We made the pivot to online, but now let’s make it great: virtual training expert Cindy Huggett

Now we’re (still) all meeting virtually, making virtual events work is a priority, but many organisations have struggled to make them work: it’s particularly an issue when we’re all fried from endless Zoom meetings anyway. This week on Learning Is The New Working, we meet someone who says they know how to fix that, and even gives us the algorithm: an interactive design, a skilled facilitator, prepared participants, equipped to learn. Sound useful to what you’re trying to do? Then check out the guidance and advice you’re about to get from virtual training consultant, facilitator, author and speaker Cindy Huggett. Cindy is convinced that virtual events can be immersive, interactive and engaging—which could also easily be our ‘review’ of this great conversation with a genuine Learning Leader. That’s our thematic season, as you will remember, where we meet new and seasoned leaders from industry, academia, and technology who have made significant contributions to workplace learning, edtech, and talent leadership discipline. And it’s also an episode in Season Five that’s been kindly sponsored by the amazing team at Arist, the pioneer of text message courses that let you teach and train in bite-size chunks that learners love, and whose use cases ranging from leadership training to knowledge reinforcement. So now we’re all set up, get ready to find out about Cindy’s 29 years of professional experience that include leadership roles in global organizations, starting a non-profit focused on volunteering and community service, serving on the national ATD Board of Directors, teaching classroom trainers how to engage with remote audiences and designers how to use typical platform tools to create interactive classes, as well as: why she’s based in North Carolina; her core definition of key virtual training terms (and why they matter); why your assumptions about virtual training were pretty much all wrong pre-2020; how design thinking, interactivity, and tolerance came to the rescue; her views on change in terms of virtual training platform tech; the highlights of her unique annual survey, especially a big drop in content prep time; our new perspective on making the best use of everyone’s time; and much more.