Marcus spent six weeks building the perfect compliance training for his company’s 2,000 employees. Interactive scenarios. Animated compliance mascot. Video testimonials from leadership. Gamified quizzes with leaderboards and achievement badges. Custom dashboard with real-time progress tracking. Background music to “enhance focus.” (spoiler: that usually backfires unless it serves a clear instructional or motivational goal). CompletionContinueContinue reading “Stop Overloading Your Learners’ Brains: A Practical Guide to Minimizing Extraneous Cognitive Load”
Author Archives: Mike Taylor
Workflow Automation for Beginners (and Why L&D Pros Should Care)
If you’ve never heard of workflow automation, don’t worry—you’re not alone. The phrase sounds like corporate jargon, but at its heart, it’s simple: workflow automation means teaching your tools to do the boring, repetitive steps for you—automatically. What Is Workflow Automation? Imagine you’re making coffee. Normally, you grind beans, fill the filter, measure water, pressContinueContinue reading “Workflow Automation for Beginners (and Why L&D Pros Should Care)”
Stop Creating Content From Scratch: The L&D Strategy That Marketing Has Perfected
Your employees waste nearly 10 hours every week hunting for information they need to do their jobs. (1) That’s more than a full workday spent searching instead of performing. But here’s the counterintuitive truth: The problem isn’t too little content. It’s too much. While L&D teams scramble to create more content, smart organizations have discoveredContinueContinue reading “Stop Creating Content From Scratch: The L&D Strategy That Marketing Has Perfected”
My Top 10 Learning Tools for 2025
It’s survey time again! Jane Hart is collecting everyone’s top learning tools for her annual report. I love seeing what everyone’s using these days. Want to share yours? Head over to the Top Tools for Learning survey and submit your list. You’ve got until August 29th. Don’t wait! Here’s my lineup for 2025. No rankingsContinueContinue reading “My Top 10 Learning Tools for 2025”
Embracing Productive Failure: Why Getting it Wrong First Might Be the Right Approach
A counterintuitive learning strategy that’s changing how we think about instruction Here’s a wild idea: What if we told learners to dive into complex problems before we taught them how to solve them? What if we let them struggle, make mistakes, and yes—even fail—before stepping in with our carefully crafted lessons? If that sounds backwards to you,ContinueContinue reading “Embracing Productive Failure: Why Getting it Wrong First Might Be the Right Approach”
🎧 Clickbait & Cognitive Load
A Soundtrack for L&D Pros, Marketing Nerds, and Anyone Caught in the Creative Crossfire Let’s be honest: working at the intersection of Learning & Development and Marketing is like directing a Broadway show… during a thunderstorm… with a script that keeps changing. Some days, you’re designing beautiful learning experiences, guiding behavior change, and aligning toContinueContinue reading “🎧 Clickbait & Cognitive Load”
Friday Finds — OpenAI’s ‘Deep Research’ Feature, Consistent AI Characters, Standing Out as an L&D Pro
Subscribe via email “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”– Albert Einstein I’ve been thinking about all of you reading this from outside the US, and I just wanted to say – I know things look pretty chaotic over here right now. Honestly? I’m a bit embarrassed by what’s unfolding in ourContinueContinue reading “Friday Finds — OpenAI’s ‘Deep Research’ Feature, Consistent AI Characters, Standing Out as an L&D Pro”
Standing Out in Your Field: 3 Essential Practices for L&D Professionals
Are you an L&D pro looking to make your mark? The learning landscape is changing fast. Your skills matter more than ever before. In this field, some professionals rise above the rest. But how? What sets them apart isn’t just what they know. It’s what they do differently every day. Here are three key habitsContinueContinue reading “Standing Out in Your Field: 3 Essential Practices for L&D Professionals”
Complete L&D Content Curation Toolkit
What is Content Curation in L&D? Content curation in Learning & Development is the strategic process of gathering, evaluating, organizing, and sharing the most relevant learning resources for your organization’s specific training needs. Rather than creating all content from scratch, effective curation identifies high-quality existing materials and thoughtfully integrates them into your learning programs. TheContinueContinue reading “Complete L&D Content Curation Toolkit”
Friday Finds — The Great Training Robbery, Engaging Videos with Richard Mayer, Guide to Expert Interviews
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”Leonardo da Vinci You might have noticed that I switched up the way I write the news item descriptions a while back—leaning into the Smart Brevity style. Is it working? Do you like it better? Or should I go back to the old, short-and-sweet single-paragraph format? OrContinueContinue reading “Friday Finds — The Great Training Robbery, Engaging Videos with Richard Mayer, Guide to Expert Interviews”
Mike Taylor 