Welcome to the CoLab.

CoLab is our network space—who we’re working with and what we’re exploring. Meet the colleagues who make our work better and tour the trends we’re watching and the learning we’re leading. If you’re curious or want to collaborate, let’s connect.

WHO’S IN OUR CIRCLE

We were a networked organization before it was cool. We blend our in-house expertise with an endlessly adaptive and talented group of partners to bring the best team together for every project or program. Get to know some of our key collaborators here and get in touch if you’d like to learn more.
BIO
Crystal Schaffer

Founder

Senior advisor, executive coach, and chief idea and experience alchemist
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Erika Toomey
Executive-level business consultant, leadership coach, and learning experience facilitator
BIO
Kenko Ueyama
AI innovation pioneer, designer, and business leader
BIO
Tiffany Quivers
Educator, speaker, program designer, and change catalyst
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Elisabeth Mathieu
Program management mastermind and L&D specialist
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Mari Strait
Leadership and performance coach, team and culture facilitator, and leadership solutions innovator
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Vincent Letizia
Storytelling, entertainment,and experience guru
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Brett Schaffer
IT specialist and tool stack strategist

WHAT’S ON OUR RADAR

We’re always learning and adapting, so we scan what’s next and translate it into practical advice about what to do now. Explore the signals we’re watching, catch our podcast for practical insight, and check back often—new posts arrive regularly.

Things that make us go hmmm…

Big trends are loud once they’re obvious. Useful clues often show up sooner in small signs, subtle shifts, and quiet outliers. Things that make us go hmmm... is our open notebook of weak signals and emerging trends that aren’t mainstream yet but could tug the workplace in new directions. We scan widely across AI and learning, leadership development, and the future of work, then share a few regularly that genuinely make us pause—highlighting the research and framing the questions to ask now to prepare for what’s next.
What’s in your wallet? Credentials that travel.
Digital “skills wallets” that store verifiable credentials are moving from idea to real pilots. The big boost: The core plumbing (W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0) is now a formal web standard and the EU is on a path to roll out government-backed digital ID wallets —pressure that tends to pull platforms and cross-border employers along. Meanwhile, concerns about job-scam and résumé fraud keep rising, strengthening the appeal and ROI for cryptographic verification at the source. If proof of skills becomes easy to share and trust across borders, hiring, promotion, and compliance could feel very different—lighter for candidates, more reliable for employers. But it could all fizzle out as a fad if employers never plug wallets into real hiring flows—integrations stay thin, the wallets are clunky to use or recover, and one privacy face-plant scares everyone off—and/or if proving a skill isn’t quick, private, and simple for users. Will this become the norm…or get stuck in the standards weeds? For people and L&D leaders, this is one worth tracking closely.
AI adoption @ work: Are we stuck in a widening chasm?
Ramp’s AI Index shows business adoption of AI ticked back up in July and August 2025 after a mid-year wobble, but the rate of growth is still shy of early year highs. Layer in the recent Gartner pronouncement that GenAI is entering the “Trough of Disillusionment” and there’s reason to wonder: Is this a data blip or could this be a potential “crossing the chasm” moment (where the adoption of an innovation stalls and fails to make the leap past early enthusiasts to the more cautious mainstream majority)? The twist with AI is that the technology won’t sit still—models, hardware, use-cases, and rules keep shifting. When technology changes faster than habits and governance can, it's harder to get the pragmatists and skeptics on board so the so-called chasm between early and mainstream adoption can persist—or even widen—as organizations struggle to lock in stable workflows and controls.
What happens next is genuinely uncertain. For L&D and AI champions, this is a “hold multiple hypotheses” moment: Is this a brief pause before a new acceleration or the start of a longer plateau? If usage climbs while tools evolve, is enthusiasm outrunning guardrails or is “good enough” the new bar? Does the application and enthusiasm gap between AI experts and average users widen or shrink over time? And as more teams drift to smaller, task-specific models (cheaper, faster, easier to govern), is that a fit-for-purpose turn or a quiet reset of expectations? How the data points and signals move in the months ahead will shape whether we’re focusing on building bridges for the cautious majority to cross or planning for a longer, bumpier ride through the valley.

Meet me in the middle

Hey there, high-wire acrobat of the corporate circus. You're putting out today's fires, scanning for tomorrow's worries, and trying to squeeze "reinvent the business" between back-to-back calls. If you are a middle manager, mid-career, between a rock and a hard place, or in the middle of anything else, you know what we mean. We see you. We are you. And we know the middle can feel like a lonely zip code. That is why our semi-regular podcast series exists. Think of it as a standing coffee break with people who get the chaos: business leaders, consultants, researchers, AI innovators, and learning leaders who've racked up a few mileage points in change management and workplace coaching. We'll swap stories, unpack lessons learned, and share ideas you can apply in the real world.
Episode 1: Powering Up Curiosity @ Work
Humans are born curious. But between meetings, processes, and working lunches, it’s easy to forget. In episode one of Meet Me in the Middle, we share practical tools to put curiosity back into your workday—and ready-to-run prompts you can use with your team—to power up one of the most critical non-tech skills you need now. Click to tune in. 🎧
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