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Friday Finds
Fresh ideas, practical tools, and marketing-inspired thinking for people who design learning.
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Over the past few months, I've been auditing everything — calendar, routines, phone, most of my defaults. Turns out getting separated after a long marriage will do that to you. Nothing forces "wait, is this actually how I want to spend my time?" quite like your whole life getting reshuffled at once.
That question eventually landed on LinkedIn. My feed had turned into a slot machine of recycled hot takes, vague leadership poetry, and posts that needed 400 words to say "be curious." So I'm doing something mildly dramatic: unfollowing almost everyone and starting over. On purpose, this time.
Thanks for reading!
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Supported by iSpring
AI can help you build courses faster, but only if you give it the right instructional context. Otherwise, you get the usual mush: long paragraphs, vague explanations, weak structure, and a whole lot of cleanup. This free guide from iSpring gives you instructional-design-ready prompts that help AI produce course content you can actually use.
Grab the free prompt guide →
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Rebuilding My LinkedIn Feed
I do a lot of curation, personal and professional. There's a step people often skip: the gardening phase, where you pull the weeds and clear out what's gone dormant. Prompted by my own changes, I'm finally doing that with who I follow on LinkedIn too.
LinkedIn only lets you unfollow people one at a time. That feels less like feed curation and more like digital yard work. If you know a faster, non-sketchy way to do it, please let me know.
In the meantime, I'm paying closer attention to who's actually making me smarter.
Your feed is not neutral. It shapes what you notice, what feels normal, and which ideas keep showing up in your work. Left unchecked, it curdles into a highlight reel of humblebrags and thrilled-to-announce confetti.
So here are some of the first people I'm adding back.
This isn't a definitive best-in-L&D list. It's not a ranking. It's not even close to complete. It's more personal than that: people who help me think better about learning, design, performance, AI, behavior, marketing, and the messy work of helping people get better at what they do.
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Also supported by Neovation
Are you using AI but wish the results could be more useful? Framing techniques, context, and output examples that give you something you can actually use. Our session shows you the 7 Essential AI Prompting Habits that you can put to work right away.
Join us on July 29, 1 pm ET / 12 pm CT / 10 am PT.
Save your seat now →
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People helping me make sense of AI and learning
Ross Stevenson
The most practical voice I follow on AI in L&D. Real-world experiments and workflows. Follow Ross →
Dr. Philippa Hardman
Her work with AI keeps pointing back to judgment, evidence, structure, and actual learning design. Follow Philippa →
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People who sharpen the craft
Jeff Batt
Your follow for hands-on eLearning development — Storyline, multimedia, the practical side of building learning that actually works. Follow Jeff →
Tim Slade
One of the best follows for clear, practical ID/elearning advice. Follow Tim →
Melissa Milloway
Shares eLearning, accessibility, and design thinking that actually helps. Generous with examples too — advice is nice, showing the work is better. Follow Melissa →
Tom McDowall
Shares regular roundups pulling together what's actually happening in L&D research, minus the fluff. Good follow if you want to stay current without doing the digging yourself. Follow Tom →
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People who push L&D toward performance and behavior
Matt Furness
Helps L&D escape the content factory and get back to the real work: behavior, performance, whether anything actually changes after the training ends. Follow Matt →
Nick Shackleton-Jones
Your regular shove away from content-first training — better questions about performance, experience, and why people seek learning in the first place. Follow Nick →
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People who help me think more like a marketer
Rory Sutherland
Not an L&D person, which is exactly why he's useful. Brilliant on marketing, behavior, perception, and the strange ways humans actually decide things. Follow Rory →
Nancy Harhut
Connects persuasion, attention, and decision-making in ways L&D should be stealing. Politely, of course. Follow Nancy →
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People who help me think better, period
Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Her idea of tiny experiments has been rattling around my brain lately, in the best way. Follow Anne-Laure →
Shane Parrish
Shane shares timeless lessons and thoughtful ideas that are useful in work and life. Fewer hacks, more wisdom. Follow Shane →
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And because I still love PowerPoint...
Sander Gijsbrechts
Smart slide craft and visual techniques — proof the problem was never PowerPoint. It's what people do with it unsupervised. Follow Sander →
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The Bottom Line
Your feed is training you. It shapes what you notice, what you question, what starts to feel normal. So choose it on purpose.
Follow people who make you think harder, not just nod faster. Follow people who show their work, challenge your defaults, and hand you the occasional kick away from lazy thinking.
I'm still rebuilding my list. Who should I add?
If someone makes your feed smarter, send them my way. I may share a reader-recommended list in a future issue.
Or just hit reply. I read every one.
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