We’re Celebrating 50 Episodes of CLO Connect! Join Our L&D Community for More Expert Insights

We’ve released 50 episodes of our CLO Connect interview series. 50! 

Taken together, that’s 12.5 hours’ worth of interview footage, or all three Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back. It’s 75,000 words’ worth of expert interviews: the same length of Catcher in the Rye. 

So, has ours been as compelling a journey as Frodo and Sam scaling Mount Doom? Has this series come of age just like Holden Caulfield? Clearly I think so–and judging from how many of you tune in for these weekly expert L&D interviews, you do too. 

Today, we’re here to celebrate the release of 50 episodes of the CLO Connect interview series, and to share the first volume of collected expert insights on how L&D can help companies grow and scale. Then, we’ve got an even bigger surprise in store: an invitation to join the next exciting phase of the CLO Connect community! 

Let’s start with a look at one crucial thing that sets the L&D community apart from other parts of business today.

Need a few expert insights? Of course you do! Find out How L&D Can Help Your Company Scale

The privilege of learning from others: what sets L&D apart

In episode 44 of CLO Connect, my guest Ryan Giordano, Senior Learning & Development Manager at Gong, said something truly fascinating. “We’re one of the last departments that is not in itself a competitive advantage. We don’t need to keep anything a secret in L&D. We can share our strategies with each other, and I just love that we’re doing that.”

This is exactly why I started CLO Connect. As L&D leaders, we have a unique opportunity to be honest about the challenges and opportunities we face in learning. We all want to see each other succeed, and we’re here to offer the support and insights to make that happen. This kind of openness and empathy is at the core of Collaborative Learning.

We can lift the lid on exactly what’s keeping us up at night, from proving ourselves as incoming L&D managers and finding ways to respond to complex learning requests, through to using L&D to navigate tricky M&A processes or developing the right customer education resources. 

And because every single one of my 50 guests have been so honest and forthright about the state of L&D today, these CLO Connect interviews have become a true reflection of the kaleidoscope that is L&D today.

CLO Connect is a true reflection of the modern L&D kaleidoscope 

When a lot of people think of L&D, chances are they think of the same handful of experiences: being made to watch a boring culture video during onboarding, completing a yearly training on managing conflicts of interest, or battling through some generic third-party course library. 

As these 50 episodes have shown us, this impression is far from the truth. Today, L&D is a dynamic and vibrant field, with Chief Learning Officers, Knowledge Managers, and L&D Directors grappling with some of the most urgent and complicated questions in business.

Don’t believe us? Check out how Director of L&D Kelli Dunaway is changing the way law firm Bryan Cave’s clients think about the legal profession, or how Group Head of Diversity and Inclusion Tuba Kazmi is delivering training experiences that match Coca-Cola İçecek’s diverse workforce of over 8,000 people.

Today’s L&D leaders aren’t just creating courses and tracking completions. Like Qualtrics’s Senior Learning Experience Designer Areebah Ajani, they’re finding the skills and expertise people need to make the biggest possible impact to company growth. And like Avinash Chandarana, they’re making key pivots in business strategy to cope with disruption.

Right now, L&D is more of an integral part of the C-Suite than ever before. Learning leaders are tasked with nurturing and engaging the top talent in the market, and building closer connections between teams to help everyone stay on track in times of crisis.

And speaking of times of crisis...

A time capsule of the COVID-19 era

I published the very first episode of CLO Connect in February 2020. Back then, my guests and I were talking about the potential for COVID-19 to be a little bit disruptive, and how we might all need to switch to remote learning for a while.

Boy, were we optimistic! Now, 18 months later, big chunks of the world are still working, learning, and collaborating 100% remotely. Many of us have colleagues we’ve never met in person, and offices we’ve never physically visited. And yet, L&D leaders everywhere have adapted and thrived despite these major upheavals.

Our interviews have been a true time capsule of life in the COVID-19 era. From WinCo Foods’s Talent Development Director Lenn Moorhead-Rosenberg breaking down his tips for supporting frontline grocery staff through to Church’s Chicken’s VP of Global Training & Development Felicia White showing us how she trained 1,400 people to prepare a chicken sandwich despite the pandemic, CLO Connect has captured an incredible depth of COVID-19 insight.

So, what’s next for CLO Connect after 50 episodes?

What’s next for CLO Connect? 

I started this interview series to build real connections with L&D experts, share tips and insights with our audience of interested people, and try to offer my own take on how Collaborative Learning can help us support others to achieve their potential. Now, I’m here with two more exciting developments.

First,  we’re sharing the first of three volumes of collected expert insights from the first 50 episodes of CLO Connect. In Volume 1, you’ll learn a wealth of tips of how L&D can help your company scale, from onboarding new hires and unlocking great sales enablement through to harnessing customer education resources and scaling L&D to fuel growth. We’ve got tips from Amazon, WhatsApp, Flexport, and plenty of other market-leading companies. 

And stay tuned for Volumes 2 and 3 coming shortly, where we’ll break down expert tips on building a strong company culture with L&D, and being the best L&D leader you can be. 

Second, we’re planning the launch of the CLO Connect community: a group of L&D leaders dedicated to sharing their ideas and expertise, and to shaping their organizations with Collaborative Learning! 

If you’d like to join the waitlist for the CLO Connect Community, please sign up here and you’ll hear from us soon.

See you at episode #100!

Producing these 50 episodes has been an absolute thrill, and one of the privileges of my career so far. I’d like to thank every one of my fantastic guests for taking the time to share their stories and connect with our growing community of experts.

And if you’ve been tuning in along the way, I’d like to thank you, too. If you’d like to join our series as a guest and share your story, get in touch with me at Jonah.Goldstein@360Learning.com–I’d love to hear from you. 

Take care, and I’ll see you at episode #100! 

Want more peer insights on transforming workplace learning? Join the waitlist for our CLO Connect community, and check out our other #CLOConnect interviews with top L&D leaders on driving growth and scaling culture through Collaborative Learning. Or you can subscribe (below 👇) to our weekly newsletter to receive our latest posts directly in your inbox.