Knowledge Architecture

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I'm joined by Angela Watson, FAIA, President and CEO of Shepley Bulfinch, a nationally recognized architecture firm whose work spans healthcare, higher education, and civic design. Angela leads with a conviction she traces back to her time teaching at MIT: that real learning doesn't happen through lecture — it happens through doing, through struggle, and through the kind of exploration that only comes when people are given room to fail safely and try again. That belief didn't stay in the classroom. It became the foundation for how she thinks about leading a firm. Learning by doing is the foundation of how AEC professionals and firms develop. The problem is that great ideas stay trapped in pockets — one team figures something out, another team struggles with the same thing, and the knowledge never travels. Angela saw that dynamic playing out at Shepley Bulfinch as the firm grew into a national practice, work-sharing across five offices with project cycles too long and feedback loops too slow to rely on informal transfer alone. Becoming a learning organization became an operational necessity, but it turned out to be much harder than it looked. The conversation traces the full arc of what that effort has looked like in practice and what Angela has learned leading it: → Why it's so hard for subject matter experts to codify and teach what they know. → Why the traditional apprenticeship model is breaking down as plates get fuller and mentorship gets crowded out. → What Shepley Bulfinch learned from building Birdfeeder, their internal peer-to-peer learning platform — what worked, what was too ambitious, and what the firm is rethinking now. → And why the harder problem isn't building a course catalog — it's connecting learning to where someone actually wants to go in their career. The thread running underneath all of it is psychological safety. Angela talks about "Back to the Future," Shepley Bulfinch's reframe on lessons learned — a format designed to celebrate the imperfect and make it safe to share what went wrong. She reflects on what it took for her, as CEO, to model that vulnerability publicly, and why she believes culture is the soil in which any learning organization either takes root or doesn't. If you lead an AEC firm, manage a team, or are thinking seriously about how your organization develops its people, this episode is for you. Angela offers deep insight into what's worked, what hasn't, and what is still to be figured out on Shepley Bulfinch's journey to becoming a learning organization. 📺 🎧 Link to listen or watch to the episode in the comments. 👇 #AEC #KnowledgeManagement #SmarterByDesign #ModernLearningOrganizations

What does it take to build a learning organization that can evolve as fast as the world around it? At Turner Fleischer, that question has been unfolding for more than 16 years through the steady evolution of Turner Fleischer Academy—transforming from a traditional in-person training program into a broader, living learning ecosystem. In this KA Connect 2026 session, CEO Ellen Bensky will share how Turner Fleischer is rethinking Learning & Development to meet the demands of an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. You’ll learn how Turner Fleischer: → Built a dedicated Learning + Development team grounded in adult education expertise → Treats learning programs as living systems shaped by feedback, retrospectives, and continuous refinement → Expanded beyond a single academy model to support broader professional growth → Introduced new learning programs to address emerging organizational needs → Is designing more intentional learning pathways across leadership, LMS, and studio development → Approaches modern business challenges through the lens of both “tame” and “wicked” problems Rather than treating L&D as a static function, Turner Fleischer sees learning as a strategic organizational capability—one that must continuously adapt alongside changing technologies, business realities, and human needs. The result is a powerful model for firms seeking to build resilience, adaptability, and deeper capability over time. If your firm is thinking seriously about the future of professional development, leadership growth, and how to structure learning for an increasingly complex environment, this session will offer both strategic perspective and practical inspiration. I hope you can join us! Learn more via link in comments. 🏔️ KA Connect 2026 🗓️ August 11–14 | Sundance, UT #KAConnect2026 #AEC #KnowledgeManagement #ModernLearningOrganizations

Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with many of the leading AEC firms in our industry as they navigate two enormous shifts at once: AI transformation and the growing need to modernize learning and development. Our clients were looking for better ways to develop people, scale expertise, preserve institutional knowledge, and adapt faster in an increasingly complex environment. In many ways, that realization helped reshape our own roadmap at Knowledge Architecture. It pushed our Synthesis technology beyond intranets and towards a more integrated platform—one that brings together knowledge management, learning management, AI-powered search, and now knowledge agents. But along the way, something larger became increasingly clear: Technology alone is not the transformation. The bigger shift is organizational. To truly capitalize on these new capabilities, firms must become far more intentional about how they learn. They must build on the foundations they’ve always relied on—apprenticeship, mentorship, learning from others, and codified knowledge—and extend them into more scalable systems that include on-demand learning, hybrid learning, and AI-powered just-in-time expertise. In other words, firms are beginning to move from traditional learning organizations to modern learning organizations. That realization is what led me to create the Modern Learning Organization Maturity Model for AEC firms. I believe the future will belong to firms that do more than adopt new technology, it will belong to firms that intentionally align people, process, technology, and culture to accelerate learning and scale expertise in a rapidly changing world. This idea has increasingly become central to how I think about the future of AEC and to the work we’re doing through Synthesis, the Smarter by Design podcast and newsletter, and our KA Connect conference. Read more about the Modern Learning Organization Model in Issue 17 of the Smarter by Newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gKY2Pbje #AEC #KnowledgeManagement #SmarterByDesign #ModernLearningOrganizations

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Clark Quinn, a cognitive scientist who has spent his career translating decades of learning research into practical guidance for organizations. Clark is the founder of Quinnovation and co-director of the L&D Accelerator. His work is grounded in a simple conviction: most organizations are leaving enormous potential on the table — not for lack of effort or care, but because the science of how people actually learn has rarely made it into the room where learning decisions get made. In most AEC firms, learning and development didn’t start with a formal strategy. It emerged organically. Executives responsible for talent came up through practice. L&D leaders stepped into their roles because they wanted to make their firms better, not because they were trained in the discipline. Subject matter experts shared what they know without ever having been taught how to teach. As a result, most learning organizations in the AEC industry were largely built by accident rather than by design. And in that gap lies a significant opportunity: to create learning that doesn’t just inform, but actually improves capability and performance. That is what this conversation is about. Clark walks us through the science that most accidental L&D leaders never had access to. He explains why training so often stops at information transfer, what it really takes to design for performance rather than content delivery, and what the research says about learning design that actually moves the needle. We explore the shift from content-heavy training to practice-led learning, how to identify the root causes behind critical performance gaps before reaching for a training solution, and how to determine whether learning is even the right intervention. We also step back and look at what a true learning ecosystem requires: not just courses, but performance support, job aids, communities of practice, mentoring, and the cultural conditions where learning compounds over time. Where knowledge is shared openly. Where failure is discussed. And where leadership sets the tone. Finally, we go deep on one of the most important dynamics in any AEC firm: how to effectively work with busy and highly billable subject matter experts by drawing out what they know, pairing them with skilled learning designers, and building a coaching culture that makes expertise transferable at scale. If you lead an AEC firm, build learning programs, or teach others what you know—and you’ve largely been figuring it out as you go—this conversation offers a foundation for doing it smarter. By design. 📺 🎧 Link to the episode in the comments. 👇 #AEC #ModernLearningOrganizations #SmarterByDesign #KnowledgeManagement

What does it take to consistently develop emerging professionals into exceptional architects and designers at scale? At Diamond Schmitt, that question led to a deeper realization: traditional methods like redlines, one-on-one mentoring, and in-the-moment feedback remain essential, but can only go so far in a growing, distributed firm. In this KA Connect 2026 session, Michael Leckman and Sam Horton will share how Diamond Schmitt is rethinking learning, knowledge management, and AI to amplify the reach of design expertise across the practice. You’ll learn how Diamond Schmitt: → Refocused learning around core competencies through firmwide needs analysis → Built a dual-track learning model balancing foundational knowledge and creative exploration → Developed shorter, more practical learning resources for real-world application → Evolved Diamond Schmitt University and DSX into a scalable knowledge amplification system → Leveraged AI Search and Knowledge Agents to deliver expertise in the flow of work By transforming knowledge into a more structured, searchable, and reusable asset, Diamond Schmitt is creating a system where principals can spend less time repeating foundational guidance and more time deepening critical design conversations. It’s a great example of how modern learning organizations can scale judgment, creativity, and design excellence firmwide. If your firm is thinking about how to better develop talent, preserve expertise, and extend the reach of leadership in an increasingly complex environment, this session will offer both strategic inspiration and practical ideas. I hope you can join us! 🏔️ KA Connect 2026 🗓️ August 11–14 | Sundance, UT 👇 Link to learn more about KA Connect 2026 in the comments. #KAConnect2026 #AEC #ModernLearningOrganizations #KnowledgeManagement #SmarterByDesign

What does it look like when leading AEC firms begin redesigning learning for the AI era? Across our community, firms are moving beyond traditional live training sessions and static recordings toward learning experiences that are shorter, more flexible, on-demand, hybrid, and increasingly designed to work in the flow of daily practice. Just as importantly, these new learning approaches are more AI-friendly, structured in ways that make valuable expertise easier to discover, reuse, search, and activate through technologies like AI Search and Knowledge Agents. In our upcoming webinar, Kristina Williams (Director of Design Technology at Lionakis) and Brandon Norton (Senior Multi-Media Manager at Fuscoe Engineering, Inc.) will share how their firms are building and modernizing high-priority learning experiences for this new paradigm. Together, we’ll explore: → How firms are identifying high-value opportunities to modernize learning → How learning content is being designed for both human development and AI-powered retrieval → How on-demand and hybrid models are supporting more self-directed, scalable expertise development → Early lessons from the first generation of modern learning experiments inside AEC firms If you are thinking about the future of knowledge management, learning and development, AI Search, or building a more adaptive, modern learning organization, this should be a highly practical session. I hope you’ll join us! 📅 Thursday, May 21st at 11 AM PT. 🔗 Registration link in the comments. 👇 #AEC #KnowledgeManagement #ModernLearningOrganizations

You’re really going to want to watch this webinar recording. From the foundations of strong knowledge strategy to process design to multiple compelling demos of Synthesis Knowledge Agent use cases, Hillary Thompson provides a thoughtful, integrated, and highly practical look at knowledge and learning management at MBH Architects. What stood out to me is how seamlessly the session moves from philosophy to practice to innovation. It’s a rare, end-to-end view of what it takes to truly unlock a firm’s collective intelligence. Enjoy! 📺 Watch the recording here: https://lnkd.in/g2YbpvsT #AEC #KnowledgeManagement #SmarterByDesign #ModernLearningOrganizations