I was travelling for a while in Central America and my iPhone frequently moved in-between dead zones. This made for long hours of silence and then a flurry of buzzes when we reached a town. Sure, I could have probably disconnected but that’s never been my style. I also liked the false sense of IT security while I avoided monkey poop and tarantulas (no exaggeration: howler monkeys do indeed throw their excrement at people who get too close. I stayed away).

Around Day 2, most people had already gotten my out of office notification and so my feed was distilled down into LinkedIn notifications, email newsletters I subscribe to, and my parents on WhatsApp. For the latter, this was usually my mother asking if I was okay, did I like this Ikea lamp (link to catalogue page), and my absolute favourite: my daily reminder that it is officially mojito o'clock. If you do not have a Polish mother, you have not lived. I digress…

Looking carefully at my inbox, it occurred to me that I get a lot of L&D noise email. This is not a surprise. There is a lot of exciting stuff happening in this space and I get stoked when I see provocative content. Few people are happy with their LMS and are finally starting to voice their frustrations (YAY!). People are questioning much of the junk science we were fed about theories like learning styles and interactivity (WOOT!). These are all good and valuable discussion to be had. It can, however, be hard to pick out the premium rum from all of the bottles on the shelf (insert mother mojito homage).

An interesting secret I discovered about our industry is that there are a remarkable number of senior leaders who are not actually L&D professionals. They are people who excel in a particular industry who then decided that they have a “passion for learning”. This is noble, but does not always mean the best voice in the crowd. Sometimes, they start bubbling to the top of your threads because they are really good at social media, or they have content marketing bench strength behind them. For an interesting take on this topic, see this brilliant post by Alan Walker. Anyone can call themselves a guru.

I am honestly not having a go at these folks. They spark conversation. A lot of great companies out there have solid ideas and products. They must push digital content from their marketing engine to build communities and sales, or wither on the vine. It is the cycle: resident thought-leader pens an article, marketing creates a campaign, they rally their advocates to love bomb with retweets, shares, and likes, and repeat. It works.

Additionally, there is likely a debate on what really constitutes a learning professional. Is it someone who has a Masters in Adult Ed? Full disclosure: I don’t. My only claim to fame is starting as an ID and hustling my way along. It keeps me fed and watered, but it is not traditional. This is a topic for another blog post.

My point is: as I sift through the emails, tweets, and posts swirling around me, what sometimes gets lost in the shuffle are the unsung voices that have the x-factor; a savvy combination of hard-earned experience, technical acumen, and usually some other random interest or skill that augments their mindset.

These are the people to pay attention to. They may not be bloggers, or eloquent (some are). They may not use twitter or post frequently (some do). Their feeds, however, are a stethoscope on what any strategic L&D person should be paying attention to.

Disclosure: No one on this list solicited an endorsement or recommendation. This post was inspired by a colleague who asked for a Top 5 LinkedIn People to Follow (thank you Josh Cardoz – he is hella smart – check him out). All of the people were selected based on my own opinion and because they do not post Zig Ziglar quotes. If anyone wishes to be removed, drop me a line at my blog.

Here's my list, in no particular order with links to profiles:

Quick note, the other quick way I whittled down my inbox is to dump any email newsletters that are not mobile enabled. You simply cannot be serious about invites to webinars on digital disruption if you picked a marketing automation engine that does not render on my iPhone. *raises mojito glass*

Play safe in the traffic, kids!