion, on REAL topics, all with a little FUN. The cord from my brain to my mouth still gets unplugged sometimes. In my real job, I'm constantly honing my craft of congregating new ideas and implementing them within our organization to create a workplace of perpetual learners. In this episode of Learning Tech Talks, I’m virtually jumping in feet first with CEO and Founder of CoThryve, Blake Bozarth to discuss how he is taking high-potential committed leaders and making them exceptional leaders through Growth Groups™ that tap into the collective energy, experience, and expertise of their peers and consequentially starts a chain reaction of growth for teams and broader organizations alike.

I tried out one of my hilarious dad puns the other day when I was on a Zoom call with our CEO, Christopher (great names think alike). He told me I wasn’t even remotely funny. Oof. Gamification is a popular word among us L&D nerdz. Yes, I consider myself a learnerd. Let’s make that a thing. In all honesty, gamification isn’t anything new or special. BUT, it works. Growing up, I made up little games to help my, much younger and more handsome, brother with his homework. In the #futureofwork we have research, data, and AI to back up my own self-theory and when applied from a business perspective we can strategically measure ROI, team/individual effectiveness, and psychological development to create agile and high-performing teams. In this episode of Learning Tech Talks, I get the chance to sit down and chat with CEO and Founder of Aeqlia, Oussama “Ouss” Labib about his mission to make virtual team video calls suck less through a highly interactive game-based learning platform that tackles remote work struggles through a collaborative focused lens to bring about change and improvement across all organizations.

Celebrating the recent holiday, my wife had ordered me a speedo with pink elephants on them. Turns out they were actually swimming trunks!  How much does your organization spend on content creation? Personally, I  have a black budget for bad pun content. It’s probably more than you think when you consider the broad scale of costs.  How many resources are wasted or never used the way they are intended? Nothing drives me  CRAZIER than my learning content not in use, but it happens. It would be easier to blame the learners, but I prefer to take responsibility for ensuring that the right content gets to the right people AT the right time.   In this episode, I get the opportunity to chat with the founder of Olifano, David Verhaag, who also happens to be a fan of LTT, about how he embodies the mantra, ‘GSD’ (Get Sh*t Done), which led him on his journey  to solve the problem employees finding and using the resources made available to them. Olifano combines the power of microlearning and AI to elevate organizational efficiency by delivering engaging micro-moments and personalized learning content recommendations just in time and where employees really need them.

AI will never take away my job. Only an idiot would want to do my job! You don't have to be a luddite to have legitimate fears about AI. Thanks Nick Bostrom! However, AI in its many forms is meant to elevate, not replace, humans and we are only JUST beginning to see how it is shaping the #futureofwork. In this Learning Tech Talks, I have the pleasure to once again host Steve Dineen and Rhys Giles from Fuse Universal to see how they are continuing to elevate their 'engagement first'  platform that has brought success in numerous ways to countless organizations with a product that speaks for itself. We’ll also be diving into some of their new features that allow for organizational content to be scanned and recommended AS learners engage with others and relevant content and how it has the potential to pave the way for the future of #HRTECH.

Alright stop, collaborate and listen / Intrepid is back with their brand-new invention Peer-to-peer had a very different meaning to me during my freshman year of college and it had absolutely nothing to do with the file-sharing software, Napster, and “downloading” songs to burn a sick mix cd.  Today, peer-to-peer learning is something I’m more fluent in practicing and it’s at the highest priority when I’m restructuring. One of the major flaws in early learning platforms was the severe lack of a dynamic relationship between the learning content and the learner. In my career, it becomes more apparent to me every. single. day. that learning is something that grows stronger and faster when shared with others. In this episode, I have the pleasure once again to speak with Vice President & General Manager of Intrepid, Sam Herring. If any of you were watching my show a year ago (episode link below) Sam and I had the chance to debunk the myth that online collaborative learning wasn’t possible #fakenews. We finally have the opportunity to catch back up and see what he and Intrepid are doing to continually innovate and push their collaborative learning platform to the next level to inspire and transform organizations in the #futureofwork.

The average amount of time that a recruiter spends reviewing a resume is roughly seven seconds. That’s right. SEVEN. All that time precious time you spent googling, “Good CV buzzwords” up in smoke. One thing that is often overlooked during the recruiting and application process is the potential opportunity to build brand loyalty and rapport with applicants regardless of the outcome. I never got a response back from HR for the Wiggles Touring Company and the HECK if I let my kids ever watch them again. Case & point. In this episode, I have the pleasure to speak CEO & Co-Founder, Prem Kumar from Humanly about his journey navigating the #hrtech world and after having the opportunity to experience firsthand the struggles of hiring candidates that ultimately led him to develop a tool that streamlines the application process and allows organizations to engage at scale and eliminates the unconscious bias that can plague the recruiting process.

Tomato, Tomato. Happy, Hygge. Crush, Avoir le béguin. Bjndadvdlookdkatlkzdme, my three-year-old son. Ideas & language are not always welcoming to one another when translating from one language to the next. While highly debatable among scholars (NERDS), it would seem obvious that this would be a priority for high-performing organizations in the #futureofwork, however, It appears that there is an overarching assumption in many organizations that ‘everyone can say everything in every language.WRONG. In this episode, I have the pleasure to speak with @goFluent President, John Ambrose and how the organization isn’t just breaking, but SHATTERING the language barrier by empowering employees with the opportunity to grow outside of their native languages and consequentially, finding that partners aren't just becoming fluent in their fluency but demanding MORE access to further their learning journey to gain confidence and talent in and outside of work.

Yes. I do love Snapchat filters and sending silly videos to my personal friends and colleagues. Why do I waste such precious time with 5 kids and a senior-level position at a high-performing company? Because it’s  FUN! It also helps bring out my creative side and consequentially influences the work that I do.    Call me a time thief, (I PROMISE I DON’T DO IT AT WORK) but connecting with people on a democratized level is a super important component to the Zen of my remote work routine. If you’ve ever been a part of a  high-performing team then you’ve witnessed the power of team members that are connected in ways that can’t always be explained.    In this episode, Carl Hodler, Co-Founder of Storytagger, and I are talking about the ways that his organization is helping leaders reach their team in ways that they never could before by providing a platform for users to extract their experiences from their brain to empower and amplify the human story.

I have a secret I’ve been meaning to share with everyone. Okay, here it goes. Even as an adult, Phhhewww, this is tougher than I thought. Okay. I. Christopher Lind. Still love cartoons. There, I said it. Yes, in the corporate world we don’t call them cartoons (They’ll rot your brain!) but are much more professionally called, A N I M A T I O N S. Call it what you want, but it’s become very clear that in the #futureofwork we are finding that traditional methods of conveying information are outdated and ineffective. I’m not harping on traditional methods, as they provide us with a foundation that is needed to understand our learning journey, but that new #hrtech has taken advantage of advancements in technology to grow in areas of need that weren’t previously available. Cause I ain’t no luddite, neither. In this episode, Simpleshow is jumping back on the show to rehash ALL the unfinished business we have from our previous 2020 episode. Just kidding. Sorry, Casper McFadden, no need to help us deal with this unfinished business because I LOVE Simpleshow and the work that they do with organizations to convey complex ideas and processes in a fun and simple to create way.