“The only thing you need to feel extremely smart is a lack of curiosity. The perpetually curious will always think they’re dumb.” — Stuart McMillan

"The amateur does not know what to do. The master knows what not to do."

The Secret History of the Manicule, the Little Hand that’s Everywhere Ever wonder why your cursor turns into a pointing hand? 👉 That's a manicule -a 1000-year-old symbol that started as medieval margin doodles and became the universal "click here" icon. From monks to mouse cursors!

“Well begun is half done.” -Horace

How Becoming a Marketer Made Me a Better Instructional Designer Is instructional design just marketing with a different job title? We need to stop treating ID and marketing as separate disciplines. “A shipped instructional design work is just a hypothesis.” buff.ly/abObIqF #TrainLikeAMarketer

"In an uncertain world, the learners will win." - Amy Edmondson

"When things don't go well it's easy to wonder, "Why me?" It's easy to point fingers. It's easy to wallow in frustration or defeat. But it is also easy to ask, "What is this teaching me?" You can't remove frustrations from life, but you can always try to come out a little wiser on the other side."

“Sometimes doing nothing makes way for everything.” Hiral Nagda

Hit the Curiosity Sweet Spot to Speed Up Learning Curiosity isn’t decoration in learning—it’s a design lever. Start with a gap, a question, or a surprise, and learners lean in instead of tuning out. buff.ly/7B00zGM #TrainLikeAMarketer #InstructionaDesign #Attention

This video breaks down what it takes to become AI-native: breadcrumb your chats, use swipe files, plan tasks with AI in mind, and keep a tight prompt library. This is worth a watch:

Beyond Infographics: How to Use Nano Banana to *Actually* Support Learning When you pair AI tools like Google's Nano Banana with proven learning science, the result isn't just prettier content with fewer errors — it's better learning.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2025 – Results of Jane Hart's 19th Annual Survey

For f*cks sake. This is a perfect example of the "Expertise Trap" with AI. ChatGPT relies on popularity, not accuracy. Hence, the 🤬learning styles If you don't know the subject matter well enough to spot the BS, AI is dangerous. It presents myths as features. Stop trusting the output blindly.

As Ira Glass explains in this brilliant visualization by Daniel Sax, that feeling of disappointment isn't a failure—it's actually proof you have the taste required to eventually be great. Most people quit here. Don't.

Why Readability Is a Quiet Superpower in Learning – Train Like A Marketer

“The longer your memos, the less likely they are to be read by men who have the power to act on them.” David Ogilvy

“Without an understanding of human cognitive architecture, instruction is blind.” John Sweller

“The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.” —Marshall McLuhan

Billy Markus on human behavior: “People are not rational. They are rationalizing. Once you understand this simple fact, all the oddest human behavior will suddenly make way more sense.”

Temporary Chat FAQ | OpenAI Help Center

What L&D should (and shouldn't) be doing with AI - The Mind Tools L&D Podcast

AI Can Help Us Be More Human: The Director’s Job

10 Rules for Designing Effective Learning

FRAME™: A Practical Method for Integrating AI into L&D Workflows

“Creating content that nobody finds is an expensive mistake. If content is ‘king,’ distribution is the chariot.” — Jay Baer

Stop Overloading Your Learners’ Brains: A Practical Guide to Minimizing Extraneous Cognitive Load buff.ly/cOSHE0K

10 Rules for Designing Effective Learning

"Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone." – David Ogilvy

3 Ways To Make Your Audience Care About Your L&D Product

Today in Politics Chat, I talked about how power sloshes around when a president is checked out, and noted that right now unelected officials like Stephen Miller are trying to grab it. But instead, We the People can take it back and create a better nation.

“Honest feedback is a gift, even when it stings.” ​ — Brené Brown

The Birth of the H-Corp

Efficiency in words = music to my ears. Say less, mean more.

90+ case studies of different types of images and image edits you can create with nano banana, along with the exact prompts used. buff.ly/Cb7MJvj

Export #PowerPoint Presenter Notes to Word Doc – The Easy Way! I was today year's old when I learned that the BrightCarbon BrightSlide add-in has this feature thanks to Troy Chollar!

ChatGPT: the world's most influential teacher buff.ly/Uj341ik

The Paradox of Memory: Why Forgetting Makes Learning Possible buff.ly/xz8U43v

Which Multimedia Strategies Actually Improve Learning, and When? buff.ly/tpnfIOa

ChatGPT: the world's most influential teacher The TLDR is that learning is now a mainstream use case for ChatGPT; around 10.2% of all ChatGPT messages (that's ~2BN messages sent by over 7 million users per week) are requests for help with learning.

Get More Tips on Using Variety in Your AI Image Styles from Christy Tucker

If you have any conferences on your upcoming schedule, you'll want to check out this Conference Survival Kit from Jeremy Kaplan

Your learners deserve better than "eat your vegetables" training. They deserve learning that grabs their attention, speaks to their real challenges, and actually changes their behavior. #TrainLikeAMarketer

Boredom isn’t a bug—it’s a feature. Arthur Brooks explains why boredom unlocks creativity, activates a powerful brain network, and might even protect you from depression. Learn how the mind wanders—and why that’s a very good thing.

The Learning Hack podcast Lori Niles-Hoffman joins John Helmer to reveal the eight levers of learning transformation—why ecosystems beat platforms, how to break free from legacy mindsets, and what AI means for the future of L&D.https://buff.ly/iCMTt1d

It’s a great day for a great day!!!

Which Multimedia Strategies Actually Improve Learning, and When? A meta-analysis of Richard Mayer’s multimedia learning research shows that simple, well-designed visuals + text consistently outperform flashy tech like VR or gamified tools—especially for factual & transfer learning

Every trainer is a marketer who doesn’t know it yet. #TrainLikeAMarketer

Mandatory training doesn’t have to be soul-crushing. "Think Like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro" gives L&D pros the marketer’s toolkit—attention triggers, campaigns, personas—to turn boring-but-required into learning that sticks. buff.ly/6KNdhVI #TrainLikeAMarketer

Workflow Automation for Beginners (and Why L&D Pros Should Care) It 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.