The Importance of Embracing Technologies and Practices in Instructional Design with Terry Godfrey

In this episode, I chat with Terry Godfrey about his instructional design and eLearning development career. He explains the importance of always trying new things and continuing to evolve as new technologies and practices move into the industry.

Terry previously presented at iDTX 2022, and since then, we've stayed in touch. His positive outlook and focus on continual development are inspiring.
You can connect with Terry on LinkedIn
See Terry at iDTX 2022

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Transcript

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This is the Ideas podcast, the show where L.A. professionals discuss ideas over a nice cup of tea. Warning the beverages may be consumed. In this episode, I chat with Terry Godfrey about his career in learning and development and how he continues to try new things and adapt to changes in our industry today. Hello. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Ideas podcast. Thank you very much for joining us with us today is a somewhat familiar face to those of us who attended the iDTX conference earlier this year. It feels like many, many years ago at this point, to be honest, but it was earlier this year. I did check with Sears is Terry. Terry shared with us some Fantastic 360 degree storyline work he was doing earlier in the year. So we will pick up where we left off there shortly. First things first, though, Terry, thank you so much for making the time to come and talk to us. Well, thank you for the invite and I look forward to sharing some of my experiences. So awesome. Really appreciate it. As you know, this is kind of more of a social podcast, kind of camouflaged under the guise of L.A.. I always like to describe the Ideas podcast, as is the conversations you would have down the pub after work if all you ever spoke about was learning and development, which is all I ever talk about. So I guess it is the conversations I have done. But anyway, on that note, what are you drinking as we as we chat today? Well, actually, I'm drinking water. Very. So, yeah, I gave up soda pop just and any of the energy drinks, which I never did. And then I actually gave up all that. I got enough of the beer drinking way back in college, so I just kind of outgrew that in my younger days. So I just stick to stick to water. So, hey, why not? That's is that is the sensible move, certainly with the temperatures we've all been getting recently. Right? That's absolutely of itself, as it were. I am still drunk. This is one of many podcast being recorded today. So for those of you who tuned into the last episode, you'll know I'm enjoying a lovely beer sent by a member of our Patreon community. Thank you once again for that. It's still very lovely. I'm still working my way, but this is good. One, one bear and we'll get three podcasts out of it. It's great. It's it's worth every bit of what you spent to, to send it to the show as a thank you. So without further ado, let's dove into what let's talk about them. So I think often we get caught up in the that kind of strategic level implementation. We want to talk about strategy and grand plans and how we're going to conquer the universe next year or whatever it might be. But at a much more day to day level, a lot of us, it's about creating great content. It's about creating something that works for our people that makes a real difference. And that's kind of what you were sharing with us at all. So kind of picking up where we left off. What are you doing at the moment around that? Right now, we we haven't stalled out any on the 360 images. We're kind of waiting more so for the video to come out. But we are experimenting with some of the compressors stations that we have local. You know, I work for a natural gas company that's based out of Calgary, Canada. I actually I'm in the States on the East Coast, in the state of West Virginia. There's two of us here, the rest of the group that I work with, including my managers in Calgary, which is pretty good. So it's a good setting. But one of the things that we deal with here is, is how things are so spread out and remote even out west. And so there's times where individuals have to have to go to a particular location and it may have been a while since they've been there. So we're looking at utilize using the 360 imaging to to take really decent tour type of photography of that facility and make it available for them to actually almost feel as if they they've walked into that facility currently working on a course right now with one of my coworkers out of Canada and it's on what's called Oarfish meter plates. It's the meter plates that use to measure gas and so as a part of that course, we we actually have where they actually go into the facility through the 360 images and and move actually into the building that has the the information in the plates. And we've done some things with some video and then they exit that facility. And that's just a small portion. So we're blending it ends with some of the existing material. But I'm with you, Tom. You know, if we're not changing behavior or if we're not moving them in a direction to be able to do things, perform them better than we really don't need to be creating anything. So in publishing and so. No, absolutely. And I feel like sometimes especially with a lot of the amazing technology that we've got our disposal these days, that point can get lost. It's very easy to get excited about the latest, you know, insert whatever you want to talk about here kind of thing, you know, whether it's, you know, we've got a real exciting kind of skills based technology now, which has a potential to be great, but also the risk of technology being the solution when in actual fact we still need the human element. I think authoring tools has plenty of that stuff, whereas a lot of whiz bang and not enough useful content if you will. And so I what's your process, I guess, of making that differentiation when a request comes to you or someone's asking for something in the business, how do you decide whether or not it's something you know you can and should be supporting with content? We have a formal process. It's called a request for service, unfortunately, and I say that wholeheartedly, where our particular technical group just recently moved into h.r. Which I'm not too fond of in terms of the type of career that I've been in for the last 30 years. But we get a formal request normally from some stakeholder, it could be a stakeholder, a client, it could be an MBA. A lot of those could be end up in the be an engineer, could be a department head or a director. So in it's pretty flat out straightforward as to requesting. The most recent one I received said We need an elemis course. So you know the solution hearing had already taken place before it even got to me. So my responsibility after, probably within the last year or so, has really been approaching that from a from a different angle. And sort of beforehand it was okay, send me the material and we'll get it out there, we'll get it published, get it pushed, whatever. But more recently, within the last, I'd say six months to a year, I initially I have a discovery call with with that individual and within that call I do not mention anything about of course, job AIDS videos. I don't mention anything. I just want to find out exactly where this request is coming from. Is there a need? Is there a gap, that sort of thing? I do know a lot of the SMEs. I've worked with them over the last three or four years. So that relationship's been built. They know where I'm coming from. My background as a technical trainer in another gas company for eight years, they know where I stand. You know, I have some experience and some knowledge, you know, about this industry. So they're very comfortable with that. So once I get that particular information, like the most recent one, I kind of pondered over it and really decided that a course was not needed. So then it was a matter of going back to those subject matter experts and trying to convince them. But once I got back to them, I was able to dig out some more information. And in all reality, of course, is needed. But but, but approaching it from a different way. So I remember, I think in in Kim, Tony, the conversation you had with her, one of the things that you had mentioned that you all had started doing was was approaching the users, the people in the field without even talking with them. And I began doing that myself, which before I even speak with the SMB, I talk with the users, I work in a field office. So it's not difficult for me to go round up some individuals that's actually going to be getting their hands on this and find out some more details. And then I go into the conversation or the kickoff meeting or discovery meeting, at least having a good understanding of what they really need based upon those individuals out there. So from that point, it's just it's a matter of staying in communication. We set the deadlines. We set normally a like a due date, and then what we end up doing is what we called a published date and a push date. We just recently as a corporation changed Limbs Systems and went to work day and yeah, it, I think it's going to be a better system but it's really pushing back. It's pushing on to the workforce. The employees, a lot of responsibilities. And we have a very older generation of technicians here in the States that they just want to come and move gas. They weren't hired to learn. So, you know, to take 140, you know, e-learning modules every year. So, you know, we do fight that or battle that. And I've been there so I can sympathize and empathize with them, which is a benefit. So definitely and funnily enough, I think actually in my experience anyway, my drive to speak to the end users first actually started in exactly that kind of environment where I knew I was going to be asked to create content or create some kind of intervention or support for people who had 30, 40 years experience, you know, laying laying pipes and cables and digging holes in streets and doing stuff safely. And there I was going to be in my kind of early twenties trying out, going, Now listen to me, so I'm going to train you. That's probably not going to go down too well. As you say, there's a you know, for better or worse, it's human to say, well, hang on a minute. I've got all this experience. Just leave me alone to do the job right. And I found engaging with that audience and almost acknowledging that, look, I want to speak to you because, you know, we may have assignees and stakeholders, but you're the boots on the ground. You do this day in, day out. No one knows the job better than you. And I think the thing that always never fails to surprise me, even now in every organization that I work with, the stakeholder and messy perception of what's happening in the business is wildly different to what's actually happening in the business. And so, I mean, how well have you found that and how have you kind of bridge that gap? So it can certainly be quite challenging. I found one of the things that that that I how I approach the SMEs that I work with and we work with a lot of SMEs in a lot of different areas. You know, we, we still support the, the, the corporate side through safety. I mean, it's everything now I'm more of a blue collar type elearning designer, actually. It's something I've even thought about creating some kind of a podcast called Blue Collar Podcast or something, I don't know, but one of the things that I do is approach my SCA, ease under with the understanding that they are presenting to me in the context of what they know, not from necessarily the experience. And they're not really presenting to me the content. They're presenting to me their context of what is actually needed, good or bad. Sometimes it's not so good. You may have the lowest SMB on the totem pole that got pegged for, you know, to create this course with, you know, less than a year of experience in this industry. And they're coming to me, you know, with all of this content. And again, I'm a very, very relation and all type individual when it comes to working with especially field technicians. I get in a little trouble with kind of the white collar type people because I speak my piece. But but I think that comes from an experience side. But, but yeah, they, the SMEs come from I work with them and in the sense that I try to find out where they're coming from, from their context of what is needed. And then so, you know, you're sharing that one day kind of changed that around to where now I'm comparing the two with, with the you with the in the end user I think is what you referred to them as. You know, we used to say the learner and I'm like, no, they're not learners. They're technicians that are here to move gas. They're not learners. They were not hired to be learners. And, you know, now that we're in h.r. You know, i have to kind of mince my words a little bit because of, you know, the H.R. side of this industry is more from an educational standpoint. The old school, you learn things, you take a test and then you move on. What we need to do and what I'm trying to do is, is create experiences to where they they are able to understand the process. But it carries through from from one job to the next. My goal is, is to create e-learning that they want to take, not just take to get all off their learning plans. And we've had an awful lot of that, unfortunately, in the industry that I work in. So now and I think it's I think it's true in most organizations, the I would say 90% of training is created because, well, you've got to have training on this because well, we just do. And therefore it gets creative with that mindset behind it. But I also think there's sometimes I think a bit of a mercenary, a misinterpretation, sorry, of what someone enjoying training is going to be. Because I think often we fall into the trap of thinking, well, if someone's enjoying training, they're going to be nonstop laughing or they're going to do it in their spare time. It's going to be the thing they want to do before anything else. So when you talk about people kind of enjoying learning, what exactly are you looking to create for them? You know, we use all the bells and whistles. We're we're really big on articulate that whole suite, you know the storyline but what I try to do, yes, I use the drag and drop and all of that but once again trying to create an experience and this course that I reference too early on about the Orpheus meters, that's one of the things that we're actually doing in this particular course too, where when the technicians log into this course, it's more of a of a journey of going into it. It's taken into consideration or existing level of knowledge concerning this topic, their experience level. Yes, there are some things that that we I hate to say for them to take not necessarily take, but re so the enjoyment is is when they leave their, you know, the highest accolade that I could receive is like I actually learn something. And so that to me is the joy behind it or the enjoyment of, you know, I'm not I'm not big on gamification. I know that's a big, old, huge word out there about it, including, you know, I don't I don't include the bingo games and the word searches and all of that in any of my e-learning courses. I just sometimes we just let it speak for for what it's worth. Long story short, one of the first things that I had to build about three years ago was working with a gas storage director who was involved with writing the for the rewriting procedures for OSHA. And so he wanted 26 courses created on this new procedure. And so he had all of these PowerPoint presentations that he was that he was feeding me. And the smallest one I kid you not, was about 65 slides in each one hand was full of text, no graphics. It had stuff pasted. And so one of the things that it was a really big paradigm shift for me as a, as a designer and a developer because I'm like, this could be a royal nightmare for for the user, for the person, but it's going to kill me, you know, putting it together. So I went to the director and he was very cooperative and I said, Hey, you know, out of this, what do they actually need to know in order to perform this? And that narrowed it down to two to less than half of what he supplied, but he still wanted that additional information in there. So we created opportunities for them if they wanted to go take a look at it, they could. If they didn't, that's fine. You know, they're adults. They're not children. This is not the school system, though, where you will learn this. But that was a very successful endeavor, 26 of them in one year. And, you know, it saved the company somewhere around $300,000 internally, which I saw. And I think I got a $500 spotlight or something. So but, you know, the recognition was to know that we we succeeded. So I don't know if I'd answered your question or not, but I think it's it's not so much enjoyment, I guess, or having fun. It's a matter of adding value to to where they stand existing with their knowledge level and skill level. And that's kind of what I was touching. So I think it's with enjoyment. I think we tend to jump to that extreme end of it's got to be funny. And again, as a prime example, we love just the word gamification. It sounds daft. I'm not convinced it's real words. I'm fairly certain it was created by a marketing department somewhere, but more importantly to me, when I think about I want my or similar engagement, I suppose when I talk about little things, what I want is it to be in context and relevant? Absolutely. Because I don't think at a human level when you learn something, it is an enjoyable experience. We all get that right. Whether it's an A, you broke something at home or something broke at home and you found a YouTube video and you figure out how to fix it and you succeed. It's a great feeling. And I think actually that feeling of enjoyment, if you can get that in your learners, as you say, that accolade of I Learned Something sounds simple, but actually how much workplace learning, if you attended where you've gone. Yep. Learned nothing at all. What a waste of my time. And I think that's why when we see that hesitance around do I have to do this? Do I really need to learn anything more? I think that's where that comes from, is the fact that they've gone to so much training and taken nothing from it. They just perceive it as that time. Well, you know, to be honest with you and tell you a little bit about our our company, when a new technician comes on board and and again, the favorite words is, I kid you not, 120 e-learning courses are automatically assigned to them. And that in and of itself just completely destroys them from a from a learning standpoint, because and I've shared this with with my manager and the people that I work with, and we have a really good staff and a really good manager. I think they're really good because they're all in Calgary. But and I'm in West Virginia. But, but I shared, I said, you know, when they see that their, their number one goal is to get that down to zero, it's not to learn anything. It's to go in and knock one off to knock this one off because they're out there moving gas. And and so, you know, if if those are laborious and not put together well and don't add value, it just makes things even worse. You made a statement in one of your other podcasts, I think it was with Heidi Kirby. You were talking about being up in front of a classroom or or teaching which which then gave you more of a leg up on on the ability to create things. I actually started out as a school teacher in the early eighties. I grew up and wanted to be a football coach in A to Z teacher, and I grew up in southern part of West Virginia, so I didn't want to be in the coal mines. So that was my ticket out of there. I did. I was able to get that. So I actually started teaching and for three years I coached high school football and we had a local chemical plant here which was booming back in the mid eighties and was offered a position as a chemical process operator, which was the thing that lured me there was the money. It wasn't that I was going to have to turn wrenches because I had no idea, you know. But I spent four years doing that and then was asked to be in their training department that had just started a year before my third year and spent 15 years there as a training administrator. And we did a lot of safety teaching and a lot of training. But part of my responsibility was, was to administrate the qualification process for our operators who spent 20 years total. There, was downsized and then went to work for a natural gas company and was actually a technical trainer. Teaching skills and compressor measurement and corrosion. So from there I moved over to an instructional design position where I'm at now with that back ground, which has been nothing but a total blessing. You know, I have seen these just hand, you know, tell me what they need and they just get out of the way. We put I'm a big I'm a big person on prototyping. I like to get them something that looks really good to the point to where they have a good understanding of where it's going to go. And then, you know, they've got full time jobs. You know, they have day jobs and the least amount of burden that I can put on them, the more cooperative they're going to be. So I've had great success with that. I'll prototype something and give it to them. So the review process is normally about one or two, maybe three maximum times, and we're off and running to the next one. But you know, my background has really enabled me to be successful. So long story short, I've actually been in this field since 1991, so I'm one of the old school guys in the group that me and you know, we've got all these 30 year olds and I'm soon to be 63. So. So but I just I find it so interesting because I it's kind of one of the things that I when I was chatting to some people the other day about becoming an instructional designer and a lot of them, you know, there's nothing wrong. And I think we want knowing that you want to go into anything you want to be in it, that's that's great. If that's definitely what you want to do and you genuinely know what an instruction zone actually does because it's not just sit and make e-learning, as we all know. And so they wouldn't wouldn't that be a much easier. Why do. You. Yeah, there's quite a few other aspects that you kind of put on, so that's it. But I was kind of saying that the, the one experience I wish all these people could get is a year, two years, maybe three years of standing up and delivering training to rooms of people, especially on boarding training. I feel like it's first of all, it's a baptism of fire of do you actually understand learning? Do can you get your head around what that process looks like and what works and what doesn't? And you get very real, very immediate feedback because if someone doesn't get it, they're going to ask if I feel like if you dove straight into the world of digital, you never get that immediate feedback. You can maybe get a chance in the everyday. They were very honest and said, Look, I've been making e-learning for five years. I don't really know whether or not I'm any good at it. I'm still employees, I said. But can I guarantee that all my courses are really effective from a learning perspective? No. So I've got no data to back that up. So I've got data that the company collects on hours delivered and general performance stuff too. But can I say that it's because of my understanding of learning? No, not really. And we kind of chat about that is exactly the experience that they wish that has is standing in front of a group of people and seeing what works, getting a genuine organic feel for it. I don't feel like there is a kind of alternative to that. I've never found another way of getting that experience. Well, I know when I was working for the other company as a as a technical trainer with my primary focus in the compression side, but I also was was still designing and developing and publishing e-learning courses as well. But, you know, it wasn't uncommon for every other week me to be in front of technicians and, you know, teaching them about operator qualification. So at some point, you know, you know, I was asked to put together some training material on training out or actually changing out the valves on a compressor. And so to do that, I actually went out in the field, know down in the southern part of the state, these guys, I didn't necessarily grow up with them, but we knew each other from because of where we grew up and actually turned wrenches with them for four days. And if I could, I'd do it now. But but you know, the thing the thing they balled into me when I was even willing to do that. So if I was standing in front of a classroom, they didn't hesitate to kind of let me know that what I just said really wasn't the right way. And I was able to kind of move it into their lap and get them more involved and say, well, you know, then share with us, you know, where was I wrong with this? Because they knew I didn't. I had an operator compressor station. So yeah, that's you can't do without that. And I think there's so much benefits and unfortunately and I say this, you know, our, our, our instructional designers out in Calgary and I'm not saying this to be bad or say anything negative about them, but none of the ones out there who have been in the field and they're designing courses for the field, you know, they're and so, you know, they have their hands tied a little bit. It's a little bit more difficult, although easier for them to put a next button, which I'm you know, that's that's another pet peeve of mine. So it's like, you know, I think it's interesting that I always remember that one of my favorite managers I ever worked for before going out on my own was in fact, Fantastic Lady. And she was very adamant when I started on the team, Before you do anything, you're going to go and do the job that you're going to be training people to do and the first week of my paid time working in that business in the R&D team was in actual fact spent doing a little bit of time in the call center and going out to the fields and going out to different places and go, Oh, this is what our people do. And then coming back and going, okay, so now look at the induction training and tell us what's wrong with. Oh. And you actually can that way. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when I when I was I think when I first started in the chemical business, I spent four years as an operator on shift, you know, I mean, we moved chemicals, pumps, valves, everything, so, you know, everything and actually enjoyed it, learned an awful lot. So when I moved into that training group, we had a an apprenticeship program that all of our operators went through. It was through the federal government and it was really, really good. We had we were tied in with a local college. You could complete this apprenticeship program, take us, I think it was seven classes and end up with an associate degree. So but my background at one of my degrees is in science. So I also taught the sciences of the apprenticeship program. So, you know, to know and to have that experience is just so valuable. It's just I can't stress it. So but unfortunately, I mean, you know, we've had a tremendous exit of school teachers in this country, in your country, you know, and and I think, you know, and I'll just be very honest with you, and I think we can do that. And if you don't, you know, I think some of them are being misled. I think, you know, tremendously in terms of, you know, you go online, get these this experience in terms of learning how to do this, learn how to do that. Yet these are typically some make six figures. And, you know, I'll be very honest with you, I mean, I get compensated very well. But the big thing with me right now is I would go out and branch out as a freelancer tomorrow. The big thing is insurance at my age is just astronomical. And I've got a wife, she's retired and neither one of us are sick. But you know, we're at that age that it could be right around the corner. So, you know, that's one thing. But I don't think here in the state of West Virginia that I would come close to making six figures as an instructional designer, you know? Yeah, I do feel like that that particular thing. So I think a lot of a lot of different places have either promised it or heavily suggested it in different ways. And I do just feel like it's first of all, they're not doing our jobs right, you know? So anyone that kind of says you'll get a salary of unless they're the ones hiring you, they've got nothing to do with that. So absolutely. And certainly, I mean, like I've been I've not been in the industry like a huge amount of time. I'm coming up on a decade here, but I'm nowhere near six figures and in all likelihood, I will never if I'm in this industry until the day I retire, I will probably never have a six figure salary. I run my own business at this. Point, right? Yeah. That's not it's not a multinational thousand employee business, you know, but there's enough of us whereby, you know, I think a lot of people would expect there to be that kind of salary. There is money, you know, and but I, I, I wouldn't suggest joining the industry if money is your, your primary concern with a job if you just want to make money, there are much more lucrative businesses to go into that are far less demanding. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, you know, you know, I'm not going to deny that I haven't sat down and really kind of I don't want to say analyze a move such as that nature of nature. But, you know, when I start looking at all of the tools that we have, I mean, and the camera that I'm looking at, the microphone, the headset, the computers, the monitors, the desk software, we've got brand new computers on order right now that have, you know, terabyte hard drives. I mean, just all of that supplied for us, you know, as a corporation, my big thing is retirement, you know, fantastic for one. So there's a lot of other things involved. But I will tell you that that I literally after 31 years, 91, I have literally the best job that I've ever had in my career. Right now, it's I live 15 minutes from here. We work a hybrid schedule. If I want to work from home on the days that I need to come in, I can I've got a great coworker. I work in a field office. I can wear blue jeans, tennis shoes, a t shirt to work. So there's a lot of lot of things, you know, you know, when you branch out on your own, like like yourself, there's so much that I don't have to worry about, which enables me to be better at what I enjoy doing. I saw a quote the other day from Dirty Jobs. I don't know if you all get that over there. It's Mike Rowe here. He actually goes out and actually performs these dirty jobs that nobody wants to do out in and they videotape it. It's a reality show. If you ever go out on the Internet, you can just call. His name's Mike Rowe. It's called Dirty Jobs. It's worth watching. But he said a quote, he said, you know, don't he said don't pursue your passion. Bring it with you. And I kind of like that to the point to where, you know, I'm not pursuing something. I'm already there. Somebody asked me the other day, you know, have you reached the pinnacle of what you set out to do? And I said, one, I didn't set out to do this set out to be a schoolteacher and coach football. But yeah, if you want to ask me what I'm doing right now, absolutely. I have no desire to be a manager. I had no desire to move down that realm at one time. Yeah, but my wife was a principal and a vice principal for 33 years, and according to her, I could never be a manager. So I didn't have the patience for it. I get that. Everybody does not think like you, and everybody does not do things like you. But but it's people like you, Tom, that that that are on the airways and that are in writings and stuff that I think a lot of the new people need to latch on to. And and I don't think you're out there trying to be any type of role model. What I like about your shows and your writings is, is you're just blatantly honest and you speak from your heart and from what experience you have. And it makes me think, I mean, even with the years that I have and it's changed my perception and direction tremendously within the last 6 to 8 months, even a year or so. Oh. Yes. Very, very, very kind of you. We don't we don't do a lot of that on this show. But but it's funny, before we start somewhere, we're coming up on the end of our of our time slot. But before we started, we touched on the fact that, you know, quite often when someone's been in the industry a very long time, they very much, I don't know, get a little trapped in this is how I do things. I have reached the pinnacle of my career and. Therefore, I'm done adopting new ways of doing things. And you would say you're kind of the polar opposite of that, which I found really, really interesting and really exciting. Well, just recently I would say within the last year, you know, I don't set New Year's resolutions, but I set some goals this year. And one of the things and some of the goals were to do what I'm doing right now, which I'm very thankful to do, to share some of my experience, not necessarily my knowledge, but more so my experience. There's a lot of knowledge out there, but within the last year I journeyed into the air room and took an air class and absolutely loved it. You know, I was the grandfather on that cohort. I mean, everybody on there was in their early twenties. And, you know, they're probably saying, what's this old guy doing? And absolutely had a blast. Now, you know, we had to turn in assignments. And one of my assignments was it was an air augmented reality on The Walking Dead, which is a show over here. I don't know if they have it in the U.K., so I'm a big fan of that. So I created a Walking Dead with a quiz from the early days. So here recently I went through Chris Carol's video for learning a six week cohort. I want to I want to learn more constantly on LinkedIn Learning Learning, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop. I've actually went out and watched your three tutorials on what is it? Is it a. Adapt? Adapt. Yeah. Now the thing that, you know, I'm still learning from a from a technical when you started talking about servers, I'm like, oh, okay. So I'm not giving up on it, but I like that software. I'm like, wow, this, this is some good stuff. I mean, Rise is good and of course, they just made it so wonderful here recently with all of that pretty stuff that they published. But you know what? You shared that that is some really good software and I'm not done with that yet. I went through a course here with Luke Hopson on working with and collaborating with SMB. So here I am 30, 31 years into this and learning about working with systems. But we can always be better and always get better. And some people is like, I'm already there. I don't, you know, what do I need? What else do I need to learn? Hey, you know, the world that we're in right now, I can assure you, is totally different than what it was when I was 25 years old. But, you know, I can I can honestly say in 1992, I saw in a computer magazine that some guy left in my office and it was talking about computer based training. And I looked at the guys that I worked with and I said, this is where this is going to be going in the future. And so from that point forward, I just kind of kind of pursued that love learning, love, reading, that sort of thing. I used to love playing golf, but, you know, you blow out knees and all kinds of good things and you just can't do stuff like that too much anymore. So yeah, no, I think it's is really refreshing. I think regardless of how long you've been in the industry, I think it's very it's really quite challenging to continually embrace not knowing everything. I feel there's an urge to be an expert now. Everyone wants to be an expert, be an expert. And you know, whether you've got 10 minutes experience or, you know, four years, I always kind of think I never want to be an expert because there is always going to be something. Yeah, I don't think you can really master a subject because as soon as you have mastered it, something new will come up or a new interpreter will arrive or whatever that might be. So I think it's not only is it great professionally, I think it's a human level. It's a really healthy way to view yourself in life and everyone else around you, because if there's always something you can be learning, then that's true of everyone else as well. I think it naturally makes us a bit more generous towards others, whereas if someone says something you think, Oh, that's a daft thing to say. Well, you never said anything a bit daft. I know. I guess I've regularly done it on the internet for everyone to enjoy for TV and walks along what I enjoy. I mean, I actually stand up and applaud. Sometimes I'm like, Oh wow, I wish I had the nerve to say that, but. But I've been very blessed. I will say this throughout my career, especially with my wife of 38 years. So she's supported me in in learning new things and encourages that. I've had managers that you know, in my earlier years that that put me out there to learn new things that push me made me uncomfortable. And now I've got, you know, a coworker that's right across the hall that's constantly coming over and saying, hey, I want to show you something. And me, he's teaching me things in in Photoshop where he's a photographer, he has a side hustle type thing. And so he's teaching me how to take a photograph of a technician out on a ride away in a field. And what we do is we just, you know, do things with the background and make him stand out in color and people in our courses. Some of these technicians, I mean, will get phone calls and they'll be like, you know, in that module, the thing that caught my attention was the graphics that that, you know, in it and I could relate to them. And so yeah, I mean we're constantly, you know, handed stuff and and told to make this pretty you know you're regardless of whether it adds any value or not just make it pretty and and I'm very big on making things fairly. But I also want to make it, as you said, in the context of of adding value to that, those individuals that's going to be taking. And so, you know, my big push now is if it's not, of course, I'm trying to get up the nerve to just kind of say, listen, you know, we not and I've done that here recently. We don't we don't need to build a course. You know, and I had a director looked and said, well, you know, we just need to address this issue, whatever you come up with, I trust. And they laughed and I'm like, Oh, that's what we want. The work. We're the experts in this area or the the the subject matter experts. So so when you get a director at that level, but once again and people have to realize this, I've known this individual for about six years, and so there's been a relationship built and she knows where I stand and she knows that I have the best interest of the receivers of this material at heart. I tell the the people I work with constantly, we are not building these courses for ourselves. We're not built. We shouldn't be building them for an essay and maybe, you know, and so and it's still an uphill battle and we'll see. We'll get there. We're getting there slowly, but I'm impatient. So this and that standard for all of us, isn't it? We all wish you were there. But I think making progress, to be honest, is, is the best any of us can ever achieve. It's never going to be the final state for any of us. It's always going to be, you know, whether it's, you know, in my case, moving to another organization to help them start making the progress. Or if you're in the same organization, you just to focus on moving the dial until when you hand it off to someone else. It's you know, it's it's kind of the best way to beat that we all coming up on the end of our time I just want to finish up with one last question I'm asking everyone at the end of these episodes, which is right now, when you look at the L.A. industry, the whole field, what do you see and get really excited about and want to see more of? And what do you see that is maybe a little bit more concerning or that you're not sure about right now? Well, I think a little bit more concerned with I think I think the shiny new toys that seem to be coming out every you know, so often we we we are choosing to not stick with something that's working. We see something that allows us to do something a little bit different or new. And that's a concern. I mean, there's just software, one after another coming out. So that's part of the thing. But as far as what's exciting is, is the opportunities I think to create performance and behavioral changes still exist and we've not even come close to addressing that side of this business. And I think there's there's just opportunities galore for us to make a difference in that area. And I'm talking about behavior change, not necessarily knowledge. I think there's just way, way too much knowledge dumping out there. We're just throwing stuff around and calling it training when in reality, it's, it's, it's might be good information, but it's not training. So it's fantastic. Now, I think I think that's a that's a really interesting point that's kind of go away and think about because it's I certainly are sure we've all seen plenty of knowledge dumps out there discouraging used as e-learning or training and it's it's a challenge it's a challenge to get rid of the existing ones and not create more at the same time, but thank you so much for taking the time to appear on the show. If people want to get in touch, continue the conversation. Where's the best place to go to contact you? I think is out on LinkedIn. You know, I have. But, you know, I'm not a poster, for lack of a better word. I think I got a notice the other day that said, you've made your fourth post and I'm like, I did. So, but that's that's something that, you know, I'm going to begin doing. It's a part of of of the change that that I'm pushing myself to do to to offer up some experience out there. But that's the best way is just getting to that type of messaging. And if they want to look at our our company, which I don't I don't necessarily need to mention it, but, you know, they could find me, too. They're so. Fantastic. Yeah. No. And we'll we'll make sure there's a link to Terry's links in, in the description of this episode. I'll also include a link to the ATX section you did for us so people can see that work is a really interesting use of Frisco and storyline, which up until that point, I'll be honest, I only ever seen used with some really terrible gimmicks. It kind of serves no purpose. It was the first example of an okay. Yeah, I can see why this is actually adding value from an end. Learn an end user perspective. You know this has a purpose. This use of it rather than just being isn't impressive. Look what we can do. Well, I learned so much. That experience was just so valuable. I'm actually redoing that again here in August for our state local ATD lunch and learn. And so I've kind of changed it around, but it's really encouraging. Hear what you're saying because that is that's the intent is to create an experience, not just an event. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Ideas podcast. Before you go, please do let us know what you're taking away from this conversation and how you'll put it into action in the comments below. If you're watching on YouTube, please consider hitting the subscribe and like buttons as it really helps us out.