Don't punish people with learning. Use media to make it meaningful and enjoyable. Create opportunities for discovery. Don’t underestimate the potential of your learners or diminish their agency. Constructive and progressive challenges should always be part of learning design, and put the momentum of moments of self-discovery to good use.

By focusing on what matters to the learner and what will be meaningful for them at their time of need and in their context, we design better experiences that people remember and appreciate. This builds trust and becomes another signal to your audience about your brand, culture and values as an organization.

There are so many simple ways to improve this format and make it more accessible and useful! You don’t need to throw it out, but let’s put a little bit more effort into it so that it actually becomes something people can use.

Whether you’re managing an internal creative team or hiring a creative firm as a supplier, there are a few simple things you can do to improve the quality of work being produced.

The lesson from Purple Cows and Purple Chickens is that the best answer to a problem is often unexpected or not obvious. In fact, it may have never been done before in the exact way that you need it for your situation.

Most people are thinking at the atomic level rather than the world level when it comes to communication and design. They’re paying attention to content and constantly reacting to the shifting context. The best antidote to this is to spend more energy building and owning your own context.

Most brands don’t fail loudly. They fade quietly over time, like sinking into quicksand as their leaders go on playing the same games and following the same patterns, until one day they realize they’re stuck and start struggling until they just disappear. R.I.P.

What do all enduring movies, brands, games, clubs, products, and books have in common?

They created a new world, different from our current reality. 

They created a world, with its own norms and conventions, that followers want to be part of. They created a world that was noticeably different to signal that followers must pay attention to it.

Life isn’t experienced verbally first; it’s experienced through senses first, emotionally perceived, and only later translated into language. Words are multiple steps down the inference ladder, and they take mental effort.