AI can draw, but it can't design

Rafi Inez of www.homedesignacademy.com is offering interesting reflections on her use of AI for home design -- rather, the idea that AI can DRAW, but humans DESIGN, and your own human expertise is brought to bear on the reality. Sound familiar?

"So the time has come, AI can actually draw a floor plan.

But it definitely still can’t design one, and I have a feeling it won’t be able to for a while. I had this project where a builder needed a quick rework of a second floor on a log cabin, and the catch was that none of the exterior walls could change, so every single window placement had to stay exactly where it was, but I had free rein with the interior walls and he was fine with me moving plumbing or whatever I needed. So I gave the same exact problem to AI to see what it would do, because I’ve been playing with it a lot lately and it really is getting good so fast at the modeling and the research and giving commentary. But what I realized is that it still can’t layer all the things at once, the constraints and the window placements and the flow and all the little creative decisions that you learn to see after enough practice, and that’s the part that makes a design actually work.

It’s honestly still funny to me when AI takes just as long as I would and then hands me something I can’t even use. But that’s exactly why this matters, because as AI keeps getting better and better, the thing that sets you apart is your own expertise, and you have to be someone who can take a project to this level and catch the things AI never will."

Check out her reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeOx9ejODqc/

AI can read sentiment. But can it understand organizational culture?

 AI can read sentiment. But can it understand organizational culture?

I think that distinction matters a lot when we talk about AI creating workplace training. Sure, feed it enough survey comments, employee feedback, emails, discussion posts, and other organizational data, and it can identify patterns to beat the band. It can tell us that people are frustrated with a new system, employees don't feel supported, or managers are worried about AI. It can summarize those signals and make useful inferences from them.

But culture is something different*. It's what people know about how things really work around here and who really has influence, regardless of the org chart. It's what you can safely say in a meeting and what really gets rewarded. Culture includes the stories people tell about a past technology rollout, and it knows which groups are quietly resisting an initiative and why.

Often all that is more tacit than explicit. Networks, communities of practice, showing your work, and culture are the places where people exchange information, develop expertise, build trust, negotiate meaning, and figure out how work gets done. The elements of social infrastructure create context, where people interpret what's happening and decide what to do about it.

AI can analyze some of what goes on in the social infrastructure, and can even produce a remarkably convincing description of an organization's culture. But a description of culture isn't necessarily an understanding of culture. Really: Go look at the sacred story told by your organization's marketing materials, and compare it to what you know to be reality. (I am reminded of the organizations that solicit "innovative, out-of-the-box thinkers", then hire people who've never been in trouble.)

My graduate work involved a deep dive into first- and second-order barriers. While AI might tell you that staff need more help with "understanding" AI and cranks out more "how to use AI courses", culture knows that there are other issues: employees don't trust leadership because of previous technology initiatives; managers say they support experimentation but punish mistakes; people have learned that admitting they don't understand something is career-limiting. Or maybe the workers have learned to just wait the thing out until the next initiative comes along.

These aren't "content" problems, but social and organizational ones.
That's why I don't think the future of L&D is just about getting better at prompting AI to create courses. The more interesting work may be helping organizations understand the human and social conditions that determine whether those courses will actually help with performance problems.

L&D's value isn't just in producing learning content; it's in helping organizations interpret, connect, and act within the social infrastructure of work.

*Some material from Bozarth, J. "Show Your Work". Wiley/ATD

ROI: The Square Root of Rainbows

 

 I have again been subjected to an ad for a product touting "ROI". I always enjoy when these things wander off into magical promises involving imaginary numbers, making the organizational value of a product/intervention/innovation/course/trained unicorn look more causally attributable, measurable, and monetizable than it really is.

What's the ROI of trust?
What's the ROI of the conversation that prevents a terrible decision?
What's the ROI of the person who knows exactly who to ask?
What's the ROI of a culture where people share what they know instead of hoarding it?

Why do we pretend those things don't have economic consequences?

Is a dollar figure always the most useful way to understand them?

What will happen to our notions of "ROI" as we stop counting widgets and look for ways of better evaluating social, adaptive, and distributed work, and understanding the complexity of systems?

Flashback: David Ferguson & I developed this handy calculator some years back. I stand by it, but he made me take out the unicorns.

Ebola! An ethical dilemma -- and extending the reach of L&D

 About ways to extend the reach of L&D, a true-life ethical dilemma, and when AI can be a help -- or maybe not.

Spoiler: We brought them home and all of them survived.

[PS: I meant to say "NOT a black & white issue".]

hashtag#LandD hashtag#ID hashtag#ReflectivePractice hashtag#SYW hashtag#ShowYourWork hashtag#WOL

Video: Woman wearing blue floral shirt, who has reddish hair and glasses, seated in office.

https://youtu.be/yr5cm_UkeYQ

The Green Milk Incident: When AI Lacks Context

Subject: Food-tech firm NotCo and its AI system "Giuseppe", working on development of plant-based milk.

"The milk came out green. Giuseppe had detected properties in dill that appeared useful in the data, but it missed something obvious to anyone standing in NotCo’s kitchen: whatever else milk may be, people do not expect it to be green. The failure made it obvious to everyone involved that—despite having access to large amounts of data—Giuseppe had a serious lack of context.

The green milk vividly illustrates the different nature of machine knowledge. Giuseppe excels at detecting potentially useful relationships among ingredients and molecular compounds. But it cannot taste the product, smell it, or understand everything people expect from a glass of milk. In contrast, chefs can recognize if a prototype is too grassy, too thin, too sweet, or simply wrong. They can appreciate color, aroma, mouthfeel, aftertaste, stability, and performance under heat. Much of this knowledge has been acquired through experience and is difficult to reduce to rules."

 From: Chatterji, A., Rock, D., & Talamàs, E. (2026). "The Human-Machine Knowledge Spiral." Working paper. arXiv:2606.29227. https://lnkd.in/g7rnGVFQ (Preprint)

The Dark Side of Community

 We talk a lot about the benefits of community at work.

Communities of practice. Networks. Peer learning. Knowledge sharing.
Many of those conversations start with a pretty optimistic assumption:
People want to connect, participate, share, and help each other, and
usually they do.

But here's the thing I've learned from decades spent looking closely at communities:

Community isn't automatically a good thing.

https://youtu.be/BQMyHBQZhdI

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".