This podcast series is our attempt to offer a theoretical learning business MBA program, and we invite you to play along. Imagine you’re in business school and about to hear a guest lecture by Mary Byers, a speaker, facilitator, consultant, and author of several books, including Race for Relevance: Five Radical Changes for Associations. She’s also …

Both marketing and strategy are fundamental to the health and success of a learning business, which is why we’re addressing them in the context of the learning business MBA. Of course, the learning business MBA doesn’t exist yet. Rather, we’re using it as shorthand for the key skills, knowledge, and behaviors needed by those working in market-facin…

Chances are, if you’re in the learning business, you probably didn’t go to school knowing this is where your career would take you. Some of you may a have strong background on the learning or education side, while others may have it on the business side—but likely, you don’t have an equally strong background when it comes to both, and it may be dif…

This is the last installment in our seven-episode series on learning science’s role in a learning business, and we’ve covered a variety of interesting topics. But we want learning science to be more than interesting. We want you to apply it so you can elevate the success and impact of your learning business, as well as the success and impact of the…

Learning science uses evidence-based practice to support learning, and evaluation plays a critical role in providing that evidence by revealing its true impact. To help us unpack how evaluations should inform decisions about learning, we spoke with Dr. Robert Brinkerhoff and Dr. Daniela Schroeter, co-directors of the Brinkerhoff Evaluation Institut…

Practice and feedback are essential to effective learning, yet all too often they aren’t given the time and attention they deserve by learning businesses. Practice and feedback are powerful tools for moving a learning experience away from pure theory and content and towards deeper learning and application in the real world. In this fifth episode in…

Both Ruth Colvin Clark and Myra Roldan are evidence-based learning designers who combine a nuanced understanding of learning theory with years of hands-on experience developing solutions. Ruth is principal and president of Clark Training & Consulting and has spent her career as an instructional psychologist, working with diverse organizations. She’…

Learner needs are important—but, in the context of learning businesses, learner wants are just as important. Correctly satisfying these needs and wants requires figuring out what to offer—not by assuming or guessing what’s needed in the market but by following processes and systems that yield the data to prove it. In this third installment in our s…

Dr. Megan Sumeracki is an associate professor of psychology at Rhode Island College and co-founder of The Learning Scientists, a group of cognitive psychological scientists aiming to make scientific research on learning more accessible to students, teachers, and other educators. Her area of expertise is in human learning and memory, and in applying…

Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele For any organization offering learning, learning science is important. But it’s arguably even more important for learning businesses because of the far-reaching impact that can be achieved from effectively applying it. In this first installment in our “Learning Science for Learning Businesses” new seven-part series, we t…

Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele As we close out our seven-part series on the frontiers of learntech, we want to help you make sense of what the wide-ranging topics that emerged mean for the future of your learning business. Through the interviews with Ashish Rangnekar, Sam Sannandeji, Sae Schatz, and Donald Clark and our own reflective episodes, we’ve …

Ashish Rangnekar Ashish Rangnekar, a self-described lifelong learner, is co-founder and CEO of BenchPrep, where he’s focused on helping organizations digitally transform their learning offerings in the new digital world order. BenchPrep elevates and empowers learning businesses through their full-stack learning platform, aimed at delivering the bes…

Sam Sannandeji Recognized as a leader in extended reality (XR) learning, Sam Sannandeji is founder and CEO of Modest Tree, a Canadian company providing immersive software to empower non-technical people to create and maintain their own augmented reality and virtual reality training. He brings both a technical, hands-on expertise of how XR works wit…

Jeff Cobb & Celisa Steele This marks the halfway point in our series on the frontiers of learntech. Our hope is that you have already begun to consider the implications this explosion in learning technology will have on your learning business. And when it comes to implications we want to focus on some of the major themes that emerged from our earli…

Sae Schatz Throughout her career, Sae Schatz has been deeply immersed in the application and advancement of learntech. She currently serves as director of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative, a government program for science, technology, and policy related to distributed learning. She’s also an editor of and contributor to the e-book…

Donald Clark With an unmatched passion, knowledge, and optimism related to advances in learntech, Donald Clark has over three decades of experience at the intersection of technology and learning. He is CEO of WildFire, an AI content creation company, and a professor, researcher, speaker, and learntech blogger (he’s written a series of posts on 100 …