The Visual Lounge

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

What feels boring to you could be someone’s favorite moment. 

In this week’s episode, host Matt Pierce is joined by David Hagerstrom, Marketing Generalist at TechSmith. David edits video for YouTube and ads, and recently took on the demo videos for our Unlocked event. 

Matt and David talk through the highs and lows of putting the event together, and what it was like to edit a stack of unscripted videos back-to-back. They also ask whether a time crunch helps or hurts creativity. Along the way, David shares what the experience has changed about how he edits. 

Learning points from the episode include: 

• How a live event blends the control of video editing with the unpredictability of a stage play. 
• What it takes to carry an expert’s message when you didn’t write it, from working around missteps to keeping the focus on the learner. 
• How to keep a team moving in the same direction when many people shape the message and the deadline won’t move. 

Important links and mentions: 

• Connect with David Hagerstrom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hagerstrom-716bb4260/ 
• Watch the Unlocked event and demos on TechSmith’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@techsmith 
• Snagit - capture your screen and record quick videos, with built-in editing and sharing tools: https://www.techsmith.com/store/snagit  
• Camtasia Pro - record your screen and edit videos, plus AI avatars, translation, and dubbing: https://www.techsmith.com/store/camtasia  
• Loved something from Unlocked, or didn’t? Matt wants to hear it. Leave a voicemail for the show: https://www.visuallounge.net/2630997/fan_mail  

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

299 episodes. 10 lessons learned. Episode 300 shares them all!  

In this special milestone episode, our host Matt Pierce is going back to the 90s and doing it David Letterman style! Over 4 years ago Matt created this podcast, and in this week's episode, we celebrate this journey by reflecting on every lesson learned. 

Matt counts down his top 10 lessons on video, covering everything from recording gear, audience attention spans and AI. Along the way, he shares a personal story about a hard lesson in knowing what your audience actually wants to hear. 

So sit down, get comfortable, and don't forget to take notes, as Matt shares his 299 episodes' worth of wisdom! 

Learning points from the episode include: 

• How a rough, to-the-point video can often beat a highly produced one, especially in tutorial content where the goal is clarity, not flash. 
• What matters is relevance, not length. Matt uses the debunked "goldfish attention span" myth to show that people don't have short attention spans, they have low patience for content that isn't relevant to them. 
• Why human judgment matters more than ever, now that AI makes content easier to produce. Matt says AI can generate output, but it can't tell you whether that output is good. That's still on the creator. 

Important links and mentions: 

• TechSmith Academy: Learn how to use and create better images and videos (for free): https://www.techsmith.com/learn/tutorials/academy/    

Got a story about how long a video took you to make? Matt wants to hear it: [email protected]  

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

Rance says most training happens in fairyland, where nothing ever goes wrong. 

This week is a revisit of one of our favorite conversations with Rance Greene, founder of NeedAStory.com and the School of Story Design, and author of Instructional Story Design: A Practical Guide for Developing Stories that Train. 

Rance talks about the two ingredients every training story needs and shares a surprisingly simple trick for naming characters to make them feel like real people. He also explains when a story is the right call for training, and when it's better to skip it entirely. 

Learning points from the episode include: 

• Rance builds a detailed audience profile for every training session. Their values, their current pressures, what they fear, even what they do in their spare time - not just their job title. 
• Rance's rule for building a story - only do it if something in the learner's behavior needs to change. 
• Stories work like flight simulators for behavior. The neurons firing during a well-told story are the same ones that fire in the real situation, which is exactly what creates that desire for resolution. 

Important links and mentions: 

• Connect with Rance on LinkedIn
• Check out School of Story Design and Need A Story
• Subscribe to Rance's YouTube Channel

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

Bad design gets noticed instantly. Good design fades into the background.  

In this episode, host Matt Pierce is joined by Melissa Milloway (Mel). With over 15 years’ experience in Instructional Design, Mel now uses her expertise to build teams that design learning for tech. She talks about how heavily visual choices influence what a learner takes away from an experience. 

Mel breaks down how she decides what earns a place on the screen, the small details that shape a learners’ focus, and how skill cannot be built on theory alone.  

She also explains how she uses AI to speed up production without losing realism and previews a project that she is currently working on for the upcoming DevLearn Conference.  

Learning points from the episode include:  

• Every visual choice should be intentional. If you can't explain why something's on the screen, Mel says it probably shouldn't be there. 
• Spacing isn’t just aesthetic. Mel points to an existing UX concept called the ‘BFFs of spacing’, which explains how visual elements placed close together read as related, while elements placed further apart read as unrelated. This is often the case whether you intend it to be or not. 
• Realistic practice, like Mel's 911 dispatcher training scenario, works because it closely mirrors the pressure and ambiguity of the real situation, so the actual moment isn't a surprise when it happens. 

Important links and mentions: 

• Connect with Melissa Milloway on LinkedIn
• Mel's upcoming book, "Getting Unstuck in Learning Design" (available for pre-order, out February)

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

When it’s too utopian, people get bored.

The best training doesn't hand you the right answer. It makes you sit with the consequences of getting it wrong.

In this episode, host Matt Pierce sits down with Moe Ash, founder of The Catalyst, an instructional design consultancy, to talk about how real consequences, not perfect answers, are what make training actually work.   

They explore the story structures Moe uses to build training that sticks, why realistic trade-offs beat ‘correct answer’ thinking, and why punishing mistakes can do more harm than good. Moe also breaks down why relatable, flawed characters make for better learning than perfect ones.

Learning points from the episode include: 

• Moe builds learning experiences around four classic story forms: Defeating Evil, Rags to Riches, The Quest, and Rebirth, each suited to a different kind of training challenge. 
• Before building any story, Moe starts by asking for ‘"a day in the life’," the specific words, jargon, and moments that make a scenario feel real, rather than staged for the sake of the training. 
• Punishing wrong answers without feedback doesn't teach people; it just encourages them to play the system. Moe's approach is rapid feedback, a hint, and room to try again. 

Important links and mentions:

• Connect with Moe Ash on LinkedIn   
• The Catalyst (Moe's instructional design consultancy)

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

Don't sacrifice your own taste. 

Content moves fast these days. Tools can write it, cut it, and localize it in seconds. But the parts of your work that connect with people, those still come down to you. 

In this episode, host Matt Pierce sits down with Adam Avramescu, fractional leader and consultant in Customer Education and Scaled Customer Experience, to talk about how AI is reshaping the way we teach and support customers. 

They explore where AI genuinely contributes, where it falls short, and how customer education is becoming something much bigger than courses and certifications. Adam also gets into how to build real taste as a creator, and why the best AI tools still depend on good, human-made content. 

Learning points from the episode include: 

• Good documentation allows you to get your AI support tool up and running fast, Adam saw this pay off first hand with a 25% drop in tickets and over 80% of eligible questions resolved by AI during Personio's busiest time of year.
• AI avatars, voice, and localization have gotten good enough to lean on for things like product walkthroughs that need frequent updates, but letting customers know when they're watching something AI-assisted is key!
• Taste comes down to inspiration plus discernment. Adam's advice is - embrace the tools for what they help you do, but don't lose your own taste in the process, because that human judgment can't be replicated.

Important links and mentions: 

• Connect with Adam Avramescu on LinkedIn
• Adam's podcast on customer education, co-hosted on a rotating panel format
• Adam's podcast on the future of CX, co-hosted with Dee Kapila 
• Fin - the AI support tool Adam mentions using at Personio 

Prefer to listen to a podcast? You can find The Visual Lounge on your favorite podcasting platform:  

https://thevisuallounge.buzzsprout.com 

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

Don't sacrifice your own taste. 

Content moves fast these days. Tools can write it, cut it, and localize it in seconds. But the parts of your work that connect with people, those still come down to you. 

In this episode, host Matt Pierce sits down with Adam Avramescu, fractional leader and consultant in Customer Education and Scaled Customer Experience, to talk about how AI is reshaping the way we teach and support customers. 

They explore where AI genuinely contributes, where it falls short, and how customer education is becoming something much bigger than courses and certifications. Adam also gets into how to build real taste as a creator, and why the best AI tools still depend on good, human-made content. 

Learning points from the episode include: 

• Good documentation allows you to get your AI support tool up and running fast, Adam saw this pay off first hand with a 25% drop in tickets and over 80% of eligible questions resolved by AI during Personio's busiest time of year.
• AI avatars, voice, and localization have gotten good enough to lean on for things like product walkthroughs that need frequent updates, but letting customers know when they're watching something AI-assisted is key!
• Taste comes down to inspiration plus discernment. Adam's advice is - embrace the tools for what they help you do, but don't lose your own taste in the process, because that human judgment can't be replicated.

Important links and mentions: 

• Connect with Adam Avramescu on LinkedIn
• Adam's podcast on customer education, co-hosted on a rotating panel format
• Adam's podcast on the future of CX, co-hosted with Dee Kapila 
• Fin - the AI support tool Adam mentions using at Personio 

Prefer to listen to a podcast? You can find The Visual Lounge on your favorite podcasting platform:  

https://thevisuallounge.buzzsprout.com 

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

"The idea is the spark, but the story is what happens after the fire starts." 

It's easy to have an idea. It's much harder to turn that idea into something people want to watch, read, or listen to. 

In this episode, host Matt Pierce sits down with Emmy‑winning Robot Chicken writer, novelist, and podcaster Mike Fasolo to talk about storytelling. They cover how to hook an audience fast and when to trust them to fill in gaps themselves. 

Mike also shares how he cuts long-form livestreams down into short, punchy clips without losing the story, and what it takes to move from "I have an idea" to "I made the thing." 

Key learning points: 

• Mike's approach to storytelling is to get in as fast as possible - skip the setup, find the hook, tell the story, and move on, trusting the audience to pick up on what's happening without it being spelled out. 
• An idea on its own isn't a story. It becomes one when you find your character, work out what they want, put an obstacle in front of them, and make sure the outcome matters to the audience. 
• When cutting a long video down into something short, Mike looks for what's most engaging to him first, then finds a cut point that works like a cliff-hanger, giving viewers just enough to want to keep watching. 

Important links and mentions: 

• Connect with Mike Fasolo on LinkedIn
• Connect with Mike Fasolo on Instagram
• Mike's personal website
• Mike's weekly live stream on the craft and business of making comics, co-hosted with Buddy Scalera - Comic Book School 

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

“Could you just make a quick video?”

It's not always possible. Even the shortest videos can be time-consuming without the right things in place.

In this episode, host Matt Pierce goes solo to talk about what "quick" really means when it comes to video production, and why speed almost always comes with trade-offs worth understanding upfront.

Matt also walks through the pinch points that slow creators down from unclear needs analysis to scope creep. He also gets into the underrated art of managing stakeholder feedback, and closes with a question every video creator should sit with - what does 'done' mean?

Key learning points:

• Before any video work begins, complete your needs analysis. Ask yourself who the audience is, what outcome you're trying to achieve, and how you'll measure success. Skipping this step creates the "pinch points" that slow everything down later in the process.
• Not every message requires a full video. Sometimes a screenshot, step-by-step guide, or animated GIF will communicate the message faster and more effectively, so it's worth right-sizing the format before committing to a full production.
• Bring reviewers into one location, give them a specific focus for what you want them to look at, and identify a single person with final sign-off rights. This avoids the late-stage changes that come from too many voices weighing in at the wrong time.

Important links and mentions:

• Screencast is TechSmith's platform for centralized video feedback, Matts preferred tool for timestamped comments and revisions.

Drop us a message! We'd love to hear from you.

What is the difference between covering a topic and actually teaching it? The best L&D designers know the answer.

In this revisited episode, Matt is joined by Jonathan Hill, award-winning learning manager and e-learning developer based in the UK. They talk about designing learning that really works, not just content that gets completed because it’s a requirement.

Moving beyond the ‘click next’ slide mentality that holds e-learning back, Jonathan talks through how video changed his approach to design, and the key part sound plays in this.

He also shares one of his most practical tools for working with subject matter experts - a simple reframe that helps surface what learners need to take away. And if you've ever wondered whether there's room for humor in compliance content, Jonathan has an interesting take!

Important links and mentions:

• See if Jonathan can help you communicate your expertise
• Connect with Jonathan