Live Learning & Media

06/18/2026

Confidence surveys are not perfect.

Some people may rush through them. Some people may not answer honestly. Some people may not complete them at all.

But I think we sometimes use those limitations as an excuse to avoid trying anything new.

In learning and development, we often say we want better data, better follow-up, and better insight into whether people feel prepared to apply what they learned. But when someone suggests a practical way to start collecting that signal, the first response is often why it will not work.

I get the concerns. Confidence is not competence. A self-rating does not prove someone can perform a skill. But when confidence surveys are written well, tied to specific behaviors, and connected to action planning or coaching conversations, they can become more than another survey.

They can become a starting point.

A way for learners to reflect.

A way for managers to have better development conversations.

A way for L&D teams to identify patterns where support may be needed.

The goal is not to pretend the data is perfect. The goal is to stop accepting silence as the only option.

My take is simple: do not worship the data, and do not fear the imperfections. Build the best mechanism you can, connect it to action, and keep improving it.

Because the future of learning will not belong to the people who waited for perfect data. It will belong to the people who were brave enough to create better signals where silence used to be.

Confidence surveys are not perfect, but that does not mean they are useless. In this post, I share how I used a carefully designed confidence survey inside a Supervisor eLearning program to gather better development signals, support action planning, and create a path for coaching conversations and 9...

05/10/2026

Passing along this promo video I made for Hagerstown Community College’s Heavy Equipment Operator program.

I teach/help out with the program, and it’s a great hands-on way for people to get introduced to the heavy equipment industry, learn real skills, and see if it’s a path they want to pursue.

Worth checking out or sharing with anyone who may be interested.

Ready for a better office view?Hagerstown Community College’s Heavy Equipment Operator Introduction and Skills programs give students a hands-on look at the ...

05/01/2026

I was talking with some trade school students recently, and it hit me pretty hard.

A lot of people trying to apply for jobs don’t have Microsoft Word.

They don’t use ChatGPT, Gemini, Canva, or the latest tools everyone keeps talking about.

They don’t want to pay for a resume builder.

And honestly, they shouldn’t have to.

Because here’s the trap:

A lot of “free” resume tools let you build the whole thing, enter your information, spend your time, and get excited…

Then the second you try to download it?

Paywall.

That may not feel like a big deal if you have a laptop, Microsoft 365, AI tools, subscriptions, and a polished LinkedIn profile.

But for someone who only needs a simple resume to apply for a job?

That is a barrier.

High school students applying for their first job.

Trade school students trying to get into the field.

College students without extra money to spend.

Adults changing careers.

Blue-collar workers with the skills, work ethic, and drive, but no easy way to build a clean resume.

So I built something for them.

It’s called Resumazer.

A simple, free resume-building tool for people who just need to get the job done.

No hidden fees.

No “free until download.”

No copy-and-paste nightmare.

No subscription.

You type in your information, use AI polish to clean it up, and download a PDF resume you can actually use.

That’s it.

It’s not meant to replace a professional resume writer.

It’s meant to remove one frustrating barrier for someone trying to move forward.

Sometimes innovation doesn’t need to be flashy.

Sometimes it just needs to help somebody take the next step.

If you know a student, job seeker, tradesperson, career changer, instructor, workforce program, or anyone who could use a simple free resume tool, please pass it along.

Link in the comments.

Resumazers!!!! Jobs up!! 😆



https://resumazer.livelearningandmedia.com/

04/30/2026

The workplace is teaching people every day.

Not just through courses.

Through what leaders tolerate.

Through what gets rewarded.

Through what gets ignored.

Through the shortcuts people watch others take.

Through the way mistakes are handled.

Through the difference between what gets said in training and what actually happens when pressure hits.

This is why Albert Bandura’s work on observational learning has always made sense to me.

People learn by watching.

And in many workplaces, they start learning long before the training ever begins.

That should challenge us a little.

Because if the course says one thing, but the culture models another, culture usually wins.

Maybe the better question is not always, “What training do people need?”

Maybe it is:

“What are people already learning by watching us?”

It’s been a while, but lately I’ve been thinking about how people really learn at work. Before a course ever launches, employees are already watching leaders, peers, pressure, shortcuts, and consequences. This post explores why the workplace is always teaching, and whether it is teaching the rig...

04/01/2026

Too much workplace training still starts in the wrong place.

The conversation kicks off with, “What training do we need?” when the better question is, “What is actually slowing performance down?”

That distinction matters more than a lot of organizations realize.

Because sometimes the issue is not capability at all. Sometimes it is a broken process. Too many handoffs. Too much meeting time. Clunky systems. Constant rework. Poor visibility. Buried knowledge. Friction everywhere. People are exhausted, calendars are full, and the business keeps calling it a training problem because training is the most familiar answer.

I think L&D has to push past that.

Our value cannot just be in building courses faster or making content look better. It has to be in helping the business find the real bottlenecks, understand the as-is, and align the right solution to the right problem.

Sometimes that solution is training.

Sometimes it is a tool, a workflow fix, a decision aid, an automation, a better support resource, or a technology that sits completely outside the normal learning stack.

That is the shift.

Less course-first thinking. More process awareness. More operational curiosity. More focus on what is draining time, energy, clarity, and performance.

The future of L&D does not belong to the teams that build the most training.

It belongs to the ones that solve the right problems.

Check out my latest blog post!

What is one “training problem” you have seen that really turned out to be something else?

Workplace learning has spent too long defaulting to courses when the real problem often lives somewhere else. This post explores why L&D needs to move beyond a training-first mindset and start identifying bottlenecks, reducing friction, and using the right tools, technologies, and performance-focuse...