Speaking & Learning

For associations, conferences, professional communities, learning programs, and organizations that want people to think, learn, and participate.

I write, speak, and facilitate about how people work, lead, and create together.

Through talks, creative labs, workshops, and custom learning experiences, I help groups explore important ideas and leave with something useful to carry forward.

Have a specific problem inside your company or leadership team? Visit Organizations & Leaders.

Ideas are more useful when people get to do something with them

I am interested in the questions underneath how we work and live together.
Why do capable people fall into familiar patterns? What happens when technology changes faster than the habits around it? What does creativity make possible that analysis alone sometimes cannot?

Speaking and learning create room to explore questions like these through ideas, conversation, and participation.

Sometimes that means a talk. Sometimes it means getting people out of their seats and experimenting together.

The format changes. The aim is consistent: give people something worth thinking about and something useful to carry with them.

Speaking

I speak about the human side of work, leadership, creativity, technology, and change.

Sessions can be designed for conferences, association events, leadership gatherings, professional communities, learning programs, and internal organizational events.

I want to take a clear idea seriously, make it accessible, and leave people with questions or practices that continue working on them afterward.

Current themes include how people work together when familiar approaches stop working, creativity and pattern disruption, organizational readiness for AI and change, and what rapidly changing technology asks of us as people.

Heather McDaniel speaking during a live presentation.
A diverse team engaged in a collaborative meeting in a modern office setting.

Creative Leadership Lab

The Creative Leadership Lab is a participatory learning experience for groups that want something more active than a talk.

Over approximately 90 minutes, participants use creative exercises, reflection, conversation, and experimentation to notice familiar patterns and try different ways of thinking and working with other people.

It can be playful. That is part of the point.

When people temporarily step outside their established roles and assumptions, they often notice things they would miss in another presentation or ordinary meeting.

The Lab works well as part of a conference, association program, leadership offsite, professional development day, or organizational learning event.

It is customized for the context, but it is fundamentally a learning experience for an audience. If you want to work specifically on the relationships and dynamics inside one intact leadership team, the Leadership Team Lab under Organizations & Leaders is the better fit.

  • What people are saying

    We left the experience not only with sharper insights and actionable commitments, but also with a renewed sense of courage, collaboration, and shared vision. It’s a rare thing to walk away from a workshop with both practical tools and genuine inspiration. Heather made that possible.
    Andrea Melhorn
    Director of Operations, MO Studio

Workshops, Masterclasses & Custom Learning

I design workshops, masterclasses, and facilitated learning experiences around a particular idea, question, or learning objective.

Sessions combine ideas with participation and practical application, with topics ranging from leadership and creativity to systems thinking, AI, and change.

Workshops

Participatory sessions that combine ideas with discussion, exercises, and application.

Custom Learning

Designed around a particular audience, context, or learning objective.

AI, change, and the questions underneath them

AI creates technical questions. It also creates questions about people.

Erasmus+ & Adult Education

I also work with European adult education and Erasmus+ organizations on facilitated learning, training, and program delivery.

My approach emphasizes participation, reflection, experimentation, and connecting ideas to real experience rather than passive instruction.

What it Feels Like to Be in the Room

I take the subject seriously without assuming the room has to feel serious all the time.

I like questions that shift the conversation, exercises that reveal something unexpected, and enough structure that people can participate without wondering where the session is going.

I also pay attention to what is happening in the room: who is contributing, where the energy changes, what keeps resurfacing, and when the group needs a different question rather than another slide.

There is a plan. I just don’t believe the plan should matter more than the people in front of me.

Who this work is for

Speaking & Learning is for groups brought together around an idea, question, or learning goal.

Associations & Conferences

Talks, labs, and workshops for events, summits, and member communities.

Professional Communities

Participatory learning for networks, peer groups, and communities of practice.

Learning Programs

Sessions for leadership development, professional learning, and adult education programs.

Organizations With Broader Audiences

Learning experiences for companies bringing together a wider group of leaders, employees, or partners.

The common denominator is simple: you have people you want to engage around an idea.

If you have a specific organizational or leadership-team problem to understand or work on, start with Organizations & Leaders.

Virtual and in-person formats are available across Europe and North America.

Bring people together around an idea worth exploring

If you are planning a conference, association event, leadership gathering, professional development program, or organizational learning experience, tell me who will be in the room and what you want them thinking about when they leave.