At my son’s soccer game over the weekend, I was talking with another dad. He’s working on an app that will make sure you don’t miss a concert by your favorite artist simply because you didn’t know they were coming to town. I love this concept because there have been plenty of times that I’ve scrolled through Facebook to find my friends at a concert venue, watching a show that I didn’t even know was coming to town.
While it’s not an app, I’d like to take a little time right now to try to offer the same type of service for the field of learning and development. There are a lot of really smart and/or creative people doing some fascinating stuff, but unless you know where to look, you may never be exposed to these folks.
Here’s a list of 12 people that you might want to begin following on LinkedIn. They post some very smart, creative things that could help inform you, inspire you or otherwise help bring your L&D game to the next level.
Mike Taylor: Knower of All Things Learning and Development
Karl Kapp: A resource for anything gamification-related
Robyn Defelice: Lots of investigation into how much time it actually takes to develop training
Alexander Salas: Helping instructional designers go beyond what they thought was possible
Megan Torrance: Go-to person for agile for instructional design as well as xAPI
Ashley Chiasson: So many tutorials and samples from Articulate Storyline
Myra Roldan: Always tinkering with new technologies and how they can be brought into learning initiatives
Will Thalheimer: Breaking down hyper-nerdy academic studies and research into plain English
Betty Dannewitz: She podcasts but I’m thinking her true passion is augmented reality
Josh Bersin: While he covers research and trends across HR and talent management, his sweet spot is the L&D market
Cara North: A rising star in the world of L&D as well as someone who posts available L&D roles pretty much every day of the week
Kassy Laborie: She’s literally written the book(s) on virtual training design
There are many, many more accomplished people in the field. People with books. People who do amazing things. But I’ve listed 11 people who offer valuable posts and content regularly on LinkedIn and who I wholeheartedly recommend following if you want to be sure you’re not missing out on information, trends, research, job postings or best practices.