Design learning that earns attention 

Jonny Thomson (00:00):
Normalized learning, make learning cool again. Learning doesn’t need to happen in these tightly controlled environments. Learning is what happens around the dinner table. It’s what happens with your friends. It’s what happens in the cafeteria when you’re having lunch with your colleagues. I think we need to normalize learning as something that humans have always done.

Hannah Beaver (00:20):
You’re listening to How to Make A Leader, a leadership development podcast from Big Think+, where we take the best ideas from the biggest minds in learning and development and distill them into actionable insights. I’m your host, Hannah Beaver. Our guest today is Jonny Thomson. Jonny used to teach philosophy in Oxford and has since amassed two million curious minds across Substack, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, pretty much any platform you can think of. He’s now a big think columnist, the face behind the mini philosophy brand, and an award-winning author of three books. Jonny is not only a brilliant mind, but he’s also one of my good friends, and so I’m very excited to be talking to him today.

Jonny Thomson (01:07):
Very happy to be here. Can’t wait to talk all things L&D.

Hannah Beaver (01:11):
So Jonny, can you tell me a little bit more about your work? I want to hear your story and how you got to where you are today.

Jonny Thomson (01:18):
Well, where I am now is I run the social media accounts called Mini Philosophy, which is part of Big Think. Long time ago, I was a teacher in Oxford, and in my holidays, I was kind of twiddling my thumbs. This was long before I had a family and a hobby. I would think, “What can I do with my time?” So I set up a social media account, which was actually on Tumblr back in the day. And what I would do is I would have these minimalist images that I would make in Photoshop and I would have a caption, about a 2002 argued word character caption and explain philosophy. That did okay. And then I moved it across to Instagram and then took up a little bit there, got about 20,000 followers from that. So people obviously liked what I was doing. And then I’d started to do videos, short form philosophy content where I explained philosophical ideas in 90 seconds, just me talking to camera on an iPhone for 90 seconds.

(02:11):
And that just seemed to blow up. And then on the side, I write books. Got three books out already and I’m currently working on a fourth mysterious project, which I can’t quite announce yet.

Hannah Beaver (02:22):
Your topic focused philosophy is quite niche. What have you found works best for you when you’re sharing information or you’re very much a teacher teaching your audience, so what have you found works best for you?

Jonny Thomson (02:34):
Well, I kind of think two things for me really, and this is not just my videos, but also my written content is that I definitely bring my personality to what I’m doing. I’m not just a BBC presenter, objective, keeping facts only at the front and keeping the personality to the side. Both my writing and my videos very much involve my voice. I never had any formal training in how to write. So the way I write is very much just how I think and how I talk. And people seem to like that. And that kind of spills off into my social media, likewise. I mean, my social media is me talking to camera for 90 seconds. It’s literally my iPhone on the table with a nice microphone. And it’s what I was doing as a teacher. It’s what I’m doing conversations with friends. And I think people like that just natural everyday kind of seminary vibe that you get at university.

(03:22):
I think people appreciate that kind of teaching pedagogic vibe. So that’s all work for me. Of course, there’s many different ways you can do it, many different ways of content creation really.

Hannah Beaver (03:30):
I think a sense of authenticity really comes across through all of your content. And I think especially right now, people are really craving that human connection, not to be jargony, talking about the age of AI and human connection, but I think really that authenticity comes through and I think that’s really successful in the content that you put out.

Jonny Thomson (03:49):
Thank you. Yeah. All of my videos have a pretty similar format. The start will be a hook. I’m engaging the audience. I’m telling them why this is interesting. And at the end, there is a takeaway, how you can learn from this, what you can apply to your life. And then essentially, those are the bookends. What I need to do is work out the road, which connects those two. So you don’t want too much because obviously you won’t fit into 90 seconds, you don’t want too little. Otherwise, you won’t be able to join those two together. So I think having that kind of plan is really important. But what I would say by and large is that it’s an activation. It’s not teaching full philosophy. It’s an invitation for somebody else to then go away and to do the full deep learning, which is another tool in the toolbox, I would say.

Hannah Beaver (04:26):
I think some of our listeners may be able to resonate with the fact that philosophy, for example, harder to engage audiences if it’s a topic that is harder to digest. A lot of L&D folks that we speak to have problems getting their learners to really engage in their content. Do you have any advice on how to make learning content relatable for learners?

Jonny Thomson (04:48):
It’s a good question, and it’s a difficult question because in a learning and development corporate setting, often learning can feel forced. You can resent learning. And of course, when you’re in that kind of attitude where you already resent the learning environment, then you’re already in a defensive position. Your mind’s not in the right head space by which to accommodate this learning. I was very lucky to grow up in a household where around the table people would share an anecdote, people would share an interesting fact. And so when I was growing up, learning was kind of normalized and learning was easy really because everyone just did it and everyone shared a fact. So I would say see microlearning as that really. It’s literally sharing a fact around the table at lunch. It’s sharing an email with your colleague saying, “I learned this recently.” These are all examples of microlearning.

(05:37):
So make it normal and don’t feel self-conscious about it. Don’t cringe because a lot of people, particularly in Britain, if you’re honest, they cringe at the idea of like, let me share an interesting fact with you. In fact, even that expression, interesting fact for you.

Hannah Beaver (05:49):
Fun fact. Fun fact for you. It’s the dreaded fun fact that occurred people that you don’t know.

Jonny Thomson (05:53):
It’s done in an ironic way, isn’t it? And you’re like, “Okay, fun fact, guys, I’m not a nerd.” But make that normal again, being able to share fun facts with each other. I think that’s the key thing. So takeaways really, microlearning is not limited to short videos that you send to people in a kind of force and setting. It’s everything we can do around a table, in the pub and a dinner table or at lunch with your colleagues.

Hannah Beaver (06:13):
And what I’m hearing you say there is kind of normalizing learning moments as well. Like you said, an email, or it could just be creating a space within the office to talk about something that you learned. It’s all part of the bigger learning ecosystem. And I think it’s really interesting to talk to you around the video aspect, but also the different formats as well, because like you mentioned, learning can come in different formats at different points and it’s still all effective learning.

Jonny Thomson (06:40):
Absolutely. And yeah, I think that’s so true. And also it requires that degree of kind of labeling, doesn’t it? So you can be in a situation where you might have failed at the task or you might be in a situation where you’re witnessing someone who’s doing something incredible or there is a success in the company. Those all happen all of the time in every company around the world. But what the next step requires of you is to say, “Oh, this is an opportunity to learn from that.

Hannah Beaver (07:06):
”

Jonny Thomson (07:07):
Later on, we might talk about leadership. And in my life, I’ve been quite lucky to witness quite a few inspirational leaders, but it’s only now that I look back and think, actually that was inspirational, that was a good act of leadership that allows me to enable it as learning because then it was just like background music, wasn’t it? It’s just a music in the elevator. But now I’m recognizing it as, that’s a pretty good beat.

Hannah Beaver (07:30):
What are the three things that everyone needs to successfully execute in their micro learning?

Jonny Thomson (07:37):
Good. Yeah, difficult. I’m a philosopher obviously, so I don’t necessarily want to be pinned down to three. So I would have to caveat anything I say with saying that it’s not one size fits all. There’s many different types of microlearning and it’ll change from person to person, company to company, context to context. But the first is I would say that you need to elicit some kind of engagement or elicit attention. And actually this is why I think that content creators are actually very good at microlearning because the entire content creation space is about hooking the attention of the listener or the reader. In fact, there’s this fairly well known example where you have three seconds to catch someone’s attention. And the ways to do that are to make it relatable to someone’s life. You have an act of movement or do something shocking or something kind of counterintuitive.

(08:24):
A lot’s been said about how we have a very fractured attention span these days and that we shouldn’t necessarily be pandering to this, but I kind of think it’s always been thus that you need a reason to want to learn. And if something doesn’t grab your attention, back in the day, it would’ve been a book cover. It might have been an inspirational teacher or it might’ve been a TV program that suddenly caught your eye, whatever. You need some kind of reason to do the microlearning. I think that’s the first bit, the hook.

Hannah Beaver (08:49):
I

Jonny Thomson (08:49):
Think you need some kind of active attention. The second thing is I think you need to really cultivate somebody’s curiosity that I often describe microlearning, particularly what I’m doing on many philosophy as kind of a seed. So I’m throwing all of these seeds out. I’m scattering these seeds. I’m sewing these seeds. And some of them will obviously not land. They won’t germinate and become a sapling or a tree, but some of them will. And I think you need to cultivate the curiosity, which allows somebody to go away and to then research that further. Now, the ancient Greeks had this word called thalma, which is essentially a kind of philosophical curiosity. The way I describe it normally is if you imagine the black screen at the end of a drama where it’s kind of like a cliffhanger and you really want to know what happens next.

(09:30):
Or if somebody says to you, “I know a secret you don’t,” that kind of needs to want to know is thelma, but it’s also in a scientific setting. So if you are outside around nature, thelma is which says, “Why is the sky blue? I want to know why the sky is blue. I want to know why moss is growing over there and it’s not growing over there. I want to know why birds are doing that thing.” That’s thelma. And so you need to, in microlearning, cultivate that kind of curiosity. So people then go away and cultivate their seeds, I’d say. Yeah. And the third thing is that you need to also give people the environment by which they can satisfy that curiosity. So microlearning, as I said earlier, is only one tool in the box. You need to then go away and say, well, okay, look, if you are interested in this subject, read this, watch this YouTube video, go away and activate it.

(10:17):
Here is a space where you and your colleagues or you and your friends can talk about it. I think you need that kind of activation of the learning for you to retain it, but also to make it fun I think as well. So let’s say, for example, you’ve just done a microlearning course about team cohesion, team bonding. That’s the first step. That’s the activation, that’s the hook, and that’s the invitation to curiosity. The next step is saying, well, okay, well now go away and watch this YouTube video on Musafa Sharif’s of a cave experiment where involve children who are separated into groups and they had a conflict and they brought together by a shared task. Or go away and read Bruce Huckman’s book on social cohesion. Those kind of like next steps are really important to activating microlearning. So yes, so you need to hook people’s attention, number one, you need to activate or cultivate someone’s curiosity, and then you need to give people the resources by which to turn that curiosity into deep lasting learning.

Hannah Beaver (11:10):
I love the phrase cultivate curiosity. Definitely going to hold onto that. I’m going to use that one in the future.

Jonny Thomson (11:16):
Thank you.

Hannah Beaver (11:21):
Jonny, I’m curious. I know you said you’ve had the privilege of learning from some excellent leaders.

Jonny Thomson (11:27):
Yes. Yeah.

Hannah Beaver (11:28):
What is a leadership trait that all good leaders possess?

Jonny Thomson (11:33):
It’s a good question and it’s very hard, of course, to pin down to a few. And so I’m going to slightly do that also, that awkward philosophical thing of fudging the question a little bit and pushing it to … When you say the word trait, I actually prefer the word virtues.

Hannah Beaver (11:47):
Okay.

Jonny Thomson (11:47):
The reason why I like that is because it leads me straight up onto Aristotle where I’m on my happy ground here.

(11:52):
And Aristotle talks a lot about virtues, about living the good life, is living according to these certain virtues. And of course, they’re not just a good life. There’s also a good leader. There’s a good parent, a good brother, a good everything really. And a good life is that which follows his virtues. And so the next question is, what virtues make a good leader? I’ve witnessed three really good virtues that for me, in my experience, embody good leadership. And the first is fairness. I distinctly remember I had a boss a few jobs ago who he wasn’t always well liked by everybody, but that didn’t matter because he was very well respected by everybody. And the reason why he was respected by everybody was because he enforced the rules the same for everybody. Whether you were new or old, whether you’d been there for years or whether you had just joined the company, it didn’t matter.

(12:36):
Here are the rules and this is what I’m going to do. He played a very straight mat and that’s what got a lot of respect. I think fairness is really important to leadership. Second thing is I think you got to work hard that if you’re a leader, you often get paid more. And I should say actually, not everybody has to become a leader. But if you do want to become a leader, I think you have to accept that with more money comes more work. I think you have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and to muck in. I have had a few bad leaders in the past who you felt as if they were delegating too much. Now obviously you should delegate as a leader and as a manager, but you felt as though the delegation was reaching the point where they weren’t actually doing much work themselves.

(13:15):
And then of course you have the team all whispering in the- There’s

Hannah Beaver (13:18):
Animosity.

Jonny Thomson (13:18):
Cafeteria saying, “What does he actually do? What does she actually do? ” And it seems to me they’re just telling us to do the work. It might not always be the case, but you need to work hard, I think, if you’re a leader. And the third thing is I think you need to be optimistic because even if you are negative in your own private thoughts, and even if you think that the company’s going to go under next year and stuff, you need to put on a kind of front, you need to lead from the front, you need to motivate people, you need to bring people along with you. So I’m a massive Law of the Rings fan. I am a Lord of the Rings nerd, okay? Doesn’t surprise. And it doesn’t surprise me. I grew up on a diet of middle earth and in the Lord of the Ring books, that is actually in the deep law.

(13:55):
It’s in the Silverilian actually. There’s the idea of the rings of power and Gandalf has a ring of power. Now all of these rings have different powers. Some give you long life, some give you wealth, some can heal people and some make you kind of powerful, give you strength. But the ring that Gandalf has is hope. And so Gandalf gives fire to people because of this ring. And I think that’s really important. The reason why it’s one of the most powerful rings in Tolkien’s work is because if you haven’t got hope, then you won’t work hard. Whereas if you have got hope, you will work hard. And so I think that optimism needs to come from the leadership. And I think that does trickle down into the company. And if you don’t have that, I don’t think you should be a leader, really.

Hannah Beaver (14:36):
I really like those. I don’t think we have those from prior guests. Unique

Jonny Thomson (14:39):
Responses. A unique response involving Gandalf from the Silverian. I love it.

Hannah Beaver (14:45):
And in the spirit

Jonny Thomson (14:46):
Of

Hannah Beaver (14:47):
How to make a leader, what

Jonny Thomson (14:48):
Is the best

Hannah Beaver (14:49):
Piece of leadership advice that you’ve ever received?

Jonny Thomson (14:52):
Again, I’m sorry, it’s going to be a rubbish answer. It’s going to completely fudge it. And I actually say that I personally think that advice is almost always going to be insufficient because in my mind, leadership and also working generally is a practical skill. And as all practical skills, you learn best by doing it. You have to actually work at leadership to become a good leader. And also, again, as Aristotle says that with practical skills, you should imitate other people first. So rather than advice, then always do X, always do Y, wake up at five in the morning to answer emails, all that kind of stuff. I would say find some people in your life who you think exemplify good leadership and also people who you think exemplify bad leadership and ask yourself why, why do I think they are good leaders? And then try and copy them.

(15:41):
Aristotle actually says that virtue and wisdom comes from, in its early stages, imitation. Copy what people are doing and you will eventually be like that. So I think if you have people in your life who you think are a really good leader, well, A, tell them that because I think everyone loves to be told that they are a good leader.

Hannah Beaver (15:55):
Emitation is the highest form of latter. Imitation

Jonny Thomson (15:57):
Is the form of-

Hannah Beaver (15:59):
Say that.

Jonny Thomson (15:59):
Exactly. And also it’s the highest form of learning. I think if you imitate somebody, you will become like them. So not advice. I would say find someone in your life who thinks a good leader and do what they do. Identify people in your life who are a bad leader and don’t do what they do because I’m sure everybody listening has got an example in their heads of somebody who was a bad leader.

Hannah Beaver (16:17):
If listeners could take away one piece of advice from today’s conversation, what would that be?

Jonny Thomson (16:22):
I think it would be to normalize learning and to make learning cool again, that learning doesn’t need to happen in these tightly controlled environments. Learning is what happens around the dinner table is what happens with your friends. It’s what happens in the cafeteria when you’re having lunch with your colleagues. I think we need to normalize learning as something that humans have always done.

Hannah Beaver (16:43):
Thanks for listening. For more from Jonny, check the show notes where we’ve linked his social media and his newsletter. From more from How to Make a Leader, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. We’ll be back next month as we learn how to make a leader.

Jonny Thomson isn’t an L&D professional. He’s someone who’s spent years figuring out how to earn learners’ attention. 

After teaching philosophy in Oxford, Jonny shifted to short-form educational content, building an audience of over two million people across social platforms. He’s spent years capturing attention, encouraging curiosity, and making learning content that resonates with his audience and followers of Mini Philosophy. 

In this conversation, he talks about microlearning as less of a format, and more of an activation tool. A tool that can capture attention and curiosity, and points learners toward deeper exploration.

If you’re responsible for designing, enabling, or influencing learning at scale, this episode will provide practical ways to use microlearning more deliberately.

Things to listen for:
(00:00) Introducing Jonny Thomson
(03:04) How to capture attention in 90 seconds
(05:31) Why learning remains human
(06:56) How to make microlearning feel natural and not forced
(07:49) Everyday moments that create authentic learning
(08:19) Three things to make microlearning succeed
(12:15) The three virtues of a successful leader

About Jonny Thomson:

Jonny Thomson taught philosophy in Oxford for more than a decade before turning to writing full-time. He’s a columnist at Big Think and is the award-winning, bestselling author of three books that have been translated into 22 languages.

Jonny is also the founder of Mini Philosophy, a social network of around two million curious, intelligent minds. He’s known all over the world for making philosophy accessible, relatable, and fun.To learn more about Jonny, check out Mini Philosophy on Substack or Instagram.