Transforming how learning designers lead, design, & influence.

I help learning professionals break free from conventional limits through modern design and creativity. My work combines strategic learning design, practical implementation, and systems thinking to help you step into your role as a change-maker. This is about challenging the status quo, amplifying your influence, and building learning experiences that truly transform people and organizations.

Ricky Ratcliff wearing a dark sweater sitting at a desk with books and a bookshelf in the background.

From Stuck to Strategic

What’s Holding You Back?

Most learning teams are stuck in reaction mode, chasing requests, buried in processes that don’t measure what matters, and fighting for influence. I’ve seen it, and it doesn’t have to stay that way. My frameworks help learning professionals cut through the noise to design experiences that are human-centered, measurable, and impossible to ignore. When learning shifts from activity to impact, everything changes — the work, the results, and the recognition you deserve.

Common Challenges

  • Endless requests. Quick fixes replace meaningful design.
  • Invisible impact. You know your work matters, but proving it is hard.
  • No influence. Strategy happens without your voice in the room.
  • Losing the spark. Burnout creeps in, and the curiosity that brought you here starts to fade.

With the right systems, clarity, and mindset, learning professionals can reclaim their influence and lead change from wherever they stand.
That’s what happens when learning connects directly to business outcomes — when teams measure results, show real impact, and do work that earns influence and inspires change.

Resources

Ideas That
Push Learning Forward

These articles dig into the real challenges of our field and what it takes to move learning from safe to significant. Each one blends practical insight with honest reflection, covering creativity, leadership, technology, and strategy. The goal isn’t more noise. It’s sharper thinking, real stories, and ideas you can use to create lasting impact.

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Smart glasses displaying time, date, weather, and notifications on their lenses against a dark background.

Learning Through the Lens: Why AR Glasses Change Everything

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The metaverse was hype. AR glasses are real. With Meta, Apple, and others racing to bring overlays into our everyday lives, we’re looking at the first true leap toward learning in the flow of work. The question isn’t if AR will reshape learning — it’s how we’ll design it to be inclusive, practical, and human.
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Hand touching the surface of a glowing plasma ball with colorful electric streams.

From Random Acts of Training to Repeatable Impact

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Most training programs are one-and-done — workshops, modules, and quick fixes that don’t add up to lasting impact. If you want repeatable results, you need more than scattered solutions. You need a system. That’s where learning patterns come in — our field’s evolution of pattern language, built to turn isolated wins into lasting influence.
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Student standing alone on tiled floor under spotlight holding books with a backpack and casting a long shadow.

Learning Doesn’t Need More Content. It Needs More Courage.

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Corporate learning has gotten too safe. More courses, more workshops, more boxes checked – but no real change. The future of learning doesn’t belong to the safest hands in the room. It belongs to the boldest ones. Here’s why it’s time to stop playing small – and start leading with informed disruption.

tutorials

Practical Tools for Real Work

The best way to learn is by doing. These short video tutorials show how to turn ideas into action — from defining outcomes to measuring what matters. Each one breaks down a key part of the learning design process so you can build stronger systems, faster.

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Video Tutorial 1

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Video Tutorial 2

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Video Tutorial 3

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Portrait of Ricky Ratcliff illuminated by red and blue lighting against a gradient background.

behind the work

About Ricky Ratcliff

I’ve spent my career helping learning professionals move from activity to impact. My background includes more than a decade in learning and development, leading programs for global organizations and proving that learning can drive real business results.

Through that experience, I saw how often talented learning professionals were boxed in by outdated processes and requests that left little room for creativity or strategy. That realization led me to develop Learning DNA™, a framework that helps make learning measurable, adaptable, and human.

Today, my focus is simple. I share what I’ve learned through the Learning DNA Framework, the Learning Playground Podcast, and a collection of practical tools and resources  — all created to help learning professionals design work that creates change and makes a real impact.

podcast

Learning Playground is where learning gets messy, creative, and human. I talk with unconventional educators, from baristas and yoga instructors to artists and other creators, who personalize learning in the wild without the corporate baggage.

Each episode pulls lessons from unexpected places and brings them back to our corporate education, helping learning professionals break free from one-size-fits-all training and design experiences that are practical, creative, and built for impact.

If you’re ready for fresh ideas and real conversations about how learning actually happens, this is your space.

Black and white portrait of Ricky Ratcliff wearing a dark shirt, with text above reading 'Learning Playground with Ricky Ratcliff' in purple and blue gradient.

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