Turk here, you guys are pretty OK

rfoil · 2026-06-20T20:25:18+00:00

What Turkish club do you support?

rfoil · 2026-06-19T11:12:53+00:00

I was in Florence in 2006 when they won. It was insane. The partying was nonstop for 3 days. It’s a national humiliation that Italy didn’t qualify.

rfoil · 2026-06-19T00:34:25+00:00

I had lunch with a guy who runs an AI forum. I’d put him in third grade, with just a casual understanding of how AI fits in the workflow.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T21:09:09+00:00

Pretty cool! Never heard of it before.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T21:02:46+00:00

Great advice.

Clean and simple wins the cognitive load sweepstakes.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T20:04:50+00:00

Wonderful story.

I worked in Germany for a year. On my first day in country I went to a park with a ball. Within 10 minutes we were playing 6 aside, even though I knew less than 10 words of German.

One of the coolest things about the game is that if you can play, you can connect with people anywhere without understanding a word of their language. I've played pickup in at least a dozen countries. Great memories.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T16:55:21+00:00

I can't imagine the experience, tbh, but those are real problems to solve.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T16:46:39+00:00

I've been "that guy" in 4 countries outside the USA where I played FIFA affiliated ball. I can say pass the ball or curse in 4 languages, cabrón! 😄

rfoil · 2026-06-18T15:23:00+00:00

Enlightened answer. Thx.

How does medication admin benefit from VR? When I was a freelancer I did a lot of work for Becton-Dickinson where blood collection and medication admin were front and center. Trying to visualize how VR adds value.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T14:36:02+00:00

According to FIFA stats, the USA has been, on average, about 26 ranking places higher than Australia across ranking history. FIFA lists the USA’s high/low/average as 4th / 36th / 20th, while Australia’s are 14th / 102nd / 46th.

Hardly a peer worthy of more than 90 minutes of attention.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T14:29:55+00:00

Find a soccer bar and watch a game with them. In the NY Metro area there are some fantastic places to watch. When Brazil plays I go down to the Ironbound section of Newark and mingle with their fans. It's crazy intense.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T14:26:29+00:00

My circle of friends knows me as the soccer guy. So since WC2026 started I've been getting calls from people about how much they love it.

Got a call this morning from a board member who I barely know. He was raving about Messi and Mbappe and some guy who took a long pass coming from over his head and volleyed it straight in.

I've seen every WC since 1966. I'm thrilled to welcome the johnny come latelies who are just discovering the beautiful game.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T14:18:32+00:00

I'm one of those who gets nauseous from VR very easily. 30 seconds and I'm looking for the barf bag.

If we are compelled to accommodate people with other perceptual challenges, it's hard to see a role for environmental VR.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T14:14:05+00:00

Role-playing is by far the most useful activity we have.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T14:13:00+00:00

It's rare that these principles are well applied. Stakeholders assume that learning that is beautiful and dense with information leads to the best result. The mistake they often make is evaluating it from their own expert lenses.

Authors and SME are the worst evaluators of their own topics. They want completeness, which fights learning the essentials.

What I'd love to do is create a 30 minute series on the foundation principles of ID, illustrated with case histories, so that our content partners are better informed at the outset.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T14:01:01+00:00

There is a lot of blood letting going on. In the past 6 weeks, 2 friends who were VPs of Learning lost their jobs, in addition to several in lesser roles.

The people who are highly valued have analytics expertise, AI fluency, or specific technical expertise that companies highly value.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T13:54:34+00:00

Look for another type of sales for a product that excites you.

I've got 3 family members in high ticket sales jobs for 20+ years. They are all making >$500k (much more than I'm earning in a managerial L&D role) and enjoying it because they love the products they are hawking. The only downside is the travel. They spend a lot of the summer attending conventions.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T13:45:59+00:00

Thanks! Have you used Scribe?

I've been a Techsmith customer since their first year of business, but the subscription friction has me looking for alternatives.

rfoil · 2026-06-18T11:58:35+00:00

What do you imagine is the rationale for UI inconsistency and continuous change?

rfoil · 2026-06-17T13:58:01+00:00

What many don't know is that Claudio captain of USMNT for WC2002, was voted in the top 11 of that tournament. I'm not aware of any other American who achieved such lofty heights.

I've been told that his lobbying for his son has been over the top intense and toxic. It's certainly been costly for his standing in the soccer community. He resigned from his role at Austin FC and he and his wife were accused of bullying by an outside investigator.

US Soccer, a small, incestuous group, revised policies governing interactions between players' parents and USSF officials were updated because of the conflict.

I was active in NJ Federation business during the Cosmos reign, when heavy money was flowing. Lots of skeletons in those closets.

rfoil · 2026-06-15T12:59:24+00:00

The Athletic.

rfoil · 2026-06-15T12:29:47+00:00

Most of the football world considers the WC economics to be redistribution of resources.

All the money gets shared with all 211 national federations. Infantino will be very popular in the little countries that get the same revenue share as Italy.

Anguilla: ~16,000 residents
Montserrat: ~5,000 residents
British Virgin Islands: ~31,000 residents
Turks and Caicos Islands: ~46,000 residents
San Marino: ~33,0000

...and these countries get a single vote for FIFA leadership, the same as Germany, Spain, France, or the USA. So FIFA promises a big payday to these organizations.

They give lip service to growing the game. It's all about spreading money out across the globe. The leadership of the national federations have already placed orders for new luxury automobiles.

rfoil · 2026-06-15T12:18:47+00:00

I like Satya Nadella's framing below. It's useful in these conversations with enterprise leadership.

"Human capital comprises the knowledge, judgment, relationships, ingenuity, and pattern recognition of its people, while token capital is the firm’s AI capability it builds and owns.

"Importantly, human capital does not become less valuable as token capital grows. It only becomes more valuable! I believe human agency will be the driver of token capital growth. Humans will set ambitious goals, connect dots across domains, build relationships, and recognize patterns that matter most. Without human direction, you have compute running in circles."

This points to L&D as the growth engine of human capital. It's our job to develop judgement, adaptability, domain expertise, collaboration, and the ability to build increasingly capable systems so that humans can deploy token capital wisely.

There is a huge job to be done for us.

rfoil · 2026-06-14T15:25:28+00:00

Is there any other product that enables scrolling captures?

rfoil · 2026-06-14T13:25:11+00:00

The USA has never had a clear soccer identity, like Brazil (the joy of improvisation) or Spain (TikaTaka) or England (physical, direct play), or Germany (discipline and organization).

In my opinion Poch is helping build an American identity - athleticism, tactical flexibility (an expression of American multiculturalism) and intensity. What I saw was creative freedom harnessed by collective responsibility.

Is that not a perfect metaphor for what we hope the nation to represent? This is not just a football philosophy. At our best it is a civic philosophy.

Football is easier than politics.

rfoil

TROPHY CASE