The Learning Hack podcast

John Helmer

What are the significant innovations shaping the future of learning? How is digital technology and scientific discovery changing the way we learn, train, teach and educate? Join John Helmer in conversation with the people who are visioning and actively creating that future. Published fortnightly (don't forget to subscribe!).

  1. Learning Technologies London 2026 Show Special

    1 DAY AGO

    Learning Technologies London 2026 Show Special

    Augmented Workforce, Learning at the Frontline and the Destiny of L&D. For a long stretch, you could skip Learning Technologies for a year and miss almost nothing. Not this year. AI has stopped being something L&D is piloting and started being something the field is rebuilding around — and the conversation at LT26 had a sharper edge for it. In this season finale, John brings back five voices from the show floor and the studio to map what's actually changing: the augmented workforce, the 80% of workers L&D has long ignored, the readiness question nobody wants a straight answer to, the maturing of content into context, and the generational lens of a 30 Under 30. The destiny of L&D, in other words — sketched from five different angles, while the ground is still moving. Guests, in running order Giovanni Giamminola — AI advisor and author of The Augmented Manager; opening keynote speaker at LT26. The augmented workforce thesis: humans plus AI plus AI agents, and the cognitive shift that demands of management. JD Dillon — Founder of LearnGeek; former CLO at Axonify; author of The Frontline Enablement Playbook (out the week the episode airs). On the 80% of the workforce L&D conferences forget about. Alicia Sanchez — Chief AI Officer at MPF Federal LLC; LT26 panellist on future-proofing L&D. On AI readiness — organisational and workforce — and the failure modes at both extremes. Cheryl Clemons — CEO and co-founder of StoryTagger. On the show's themes from a vendor's chair: content to context, evidencing impact, and whether storytelling has had its day as a learning modality. Matt Caldwell — People Experience and DEI at Axon; LT26 30 Under 30 cohort. The generational lens: privacy, data, bias, and what younger workers actually feel about giving themselves to AI tools. In this episode The augmented workforce — humans, AI, and AI agents working together, and what that means for management itself Why 80% of the global workforce is frontline or deskless, and almost no L&D budget reflects it The two-track AI readiness question — organisational and workforce — and the trap of "we're getting ready" as a permanent excuse Content to context: AI maturing the L&D conversation at both ends of the learning programme A generational read on AI, privacy and bias from inside the workforce that grew up with the technology The destiny of L&D, sketched from five angles while the ground is still moving Links and resources Giovanni Giamminola — The Augmented Manager: How AI Makes Management More Effective, Creative and Strategic (2025) JD Dillon — The Frontline Enablement Playbook (2026); LearnGeek; the enabled newsletter Alicia Sanchez — Why Readiness Is Shaping the Future of Work (Learning Guild) Cheryl Clemons — StoryTagger Matt Caldwell — Axon; LT26 30 Under 30 cohort (Nigel Paine)   CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com Coming next on this feed The Learning Hack returns for a new season in September. But the feed isn't going quiet over the summer — John launches a brand-new podcast on Tuesday 26 May 2026: The Tech Imaginarium — How Science Fiction Made the Modern World, co-hosted with writer and consultant Ezri Carlebach. Six episodes, weekly, into this same feed. More at learninghackpodcast.com/tech-imaginarium.

    2h 21m
  2. Ripping Scorm with Mike Alcock

    27 APR

    Ripping Scorm with Mike Alcock

    Your organisation has probably spent years building a learning library. Courses, videos, SCORM files, PDFs — hundreds of them, living in the LMS or scattered across SharePoint. You can enrol in them. You can sit through them. What you can't do is ask them a question and get an answer in seconds, at the moment you actually need one. The knowledge is there. It just isn't retrievable. That's the problem Mike Alcock, founder of Talvi, has set out to solve. In this episode, Mike takes John through how Talvi works. They also cover Mike's own unlikely route into learntech: a Civil Engineering degree at Sheffield, a detour through an insulation factory in Newcastle, and three successive software businesses each arriving ahead of the market. And they have a searching conversation about what tools like Talvi mean for the LMS and for the instructional designer — neither of whom emerges entirely unscathed. Is the technology now genuinely good enough to make learning in the flow of work a practical reality, rather than a conference agenda perennial?.   TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Start 02:14 - Intro 04:15 - What is Talvi for? 16:20 - What's the journey for a learning leader adopting Talvi? 20:47 - Mike's story: from civil engineering to learntech 30:19 - What will tools like Talvi do to the LMS? 39:50 - Explanation of terms: RAG, vector databases… 49:01 - End   CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

    50 min

  3. 13 APR

    Crossing the Divide with Lars Hyland

    What does it take to change how an industry works — and what happens when it doesn't change fast enough? Lars Hyland has been asking that question for thirty years, from the early days of interactive multimedia through nearly a decade leading EMEA for Totara Learning, and now at Enlytning, an AI-powered platform helping small businesses close the gap between policy and practice. In this conversation, John and Lars go back to the beginning — to the Epic days, when the e-learning model that now dominates the industry was taking shape around them — and trace a career-long argument about the one thing L&D keeps getting wrong.   They cover the founding of Retenda in 2010 — a learning reinforcement platform built on spaced repetition, a decade before the category existed — and why good timing isn't enough if the market isn't ready. They get into the Totara years, open source as a power relationship, and the honest tension in spending nearly a decade championing infrastructure you know is being misused. And they dig into AI: not the conference version, but the harder question of whether the industry is using it to fix a broken model or just to run the broken model faster. Lars's phrase for the latter — faster garbage in, garbage out — is both a provocation and a diagnosis.   Lars has a view on what he thinks good actually looks like. The question is whether the industry is willing to build it.   TIMESTAMPS 02:12 - Intro 05:05 - The formative years of elearning 17:59 - Why did he found Retenda? 21:35 - The Totara years 25:53 - What happens to open source tech when it goes commercial? 30:21 - Enlytning 40:26 - Compliance & HR 52:17 - Does the SaaS model still have a future? 57:51 - A way to cut down duplication in course catalogues? 01:08:51 - End   CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

    1hr 10min
  4. Roll Away the Stone with Bob Mosher

    23 MAR

    Roll Away the Stone with Bob Mosher

    What if the ideas that L&D has been nodding at for thirty years are finally about to become unavoidable? Bob Mosher has spent his career arguing that training and performance are not the same thing — and that building courses, however well-designed, only meets two of the five moments when people actually need to learn. The other three happen in the workflow, at the point of need. Most of the profession has agreed with him in theory. Rather fewer have changed what they do.   In this conversation, John and Bob catch up on how generative AI is changing that picture. Bob describes what AI is actually doing inside live workflow learning projects right now — including a headline figure on development time that stopped John in his tracks — and explains why the digital coach, not the course, is becoming the central deliverable. They also dig into the risks: what happens when AI accelerates the wrong thing, why L&D needs a seat at the IT table before it's too late, and what it means to be a performance architect rather than a training order-taker in an AI-assisted world.   The boulder, Bob says, has been going uphill for a long time. He thinks it's about to roll back. This episode is about what happens when it does.   TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Start 01:55 - Intro 04:27 - The five moments of need 08:14 - How has AI changed the conversation about workflow learning? 10:44 - How does AI save time? 24:07 - Risks to workflow learning from AI 31:42 - Has AI caused a rethink in practice? 40:19 - Workflow learning impact 53:38 - End   CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: https://x.com/johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com

    55 min
  5. Polynesian Navigators with Laura Overton and Michelle Ockers

    9 MAR

    Polynesian Navigators with Laura Overton and Michelle Ockers

    Does L&D know where it's going? What separates the L&D functions that genuinely move organisations forward from those that stay busy but never quite shift the dial? That question has driven Laura Overton's research for over two decades — and it sits at the heart of The L&D Leader, the new book she co-authored with Michelle Ockers. Their answer, drawn from more than ten thousand L&D professionals and two hundred learning leaders, points not to new tools or models, but to something older and harder to teach: the ability to read the organisation, sense its currents, and navigate your own way to somewhere that matters.   In this episode John talks with Laura and Michelle about the ideas behind the book, which opens with the extraordinary story of the ancient Polynesian navigators — people who crossed 2,500 miles of open ocean without a compass or a clock. They discuss the lasting legacy of the pandemic for L&D, why two decades of research on workplace learning strategy show surprisingly little change in how most functions operate, and the risk that chasing the latest tool or model is actually damaging L&D's ability to drive real value.   And then there's the question that sits underneath all the talk of L&D maturity and business alignment: when we talk about driving value through learning, who exactly is that value for?   TIMESTAMPS 00:02:44 - Intro 00:05:55 - What was the genesis of the book? 00:10:04 - The collaboration — how Laura and Michelle came to write together 00:13:29 - Legacy of the pandemic for L&D 00:16:10 - Was the pandemic a 'golden period' for L&D? 00:19:42 - What are they telling people in The L&D Leader? 00:30:00 - The Polynesian navigators — and what they mean for L&D leadership 00:39:09 - Is technology causing 'skill fade' in L&D? 00:41:42 - How has the L&D community changed over two decades? 00:50:55 - Who gets the value from workplace learning — the learner or the stakeholder? 01:02:58 - End   CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

    1hr 4min

  6. 19 FEB

    What's The Vibe, Don?

    The results of the 2026 Global Sentiment Survey are out — and the mood in workplace learning is uneasy. In this episode, John speaks with Donald H. Taylor about AI's "hangover moment," rising pressure on L&D teams, diverging regional trends, vendor anxiety, and what showing value really signals this year. Is this a temporary wobble — or a structural shift in what L&D is for?   Timestamps 00:00 - Start 02:21 - Intro 04:14 - Overview of this year's GSS 12:50 - Metaverse and virtual environments 21:59 - Opportunities and Challenges of AI 26:49 - More US respondents this year? 28:33 - Global differences in vibe? 33:46 - Personalisation and individualism 36:09 - New vs returning respondents 41:04 - The challenge of technology 52:47 - End     Connect with Learning Hack LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

    54 min

  7. 9 FEB

    LH #124 Learning Hive: What's the Buzz? with Kinga Petrovai

    What if the most powerful learning system in your organisation is already there — hidden in plain sight? In this episode, Dr Kinga Petrovai introduces The Learning Hive: a structured, research-informed model for peer learning that amplifies tacit knowledge, builds community, and accelerates learning transfer. Drawing on her academic background and real-world practice, Kinga explains why informal learning is often undervalued — and how deliberate design can make peer learning both human and effective.   Timestamps 00:02 – Introducing the Learning Hive 00:06 – What makes it true peer learning 00:12 – Origins in academic research 00:19 – Why "hives", not communities 00:25 – Systems thinking and learning design 00:31 – Peer learning, tacit knowledge, and AI 00:41 – Keeping the human at the heart of learning 00:50 – Karaoke closer     Links & Contact LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

    1hr 1min

  8. 26 JAN

    OEB Special: Learning and Humanity

    Voices from Online Educa Berlin 2025.  Recorded at Online Educa Berlin 2025, this episode brings together five perspectives on keeping the human at the centre of learning in the age of AI. From global learning trends and AI maturity, to human-centred education, the Global South, emerging talent, and the long view of digital learning, these conversations capture the diversity, tensions, and possibilities shaping education and workplace learning worldwide.     Guests Donald H. Taylor Margaret Korosec Ibraheem Adedayo Adediran Buena Jill Galleposo Paul Bacsich     Timestamps   00:02:19 – Intro: OEB 2025 00:02:52 – Donald H. Taylor: humanity, AI, and the learning peloton 00:26:48 – Margaret Korosec: human-centred AI and higher education 00:49:56 – Ibraheem Adedayo Adediran: AI, counselling, and the Global South 01:13:53 – Buena Jill Galleposo: 30 Under 30 and the future of learning 01:30:26 – Paul Bacsich: distance learning, perspective, and continuity 01:54:32 – End     Connect LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

    1hr 56min
See All (99)

Trailer

4.8
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

What are the significant innovations shaping the future of learning? How is digital technology and scientific discovery changing the way we learn, train, teach and educate? Join John Helmer in conversation with the people who are visioning and actively creating that future. Published fortnightly (don't forget to subscribe!).

Information

  • Creator
    John Helmer
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    99
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © John Helmer 2019
  • Show Website
    The Learning Hack podcast

You Might Also Like