#IDIODC Instructional Designers In Offices Drinking Coffee

Content creation has been L&D's comfort zone for years. But the role is shifting fast. Lavinia Mehedintu joins IDIODC to share what Offbeat's research reveals about where L&D professionals go from here.

From learning product management to experience design to systems thinking, she breaks down the moves that turn L&D teams into genuine strategic partners. Real scenarios, real skills, and a few things worth doing less of.

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Lavinia Mehedintu is Co-Founder and Learning Architect at Offbeat. Over the past nine years, she has designed learning experiences and career development programs across corporate and higher education settings. She is known for her work on behavior change, social learning, and helping L&D teams shift from content creation to strategic impact.

At Offbeat, she researches and writes about the future of the L&D profession, AI-native teams, and what it takes for learning professionals to stay relevant. She speaks at major industry events, including Learning Technologies, and has built one of the most active communities for L&D practitioners worldwide.

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Most eLearning tells learners things. Short Sims make them do things. Clark Aldrich joins IDIODC to unpack why this distinction is costing L&D teams credibility — and budget. Clark invented Short Sims: compact, decision-driven simulations that build both competence and conviction in under 12 minutes.

We dig into how Short Sims are built, how AI is now accelerating their production, and why they're one of the few formats that can prove measurable performance impact. If your content library is full of passive courses, this one's a wake-up call.

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Clark Aldrich has spent 30 years at the forefront of experiential learning. He founded Gartner's e-learning research practice in the late 1990s, designed over 100 educational simulations and serious games, and holds a U.S. patent for leadership simulation design. He has guest lectured at Harvard, the Army War College, and the FBI Academy at Quantico.

He is the author of six books, including 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘚𝘪𝘮𝘴: 𝘈 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳, a method for building decision-based "learning to do" simulations in under 12 minutes. Short Sims clients include the United Nations, the U.S. Department of State, KPMG, and the Center for Army Leadership. His newest work, Socratic Cards, builds on that foundation to develop leadership and heroic cultures inside organizations.

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What happens to L&D when the training models we relied on for decades start falling apart? Donald H Taylor joins IDIODC to share what 3,797 practitioners from 105 countries told him in the 2026 Global Sentiment Survey. The answers are more honest, more urgent, and more revealing than any single year before.

We'll dig into what the data reveals about where the profession is heading. What are practitioners actually doing differently? Where is AI adding value, and where is it creating noise? And what does the path forward look like when there is no map?

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Donald H Taylor has worked in learning and technology since the mid-1980s, from training delivery to board chair. He has chaired the Learning Technologies Conference in London since 2000, now Europe's largest event of its kind. His annual L&D Global Sentiment Survey draws thousands of responses from practitioners across 100+ countries.

He is the author of Learning Technologies in the Workplace and chairs the Workforce Development board at Emerge Education. A graduate of Oxford University, he received an honorary doctorate from Middlesex University in 2016. He has spoken in over 30 countries worldwide.

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Understanding the freelance instructional design market is crucial for both independent professionals and the enterprises that hire them. In this episode, Parker Grant and Andrea Dottling of IDLance pull back the curtain on the freelance L&D industry. They explore the daily challenges, unique opportunities, and business mechanics of working as an independent eLearning designer.

For L&D leaders, they provide practical advice on integrating freelance talent into corporate workflows. The conversation highlights how large organizations can build better vendor relationships, streamline project management, and achieve strong business outcomes when working with external instructional designers.

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Parker Grant spent over 21 years at a Fortune 50 company as an engineer, trainer, and training manager before going freelance. He holds a Ph.D. in Adult Learning from the University of Connecticut and co-founded IDLance with Andrea in 2020. He is also an eLearning developer, cartoonist, and someone who has genuinely thought through the business side of L&D freelancing.

Andrea Dottling holds a Master's in Education and has designed learning across corporate, higher ed, K-12, and non-profit settings. She co-founded IDLance in 2020 and helped grow its freelancer community to over 1,700 members worldwide. In 2025, she keynoted the Alabama Instructional Design Network's UnConference.

Brought to you by the dominKnow | ONE Platform - develop, manage, and distribute impactful L&D content – efficiently, at scale.

Many L&D programs build skills but fail to shift performance. Matthew Richter joins IDIODC to explore why that gap exists and what to do about it.

He breaks performance down into five factors and shows exactly where L&D can and cannot influence each one. That distinction matters. It changes how you diagnose problems, how you scope solutions, and how you talk to business leaders about what learning can realistically deliver. You will leave with a sharper lens for targeting your budget, a cleaner argument for stakeholders, and a practical framework for choosing interventions that move real business outcomes.

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Matthew Richter is President of The Thiagi Group and co-founder of The Learning Development Accelerator (LDA). He has spent two decades consulting and delivering training for organizations including Microsoft, EA, Grant Thornton, and Sony. His work sits at the intersection of performance, motivation, and learning design.

Matt is also a game designer, facilitator, and public speaker. He has presented at The Gates Foundation, ISPI, Training Magazine, and ASTD, among others. He co-authored LOLA: Live Online Learning Activities with Sivasailam Thiagarajan and teaches leadership at EMLyon Business School in France

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