Speaking
The talk people keep thinking about on the drive home.
Keynotes and workshops for conferences, corporate events, and higher ed gatherings. Story-first. Practically useful. Built for the room you're actually in.
out of 5 across 117 session evaluations · OLC, March 2026
The approach
Story first. Then the framework.
Most conference talks start with a framework and hope the audience finds a way in. Ed starts with a scene. A moment people recognize. Something that creates the feeling before the idea arrives.
That's not a stylistic choice. It's how retention actually works. When the story lands first, the takeaway sticks. People don't forget the feeling. They don't forget what it pointed at.
Every talk is customized for the audience and the event. The topic shifts to match the room. The depth shifts to match the time. The core never changes: there's a human story inside this complexity and we're going to find it together.
Talk topics
What Ed talks about.
All talks can be delivered as keynotes or interactive workshops. Each is fully customized for your audience and event context.
01
Make Learning More Learnable
The creator economy figured out what L&D hasn't.
The best creators in the world keep audiences engaged, build loyalty, and make complex ideas shareable. L&D professionals do none of these things by default. This talk gives practitioners the exact moves that work — applied directly to learning design.
02
Slideless
What happens when you put the deck down.
Most presenters hide behind their slides. The deck becomes a script, the room becomes an audience, and the connection never happens. This talk is about what it takes to hold a room without hiding — and why the rooms that remember you are always the ones where you showed up without a net.
03
Stop Chasing Interesting. Start Choosing Impact.
The most common mistake in professional communication.
Interesting is easy. Impact is harder and more useful. This talk is about what happens when you stop optimizing for clever and start asking: did this actually change something for someone? It's a challenge to the room — and a practical framework for making the shift.
04
AI and the Human-Centered Organization
Not fear. Not hype. Just what actually works.
AI is everywhere and most organizations are handling it badly. Ed has done this work at scale — GenAI governance for 550+ faculty, institutional risk mitigation, knowledge gap remediation. This talk isn't theoretical. It's about how to use AI to amplify what makes your people human, not replace it.
Who this is for
The rooms Ed works in.
L&D and higher ed conferences
OLC, NACE, ATD, eLearning Guild, and similar gatherings where practitioners are looking for ideas they can actually use.
Corporate learning teams
All-hands sessions, offsite events, and team workshops for organizations that want their people to communicate and learn more effectively.
Higher ed leadership gatherings
Faculty development days, academic leadership summits, and departmental retreats where the audience ranges from skeptical to deeply engaged.
Innovation and leadership summits
Cross-functional events where the audience includes people who don't think of themselves as L&D professionals but spend half their time teaching, presenting, or facilitating.
What people say
"I teach production and social media, but had not really connected all of the storytelling concepts to my own lecture videos."Session evaluation · OLC Innovate 2026
"I left with clear takeaways about how to keep learners more emotionally and cognitively engaged in our content."Session evaluation · OLC Innovate 2026
Book Ed
Let's find out if it's a fit.
Tell me about your event, your audience, and what you want them to walk away with. I'll respond within two business days with a straight answer about whether I'm the right person for the room.
Start the conversationKeynotes
45 to 90 minutes. Built around your theme, your audience, and the specific outcome you want. Every talk is customized — no off-the-shelf versions.
Workshops
Half-day or full-day. Interactive, hands-on, designed to produce something participants can use immediately. Works best for teams of 15 to 60.
Virtual and in-person
Available for both formats. In-person preferred for workshops. Virtual keynotes are fully adapted for the medium — not a repurposed slide deck on Zoom.