Field notes
The insights answer a question. These argue a position. Longer, fewer, and written when something is worth more than four paragraphs.
All field notes
Meeting Facilitation: The First Five Minutes Online
A five-minute opening script for virtual meetings (purpose, roles, rules of the room, first input) plus a checklist to run before people join.
November 6, 2026
Facilitator Training: A 30-Day Self-Study Plan
No certificate needed to start. A 30-day facilitator training plan: observe, design, run a 20-minute practice session and get feedback.
November 6, 2026
What to Do Instead of Icebreakers in Virtual Meetings
Five openers for virtual meetings that replace icebreakers: each is tied to the meeting's purpose, with a script and the time it takes.
November 6, 2026
A Year-End Virtual Retro Without the Blame
Three structural moves keep a virtual retrospective useful: start with data, separate keep, stop, and start, and close with one owned commitment each.
November 4, 2026
Cameras On or Off? What Facilitators Should Track
Stop fighting about cameras. Track three participation signals instead, chat, voice, and written input, and learn how to invite each one in a virtual meeting.
November 4, 2026
A Virtual Holiday Team Event People Do Not Dread
A 45-minute virtual holiday event format with opt-in attendance, two short structured activities, and no mandatory sharing, plus a facilitation script.
November 4, 2026
Before You Connect Your Assistant to Your Meetings
MCP lets an AI assistant search your meeting history directly. It is a useful standard and a standing permission. The rule I would write first.
October 31, 2026
A Participation Score Is Not a Voice
Engagement dashboards show who dominates and who fades. A score can prompt a better question, but it cannot give anyone a way into the conversation.
October 31, 2026
Quiet Participants Need a Different Door
Quiet participants do not need to be drawn out in front of the group. They need another way in. Here are the doors I build into every live online session.
October 29, 2026
A Completion Rate Is Not a Learning Rate
A completion rate tells you who reached the end of a course, not who learned. Why I stopped treating it as the main number and what I look at instead.
October 29, 2026
Finance Wants One Decision, Not Training Metrics
Finance leaders do not need a full set of training metrics. They need one result tied to one decision. How I build that page before the budget meeting.
October 29, 2026
Write the AI Rule for Training Before You Use It
Draft training content with AI, but write the rule first: what goes into a prompt, who reviews it, what you disclose and what a person must decide live.
October 29, 2026
Every Meeting Has Three Jobs
The facilitator, the note taker and the timekeeper are three different jobs. When one person holds all three, the meeting gets worse at each one of them.
October 26, 2026
Simulation Training Needs a Facilitated Debrief
Simulations, role play and immersive tools get the attention. The debrief does the learning. What a good one sounds like in a live online training session.
October 26, 2026
First Questions I Ask Before Designing Training
The law is the same, so my first training questions are not. Here are the ones I ask an urban and a suburban employer, and why neither list is better.
October 25, 2026
What Suburban Employers Need From Training
Suburban employers do not need a smaller version of city training. Here is what I think their conditions ask of a session, and what I would build first.
October 25, 2026
Celebrate Small Wins Out Loud
Teams rarely stop to name what went right. A 90 second what-worked round opens a session with energy and shows people their work is seen. Script included.
October 23, 2026
The Chat Box Is Not a Participation Strategy
Facilitators say put it in the chat and call the room engaged. The chat records who types fast, not who learns. Try a silent write, pair share, one voice.
October 22, 2026
The Price You Quote Is the Scope You Agree To
Facilitators who say a day rate first end up absorbing the prep, the pre-calls and the rewrite. Write the scope before you say the number, then price it.
October 22, 2026
Compliance Training That Passes and Teaches Nothing
California harassment prevention training can meet the legal minimum and change nothing in the room. What the law checks, what it cannot, and what to add.
October 22, 2026
You Do Not Own the Room
Owning the room is a presenter's goal. A facilitator's job is to give it back to the people in it, quickly and on purpose. Here is how I do that on video.
October 21, 2026
The Retrospective Nobody Acts On Is Worse
A lessons learned meeting that produces a list nobody owns teaches a team that speaking up is theater. Keep three commitments, one owner and one date.
October 21, 2026
The Training Request Is Not the Problem
A request for a session on communication is a symptom. Why I spend the first meeting on questions, what to ask, and when the right answer is no training.
October 19, 2026
Whose Morning Is It? Training Across Time Zones
Every live session across time zones decides whose early morning or late evening pays. The case for rotating start times, split programs and fair windows.
October 19, 2026
Neurodivergent Participants Are Not a Special Case
Accommodation requests arrive late, so a session built for one speed already failed. Make written options, advance agendas and quiet time the default.
October 19, 2026
Virtual Training Fatigue Is a Design Problem
People blame screens, but virtual training fatigue comes from ninety minutes with no change of mode. Switch every 10 to 12 minutes and cut content first.
October 19, 2026
The habit I brought back from the camera
I spent a morning cutting pauses out of video because the retention curve punished them. That afternoon I filled one in a live room at four seconds.
October 2, 2026
The manager who freezes
Your harassment training is not failing because the vendor is bad. It is failing because it was never aimed at the person whose next ten minutes decide the outcome.
September 26, 2026
Nobody is coming to facilitate your meetings
You can hire me for the important sessions. You cannot hire me for the four hundred ordinary ones a year where the actual work gets decided.
September 26, 2026