Building Bridges

Keeping Your Seat at the Table

As a Learning & Development partner, do you have a “seat at the table”? This is a question we were asking and struggling with [ahem, ahem] decades ago, when I was coming up as an L&D manager. It’s as pertinent a question as ever. After all, if we don’t have that proverbial seat, how can [...]

Picking the Choicest Apples in Instructional Design

If you have ever gone apple picking, have you had the following experience, as I have? You start to fill your basket with beautiful red apples, then suddenly, too suddenly, your basket is overflowing? When working with a subject matter expert (SME), instructional designers are often handed an overflowing basket of “apples,” the core content, [...]

Getting Unstuck: Generate Velocity to Achieve your Goals

By Kris Normandin, guest blogger Have you ever felt stuck? At some point in our lives, we all have. The larger question is, how do you get “unstuck?” This is what we set out to answer at Velocity Quest for Women. We provide a series of virtual, real-time programs for women who want to increase [...]

Adopting Improv to Ace Instructional Design

Last month, Sheree Galpert, an Applied Improv practitioner and trainer, shared fundamentals of improvisation in EnVision’s blog. Sheree introduced three principles of improvisation: Be in the moment Use “Yes, and” Make your partner look good Sheree illustrated how instructional designers can leverage these techniques to be more effective in their work. After reading Sheree’s post, [...]

“Begin with the end in mind”?

By Sheree Galpert, guest blogger “Begin with the end in mind.” That’s one of the key habits laid out by Stephen R. Covey in his best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. For instructional designers and trainers, that’s kind of a no-brainer: You have to know what you want your learners to get [...]

Crisp Air, Mexican Hot Chocolate, and an Adirondack Chair

Leaves are on the verge of turning beautiful colors here in the Northeast. The evening air is crispening, and I can smell logs burning in firepits as my neighbors try to squeeze in some more cool-night outdoor time. You know what that means...2022 is around the corner, and, for many of us, it is also [...]

Supporting SMEs—with Pizza: Professional Development Offering

In our final activity, groups shared one action they will try for each of the pie slices. In April, I enjoyed facilitating a virtual event for the Hawkeye (Iowa) Chapter of ATD. The topic was titled “Supporting SMEs—with Pizza” and trust me, pizza always gets folks’ attention! We started out voting on our favorite-looking pie [...]

Building a Path to Bravery

I was honored recently to have been interviewed by Ed Evarts about bravery in the workplace. Ed is a leadership coach, podcast coach, and author who helps successful leaders raise their visibility and value at their organizations. The topic hit home for me. Bravery, including professional courage, has resonated over the past year for us [...]

Getting Invited to the Table: 3 Tips to Make it Happen

Have you ever been in a situation like one of these, experienced by two different colleagues of mine: An IT group decided to upgrade a systems application and proceeded with the project. Dozens of elearning courses had already been developed for the legacy system. The L&D team was not included in the conversation about the [...]

Babbling Away: How Proven Instructional Design Techniques Helped Me Learn German

It’s cool when you can see an application of the work you do when you are the consumer (or, as it were, the learner). Here’s my story. In preparing for my trip to Germany last year, I decided to learn a little German. I like to be able to use some basic phrases when visiting [...]