Offbeat On Air
By Lavinia Mehedintu & Milica Sapic
Offbeat On AirMay 24, 2023
Neuroscience and Learning & Development
Our work has SO MUCH to do with our beautiful, yet intricate brains. So it was such a pleasure to discuss with Elliott Jardin, Assistant Professor at Miami University - Brain Health/Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging about his journey and some of the lessons he learned about learning by studying and teaching cognitive neuroscience. We explored:
The role of memory & attention in learning; How technology is impacting the learning process and our roles as L&Ds; Ways to keep in touch with research and learn about our brains as L&D pros.Our sponsor
This new season of Offbeat On Air is sponsored by Sana. Sana is an AI-powered learning platform that empowers organizations to find, share, and harness the knowledge they need to achieve their missions. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, operators, and founders, Sana has raised $54M to date. The company's headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London and New York.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Elliott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliott-jardin-ph-d-66734277/
Navigating Squiggly Careers & The Future of Learning
Ever since we founded Offbeat, we were on the lookout for new, exciting technology that could add value to our work & organizations. That's how we discovered Sana, a close friend and sponsor of ours. But it's in our nature to dig deeper. We were curious and wanted to learn more about who's beyond the product － that's how we met Jon, President of Sana. We spent some time getting to know him and we're bringing to you:
The story of his squiggly career and the red thread he found between various roles he held over time; His views about leadership & team development; Why he thinks being strategic will be very important for L&Ds in the future of learning.Our sponsor
This new season of Offbeat On Air is sponsored by Sana. Sana is an AI-powered learning platform that empowers organizations to find, share, and harness the knowledge they need to achieve their missions. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, operators, and founders, Sana has raised $54M to date. The company's headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London and New York.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Jon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonlexa/
A Chef's Recipe for Career Progression and Collaboration
No matter how far away we go from L&D, we still find things to inspire us. In this episode, we talked to Ed Leach, Well-Being Specialist and Head Chef at La Cantina @Blinkist, someone whose career journey could be an inspiration to anyone. We explored:
Ed's squiggly career journey: from engineering to designing, plumbing, and finally cooking; The way he has an impact on people's lives, our planet's health, and Blinkist's productivity thank to La Cantina's planet-based concept; How he gathers feedback through all his senses to inform what's on the menu every day; The similarities he sees between working with renowned Head Chefs and a corporate manager.Our sponsor
This new season of Offbeat On Air is sponsored by Sana. Sana is an AI-powered learning platform that empowers organizations to find, share, and harness the knowledge they need to achieve their missions. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, operators, and founders, Sana has raised $54M to date. The company's headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London and New York.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Ed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed-leach-0343461a/
Lessons Learned about Community Building
How much can we talk about community building? All day long! Well, this episode took a lot less to record, but we could have gone for hours on end exploring our guests' journey. We were joined by Alex Hilleary, Community Lead at ChartHop, and Former Co-Founder at Gather, to explore all things community building. And so we did! We've talked about:
the emergence of community-based marketing his journey from intern to co-founder, and now community manager at Charthop the importance of having the right people in your community and weaving that into every step of the members’ experience using the community space to sense-check user needs and decide the future of the community how over-designing can work against youOur sponsor
This new season of Offbeat On Air is sponsored by Sana. Sana is an AI-powered learning platform that empowers organizations to find, share, and harness the knowledge they need to achieve their missions. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, operators, and founders, Sana has raised $54M to date. The company's headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London and New York.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-hilleary/
An Art Director’s take on Creativity & Learning
We're on air again, for the second season of our podcast! For our first episode of this new era, we're diving right into the creative space, together with Miia Goodwin, a multi-discipline hands-on designer and design lead. Together we explore:
the parallels between being an art director and an L&D professional; how to add constraints to the brainstorming process to nudge even more creativity; why bringing in all your stakeholders right from the start will help you in the later stages of a project; why social learning is the go-to learning method for our guest.Our sponsor
This new season of Offbeat On Air is sponsored by Sana. Sana is an AI-powered learning platform that empowers organizations to find, share, and harness the knowledge they need to achieve their missions. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, operators, and founders, Sana has raised $54M to date. The company's headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London and New York.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Miia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miiagod/
What we've learned from Season 1 of Offbeat On Air?
Reflection is part of everything we do at Offbeat! So naturally, we took some time to what we've learned from Season 1 of Offbeat On Air before jumping into Season 2. Lavinia and Milica discuss where the idea of the podcast came from and some of the lessons they took from meeting Erica, Jamie, Nurit, Miruna, Anne, and Moein.
After years of building her L&D network, Milica felt that's all she was seeing in her feed. L&D-related problems, solutions, people. While she knew the power of being surrounded by her tribe, she kept on wondering if there are others facing similar challenges, working with people, but using different frameworks, and just thinking differently. She brought this idea to Lavinia and that's how Offbeat On Air was born; In their first season, they explored addiction & recovery, leadership development in the Australian Army, behavior change & nudges, growth marketing, coaching in lacrosse, and architecture and they learned a lot; In this next season, they want to keep on exploring the world, talking to people from different professions and shining a light on the similarities between L&D's challenges and other completely unrelated professions.This new season of Offbeat On Air is sponsored by Sana. Sana is an AI-powered learning platform that empowers organizations to find, share, and harness the knowledge they need to achieve their missions. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, operators, and founders, Sana has raised $54M to date. The company's headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London and New York.
What do L&D and architecture have in common?
For this episode, we decided to venture way outside our comfort zone, into the world of architecture and construction. Little did we know how much we had in common and how many things we'd learned, all courtesy of our guest, Moein Nodehi. Moein is the Founder & CEO of Biotonomy, a holistic & nature-based approach for buildings & cities to address the climate and biodiversity emergency. He walked us through his journey, and what feasibility studies mean, we talked about educating our customers as early as the research phase and pitching them the benefits that relate most to who they are, among others.
Our sponsor
Joining us for this episode as a sponsor is Innential. Innential makes it easy for HR and L&D teams to automate their talent development workflows like onboarding, personal development plans, and leadership development. They do so through their platform’s flexible learning path system, a diverse content library curated uniquely to your company’s needs, and the ability to upload internal company content like PDFs and videos. Dozens of companies are already using them to level up their talent development workflows, so if that’s something you’re interested in, book a call with them from their website, mention Offbeat On Air, and their founders will happily get in touch with you.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Moein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moein-nodehi-a5a3a9143/
Coaching Practices from the world of Lacrosse
The world of sports is often referenced in organizations. So it seemed natural to have as a guest someone who’s been fully immersed in it and can tell us the story of how coaches nurture player development, but also how they receive support in growing themselves. In this episode, we’re talking to Anne Pedersen, Coaching Coordinator for the European Lacrosse Federation, among others, about the athlete development model, feedback loops, and different units of the coaching development program she facilitates.
Our sponsor
Joining us for this episode as a sponsor is Innential. Innential makes it easy for HR and L&D teams to automate their talent development workflows like onboarding, personal development plans, and leadership development. They do so through their platform’s flexible learning path system, a diverse content library curated uniquely to your company’s needs, and the ability to upload internal company content like PDFs and videos. Dozens of companies are already using them to level up their talent development workflows, so if that’s something you’re interested in, book a call with them from their website, mention Offbeat On Air, and their founders will happily get in touch with you.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Anne: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aenpedersen/
Exploring Growth Marketing
We've been curious about marketing in L&D for so long! Exploring personas, and learning as much as we can about our audience, among others. But there's more that we can borrow from marketing! In this episode, our guest, Miruna Dragomir, CMO at Planable, walks us through the AARRR growth funnel, how we should go about creating campaigns, and also works with us for a particular use case, sharing how she would approach marketing a leadership development program.
Our sponsor
Joining us for this episode as a sponsor is Innential. Innential makes it easy for HR and L&D teams to automate their talent development workflows like onboarding, personal development plans, and leadership development. They do so through their platform’s flexible learning path system, a diverse content library curated uniquely to your company’s needs, and the ability to upload internal company content like PDFs and videos. Dozens of companies are already using them to level up their talent development workflows, so if that’s something you’re interested in, book a call with them from their website, mention Offbeat On Air, and their founders will happily get in touch with you.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Miruna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirunadragomir/
Introduction to Behavior Science & Nudges
In this new episode, we go back to exploring behavior change, from another angle. Our guest? Nurit Noble! We first learned about Nurit’s work when we stumbled upon her course: Designing Nudges. Together with her colleague, Christina Gravert, they walked us through what nudges are and the BOOST framework, a process they use in designing nudges to support behavior change in different setups.
We explore:
The different disciplines that are concerned with behavior science & behavior change; What nudges are and the BOOST process Nurit uses in her work; Different quantitative & qualitative research tools; And using randomized control groups to measure the results of our work.Our sponsor
Joining us for this episode as a sponsor is Innential. Innential makes it easy for HR and L&D teams to automate their talent development workflows like onboarding, personal development plans, and leadership development. They do so through their platform’s flexible learning path system, a diverse content library curated uniquely to your company’s needs, and the ability to upload internal company content like PDFs and videos. Dozens of companies are already using them to level up their talent development workflows, so if that’s something you’re interested in, book a call with them from their website, mention Offbeat On Air, and their founders will happily get in touch with you.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Nurit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nnobel/
Leadership Development in the Australian Army
Episode 2: Leadership Development in the Australian Army
How do other organizations prepare for the future of work? How do they look at leadership development? Why is this episode special you wonder? Because we are going to dive into a totally new space - the army. Joining us on this exploration is Jamie Martin, Director of the Centre for Australian Army Leadership.
Jamie has an incredible story! He has led teams of up to 2,000 as a Helicopter Force commander and pilot. As the Commanding Officer of the 5th Aviation Regiment in the Australian Army, he led missions across the SW Pacific and Australia deployed on security missions, amphibious operations, and national disasters like floods and bushfires. Now, in his new role, Jamie is developing programs to grow the leaders of 2040.
We talk all about his experience of becoming a leader at an early age, how the Australian Army thinks in terms of leadership development now and for the future, and the lessons he's learning along the way.
Our sponsor
Joining us for this episode as a sponsor is Innential. Innential makes it easy for HR and L&D teams to automate their talent development workflows like onboarding, personal development plans, and leadership development. They do so through their platform’s flexible learning path system, a diverse content library curated uniquely to your company’s needs, and the ability to upload internal company content like PDFs and videos. Dozens of companies are already using them to level up their talent development workflows, so if that’s something you’re interested in, book a call with them from their website, mention Offbeat On Air, and their founders will happily get in touch with you.
Your hosts
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Milica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milicasapic/
Erica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericaspiegelman/
Addiction & Recovery
What is addiction? How do you get to recover from addictive behaviors? These are both very important, yet challenging questions.
What do they have in common with our work as L&Ds? The process of getting from one behavior you have today to another one that serves you in a more positive way. Or even more important, the process of supporting that transition.
In this episode, we spoke to best-selling author, Erica Spiegelman, about her journey of getting rid of an alcohol addiction, using communities, but also quiet time for self-reflection as tools to get rid of addiction, and how L&D can embrace role modeling & repetition to support behavior change.
We’re Lavinia & Mili, and we hope this episode brings you at least one idea you can use in your own practice. If you want to share it with us, feel free to reach out on our LinkedIn profiles, which you can find below.
Lavinia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laviniamehedintu/
Welcome to Offbeat On Air
There are so many interesting professions out there. Behavior scientists, fitness instructors, performance coaches, surgeons, ballet performers, cinema directors, astronauts, and landscape architects just to name a few. At a first glance, it might seem they have nothing to do with L&D. But we beg to differ! We’ve found the connecting dots - and we would like to explore them further.
In conversations with professionals from the most diverse backgrounds, we will delve from an entirely new standpoint into key concepts that occupy the L&D world. In each episode, we will sit down with a guest from a new exciting discipline to shine a different light on the topic, and connect it back to how we work.
Read about the why, the who, and the how right here.