Music
What Brian Eno knows about learning (that we've forgotten)
The ambient music pioneer's new theory about art as "adult play" reveals why case studies don't stick - and what does.
Workshop Design
Practical guides on workshop design, facilitation, and learning experience design. From session structure to engagement psychology - everything you need to run sessions that work.
I've spent over a decade designing workshops, training programs, and learning experiences for companies like EY, Publicis, WeTransfer and The New York Times. These posts cover everything I've learned about what actually makes people learn - from session design and facilitation to the psychology of engagement.
Whether you're running your first workshop or your five-hundredth, there's something here for you.
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The essential reads on workshop design
Best of...
I struggle horribly as a student. So I rebuilt the class. Here's how.
I had a horrible experience in a class recently. So I tried to figure out why - and what I could do to remedy it.
Best of...
Fitness and Education: from IRL to URL
8 lessons for the new era of learning
Give your social media timelines a cursory scroll and it probably won’
How-To Guides
How I do Morning Pages
The theme of my most recent newsletter was New Wine, Old Oak
[https://howardgray.substack.com/p/adventures-49-new-wine-old-oak];
encouraging readers
Resources
How to create an interactive workshop in Zoom
A step-by-step guide to setting up and running an interactive 90-minute workshop
in Zoom.
Note: This is part 1 of
Learning, Education & Growth
Why the future of learning is in the middle
Become a workshop creator and magical things can happen
The view was spectacular and the light poured in.
In a
How-To Guides
Step-by-step playbooks for better workshops
Creative Business
How to run a retrospective that actually works
Six months after a project you can barely remember what you learned. Here's a one-hour framework that fixes that - using conversation, transcription, and AI to capture the insights that usually vanish.
A.I.
Pascal's Wager for AI (and why you should bet on Scenario 2)
Dan Hockenmaier just cut through all the AI noise with a simple framework. Here's why his "scenario 2" bet makes perfect sense.
A.I.
The 80-hour reality check: What actually happens when you build with AI
Everyone's talking about AI magic, but what's the messy reality behind actually building something? Here's my 6-week journey through format fails, bad vibes coding, and the breakthrough moments that made it all worth it.
Creative Business
Two ways to define 'Good Enough'
Ever found yourself endlessly tweaking a project, chasing that elusive perfection? Yeah, me too. But here's a thought.
Future Of Work
Soft Skills are dead. Let’s talk Character Skills.
Forget buzzwords—how do we build environments that make developing Character skills exciting, impactful, and irresistible?
Learning Innovation
Why Learning Beats Education (and Why It Matters to You)
Education mandates; learning invites. Discover the key differences and why flipping education into learning unlocks serious growth and fun.
Resources
Tools and templates
Learning, Education & Growth
Worksheets and Worksheets
Dealing with the tension of using physical and digital assets in learning environments
Learning Innovation
Always do a run-through. No exceptions.
24 hours before our big workshop, we spotted a problem that could've killed the room. One case study had to go. Here's why the final check saved us from disaster.
Storytelling
Live at CMX Summit 2021
Here's the recording of the workshop I ran on storytelling at CMX Summit
[https://cmxhub.com/summit/] a
Learning Innovation
8 shifts in the future of learning & education
Over the past few weeks (ok, months) I’ve been working on a big article on how
fitness and learning
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Everything on workshop and learning design
Learning Innovation
KPIs: The slide snap
Here are couple of simple KPIs for all the teachers, facilitators, and keynote
speakers out there.
1. How many times
Learning Innovation
Are you running a meetup or a workshop?
The corridor of uncertainty, and not getting what you came for.
A few weeks ago I ran a pilot of
Learning Innovation
Back to business school: the new case study
Almost every form of school and education is getting questioned, queried,
unbundled, and rethought.
The same is happening in business
Coaching
Learning Styles: 3D Mapping a Conversation
One of the learnings from being a student again has been around my own learning style.
Other than a few
The Tension
Signposts and Surprises
One of the principles of adult education is that adult learners like to know
what’s going to be happening
Teaching
Cultivate your questions carefully
Last week I went on a training course. In these situations I tend to be either
very engaged or very
Learning Innovation
The two workshop danger zones
A few years ago, researchers from Ben Gurion and Columbia universities examined
over 1,000 decisions made by Israeli judges
Learning Innovation
Dress Up, Dress Down.
Since 2015 I’ve been a workshop facilitator and teacher serving all sorts of
groups: teenagers, graduates, mid level managers,
Entrepreneurial Endeavours
Gateway Drugs
Let’s start at happy hour, the mixer, the meetup.
You show up and contribute. Through a conversation, an idea,
Stage Left
Cross Training: The ChefTender and The KitBar
Last week I was facilitating an education program in Herndon, Virginia.
Herndon is an interesting little place – sat right next
Learning Innovation
The Kitchen
There’s a new kitchen opening up in town.
Some ingredients are grown in-house – simple but juicy tomatoes, colourful bell
Learning Innovation
3 flavours of workshop
The word ‘workshop’ can mean different things to different people.
Not remembering this can result in us being misunderstood. We
Mindsets & Growth
7 Lessons from Jim Collins on The Tim Ferriss Show
> “I’m not really a business author; I just happen to have used companies as the
method to study
Learning Innovation
80/20 in Group Dynamics
In a group of say a dozen people, you may notice 80% of the people speak. 20%
don’t.
In
Learning, Education & Growth
Your Dunbar number
Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom
one can maintain stable social
Learning Innovation
Winning at the great game: How to improve student results
The consistently excellent Farnam Street podcast recently featured a marathon
episode with the investor and educator Adam Robinson. It was
The Tension
Tension
It’s everywhere we look. It shows up in our environment, in politics, in our
work, in our interactions.
Dealing
Learning Innovation
The 2 most important slides for your workshop
They’re obvious, but often missed.
They’re not glamorous, entertaining, jaw-dropping, or photogenic.
But they make a lasting impact,