Heat Wave
Things in L&D are heating up!
Hello friends,
Welcome to June!
I want to start off this month’s newsletter by saying a big congratulations to Muhammad Abid, who won last month’s design challenge I hosted with my pals over at Mindsmith. You can view his winning entry here.
And in case you missed the webinar I did last month with iSpring on working with stakeholders and SMEs, you can view the recording here (passcode is =V*9RJW0).
Gut Check
I decided to theme this month’s issue around heat — partially because it’s finally getting warm enough in Ohio to use my window AC unit and partly because I’ve noticed that tensions seem a little high in L&D lately. I know that for myself and the other neurodivergent folks I’ve spoken to recently, our strong sense of justice has been rocked by the destabilization of processes and protections that used to help people.
It seems hatred is both emboldened and encouraged right now, and I find that these things have a way of trickling down to our industry. I’ve seen friends, professionals, and content creators I admire being personally attacked based on the most ridiculous things lately.
It’s always been hard for me to step in when those things happen because I think “People aren’t going to think you’re kind if you do xyz.” I also started to earn a bit of a reputation for “Heidi’s Hot Takes,” and I felt like people would start seeing me as the L&D Regina George.
But as more and more people said, “you’re saying out loud what I’ve been thinking” and thanking me for having the courage to do so, I realized something. Kindness doesn’t mean that you’re always nice. In fact, being nice 100% of the time is unkind in many ways — especially when you spare someone the truth because of their feelings.
Sometimes kindness means stepping in and correcting someone. Calling out a grifter who is misleading newbies in the industry. Defending your friend on Reddit against the trolls. The kindest thing I can do right now is recognize where I have power and privilege. I live in a lot of liminal spaces, so I move freely and witness things that others aren’t fortunate enough to see to have the full picture.
That said, I think it’s our duty as people with followings and influence to call people to accountability — when they’re wrong about our friends and when they’re wrong about the industry. Because if we don’t, we’re allowing those negative and false messages to spread, and it’s not very kind to let newcomers think this is who we are and all we do.
So if that means I have to be known as Heidi Hot Take, I’m reminded of what someone said to me recently about my boldness and blunt approach: “This is how change begins.”
One Useful Thing
My L&D bff, Tim Slade, did a design challenge in his community last month highlighting Claude Design. If you visit the site and scroll down, you can see not only the challenge details but the winner, highlighted submissions, and a recap. I spoke to Tim directly about the challenge, and he said he was blown away by some of the entries and specifically about how different each looked from the other.
I think this is an important signal when it’s coming from someone, like Tim, who has been skeptical about AI. I think it’s important for us to hold space for the complex notion that two things can be true at the same time
AI has some very poor use cases and some serious security and ethical concerns, especially when wielded by those who are ignorant to these things.
AI has some amazing capabilities and can help people create some amazing things if they already have the skills necessary.
Tim’s challenge and the subsequent posts have led to a lot of interesting conversations… including on Reddit. I think the personal attacks on Tim have been really telling. People are afraid, and for good reason.
We see these posts that say “AI won’t take your job, someone using AI will.” But I don’t even think that’s the full picture. I think AI is coming for a very particular kind of L&D role.
The L&D professionals who built their career around developing using only one tool — who skipped cognition, instructional design, facilitation, and performance skills and focused on javascript and more clicks — were never learning professionals. They were content factories, and AI can do that just fine.
If you find yourself feeling defensive about all this, then I’m probably talking to you. But it’s something you can fix — you just have to be willing to upskill. And honestly, we should all be doing that as L&D professionals anyway, right? Instead of spending your energy fighting to keep things status quo, I invite you to shift it toward being open to new possibilities.
Inside the Revolution
After being rejected yet again for a conference this year — one I thought I had a pretty good shot of speaking at, I was feeling petty. “What if I just got a bunch of people together who have also had their talks rejected, and we did our OWN conference?” That would stick it to them.
I laughed about it and shared the idea with a couple friends, and they were like “I think you’re on to something though.”
So, I decided to put out the feelers and see if this was something that resonated with others in L&D. And guess what? Oh, it resonated. Not just with the people I expected… with some people that I consider the OGs of our field too!
So, I’m pleased to announce that the Learning Rejects Conference will be taking place virtually in October. It’s not going to be one of those marathon conferences, where we throw lectures at you for 3 days and expect you to walk away successful. We’ll host live events on Fridays, and we’ll have spaces to learn and apply the lessons in between.
If you want to get involved, here’s a little sample of what I’m looking for:
Speakers: Proposals will be accepted until July 15. One of the requirements is that your proposal needs to be rejected from another conference. You can view the rest of the requirements and apply to speak here.
Volunteers: I need YOUR help to put this on because I promise it’s going to be big. Bigger than I can handle myself. I also have a form for anyone willing to help out with things from producing and moderating to simply promoting it to your network.
Sponsors: There are a lot of talented companies and cool products out there that can’t compete on the expo stage because they don’t have the funds. Although this will be a no sales zone, we will be working with sponsors whose names will be included in marketing materials so that attendees can see a trusted list of folks to work with for their next vendors.
Just based on the more than 150 of you who have already reached out and offered to help me, I couldn’t be prouder to be a Learning Reject. I think this is going to be an amazing and huge event that people will still be talking about at DevLearn (LOL). I hope you’ll join me!
Take With You
I leave you with a couple of reflection questions for this month:
Where in your work acould you afford to heat things up — maybe say something out of kindness instead of staying silent to be nice?
What’s one thing in L&D that you defended maybe a little too long? How can you make sure that you don’t hold on to the past and stay curious next time?
Heidi 🔥☀️