Many learning portfolios accumulate over time—a Webinar added here, a course there—until nobody’s quite sure which offerings are still earning their keep and whether, collectively, they reflect what the organization is trying to accomplish.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Lauren Brechner, founder of Ember Forge. Lauren shares how a portfolio audit can double as a pressure test of a learning business’s strategy, why she recommends focusing on a handful of flagship offerings rather than tackling an entire catalog at once, and how her background in marketing and digital experience design shapes the way she diagnoses what’s really behind an underperforming offering.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode488.

Courses and conferences are the backbone of many learning businesses’ portfolios, but for frontline and deskless workers—who make up roughly 80 percent of the global workforce—that model often doesn’t fit how the jobs actually get done.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with JD Dillon, founder of Every Shift Counts and author of The Frontline Enablement Playbook. JD explains why frontline and deskless workers need a different approach to learning—one built on reliable access to information and connection to peers rather than courses and events—and makes the case that what works for frontline learners tends to transfer to desk-based ones too, so there are lessons here even for learning businesses that don’t serve frontline workers directly today.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode487.

Many learning businesses are data-rich and insight-poor. It’s easy to track what’s easy to count—e-mail opens, registrations, completions—but harder to know if the products are doing what they were created to do.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele discuss what learning businesses should be measuring and why. They identify the most common metric traps—including surrogation and vanity metrics—and introduce a five-lens framework for thinking about which metrics matter at which stage of a product’s lifecycle: Validate, Reach & Convert, Engage, Retain & Reactivate, and Prove Impact. They also make the case that a metric without a target is just a number and that the most valuable feedback often comes not from dashboards but from conversations with learners and employers.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode486.

Many learning businesses evaluate their programs with data that only tells them what already happened. By the time a lagging indicator like a completion rate reveals that a learner is struggling, the window to help has often closed. The good news is that shifting to real-time and predictive analytics is readily achievable for most learning businesses.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Steven Khraiss, who heads data strategy and analytics at Holmes Corporation, about the ideas behind the e-book The Association Leader's Guide: How to Turn Learning Data into Personalized Member Experiences. Steven explains what an engagement score is and what it enables, why there’s no mention of AI in the e-book even though it’s powering a lot under the hood, and why he names culture, not technology, as the harder challenge in becoming data-driven. He also offers a practical first step for any learning business leader who wants to start but doesn't know how: Start with one question you wish you could answer.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode485.

The association sector is at a genuine inflection point because so much is changing at once. AI is reshaping entire professions. Federal funding is in flux. University pipelines are shrinking. And, in the middle of all of it, associations have an extraordinary opportunity to play a critical role in workforce development—if they’re willing to move fast enough.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with Artesha Moore, CEO of Association Forum, about what that opportunity looks like and what it will take to seize it. Artesha shares why mission-led thinking matters more than member surveys at this moment, how associations can close the visibility gap with employers, and why the leaders most likely to succeed will be the ones willing to imagine broadly and fail productively.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode484.

The credentialing landscape is changing fast. With 1.8 million credentials now in the U.S. marketplace and AI reshaping entire professions, organizations need to understand not just what credentials to offer but how the meaning of competence is evolving.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Denise Roosendaal, executive director of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (I.C.E.). Denise shares how assessment is moving from point-in-time tests toward ongoing, real-world evidence of competence, why the most important skills of the future may be the uniquely human ones, and what it takes to build a culture of foresight that helps credentialing bodies and learning businesses get ahead of what’s coming.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode483.

Many learning businesses market what they offer. The ones that get better results market what their learners need.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Amy Michalski and Shelly Strickland, who handle business development and marketing at the Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM). They share what moves the needle in marketing education offerings—from how they segment and nurture prospective learners to what they've learned about conversion, measurement, and the difference between reach and genuine engagement.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode482.

When everyone has access to the same powerful tools and technologies, polished content becomes table stakes, and learning businesses that compete primarily on content will find it increasingly hard to stand out. So what do you compete on instead?

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with Panos Siozos, CEO of LearnWorlds. They discuss why engagement remains the core unsolved challenge in digital learning, how we’re moving from a content economy to a trust economy, and what role AI should and shouldn’t play in a learning business. The conversation also covers the shift from courses to learning ecosystems and what business model innovation might look like in the years to come.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode481.

Learning is, at its root, a neurobiological process. But most workplace learning doesn’t recognize that reality.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Dr. Tessa Forshaw, cognitive scientist and faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studies how people work, learn, and create in the flow of their work. They discuss five principles grounded in learning science and what each means for how learning experiences should be designed. The conversation also explores the specific advantages external learning businesses have when applying these principles and why making space for metacognition may be the single most impactful thing you can do to improve your programs.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode480.

Many organizations say they are mission-driven. But mission drift is real and often happens because of the very structures and activities organizations have been told represent best practices. So what does it take to build an organization that stays true to what it set out to do?

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of the books The Lean Startup and Incorruptible. They discuss how Incorruptible builds on the lean startup thinking Eric is known for, why the for-profit versus nonprofit distinction matters less than most assume, and how a four-part governance framework—built around compliance, purpose, coherence, and integrity—can help any organization stay aligned with its mission.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode479.

It can be frustrating when your marketing doesn’t convert the way you expect. You put in the time to craft messages that you feel are clear, compelling, and persuasive—and still prospective learners don’t act. Part of the challenge is that people don’t make decisions the way we think they do.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Nancy Harhut, author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing. Listen in for practical takeaways in three areas: understanding what drives learner decisions, crafting messages that prompt action, and increasing engagement and follow-through once learners enroll.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode478.

Learning businesses are operating in an environment that feels more demanding, more uncertain, and harder to parse than ever. It’s natural to rely on familiar instincts—gather more data, add new offerings, work harder. But those instincts are sometimes counterproductive.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb explore what learning business leaders may need to stop doing. Against the backdrop of BANI, they examine common habits—like optimizing for efficiency and pursuing certainty—that can increase fragility and limit impact. They also offer a set of reflective questions to help leaders make more intentional decisions and create space for resilience, more nuanced judgment, and meaningful progress towards the most important goals.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode477.

Many learning businesses struggle with decisions about what to create, improve, and retire. With input coming from committees, volunteers, subject matter experts, and staff across the organization, it’s easy for the learning portfolio to become fragmented, duplicative, and difficult to manage in a coherent, sane way.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb explore what happens when responsibility for the learning portfolio is too dispersed and why that’s a business problem, not just an organizational nuisance. They discuss the difference between input and decision rights, outline the four steps in portfolio management, and share questions organizations can use to bring greater clarity—and sanity—to portfolio decision-making.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://leadinglearning.com/episode476.

Many associations struggle with pricing their education offerings. Should education be bundled into membership? Sold à la carte? Packaged as a subscription? And how can learning businesses set prices in a way that reflects the value they provide and supports financial sustainability?

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with Dr. Michael Carr-Tatonetti, founder and CEO of Pricing for Associations. They discuss value-based pricing, the growing use of bundling and subscription models, and why to test pricing before building products. The conversation also explores governance around pricing decisions and how associations can balance mission, market realities, and revenue when pricing education.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode475.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb wrap up their three-part look at reach, revenue, and impact by focusing on impact—often the least clearly defined and measured of the three pillars.

Celisa and Jeff explore how impact looks different depending on whose perspective you consider—that of learners, employers, and the learning business itself—and why measuring impact doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful. When learning businesses treat impact data as strategic intelligence, it can inform key decisions about what to offer, what to improve, and what to retire.

They also discuss how evidence of impact strengthens marketing, improves learning design, supports smarter portfolio decisions, and deepens business development conversations.

When reach, revenue, and impact reinforce one another, learning businesses are better positioned not just to grow but to thrive.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode474.

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb focus on revenue and why it—along with reach and impact—is fundamental to the success of any learning business.

If you’re unsure which offerings are truly pulling their weight, whether you’re leaving money on the table, or how to decide what to keep, cut, or redesign, this conversation can help. Celisa and Jeff explore why clarity about net revenue on a product-by-product basis is essential—not just for financial health but for strategic focus. Revenue data can reveal which offerings the market genuinely values, where your reach is strongest, and where impact is most likely being felt.

They also discuss how pricing, prioritization, and portfolio structure influence both performance and perception and why investing more intentionally in business development and relationship-building can unlock new growth opportunities.

If you want greater confidence in your revenue decisions and a clearer path to strengthening your learning portfolio, this episode offers practical strategic insight.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode473.

Reach, revenue, and impact are familiar concepts to long-time listeners of the Leading Learning Podcast. But they’re often treated as separate challenges. In this episode, co-hosts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb revisit these three pillars and explore why they need to be approached as a connected system rather than isolated priorities.

Drawing on recent research, client experience, and conversations with learning leaders, Celisa and Jeff discuss why earning attention has become harder, why revenue pressures are intensifying, and why impact remains difficult for many organizations to measure and articulate. They examine common missteps and highlight how clearer portfolio decisions, better use of data, and stronger business development practices can help learning businesses move forward.

If you’re thinking about how to grow reach, sustain revenue, and demonstrate meaningful impact—without treating them as competing goals—this episode offers a strategic lens.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode472.

Most learning businesses are rich in content, but far fewer are intentional about which pieces of content sparks collective learning?

In this episode, Leading Learning Podcast co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele explore the concept of social learning objects: shared artifacts that anchor attention, create common language, and turn individual consumption into collective learning. Social learning objects can take many forms—frameworks, visuals, podcasts, standards, events—but what matters is that they’re generative rather than inert.

Jeff and Celisa discuss what makes a social learning object effective, why simplicity beats complexity, and how questions, visuals, and intentional design can dramatically increase learning impact. They also consider what social learning objects make possible for groups, communities, and learning businesses operating in increasingly uncertain environments.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode471.

Many learning businesses know they need to innovate, but moving faster and experimenting can run headlong into culture and the fear of being wrong. This episode of the Leading Learning Podcast looks at why that happens and what to do about it.

Elizabeth Engel and Jamie Notter, co-authors of the white paper “Lean at Ten: Culture Eats Methodology for Lunch,” join co-host Celisa Steele to discuss the core elements of lean startup, the cultural patterns that can undermine using the methodology, and how pairing lean startup with design thinking can help organizations build empathy, surface assumptions, and learn more effectively.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode470.

Strategy is about making choices—where to focus, what to invest in, and what to stop doing. Data can help bring clarity to those decisions, especially in a complex and competitive environment.

In this episode, Leading Learning Podcast co-hosts Celisa Steele and Jeff Cobb share insights from a survey of learning businesses to help you think about strategy in 2026. They explore top strategic goals and drivers, key trends and challenges shaping learning businesses, and three themes that emerge from the data: the tension between mission and margin, alignment with credibility and areas of authority, and a growing confidence gap around achieving both strategic goals and revenue expectations.

Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode469.