Beyond Engagement: Sparking Curiosity In Your Learning Solutions

12:19PM Apr 1, 2024

Speakers:

Shannon Tipton

Jason

Connie

Heather

Monique

Bruce

Leslie

Urbie

Keywords:

elearning

curiosity

learning

people

spark

continuous learning

easter

idea

learn

put

questioning

training

talk

thinking

learners

chat

curious

love

questions

irby

I really start out with him saying, thing, here's your product. And yes, your product sucks. Here's the data to prove that it suck. And then go in and you know, the most of the times like, Well, no, our products great. And I proved to them saying, Well, here's the data says that you're wrong. And that gets them engaged. It gets a curiosity. Well, how did you know that? It sucks, and how can we get it to be unlucky? So that kind of helps get that curiosity going right at the beginning of the training.

I love that. I love that starting out with a challenge, you know, kind of that prove me wrong. Challenge. You know, and and I agree, I've never been a big fan of the, you know, the what's in it for me? Because I don't think it addresses the so what? of training? You know, people are like, Yeah, I'm here. Well, so what? Yeah, okay. Yeah. And so I believe that what you're, the way that you're starting this off really does spark a person to think about challenging their own thinking, which in turn creates levels of questioning, which I believe is always a good thing. So it's not just the fact of asking questions. And hoping people will answer. It's about sparking real questioning thinking. Right. So we want that critical thinking to bubble up to the top from the very beginning. And I think it's great that you're doing that, and especially with software development, that is such a hard audience. You know, it's it's a hard topic into really engage people in and especially when you're dealing with software developers who already you know, they know their stuff. And it's, it's hard to get them in the moment. So kudos to you for that. Yeah. And I know we have others in, I don't remember who it is, there might be a couple of people in here now who also deal with software, just software training in particular. And so I think that what you're saying would resonate, what have we, as I hit something here,

but if we got these common stories always help. Yeah. Yeah.

I think Bruce's approach might also be, you know, a matter of knowing your audience to as their audiences for that would backfire. Why think I think having people who are so entrenched with what they know, you know, like software developers, they are very influential, we know what's right. And you know, what's good to those, we are fully bought into this. You know, that that kind of prove them wrong kind of thing might be a great approach, because it does engage them immediately. They impair kind of trying to defend what they're doing there. They're bought in for a group that isn't as a trend for a group that knows that they have issues that might not be as good.

You know, I think that's a good point, Heather, and you need to get a little closer to your mic or turn yourself up a little bit. Just look that up. There we go. There. There. You are. All right, did he but I did hear you. I believe that that's a really good point, knowing your audience always critical. Right? That's, that's just standard instructional design 101. Now, I think what we could do is we could take that challenge statement and massage that according to your audience, because you're right, there are some people who may feel put off by that or maybe feel like their intelligence is being insulted by that. But I, but I also believe that there is a way to massage that message. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And and so then that that kind of takes us into new creativity levels, right. You know, to bring that in front of people. Yes, liberating structures. I'm a big fan of liberating structures. Bruce, we, you would have appreciated our creativity conversation a couple of months ago, where we talked about liberating structures. So that was, so that's always good. Now. What else are you guys thinking or doing to spark? Those curiosity moments, those thinking moments, those questioning moments from the beginning? So here to here it is. When you think about your learning design, and you think about planning. It's easy enough to say I'm going to spark conversation I'm going to spark questioning from a from a virtual training perspective, such as an environment like this, or an IoT environment, face to face. How do you do that? With an elearning program? How do you put that into your storyboards? How do you plan that into your day? Science.

I think it could work for both. But thinking about sort of a challenge if you didn't want people to be upset, what I've seen a lot recently is like quizzes, and not true false or things like that. But like, here's a myth, like X amount of people are software developers like is this statistic? Like? What do you think about this? And see if people are yes, or knows I did one. Recently, I think I was in something for ADHD a lot apparently know more about he ADHD than I thought I did. And so that made me feel really good and go, Okay, what else do I know? What is this presenter going to tell me that? I don't know. Those are two ways. I'm thinking of something that I did at a conference. So it's a little bit different, because I didn't know. But I was doing something on burnout. And I gave them all a number at first. And they're like, What is this for? I'm like, I'll tell you about it. And I'm talking, I'm doing other stuff, blah, blah. And eventually, we got to the point are you burned out? And like, will my talk raise that number by however much I gave you. And like, so that's what I wanted them to keep in their mind. So that was sort of just, I'm gonna keep giving you examples, blah, blah, we figured out where you are right now with burnout. By the end, can I raise you whatever number I gave you. And so it was just a way to get them to think about like how to move the needle a little bit didn't have to be perfect. So that's just another way that I've seen things done.

I love that. First off, I love the idea of the quiz, sparking curiosity, what do I know? What don't I know? What can I learn more about that deeper questioning? Love that Monique, I need you to help me understand that the number again? So what was the purpose, you assign them a number, and that number represented what?

How much change based on what I what information I gave them. So specifically about burnout, I gave them a number without saying anything them as they came into them, I gave them a plus one, A plus three, a plus five. And I said to get back to early on, I asked them what their number was from one to 10 of how burned out they were? And then I asked based at the end, based on what I did, did I move that number higher or lower? So did I make you feel more positive? Or did I make you feel less positive? And it was really just something silly to do to get to them as I was handing them out? But it was sort of just like, did it move the needle bottle? Basically?

Right? I love it. Again, it's bring the people into the moment. And this is why i My hypothesis is that we have to spark the curiosity first, and then the end result, the end game then becomes engagement, you know, because the engagement is the action, the curiosity is the thinking part of it. Right? So one leads to the other and the exercises that you're doing, certainly help with that. You know, so what other areas? How else are we thinking about using the mechanism of curiosity, to bring people together and to keep them rolling forward? The key here is to keep them thinking, what's next? What am I going to learn next? I'm excited to learn whatever is coming next. And more importantly, it's easier to do that, again, if you have people face to face in your program is linear in nature. Now, if your program is, is a drip feed program, self directed, self guided program, how do you keep that curiosity moving forward? What other ideas do you have? Or what other practices have you used?

How about asking the right questions? Okay, I don't know about that. I don't know what that means. I don't know that I can always think of the right questions, you know, that would spur thought and someone else if they were in some kind of elearning system.

What suggestions do you do you all have? How do we build on that? So if we're in an elearning program, and we're depending on people to be self directed, or self guided? What what what questioning? Can we start off with? We got the quiz. I think the quiz is great. We started off, What other ideas do you have?

Was there a what if questions, we could use those prompts, and then figure out maybe then they would click on a link, you know, that would take them someplace else? Hmm.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I think that's great. Yeah. And that goes to if you're thinking about your elearning designs, then are Could your elearning designs be more logic driven or curiosity driven? In that we're incorporating branching scenario simulations, etc, which allow people to choose their own journey so to speak. Right, well, yeah, relevant scenarios along with those questions, then that you want to put people in that situation. And yeah, sometimes you learning's are assigned Bruce Yes, but sometimes not. So if you think about your compliance training, yeah, those are signed. And, and just to digress just a tad bit, when we think about elearning elearning, from a compliance perspective, is almost your richest area of improvement. Because you already have the guardrails there, you know, what you have to accomplish? And I'll challenge you, when I read through compliance training, and somebody comes to me for compliance training. Nowhere in the compliance training descriptors is a bullet point that says we must make this as boring as possible. There's no bullet there, that says it yet somehow, that's what we always managed to achieve. So now, when we think about compliance training, that's rich soil that's rich ground where we can truly build curious thinking, questioning, thinking, where we can build in those opportunities, you know, to make them want to learn more about why this compliance is even there, be it safety, harassment, what have you, you know, so to me, that's easy. Those are that's the easy bit. The harder bit is how do you get people engaged? Curious, questioning about other forms of elearning, or training in general, like communication, which is always it always looks the same, it always sounds the same, you always have the same stuff. Right? So you're gonna you're sending somebody through an effective communication elearning course, and I'll guarantee it will have something about verbal, nonverbal, body language, business writing, it will have all the same stuff in it. So how do we keep people curious about topics like that?

This is where I need elevator music, or Jeopardy music Diddy

he everyone.

Run, that's what we're here to talk about, right? Because we want to lead, we want to help people

really be involved in their learning journey. And as learning professionals, if we're going to encourage people to take on the task of continuous development of continuous learning,

we have to help them along. How do we do that?

I mean, all those things that you talked about, are things that we have to address. But we don't necessarily have to say we're going to talk about verbal communication, we're going to talk about nonverbal communication, we're gonna, so you come at it, maybe in a very applicable sort of way. It's like, you know, you've got to approach your manager or your managers manager, you know, with this topic, what's the best way to do that and give him you know, a couple of options. Yeah, and then how they react. Right.

And what you're saying, Heather, is really in line with what Irby just typed out. And hello, irbis. Good. See you again, for you. In the chat, which was, I'll give it it's a bit of a read. So several video vignettes in a live webinar format. So the vignette would play and learners would answer the questions. And the responses would be randomized. So what asynchronous learner saw was a subset of the life piece, right? So I get it. So there are different variables that are rotating around, and you never know what you're gonna get. Right.

And that's what that's what I think you're saying so Irby, if you want to. I don't know where you are right now in the world. But if you want to come off, and explain that a little bit more, that would be awesome.

And we're kind of back to what's in it for me from Valerie. Right, and here's the thing when I think about what's in it for me, it goes back again to the so what, but it goes back to what I like to call Human Centered Outcomes. So you have Human Centered Outcomes where it's not necessarily the what's in it for me, it's the world What's the goal and the goal in human terms. In other words, if you tell salespeople that they're going to go through sales training, you want to tell them that, at the end of the sales training, you're going to be able to increase commissions, which means that you're going to be able to put money in your bank account that's talking to the human. Whereas a lot of times will say, by the end of this course, you'll know processes to help negotiate the sale, and it's like, bah, bah, bah, you know, it's like Charlie Brown, right? want want want. But if you can tell them that, at the end of it, you will make higher Commission's, that's all salesperson really wants tell me how I'm gonna make money, then you're speaking to them. And now they're going to be curious about what you're saying. And it's the so that part, right? Of the outcome. I'm

thinking about the communication piece, because I laughed, because I've done exactly what you said, the nonverbal and verbal. So I'm guilty, but the one I was thinking of is either bringing bring in a case, so case study is always good from the news, I think is always very helpful, because you can tear apart a different company and people feel a little bit more willing to do that. Or is thinking about is there a truth of life that you can comment on? So do you hate reply all? Like that? Something? Absolutely. I hate Reply All why, tell me more? Can I avoid it? Doing stuff like that? Or have you ever put your foot in the mouth. And if there's ever been if anyone's ever seen someone accidentally respond to the whole company, when they didn't mean to have like, Oh, I'm going on vacation? No, but like, bring that up. Like, obviously, with that person's permission and be like, remember, when you saw this, you don't want to be that guy try to go down. And the other thing I was thinking of is maybe like using memes or something like that, that maybe people have seen or treated live TV or anything like that. But you might be able to pull into your course. So it's less directed at them. But a lot of people know exactly what that's like to get that information when you don't need it. Yes.

Yes. Thank you for that, Connie. Yeah, I

was just gonna say and kind of going off at my Nick was talking about is the fact for like a communication course. And yes, we bought, we've seen them all, they're all the same. If

you've lost your mic there. Connie, I can hear you. but barely.

That's because it's up there. Yeah, Heather did that. Yeah, that was playing Heather.

Didn't we just say don't be that guy. Come on. Exactly.

So in a ways, it's what I find, really, that makes me want to take a course or sit in a workshop session or take an elearning course, whatever it is, is knowing that I'll come out with something and give me a job aid give me a tool to make it relevant and useful in my life. You know, I mean, I can hear it. And sometimes I'm not, I don't enjoy audio, all that well. I much prefer visual and just give me something like a news kind of person. And so if I'm hearing the same thing over and over again, but I don't have any additional tools, I don't have something new to help me to actually put it to use in my life, then I don't want to spend my time on that course. I want something useful to actually apply that otherwise I don't want to go. I don't want to be there. Yes.

And I think that you be you Emoni coldly hit on something there. It's what is different, what is unique. And I think as as humans, we're constantly, especially nowadays, we're constantly looking for that spark of different you know, something that's going to energize me beyond what I might normally see, you know, so if you if you go to the Google machine and and you Google up interviewing techniques, you're going to get 50 articles, which all have the same sorts of tips just differently expressed. So then what really is going to be different about what you're doing to help drive you know, the same path. Right? And this is where that whole curious mindset comes in and even for yourselves, I think, for us to build curiosity driven learners. We've got to be curiosity driven designers. Right, so we've got to be looking at what's the spark? What's the difference? What's the unique what's the challenge? Right, even for those topics that might seem mundane, or or dry or very, very serious. Yes. You know what it was the different approach to that. And I love all of your comments in the chat. So So thank you, everybody, you know, for contributing their Lesley question formulation technique. Oh, okay. Um, well, we'll certainly add that to the resources. I love a good questioning technique. And I think this goes to the second part of our conversation, which is, how are we keeping? We bring them in at the beginning. And there, I want to learn more. Okay, so now how do you keep that energy going? How do you keep it going? That's the hard part. So we've got, we've got high energy, high curiosity at the beginning, high energy, hopefully high continuous engagement at the end, what happens in the middle? How do we keep the flame going?

Hopefully cause some excitement in the the course or in the content and get others to join in. I think, if we're scrolling back in the chat, we talked about, you know, peer engagement and things, especially reference was after the course or after the training was done, say, hey, let's have these discussions to continue on with the learning or the application of the content. But trying to get that in the middle, which in an in person or an online, you know, vi LT work can work fine. But a little harder, definitely hard if you're in an E learning situation, unless there's a cohort taking the course at the same time. Right?

Right, you're right, I think elearning has to be handled slightly different. And this is where you put in the self directed, self guided moments in there. And I try to whenever you can, is, even if they're not going through elearning as a cohort, is there a place for people to call home? Right? So is there a place where people can go and comment? They may, they may not? But at least it's there. Right? So you want to encourage, you know, that sort of ongoing conversation?

Yeah. You know, after the fact, also, I think that companies as a whole, and I don't know exactly how to get them to do this. But I know how to do it for myself, is figured out ways to have kind of like a drip or a spaced learning, you know, something that continues the learning, because learning then excites me again. And I think if you have reminders that help inspire you, then that you know, so whether it's the learner needs it, even in the middle of a course, or learner needs it after the course. Because we all know we come away from courses. And that's it. We don't ever have time to practice our we don't have anyone that is excited about it like we are things like that. And I don't know, it's I'm preaching to the choir here. But still, it's kind of that putting something into it, figuring out a way to keep them engaged and continuing to desire to learn more about that.

Yes. And you know, me I have done,

but like this, this jet, actually, is one of my ways that I reinspire myself, No, thank you on a regular basis.

Thank you for that. Good, makes me happy. Thank you, Connie. Um, and anyone who's familiar with my work knows that I've done if I've done one, I've done 100 webinars on drip feeding, spaced learning.

And how we can use that sort of methodology to create those moments of continuous curiosity. So let's take this take drips, because you could what? So let's go back to what I think Bruce was talking about when you talked about cohort based, and it doesn't necessarily, again, have to be cohort based. It's what if you had an eLearning module, you know, everyone who signed up for it? Right? Because they probably got to it through their learning management system. So you know, everyone who signed up for it, regardless if it was mandatory or discretionary? What if you sent out a follow up email with additional resources? Here's an interesting thing I read today on that's all it has to be. Here's an interesting thing I read today that I thought you guys would enjoy that would spark curiosity that might include some kind of challenge or something along those lines about the topic that you just learned. And that's all it has to be here. It goes to everybody. And so now hopefully what you're doing You are sparking that continuous learning that drive for oh, that was interesting. Let me fall down a rabbit hole a little bit, maybe something like that, you know, when you think about elearning. Right. And so maybe that could also be a bridge. So you've got elearning, part one elearning, part two. So there's a bridge that connects the two by you sending out additional, interesting, that's the key, interesting resources where maybe you've you have included a few thought provoking questions, a few reflective questions.

Right. And I see leaderboards or some conversation happening about leaderboards. And true I think leaderboards are a great idea. But you're absolutely right in the chat, there are some people who feel anxiety about leaderboards. So again, know your audience. Know your audience. So if you are working with a group that is not competitive in nature, a leaderboard may or may not work for them. Or you put up a leaderboard that is not punitive in nature.

So maybe it just shows the talk to people but doesn't show everybody else. Right, so that way, people don't feel anxious if they see themselves as position 20 Instead of position one, right? So there are ways to maneuver a leaderboard where people still have their dignity intact, you know, without feeling like they've been squashed. Right. And badging same thing. badging Yep. Oh, yes, Valerie blue ocean brain? Yes, absolutely big fan of them.

It depends on why people are taking the training, yeah, internally motivated, externally motivated, right, it's, it's a lot that goes into this whole process, rather than just jumping in and throwing, you know, spaghetti at the wall. So you need to really understand your audience really understand the goals, really understand the business impact. Right. And I think by bringing in the business impact that helps, in some cases, not so much in others, it really it does depend. So for example, where it may help business impact is, again, let's sales as an example, if businesses good sales are usually doing good, people are happy. Safety training, not so much people don't really care about whether or not the business has lowered worker comp claims that they don't care about that what they do care about is whether or not they go home with 10 fingers and 10 toes. That's what they care about. So then if we can address that, and put that in some sort of curiosity Spark, then maybe we've got something happening there.

And Shannon, on that, specifically, if you can tie, the workers comp claims as to why they should care about it. Because for my company, we're an employee owned company. And if we have bad safety records, that's going to affect our insurability, which is going to affect the contracts we can get. And if we can't get work. Right. So it's in their best interest, rather than coming home with all their fingers and toes. It's in their interest to understand, hey, this is the profitability of our company. This is the future of our company. And this is going to help us get more work so that you can make more money in your career.

Absolutely. That's a great point. It's helping is that breadcrumb trail right? And keeping people engaged, curious, questioning throughout that breadcrumb trail? And that I think that's a great, that's a great story. And so if you put your safety training into the story of then then that might help people see things from an entirely different way, which in turn, builds those curiosity driven thoughts. So I love that.

All right, the challenge actually becomes getting them to think like their employee owners, rather than just as an employee. Right.

Well, then maybe that's that's a whole other that's a whole other program, isn't it?

Yeah. I'd say the really the sad part is most you don't become an employee owner until after your first year. And most of this training happens in your first year.

Right. Well, um, and not to digress from the topic. I think that's a unique challenge, but it's also an interesting one, because you could put it out in for me issue that encourages people to learn more, be more curious about the organization. And by doing so you build retention, and they hang on for that year. And then they see the reward of that. So there's a whole other different sort of breadcrumb story that could lead to a person really questioning in a good way. You know, what's this all about? How can I learn more about this? How do I become that person? Oh, I got to hang on for a year. Okay. All right. What's that take? What do I have to do to do that? And I think that that could lead to a whole different line of questioning that is to everyone's benefit.

What else you got? What else is on your minds? When you think about the middle bit, because that's the hard part, keeping people curious in the middle bit. When they're most likely to pull away, because of whatever reasons, especially if it's not.

Especially if it's just not one program, you know? So if you're like, Oh, here's, here's the one day your one day or for leadership development, or what have you, you know, then you know that that's easier to keep it interesting in the middle, but if it's drawn out micro or nano? Yes, absolutely. That's, again, it goes to those here is something small to keep you engaged in whatever form that may be. It could be live situations like this, you can pull people together. And say, our communication cohort. Here we go, we're all going to meet and we're going to talk about new interesting stuff in the field of communication. things you never knew you didn't think you knew. Here's your quiz. So you think you know at all? Ah, but here's your reason to come to our, here's a really come to our communication chat or whatever you want to call it. Yep, absolutely.

As I go through the different chats, speaking of chats, here's here's our, as I read through real quick, and I think there's just a lot of there's a wealth of untapped knowledge that we all have together in this in this room. And techniques that might need dusting off that maybe you've used in the past that perhaps can be tweaked a little bit. And used again. And so does it change your thought? Here's my question to you, does it change your thought? around the idea of engagement? Does this conversation change that at all?

Like curiosity is one way to create engagement. And there's many other ways to to create engagement are trying to keep the people, the learners engaged in the content. And curiosity is, I think, just one of those. What's an

example of another one? Um,

how about variety of, you know, content, versus, you know, elearning, just clicking Next, next answer a question, do a couple of drag and drops, you know, trying to, to make it more rich than that. Like, like one example. I keep these around. Again, I'm not, I'm not plugging this specific product, but learning battle cards, I'm sure if folks are familiar with these, but it's a deck of over 100 different types of activities that you might consider in a training. And whenever I'm trying to create a training, I just kind of flip through here and going, Oh, oops, sorry. You know, here's one called WebQuest. And it tells how to go about using it and when to go back to using a training. And you know, here's another one coaching. And I just started flipping through these and coming up with a variety of activities or parts of the learning solution that may, that will hopefully, you can create curiosity or creating engagement with the learners.

Absolutely. I love that. And I think it goes back to the point of we've got to be curious first. Right, we've got Yeah, we've got to, we have to be curious about what's different out there. Even if it's old, bringing it into the new so the battle cards great. I love those where you're looking through and you're like, Oh, I haven't done this one in a while. Can I put my own spin on it? Let's let's dust this off and use it. So some of some of the new way Ideas are just old ideas that have just been reconfigured in some way. But we have to be curious enough, we have to be questioning enough to step beyond what we always use the words that we always use the interactions, we always use the, the elearning, you know, activities that we always use. Right? Is, so that goes back on us, you know, as l&d professionals or instructional designers or whatever hat you're wearing today. We all know that we're all wearing different hats at different times, you know, so what's the hat that you're going to wear today. And so now, when we think about shifting, got people starting off with a curious mindset where we are enriching that soil, if you will, and we're keeping that soil nutrient rich, throughout our programs, whatever they may be, then the end comes.

So now, it's not so much keeping people curious about the topic at hand. It's keeping people curious, so that they want to continue to learn more about anything. You know, because I really believe that one program begets another one learning process begets another. So how do we keep people or move people into the stream of wanting to continuously make learning part of their day?

It's even hard for us to do.

Or we're supposed to be the lead by example, people were supposed to, you know, role model, continuous learning. And we do a really bad job of it sometimes. So now, how can we step back? Take a look at ourselves as the role modelers and then help push the curiosity of continuous learning into the organization?

Well, yes, money the Yes, I know which one you're talking about? We need to find that again. So how do we build curiosity into learning in general? How do we help people just be more curious about learning something new? Marketing, Marketing,

that's really what it's going to come down to is how do you market the training that you're offering, because you can put stuff out on the LMS or whatever, and it's there. But you need to be able to drive people to what is there? So you're gonna have to do some viral marketing, just asking questions, whether it's sin, adding someone getting into your company newsletter that this exists, or like you said, Shannon, find people who have taken a course and doing some target marketing. Hey, you took the course X. We've now introduced this course you might be interested in. Mm

hmm. I completely agree with that. Absolutely. And you're right, Heather culture, culture does play a big part of it. What does the culture support that? And if it doesn't, you know, you're kind of, you know, it's an uphill battle, but it's not insurmountable. And to Jason's point, it is about marketing. It is about reminding people constantly reminding people, that opportunities are there, it's that mean? Again, it's about making learning and development helpful and useful to the person. And so once you start building a habit of curating resources and putting them in front of people, then they start getting into the habit of reviewing those resources. Because consistently, you're giving them things that are helpful and useful and curiosity driven, things that allow them to reflect things that have something to do with their job, or maybe a pain point that they might be having, specifically.

And I'm reading irbis comment here. And you're right, there is a disconnect when it comes from leadership.

You know, where we say leadership says we need people to continuously upskill. But they don't give them time to upskill. Right? They don't give them the budget to upskill. And that is, that's a battle, we can't really, you know, tackle in the last 10 minutes of our chat today, although we have tackled it in past conversations, and it's still worthy of tackling. But it's hard when when

there's not, it's incongruent, right? When it doesn't, when it doesn't match up, that's a conversation that needs to happen with line managers. That's why I say, you know, activating line managers also will help build continuous learning within your organization.

Shannon, I think there's something very simple I could do. And that's to make sure that we talk about creativity at our weekly staff meetings. So yeah, four of us, as a team instructional designers get together, let's just put it on the agenda as maybe somebody will think about something during the week and come back with an idea. That's simple, right? And the other thing in my head is, could I create a an objective or a learning outcome for the class that uses creativity? Or curiosity language? So right from the get go, we're gonna say, we're going to do this simulation project baseline. I don't know, you know,

love it. Great idea.

Someone helped me because again, how in the heck would I write something up that, you know, that says something about, we're going to spark your curiosity by blah, blah, blah, right. And I got your marketing stuff. Jason, you know, right.

And I, and I think maybe it's, it's we think it might be as as now you've got my head spinning. It's like, okay, now, now, I want to tackle that challenge. But I realized I got to keep the conversation going. So it's, No,

we just modeled it, right. i We didn't and it was the problem question. And now what Now what if,

right? Yes, exactly. So my head is going okay, how would how would I do that? And in some cases, I might.

Again, depending on your audience, some audiences may not react to, you know, fluffy curiosity language. So you might have to, you know, reframe that. But I but I really love the idea of putting something in there that says, What's the reflection? What's the action, here's the project, we're going to tackle, here's, here's something that's going to what it is, here's what we're here's the outcome. The here are the objectives that we want to achieve. And now here's what we're going to do with it. Maybe that's it, it's, here's one plus one, we're going to do one, we're going to do two, we're going to do three, and one plus one plus one equals three. And here's what we're going to do with that information. And I need your And together, we're going to work on this. So maybe it's more of that sort of a statement, as I am completely on the fly. You know, taking taking your challenge, Lesley, but I love the idea of incorporating just moments of curiosity, in staff meetings. And in one on ones, you know, just if it's part of the culture, wait, let me back that up. If it's part of the language, it then becomes part of the culture.

What do you guys think? Go ahead,

you definitely have to be intentional about it. Because I think that's the difference if no one. I mean, our culture has gone downhill pretty significantly, since we're all remote. But none of us want to go back to being in the office, which is I don't either. But then for it to change and to become better and more creative and innovative and etc. We need to be intentionally figuring out how to do that. And it's really hard to get others even some people have no interest whatsoever in it. And then others call it just fluff. And I just think, how am I to do this? Well, I go outside the company to do it. But that doesn't help the company. It helps me but it doesn't help the company. So I don't know. I mean, I'm interested. I love the idea that Leslie put forth. I mean, that is just awesome idea. Trying to generate that.

Yeah, and that's something we you guys could do. Today, you don't even have to have it as an agenda item, you could just say, You know what? I just want, I just want to ask a question real quick, you know, and then then you can start to build it in. And it can work that way. But I also I think, to your point, Connie, do we spend a lot of time worrying about the people who don't want to learn? Rather than focusing on the people who do? You know, instead, so while we have to democratize this, you know, it's not as though we're going to take learning away from people, if you want to make the best use out of this. That's your call? If you don't, I'm going to try. And if it feels like I'm not moving the needle, I'm not gonna lose sleep over it. Here's the thing. That's true. Yeah, here's the thing is, you can't care more about it than they do. Because you're gonna keep yourself awake at night. Now, what I do like here is the way that you can start is what Valerie just put in the chat. So Valerie, is what if this learning could save you 10 minutes every day? That's a great marketing technique. Anyone who's opened up a marketing email and you see that you know that they're going for a sale somewhere along the line. It's what if what if this learning could save you 10 minutes every day? Or what if you could develop a habit that could make every meeting 10 minutes shorter? So you right off the bat, you're addressing a pain point.

And now people want that pain point solved. So now you have me at least looked to learn more about what's coming up next. And then hopefully, here's the here's the key is that when you when you have those conversations that start with whether this learning could save you 10 minutes every day when you have to make sure that you meet that objective. And to that your learning is as interesting as that statement might make it to be. So that's you just have to make sure that you're aligned in that way. But I love that because I think that goes directly to your issue that you brought up. Connie, is sometimes those people where it's hard to move that needle, it's because they don't see that. And so now help them see that and that's going to make them curious about what's coming next.

Oh, on that note, we are almost at the top of our hour, if anyone would any other contributing thoughts. What do you guys

know goofy thoughts? And by the way, congratulations, Irby on your retirement, I just want to say that what what I did, and you're still spending time with me what? Why? So there's, there's like a happy dance for that. It's always good to have your thoughts or be.

That's where I get myself into trouble. It just occurred to me during this chat, that not not being dependent on a job anymore. I don't have anybody, most supervisors or division leaders or whatever, constraining my goofy ideas, it's whatever I can come up with, and then finding an audience to try them on. You know, I think that's what I think our limitation is. We've been stuck between walls, you know, of our cubicle or our work environment. And we've always had to deliver something at some point. It's been in a position, I guess, kind of like if you're in a skunkworks, of not having a defined product to deliver, I think is where the creativity comes from. And where are the solutions that we're looking for ultimately, I

also agree with that, totally agree that

and you take the guard the guard rails off, anything can happen.

Right. And I think sometimes those guardrails are self imposed. You know, I think we, I think we see guardrails where maybe there aren't, you know, and maybe, or maybe there were guardrails previously, and now maybe those guardrails are gone, and we just haven't recognized it. So there could be a little bit of that too. And now towards the learn something new I've just put the link in the chat there for our upcoming learn. Speaking of marketing, nice segue

Our next learn something new is with is with Kevin Yates, and he's doing a continuation of his learning impact. Learn something new that he did for us a few months back. And so I think that you will, I think you would really get a lot out of that I love Kevin, he always runs you through a scenario. And he gives you data to go through. And he helps you determine what learning impact and what learning measurement is and what it isn't. And so that is up and running. And then our next Coffee Chat not next week, for those of you who are new, not next week, but the week after, is about. We're getting back to brass tacks here about different instructional design models, what models are out there, which ones are you using? Are you using a combination of different types of models? Are you using a model for this but a different model for that? I'm really interested in what you guys are doing in order to develop learning interventions or learning solutions within your organization. So maybe you're not following a model at all. Maybe you're just like, here's what I do. And it works. And it's like, I want to know what it is that you do. And that's working. All right. So thank you, again, everybody, for joining me today on this Good Friday. I really appreciate your time. And I really loved this conversation, there was a lot of good ideas here. And to that point, if you are wanting to take up some continuous learning, I invite you to join our learning rebels community. So our learning rebels community is out there welcoming to anyone who is willing to join and one of the benefits of the community is that you get the things like to learn something new, that's with Kevin, you get that for free. That's part of your community Plus membership, you get that for free. And if you are just your basic community member, you get it for 10% off so you get your investment back just through those two areas. And I hope that you guys consider joining us. And on that note, I hope you all have some great Easter plans. You know, Easter egg hunting anybody? What let's landed on this I want to see I want to see your chat or somebody come up my favorite Easter food.

Recently eggs. Recent Oh

yes, I love Reese's eggs. Deviled eggs. I love me a good deviled egg.

Oh, why do the Reese's like shaped things for holidays tastes so much better than the regular Reese's cups?

There's more peanut butter.

There's more peanut butter. Is that? I think that's it. Starburst jelly beans, Valerie Starburst jelly beans. You can only find them at Easter. And I like by 12 packets of them. Just so I have. Yes. And yeah, it's the proportion of peanut butter to chocolate I think is the big difference. Irish coffee. Ooh, is that a tradition? Leslie?

Yeah, she's like, just for me,

my friend.

Only for Easter.

Well, I think Patty's day it kind of runs over right.

You started at Easter Sunday good till St. Patrick's Day.

Or the other way round, right? St. Patrick's Day to Easter. Right? Cheesy. hashbrown potatoes. i Yes. All of those things. Is everybody. Or yeah, ham person. What is it? Do you have to know Leslie's like no no ham? What do you do? Leslie?

I don't know. I'm a plant based eater. So my. Okay. Boring. Don't ask except what I drink. Drink. Except when I drink.

Except for when I drink. Let's see we got we've got to have some limitations. Right there. There's a line in the sea on there. And

yeah, no better call. No.

That's right. That is right. I don't know. I go back and forth between when I serve but but there's always a deviled egg involved. Yeah. Yeah. Always a deviled egg involved. Yes. Sometimes it's sometimes I go the route of St. Patrick's Day, you know, and I do brisket and such like that at Easter, you know, just this this this year not doing much of anything.

The kids are out of state. It's me and a bunch of boxes and I think that's that's probably going to carry over Easter. Man, a big bowl of jelly beans, perhaps.

Ah, Spanish quiche, and you're going to make it for potlucks tomorrow. We'll have fun with that. Have fun with nice. Yeah, very nice. Very nice. For sure. Well, you know, I hope to see you guys here in a couple weeks where we're talking about instructional design models and have a Happy Easter. Take some time relax if you're not working today. That's awesome. Take advantage of this long weekend and hopefully you have great weather wherever you are, get outside a little bit. Enjoy what's happening, take the dogs for a walk, take yourself for a walk, go outside and enjoy some nature. So on that note, I will see you guys in a couple of weeks. Well