What do you get when you provide a learning experience that’s truly meaningful? According to this week’s guests on the podcast, Nancy Bacon and Mark Nilles, you create something “learningful”. And when it comes to creating impactful, “learningful” conferences, these two have teamed up to share what it takes in their recent e-book, Conferences That Make a Difference. Nancy is a teacher and instructional designer who has worked for over 20 years in the nonprofit sector. For the past five years, she’s led Washington Nonprofits’ learning program, and she currently serves as the associate director there. She also occasionally writes on adult learning through her blog at ChunkFlipGuideLaugh.com. Mark currently serves as the director of learning and impact at Humentum. His work has focused on developing evidence-based teaching and learning approaches for improved workplace performance. And his perspective is informed by years of training and capacity building for international development and humanitarian relief professionals around the world. In this episode of Leading Learning, Celisa talks with Nancy and Mark about key concepts from their new e-book, including the importance of a conference strategy, how and why to ensure presenters are prepared, and the need for reflection time—both for participants as well as for the internal team responsible for planning the event. They also discuss ways to support continued learning after the conference is over. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode183.  We are grateful to our sponsors for this quarter, Community Brands and WBT Systems. WBT Systems develops the industry-leading TopClass LMS, which delivers transformative professional development experiences for education and certification programs. With a single point of support from in-house integration experts, TopClass LMS easily integrates with a wide variety of systems to provide efficient administration and a unified learning experience. WBT supports organizations in using learning technology to help drive growth in membership, increase revenues, and enhance the learning experience. WBT believes in truly understanding your challenges and partnering with you to ensure the success of your education programs. Community Brands provides a suite of cloud-based software for organizations to engage and grow relationships with the individuals they serve, including association management software, learning management software, job board software, and event management software. Community Brands’ award-winning Crowd Wisdom learning platform is among the world’s best LMSes for corporate extended enterprise and is a leading LMS for association-driven professional education programs. Award-winning Freestone, Community Brands’ live event learning platform, is a leading platform for live learning event capture, Webinars, Webcasts, and on-demand streaming.   

There are three goals at the heart of almost all learning businesses: reach, revenue, and impact. Reaching the right audience, generating revenue, and of course, making an impact. And getting each of these areas to work together is key to delivering value and achieving success. In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Celisa and Jeff examine the flexible framework of reach, revenue, and impact. They discuss each area individually as well as the importance of achieving balance between the three and the collective impact they can have on your learning business. Full show notes are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode182.  We are grateful to our sponsors for this quarter, Community Brands and WBT Systems. WBT Systems develops the industry-leading TopClass LMS, which delivers transformative professional development experiences for education and certification programs. With a single point of support from in-house integration experts, TopClass LMS easily integrates with a wide variety of systems to provide efficient administration and a unified learning experience. WBT supports organizations in using learning technology to help drive growth in membership, increase revenues, and enhance the learning experience. WBT believes in truly understanding your challenges and partnering with you to ensure the success of your education programs. Community Brands provides a suite of cloud-based software for organizations to engage and grow relationships with the individuals they serve, including association management software, learning management software, job board software, and event management software. Community Brands’ award-winning Crowd Wisdom learning platform is among the world’s best LMSes for corporate extended enterprise and is a leading LMS for association-driven professional education programs. Award-winning Freestone, Community Brands’ live event learning platform, is a leading platform for live learning event capture, Webinars, Webcasts, and on-demand streaming. 

To be curious is to be human. It’s what drives us to further explore the unknown and discover what we don’t know, which means it plays a vital role in learning and engagement. Because of that, you’d expect curiosity to be something that’s encouraged by leaders and organizations. But all too often, that’s not the case. Dr. Francesca Gino, is a behavioral scientist and an award-winning Harvard Business School professor whose research shows the importance of creating a culture where curiosity is modeled and encouraged. Her most recent book, Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life, explores people who personify “rebel talent,” and the core talents they all seem share (spoiler, curiosity is one of them). In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Celisa talks with Francesca about the benefits of curiosity, it’s relationship to learning, and tips on how to instill it – and other rebel talents – into learning experiences. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode181.  We grateful to our sponsors for this quarter, Community Brands and WBT Systems. WBT Systems develops the industry-leading TopClass LMS, which delivers transformative professional development experiences for education and certification programs. With a single point of support from in-house integration experts, TopClass LMS easily integrates with a wide variety of systems to provide efficient administration and a unified learning experience. WBT supports organizations in using learning technology to help drive growth in membership, increase revenues, and enhance the learning experience. WBT believes in truly understanding your challenges and partnering with you to ensure the success of your education programs. Community Brands provides a suite of cloud-based software for organizations to engage and grow relationships with the individuals they serve, including association management software, learning management software, job board software, and event management software. Community Brands’ award-winning Crowd Wisdom learning platform is among the world’s best LMSes for corporate extended enterprise and is a leading LMS for association-driven professional education programs. Award-winning Freestone, Community Brands’ live event learning platform, is a leading platform for live learning event capture, Webinars, Webcasts, and on-demand streaming.    

Whether or not most of us are even aware of it, communities exist in practically all aspects of our lives and they can have a profound impact on learning. And, as this week’s guest, co-founder of the Community Roundtable, Rachel Happe puts it, “Communities are just-in-time learning mechanisms—they're containers of trust that scale beyond individual relationships.” That’s why it’s so important for us as learning leaders to be intentional and cultivate these within our organizations. In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Jeff talks with Rachel about the powerful role of communities including why organizations should be explicit in their management of them, ways they’ve evolved over the past decade, and what's necessary to create a successful one. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode180.  We grateful to our sponsors for this quarter, Community Brands and WBT Systems. Community Brands provides a suite of cloud-based software for organizations to engage and grow relationships with the individuals they serve, including association management software, learning management software, job board software, and event management software. Community Brands’ award-winning Crowd Wisdom learning platform is among the world’s best LMSes for corporate extended enterprise and is a leading LMS for association-driven professional education programs. Award-winning Freestone, Community Brands’ live event learning platform, is a leading platform for live learning event capture, Webinars, Webcasts, and on-demand streaming. WBT Systems develops the industry-leading TopClass LMS, which delivers transformative professional development experiences for education and certification programs. With a single point of support from in-house integration experts, TopClass LMS easily integrates with a wide variety of systems to provide efficient administration and a unified learning experience. WBT supports organizations in using learning technology to help drive growth in membership, increase revenues, and enhance the learning experience. WBT believes in truly understanding your challenges and partnering with you to ensure the success of your education programs.  

When it comes to the market for lifelong learning, pricing is a key component of success. But what is the "right" or "best" price for a particular product or offering? There is no black and white answer and because of that, pricing is an area many learning businesses struggle with. In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Celisa and Jeff share their top tips, based on two decades of experience in the learning business, on how to effectively price educational products. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode179.  Our sponsors for this episode are: Blue Sky eLearn, the creator of the Path Learning Management System, an award-winning cloud-based learning solution that allows organizations to easily deliver, track, and monetize valuable education and event content online. Blue Sky also provides webinar and webcast services, helping you maximize your content and create deeper engagement with your audience across the world. Authentic Learning Labs, an education company seeking to bring complementary tech and services to empower publishers and L&D organizations to help elevate their programs. The company leverages technology like AI, Data Analytics, and advanced embeddable, API-based services to complement existing initiatives, offering capabilities that are typically out of reach for resource-stretched groups or growing programs needing to scale.  

In Part II of our very first two-part interview, we continue the conversation with Jeff De Cagna, respected contrarian thinker on the future of associating and associations, about a topic all leaders in the business of lifelong learning need to be thinking about: artificial intelligence.  In Part I, Celisa and Jeff talked about an AI first world and some common misconceptions and ethical issues surrounding AI. This time around they delve into the implications of AI for work and learning, the idea of integrated intelligences, and helpful advice to ensure the responsible and ethical future of AI. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode178.  Our sponsors for this episode are: Blue Sky eLearn, the creator of the Path Learning Management System, an award-winning cloud-based learning solution that allows organizations to easily deliver, track, and monetize valuable education and event content online. Blue Sky also provides webinar and webcast services, helping you maximize your content and create deeper engagement with your audience across the world. Authentic Learning Labs, an education company seeking to bring complementary tech and services to empower publishers and L&D organizations to help elevate their programs. The company leverages technology like AI, Data Analytics, and advanced embeddable, API-based services to complement existing initiatives, offering capabilities that are typically out of reach for resource-stretched groups or growing programs needing to scale.  

With artificial intelligence (AI) being one of the top technologies already positioned to transform and disrupt just about every aspect of our lives, including the future of work and learning, it’s a topic that we could all use some foresight on. And return guest, Jeff De Cagna, executive advisor for Foresight First LLC, is a future-focused, contrarian thinker who has recently been applying his foresight lens to the vast complexities surrounding the rise of AI. In Part I of our very first two-part interview on the Leading Learning podcast, Celisa talks with Jeff about what it means to live in an AI-first world, some common misconceptions about AI, as well as the numerous ethical issues surrounding AI and what we might do to deal with them. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode177.  Our sponsors for this episode are: Blue Sky eLearn, the creator of the Path Learning Management System, an award-winning cloud-based learning solution that allows organizations to easily deliver, track, and monetize valuable education and event content online. Blue Sky also provides webinar and webcast services, helping you maximize your content and create deeper engagement with your audience across the world. Authentic Learning Labs, an education company seeking to bring complementary tech and services to empower publishers and L&D organizations to help elevate their programs. The company leverages technology like AI, Data Analytics, and advanced embeddable, API-based services to complement existing initiatives, offering capabilities that are typically out of reach for resource-stretched groups or growing programs needing to scale.  

Marketing is an integral part of any successful learning business—it is after all, one of the five domains in our Learning Business Maturity Model™. But it’s particularly important to understand digital marketing and how to generate and convert Web traffic into sales. If you aren’t familiar with the Traffic and Conversion Summit, it happens to be the largest marketing event in North America, and what Forbes magazine describes as “everything you need to know about boosting your conversions and making your mark in your vertical”. Luckily for you, Jeff recently attended so in this episode, he and Celisa are revealing 5 key marketing takeaways from the informative Summit. Full show notes at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode176.  Our sponsors for this episode are: Authentic Learning Labs, an education company seeking to bring complementary tech and services to empower publishers and L&D organizations to help elevate their programs. The company leverages technology like AI, Data Analytics, and advanced embeddable, API-based services to complement existing initiatives, offering capabilities that are typically out of reach for resource-stretched groups or growing programs needing to scale. Blue Sky eLearn, the creator of the Path Learning Management System, an award-winning cloud-based learning solution that allows organizations to easily deliver, track, and monetize valuable education and event content online. Blue Sky also provides webinar and webcast services, helping you maximize your content and create deeper engagement with your audience across the world.

Small groups, loosely connected, but united by a common purpose. This is the simple formula behind Greg Satell’s research that is essential to follow for anyone looking to make an impact and change the world. Greg is one of the world’s leading experts on innovation and transformational change and his new book, Cascades: How to Create a Movement That Drives Transformational Change, explores how to successfully navigate and lead large-scale change in today’s disruptive environment. He’s also behind the popular blog, Digital Tonto, which is a must-read for anyone interested in learning more about the topics of strategy, innovation, and leadership. In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Jeff talks with Greg about what it takes to drive transformational change including the important role of networks, empowerment, and purpose. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode175.  Our sponsors for this episode are: Authentic Learning Labs, an education company seeking to bring complementary tech and services to empower publishers and L&D organizations to help elevate their programs. The company leverages technology like AI, Data Analytics, and advanced embeddable, API-based services to complement existing initiatives, offering capabilities that are typically out of reach for resource-stretched groups or growing programs needing to scale. Blue Sky eLearn, the creator of the Path Learning Management System, an award-winning cloud-based learning solution that allows organizations to easily deliver, track, and monetize valuable education and event content online. Blue Sky also provides webinar and webcast services, helping you maximize your content and create deeper engagement with your audience across the world.

As learning businesses, it’s safe to say that most are striving to move the needle in the field, profession, or industry they serve through large-scale impact. However, it’s reasonable to assume that a single organization won’t be as effective in achieving that as multiple organizations in partnership. Applying the network leadership model offers a way to structure collaborations aimed at collective impact, rather than solely on organizational success. This week on the Leading Learning podcast Celisa interviews Jane Wei-Skillern, a speaker, author, and Senior Fellow at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley who is a leading voice on the topic of network leadership. They discuss how this model differs from other approaches to collective impact, the four principles behind it, and how applying the model can help organizations work more efficiently while focusing on the larger purpose of why they exist. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode174.  Our sponsors for this episode are: Blue Sky eLearn, the creator of the Path Learning Management System, an award-winning cloud-based learning solution that allows organizations to easily deliver, track, and monetize valuable education and event content online. Blue Sky also provides webinar and webcast services, helping you maximize your content and create deeper engagement with your audience across the world. Authentic Learning Labs, an education company seeking to bring complementary tech and services to empower publishers and L&D organizations to help elevate their programs. The company leverages technology like AI, Data Analytics, and advanced embeddable, API-based services to complement existing initiatives, offering capabilities that are typically out of reach for resource-stretched groups or growing programs needing to scale.