There's no such thing as 'content'
But it's a useful straw man if you're looking to make a point.
Take a doom-stroll down the streets of LinkedIn, and you’ll find various L&D thought-leaders giving the word ‘content’ a good ole kickin’.
These social-media beatdowns usually go something like:
‘We already have enough content. What we don’t have is impact.’
‘We’re using AI to scale content. We should be scaling learning.’
‘Your job isn’t to create content. It’s to change behavior!’
Oh wait, that last one was me! 🥴
While superficially persuasive, it’s unclear what ‘content’ actually means in any of these examples.
In L&D, the word is typically used in one of two ways.
Firstly, and more positively, it’s deployed as a catch-all, describing everything from an e-learning module, to a video, to a checklist. This use of the term would cover our Content Hub, which is both a platform and a library of useful resources.
Then, on the other hand, we have the kinds of dismissive applications epitomized by the examples above. In these cases, ‘content’ is a sort of monolithic blob of stuff that learners hate, that business leaders don’t care about, and that doesn’t deliver impact.
Framed in this way, of course we already have more than enough. Of course we shouldn’t be using AI to make even more of it. And of course we shouldn’t see content-creation as L&D’s primary focus.
But ‘content’ in each of these cases is a straw man.
Learning and content are not mutually exclusive, just as behavior change and content are not mutually exclusive.
If you’re advocating for ‘emotionally resonant learning experiences’ or ‘practical, hands-on simulations’ aren’t you really just advocating for content by any other name?
To be clear, I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of bad learning content out there, or that what’s good couldn’t be better.
When I glibly argued that it isn’t L&D’s job to create content, what I was specifically critiquing was the tendency to get caught up in making things that are fun, immersive or visually striking, and, in the process, to lose sight of our true purpose — changing behavior.
While content alone may be insufficient to achieve that purpose, we should stop pretending it’s incompatible with it.
Want to share your thoughts on this week’s newsletter? Need help with your next project? Get in touch by emailing custom@mindtools.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
🎧 On the podcast
If you’re going in for surgery, make sure to get scheduled first thing. When you buy new clothes, wash them before you wear them. Never use a ceramic cup in a coffee shop.
These are the kind of insider secrets that get shared on Reddit, and we thought it would be fun to ask the L&D community on LinkedIn to share a few of their own.
And boy, did they have secrets to share!
In last week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Cammy reviewed the top responses.
Check out the episode below. 👇
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or the podcast page of our website.
📖 Deep dive
Last week, Donald Taylor published this year’s Global Sentiment Survey, titled ‘Into the unknown’. (Cue Idina Menzel)
In Don’s view:
‘This is the most significant set of results in the thirteen years of the L&D Global Sentiment Survey (GSS). Not because they describe a specific change, but because they do not. They point to a breaking down of old norms, and it is not clear what will replace them.’
Predictably, AI once again took the top spot with 22.5% of the vote, dropping just 0.1% on last year’s results, suggesting L&D’s interest in the technology may have peaked.
Elsewhere, though perhaps relatedly, ‘showing value’, and ‘consulting more deeply with the business’ saw a slight increase in their vote share, with the former climbing from 7th to 5th position on the table.
A slight surprise for me in this year’s results was the relative decline of ‘collaborative/social learning’, which seems to cut against the narrative that learners are clamoring for more synchronous, in-person experiences.
We’ll be unpacking the results with Don in an upcoming episode of the podcast, so look out for this in your feed on 3 March!
Taylor, D. H. (2026). ‘L&D Global Sentiment Survey 2026: Into the unknown’.
👹 Missing links
🤖 How is AI changing the workplace?
In this video, The Atlantic’s Nick Thompson breaks down the findings of a recent HBR study, exploring the impact of AI on the workplace. On the one hand, the study finds that AI tools do bring productivity benefits by augmenting the capabilities of workers. But on the other, they also appear to be intensifying work, functioning as assistants whose tasks need to be managed and whose output needs to be reviewed.
👀 How much cognitive damage does a phone notification actually do?
When did your phone last ping or vibrate? Did you stop work to check it before returning to the task at hand? What impact do you think that brief interruption had on your focus? In a recent edition of his newsletter, Carl Hendrick considers new research published in Computers in Human Behavior, which suggests that it is the frequency of disruption (not total screen time) that predicts an individual’s vulnerability to distraction. Although individual notifications disrupt cognitive processing for just seven seconds, the effect is compounded when you account for the fact that the average participant in the study received over 150 notifications per day, repeatedly draining their attention.
💀 How a decades-old video game has helped me defeat the doomscroll
On the topic of smartphones, I appreciated this story from Michael Roberts. In an effort to cut down on doomscrolling on social media, Roberts sought to replace one screen with another, trading his phone for an old Game Boy Advance: ‘Filling the natural breaks in my day with an old video game has done me the world of good, even if it’s evolving my Psyduck while dinner is in the oven or taking down a gym leader while waiting for a package. My phone’s screen time is already down by three hours a week since beginning this adventure.’ If you were looking for an excuse to get back into gaming, consider this your sign.
👋 And finally…
My wife and I are going to see Whitney (the band) this week, our first concert together since our son was born. Here’s a laidback beat to get your week off on the right foot.
👍 Thanks!
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