Yup you can definitely mention things like podcasts and webinars as long as you're really drawing out what you learnt from them and why its furthered your motivations to train at the firm. In terms of increasing your understanding of a firm's strategy, I'd suggest looking at the firm's annual report and seeing how they describe the strategy in their promotional material and what they hope to achieve through the strategy. My advice for mentioning in your app is the same, only mention it if you can draw a link to why you want to train there. For example, if a firm's strategy says its focused on increasing growth in PE or focused on international expansion in Asia for example, what kind of opportunities would that create for trainees and why does that excite you/draw you to the firm?
