James Bidwell is the owner of Springwise, an innovation portal, which crowd sources innovation ideas from all over the world and publishes the top 3 every day.

He is also the co-founder of RE_SET, an innovation consultancy for the disruption economy working with boards to help them thrive in an unpredictable world. James was also formerly a marketing manager at Disney, marketing director at Selfridges and CEO of Visit London.  

In this episode we discuss:

- How to stay on top of the rapid pace of change in modern society 
- How to innovate in the 21st century disruption economy 
- How to market effectively in a noisy world, while staying true to values

So whether you’re curious about how to stay relevant in a constantly changing world or want to find out how to get your message heard in a world full of noise, this episode has you covered.

The process of authoring and producing my first course, Make Me A MetaLearner, was a great learning experience for me.

It taught me a lot about the skills of research and writing and the importance of structuring educational content in a way that's easy to digest and understand for students. 

As a university lecturer I’ve spent plenty of time preparing lessons and delivering them to students, but authoring an online course was a completely different ball game for me.

Looking back, I can see that a big part of the process could be broken down into a number of key steps, which I had to figure out by trial and error. 

This episode is part of my process for reflecting on what I've learned and in it I'm joined by writer, videographer and all around MetaLearner Will Reynolds. We discuss:

- How to brainstorm ideas effectively and channel them into a skeleton structure
- How to manage the process of a prolonged piece of writing and stay productive
- How to build a system that makes your educational content easy to understand

So whether you want to author your own educational content or are just curious about what goes on behind the scenes here at MetaLearn, this episode has you covered.

Tom Stafford is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield.

He’s also the author of the book Mindhacks, a book featuring 100 DIY mind experiments you can try at home, and he runs the excellent MindHacks blog dedicated to psychology and neuroscience news & views.

Tom has done some fascinating research into skill acquisition by studying the process of playing computer games (which can be tracked across the whole learning curve) drawing out some useful general insights that you can apply to any skill you’re learning.

In this conversation we discuss a range of topics including: 

- What Tom has discovered about the learning process through his research in cognitive science
- The tradeoff between trying new things (exploration) and doing what works (exploitation)
- The keys to teaching effectively and improving the classroom experience for students

So whether you’re looking for some cutting edge insights from cognitive science to apply to your learning or are curious about how it can improve the classroom experience, this episode has you covered.

Finding great teachers is a big part of learning anything. 

But for most people, the top experts are off limits.

They’re only available to the few who can afford to fork out for their services, or a select who have spent years working their way up in the industry have the privilege of meeting and working with them. 

So what if I told you that in 12-24 months you could be speaking to any teacher or expert you wanted? 

That you could create your own education, build your own curriculum and learn from the best in the world. 

You’d probably be interested. And you’d probably say I was crazy.

But in the last 18 months since launching the MetaLearn Podcast, that’s exactly what I’ve done. 

In this episode I'm joined by writer, videographer and all around MetaLearner Will Reynolds and we discuss:

- How to choose your niche and build a brand around your podcast
- How to reach out to guests, get the gear you need and interview them for your show
- How to edit and promote your podcast to share your learning with a wider audience

So whether you're looking to start your own podcast or are just curious about what goes on behind the scenes here at MetaLearn, this episode has you covered.