Stay Balanced!

 Egad - another friend joined the "Women With Broken Wrists" club yesterday. Since there was interest in my earlier post about the balance class I took I thought I'd offer a few takeaways.

-Change up while walking: Do some figure 8s and zigzags, practice hard sudden stops, walk backward a few feet.
-Practice tandem standing (feet heel to toe) and standing on one leg. Look in other directions, close your eyes, etc. The biggest help I found with this was practicing on a thick (2") stability pad like they use in yoga and PT.
-The Tai Chi session recommended beginner videos by Dr. Lam (below).
-The instructor who led the practice in falling and getting up session (getting up is not easy if you've a broken wrist...) recommended the "Bob and Brad" videos below.

Dr Lam Tai Chi for Beginners Bob & Brad: How to Fall Bob & Brad: Getting Up Off the Floor

https://unsplash.com/photos/photo-of-silhouette-photo-of-man-standing-on-rock-U3C79SeHa7k?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Do you even know what help you need?

Something different: I have been in conversation lately with several friends who are struggling with living their own lives and doing their own jobs while trying to manage medical situations for their aging parents. Nearly everything takes a lot of time, from sitting in waiting rooms to being on hold with insurance companies.

I had a plate full of this some years back when my husband had very complex surgery and needed a lot of aftercare while I was still working full-time. Honestly, I felt like I was drowning. IYKYK.

Did you know you can hire a part-time helper with the job title “Medical Manager” (edit: aka "patient advocate"). Changed our lives. She excelled at all the things I found infuriating and exhausting: wrangling with insurance companies, schedulers at doctors’ offices, pharmacies, etc., and even sometimes taking him to appointments or being the required driver available to take him home after procedures. Charged by the hour and she wasn’t even very expensive. Worth every penny. There might even be some insurance coverage for that.

Hope that helps.

Women Talking About Informal Learning

 Fun with Nahdia Khan on the latest "Women Talking About Learning" podcast.

"Discover the transformative power of informal learning in the workplace! Join Jane Bozarth and Nahdia Khan as they chat about how informal learning can shape professional development. Don't miss this insightful episode! Discover the transformative power of informal learning in the workplace! Join Jane Bozarth and Nahdia Khan as they chat about how informal learning can shape professional development. Don't miss this insightful episode!" 

"The Informal Learning One"

About electricity-- I mean, AI

 

Using Your Business Levers (ATD Blog Post)

So much of the talk around L&D focuses on things that the an indivdual practitioner just doesn't control: C-Suite strategy, change initiatives, budget, staffing, etc. But we do have areas where we can exert a lot of influence. Use your levers! 

Copyright(C)2000-2006 Adobe Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved

https://www.td.org/content/atd-blog/show-your-value-by-working-your-business-levers

Mapping Discussion Flow Tool

 Explainer: "Mapping Discussion Flow".

Great feedback for new (and experienced) presenters, trainers, and facilitators.

This provides an interesting snapshot of a segment of a learning experience and opens the door for conversation about developing facilitation skills. Participants in my train-the-trainer classes loved this; it's easy to learn to do and they often volunteered to map each other in the leadup to their final teachbacks.

Also: A fabulous artifact for showing & sharing your work. #syw

Captioned video: https://youtu.be/t98BMrWCOLA 

Written directions available at https://lnkd.in/eVw5mVwg

What does your organization notice?

 I was in a conversation yesterday about how individual practitioners can show expertise.

What do people pay you for that never appears in your job description? (And what did I miss?)

Which of these does your organization notice?

Relationships
Network awareness
Political navigation
Reading the room
Coaching
Diagnosing root causes
Building trust
Connecting people
Facilitating difficult conversations
Recognizing patterns
Knowing when not to create training

LearningNow TV features "Adaptive Enterprise Framework"

 
Check Conversation about the Adaptive Enterprise Framework on LearningNow TV! 

Fun conversation with Kate Graham; Episode June 25, 2028. PDF available for download at the same link.  

https://learningnow.tv/watch/programme-145---25-june-2026

Image: Jane Bozarth speaking.

Fun New "Show Your Work: Podcast Series with Andrew Jacobs

 "Women Talking About Learning" podcaster Andrew Jacobs and I are currently recording a fun 6-episode series called "Show Your Work", taking on live unplanned conversations about informal learning, social learning, problems with evaluation, working effectively with others who disregard evidence, and Like That.

Schedule TBA, but sometime soon. 

Image: banner ad, "Bozarth & Jacobs: Show Your Work".

Notes on the Canadian eLearning Conference 2026

 Notes on the fun and inspiring Canadian eLearning Conference, with shoutouts to some great participants.

About Vanity Metrics...

 Recent news about Amazon shutting down a token AI Leaderboard ("don't use AI just to use AI") reminds me of this old chart from Jennifer Laycock, formerly of Search Engine Guide.

Vanity metrics don't necessarily = desirable outcomes.

 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬: 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤

A casualty of the shift to remote and hybrid work was the removal of many natural collision spaces. It's less common now to see places workers used to just run into each other, as with the literal water cooler, break room, or even stairwell. These moments helped people see what was happening elsewhere, meet new colleagues, discover unexpected expertise, and build a sense of “we’re in this together.” Such "collisions" can go a long way toward providing a psychologically safe environment, let people connect as peers, and help support a healthy culture.

While onsite workers may have now have access to high-traffic spaces intentionally designed to break down silos and encourage casual interaction -- like coffee bars or lounge areas with whiteboards -- distributed workers, don't encounter those collisions, and most digital environments don’t replace them.

𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬:
Think about virtual spaces that mimic the casual interaction of the office,such as Slack channels for non-work topics (e.g., pets, hobbies), virtual coffee chats, or digital, interest-based groups.

Create or enhance these opportunities to support performance and the work culture and to alleviate the feelings of disconnection experienced by many remote workers.

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐀𝐈 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮:
AI can help compensate for the absence of natural collision spaces. It can:
--suggest relevant conversations or communities based on work and interests
--surface shared challenges, complementary skills, or overlapping goals
--summarize meetings and threads so people can step into ongoing conversations
--create continuity across asynchronous exchanges
--create dynamic "office maps" where presence signals invite drop-ins
--house persistent digital whiteboards that connect ideas across sessions and teams
--summarize asynchronous conversations so people can more comfortably jump in mid-conversation

It's important to understand that this is not some sort of scheduled collaboration but, rather, a matter of restoring the conditions for more serendipitous, spontaneous connection, as with that water cooler. Giving space and places for safe opt-in, asynchronous (across time zones) silo-spanning connection that requires little activation/energy can help workers feel supported as well as provide catalysts for ideas and innovation, increase tacit knowledge sharing, and provide a peripheral awareness of sharing a physical space within the organization.

Extra credit: If you're interested in a more academic view, read up on "relational density" and its relationship to trust.

What ideas do you have for creating or supporting collision spaces for your remote and hybrid workers? What are you seeing work to create these kinds of collisions in distributed teams?

 What do humans bring? (6)

Social infrastructure to continuous learning to human meaning-making: AI is an AMPLIFIER, not a driver, of these things. It can find patterns, uncover redundancies, and speed up access, output, and experimentation.

But in many organizations it can't do that without the humans.

https://youtu.be/YtUw6lAZ9Xg

 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠?(5) 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠-𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠

I posted about this on Friday. Social infrastructure and continuous learning are brought to bear in human meaning-making: How people interpret, question, and apply what they know. This demands contextual, rather than procedural, decision-making, involves weighing competing "goods" (like efficiency vs. safety) rather than a clear right or wrong, and often requires social awareness. And: it's frequently invisible work, where decisions are hard to see but impact can be huge.

Consider: If these decisions are left to AI, who is accountable if something goes wrong? AI will not be fined, fired, go to jail, feel guilt, or stay up at night worrying.

Here are some examples of human meaning-making. What others can you think of?

𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐞𝐭𝐲
When to shut down operations due to risk vs. continue under pressure to meet deadlines
Interpreting near-misses: anomaly or warning sign?
Adapting rules to real-world conditions (weather, fatigue, equipment variability)
Reporting safety issues that could delay projects or cost jobs
Enforcing rules consistently vs. making exceptions for experienced workers
Balancing productivity metrics with human well-being
Recognizing when a “compliant” situation is still unsafe

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
Adjusting plans when site conditions don’t match designs
Deciding whether to proceed with imperfect materials or wait (cost vs. quality)
Pressure to cut corners vs. long-term structural integrity
Navigating “this is how we’ve always done it” vs. safer/better methods
Making tradeoffs between craftsmanship and speed

𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞
Choosing between treatment options with different risks
Prioritizing patients when resources are limited
Using AI recommendations vs. overriding them
Managing uncertainty—when evidence is inconclusive
Balancing protocol adherence with individualized care
Communicating difficult news with empathy

𝐋&𝐃
Choosing when to push standardized training vs. allowing informal/social learning to emerge
Interpreting incomplete data from learning analytics (for example: low completion ≠ low capability)
Using AI to personalize learning vs. protecting employee privacy
Deciding if a “good enough” solution is acceptable under time pressure

What Do Humans Bring? (4): Human Meaning-Making

I submit that the next layer of "what do humans bring to organizations?" is meaning-making. What do they do with what happens in the social infrastructure and continuous learning layers?

This includes things like:
How people interpret, question, and decide
How they determine what matters, what to trust, and what to act on
Getting beyond information and "content" to judgment, context, and ethics shaping outcomes

(Note that the word "layer" is intentional. I am not thinking of a hierarchy, steps, or stack, but a dynamic, interdependent, reinforcing system. I am trying, in part, to get beyond the ages-old problem of "learning" being viewed as an event.)