The Content One

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and development, one element remains central to learning
experiences and that's content. To look at
this, we have a group of four dynamic women from various
backgrounds who've come together to discuss the challenges

(00:32):
and opportunities that arise in this space.
As they share their insights, it does become clear
that the future of content lies in human centred
approaches that prioritise the needs of learners.
To discuss this, our first guest is Gaynor
Aitken. Gaynor has been working in L and d for
over 25 years, specialising in systems

(00:53):
training. Currently working as a learning solutions lead
for an international shipping management company. As the L and D
Project Manager, she gets the opportunity to make a
demonstrable impact on L and D and wider
business. Our second guest is Karen
Cureton. After working in sales and Marketing
for over 20 years, Karen was an early adopter of
social media. As soon as it emerged, she

(01:15):
embraced it with open arms. Roll forward
to today and she's become a results driven social
media specialist. Karen's been helping
businesses for over a decade with proven
strategies for success and her aim is to um,
unpick the often complex world of algorithms and
analytics and share her expertise.
Next we have Catherine or Katie

(01:37):
Swandale. Katie is currently working
at Immediate, a senior learning and Development partner
and has over a decade of experience in designing and
delivering strategically aligned experiential
learning. Katie began her career in
teaching before moving into apprenticeships and developing
leadership and management qualifications, including
collaborations with the CIPD to help shape

(01:59):
HR and L and D qualifications at all levels.
Recognised for her impact with awards in company
collaboration and um, business transformation.
Katie champions inclusive real world learning that
empowers individuals and drives organisational success.
Moving beyond traditional models, our
final guest is Laura Giles. Laura is Head of
Learning at desq, Managing Learning design activity

(02:22):
across sales, marketing and production. She's been
creating meaningful learning experiences for global brands,
the public sector, uh, and higher education since
2009 as well as a
postgraduate certificate in Teaching and Learning. She's a Senior
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She admits
to being slightly obsessed with storytelling and uh, wants to get out
of her comfort zone. And this is why she's done the

(02:44):
podcast recorded at the end of
March of 2025. This is Women talking
about learning. This is Gaynor, Karen,
Katie and Laura talking
about content.

>> Gaynor (02:58):
Hi everyone, how are we today? Laura, how
are you today?

>> Laura (03:01):
Oh, uh, great, thanks Kayna. I'm doing really good. How are you?
Katie?

>> Katie (03:05):
Yeah, I'm good. I'm excited to be here and speak with you
all. And Karen, how are you?

>> Karen (03:10):
Great, absolutely great. It's been a crazy
week, but great and lovely to be
with all these incredible women.

>> Gaynor (03:18):
Absolutely.
So, so why, uh, why do we want to
speak about content? What is, what is uh,
why is that of interest to us?
Maybe that's our passion. And it's interesting that
we're all coming from somewhere slightly different with
this, which I think is really interesting. So
Karen, maybe just, just coming to you because I know your interest

(03:40):
is really social media.

>> Karen (03:43):
M m. And I
think I actually uh, was at an event yesterday and
they had some speakers, flew in from the
States and what was really interesting
is I really like to mix content up. I
think when you're learning, you need to keep the
learning experience really moving
along. And I think there's nothing

(04:05):
worse than sitting in front of a screen, especially if you're
doing remote learning and you're looking at
it and you're going, oh my Lord, how long's this going on
for? And so I
try and mix it with. As far as social media
content's concerned, I'll say to people, think of
your. And uh, this could be the same for workshops
or anything, but actually as far as social media is concerned as

(04:28):
a topic, I think think of your news
feed like a really interesting magazine and your
subject matter and when we're talking
about learning, we should think
like that as well. I think, you know, that people get.
I work with a lot of coaches and trainers who are
paralysed by procrastination and

(04:48):
I think, you know,
that's where we tend to come from is we get that
uh, chimp on our shoulder going, oh, you shouldn't be saying that.
And then what, um, what do I
say? What are people going to say if I say this now
write this and what's the response going to be?
Does anybody else think that?

>> Gaynor (05:08):
Yeah, it feels, it feels for me like everyone has an
opinion on everything and sometimes you
see some things on social media and think. I think I'm just going to
back away from that slowly. But
yeah. Laura, what about you?

>> Laura (05:22):
I'm interested to learn from, from you guys about
how about social media content? My background is really in
learning content. I've um, I've been working with
learning content in one way or another since the beginning of my
career, um, back in the days of full screen
flash animations and page turning elearning.
And since, since then I've sort of turned my hand to all

(05:43):
types of learning content, whether that be games or
simulations or, or videos or animations.
And more recently in my role,
um, of head, as head of learning at desk, I've
been turning my hand to social media content and marketing
and sales content. So really my
career has been about content. So I'm quite opinionated
about it. But I'm really interested to hear how our

(06:05):
perspectives sort of align. How about you,
Katie?

>> Katie (06:08):
Yeah, I think that it'll be really interesting
hearing from all of you, all of your experiences.
Uh, from what I can share
is the thought that
lnd content or content
that is related to L and D is quite out
of our hands now. And we at

(06:29):
uh, the company I work at, I work at Immediate, which
is a multi platform media
company. We have brands
like Radio Times, Good Food, Gardeners World
and because of that we've really tried to seek
the opportunity inside the
variety of the new

(06:49):
content landscape. So
um, yeah, I'm excited to share
some opportunities that my team and the
department I work in have really found. But also
hear from all of you
as to what you found and inside the
opportunity of the new content landscape.

>> Gaynor (07:10):
Yeah, it feels like for me
I've been doing this job for longer than I want to
admit and it's been an interesting, it's an interesting
time time I think to, to be in learning and development
because there have been so many changes and Laurie, you were.
I was kind of laughing internally. You're talking about the sort of
the click next to page turn elearning. I mean I've been

(07:30):
about since kind of almost before
elearning was a thing. It was just uh, you know, it was one of
those buzzwords that nobody really kind of. I suppose all that
we like EI is now. It was like, yeah, there's an
opportunity here, but what do we do with it? And I do think
we go through that journey of, you know,
initially it's like it's really, really bad and then it's not so

(07:50):
bad and then it finds its place
within the blend. I think again card
and I agree with what you're saying. It's like it's that mix
of things. It just becomes almost like a toolkit. That
is how you, how you use that in different
situations. Is that kind of. Is that whether people
have that ah, sort of experience?

>> Karen (08:10):
I think, I think like Gaynor, I remember
forever ago showing my age. Do
you remember Kenna? You might remember this. I don't know. I'm um, not putting an
age on anybody. Can I just get that out the.

>> Gaynor (08:20):
Way you know Nothing, ages, no
experiences.

>> Karen (08:25):
I think one of the very, you know, I. I had a career
in sales for, like, 25,
30 years. And I remember when
the first training course we went on, it was a video.
Yes, a video of. And it was
John Cleese. He did a whole series
of training videos that was.
Do you remember? They were

(08:48):
hysterical. They were so funny.
And, you know, now, you know, the way that content.
I was on Chat GPT
on Tuesday and I
put a. Um. Because I was
mixing things up because I'm always interested in
dipping a toe and exploring things. And I asked
ChatGPT to create an anime version

(09:10):
of my headshot and it was
like, oh, my Lord.
Do you think, though, girls, that there's a sense
of overwhelm
now that we can just. You know, I was at this
event yesterday and it got to 3:00
and we. We'd had some incredible speakers. It
was really good. Content was

(09:31):
interesting, speakers were really good.
But actually it was all pretty much
guy. It was all guys. Sorry, I'm going to say
that was all guys standing up,
basically lecturing us now is
an a, uh, learning experience for me. As a
woman who takes on, um, information

(09:52):
in lots of different ways as learners
do. I think it's really important, you know,
that. That the. It was a great event.
Don't get me wrong, but how much of that have I retained
for my personal learning? You know, how do
you feel when you're learning something new?

>> Gaynor (10:09):
For me, I think, um. I think
as people in L and D, women
or whoever, you need to walk the walk,
you need to be doing these
courses, doing social learning and continuing to
learn yourself. I think it's difficult to tell
other people, you know, do as I say, not do as I
do. So I've done courses and

(10:32):
things online. I think Rise. I think Rise is a
really interesting product. Um, not
promoting it or anything, but it's, uh. In terms
of, you know, it's really easy
for me to create content, but it's also really easy
for anyone to create content. And lots of people in
my business who. They're not trainers, they're not an L and D or
anything, but they have a Rise account and they're creating that

(10:55):
content. So it then becomes, I think,
whether it's democratising the content in a way,
which is a good thing, but then who's
monitoring the quality of that. And I think maybe
as L and D, that there's a slight change in the
role that we have in terms of we're not always
going to be creating the content. But
maybe we should be, uh, we should be curating it and

(11:17):
making sure that it's in line with our policies, our
procedures and also that it's, that it's accurate
because there's a lot of stuff out there that you know,
you can, I know for a fact is just wrong.

>> Laura (11:29):
I totally agree, Gaynor. And it's interesting. Even Karen,
I sort of, uh, underlined the word overwhelm
in my notepad there as you said it. Because I do think
the industry has a content problem.
Um, and I feel like for many learning professionals,
they feel that that is what they do. They're content creators.
Um, and um, it's. And I think it's been really

(11:49):
interesting to observe more of a direction
towards learning experience design and
the designing of the experience of learning
rather than the content of learning. Um, but I know
for myself I do feel in a tricky position
sometimes because uh, our clients come to us
for a learning product, um, which is often

(12:09):
content. So you feel that that's how you're
delivering the value for money is in
some content. Um, and perhaps they might not
readily see the value in the design of the
experience, particularly if it's around the
learner themselves having to do more of the work, more of the
active learning principles. So you've designed this
experience for them, but are they getting kind of less for their money because

(12:32):
it's not 45 minutes of content?

>> Katie (12:35):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. We've kind
of moved in a similar span of
looking at the experience. So I think Laura, what you were just
saying about all of that and even Gaynor and
Karen having those experiences and putting that as
the forefront. Playing around with different things
is really a backbone of how

(12:55):
we're looking at L and D in
playing around with different opportunities. So
um, the, the things that we're doing
are doing quite multi touch point
opportunity. There's so much content out
there that we're helping our
employees one embrace
the variety of content but

(13:17):
also thinking about what
they want to take away for themselves, what lines up to what
their interests are and not being overly
prescriptive even about the learning experience. Yes,
putting the right people in the right places. So
having speakers, having
videos, um, and comms from videoing

(13:38):
our own internal employees sharing different learnings that
they've had. Um, we've done
unstructured experimentation days so
some pre training about the tools and then just letting
people focus and play. But all
of those experiences are so tailored to the
individual. They get out of it whatever
they want to get out of it. And I think that

(14:01):
that experience is
really interesting. The takeaway from that is
really interesting as to what they
go on to do with it. We've had projects come out from
these uh, different experimentation days that
we likely wouldn't have had before. We've
had a massive uptake in experimenting and playing with

(14:22):
AI and I think that's been really interesting.
So yeah, I feel that L and
D, taking a bit of a step back and embracing
that there's already such a wide variety of content
created by multiple people is
a good thing and a great
opportunity. I guess
my thought on it is, um, what

(14:45):
else can we do to harness the
greater freedom that L and D might have now?
So, so we've tried to be a bit more strategic so we put our energy
more into really analysing
strategy. But how can we make sure that
L. And you're embracing this and kind of what you guys
were saying, also being aware of that burnout.

>> Karen (15:05):
Yeah, because there is a lot of that, uh, isn't there? I think when
you, you put yourself. I think one of the things
I always try and do is, is you know, I used to deliver
sales training. I was a sales trainer back
in the day when I used to work in a grown up
job. And um, you know, I used to
put myself in the learner's shoes and think
is this a stimulating process

(15:28):
and how can we make it better?
Because I think, because like you say, we've talked
about overwhelm quite a lot and
having that, you know, that strategy that
you talk about, Katie, I think is fantastic because
it's so easy I think for organisations
to stay stuck and not move forward

(15:49):
and that's like everything in life, isn't it? I think, you know,
we're in an exciting time with lots of tools but
it's how we utilise those.

>> Gaynor (15:56):
Yeah. Is it almost like allowing space
to, for people to make mistakes? A safe space for people to make
mistakes? It's like um, I think mistakes sometimes
are, are. We don't want mistakes. Everyone has to
be perfect first time around. But actually it's when you make a mistake
that that is probably the greatest learning
opportunity for all of us. And if we're able
to sort of put that in somewhere safe that it's not

(16:19):
going to actually, you know, have, have an impact on the bottom line
of, of an organisation then, then, then maybe that's
uh, that's, that's something you know, to, to, to look,
to incorporate more of.

>> Katie (16:30):
That's definitely the culture that we've been Trying to
instil. And I think that a huge part of that
is L and D role modelling as
well and being ag.
Oh, is this working? Do we need to pivot? Playing
with different ideas. And
then. So, for example, our Summer of Learning
initiative, we did it once. We

(16:51):
built on an iteration. We're doing an iteration again this
year. So challenging ourselves to not get
stuck, showing that we're not afraid of failure.
Um, talking, uh, our, our
LT as well, is really on board with talking about
risks that they've taken, things that they've learned
from great failures, talking about
things in that way. I love the phrase

(17:14):
talking about what you've unlearned recently.
That's such a great thing to talk about, uh, especially with
AI and things that
you've unlearned in your opinion of AI
or how to do something in a different way so
you've learned a new way and unlearn another one.
Yeah, I think that those are, uh, the. Is really interesting.

>> Karen (17:34):
I think that's a really good point. I was at an event a
couple of weeks back and there was a bunch of entrepreneurs
hosting a panel. And one of the
questions they asked was, you know, what
mistakes did you wish you hadn't
made? And what. And it's just
reiterated. And remind me, Casey, exactly what you've just
said. You know, it is that fail first attempt in learning. I actually

(17:56):
put that out on my socials quite a lot. It's just go for
it because it's not a fail. You're giving it a go.
But what all of these entrepreneurs all
said, and they were across multiple
demographics, I wish I'd made more
mistakes. Because like you said, Gaynor,
you know, that's. We learn in lots of different ways, but

(18:16):
when we've made a mistake, that's the one that sticks.

>> Gaynor (18:19):
Yeah. The very first time I did a, A, uh,
webinar with web. I think it was webex back in the day, made the
mistake of keeping allowing everyone to have their, Their, their
audio on. So it was like There was like 50
people and they all had their audio on. And I only made that
mistake once and never did it again.

>> Laura (18:37):
So it really feels that. Sorry. It
really feels that in answer to the question that you posed,
Katie, what's the opportunity that we can harness
from there being so much content available? It
feels like the answer in what you guys are saying is
that freedom to experiment. If as learning designers,
we're not having to spend so much time creating content,
which is traditionally where so much of our role has been

(19:00):
positioned, we then, uh, Frees up the time
to experiment, to fail to get
engaged with the learning science instead of just a traditional
content creator.

>> Katie (19:10):
Yeah, I agree with that. It's less about the
learning objective and more
about the opportunity
presented because we have no control over
whether someone really does, does meet a learning
objective. Like, you
know, even if you strapped into a chair and we said, uh,

(19:30):
we're going to learn this and you're going to read every book.
That's not, that's not something that is
going to then transform into their actions and lead
on. We know from a lot of
psychology and um, neurology
that experience and having an experience
cements it deeper into our memory.

(19:51):
And the ones that really stick are when we have
a personal connection. So
I really believe in, yes,
putting on even, you know, the standard. I'm going to do air
quotes of corporate training sessions,
putting those on. But inside everything
not being so prescriptive of this is what you are going to

(20:12):
learn. It's more, these are the topics we're going to
cover and let's talk about what you
connect with and why and how you're going to take it
forwards. And I really love talking
about potential, uh, mistakes that
you might make and how great that will be.
There's. I saw a really good meme the other day that said,
go out today and make three mistakes and

(20:34):
celebrate them. I can't remember what it said, like celebrate
them ruthlessly or something like that. And I thought that's
so great. Imagine ending on a training and saying, okay, go
out and make three mistakes with the things you've learned. I, uh,
love rather than what are you going to do and what are you going to
do? Well, uh, what are you going to get wrong
from this?

>> Gaynor (20:53):
Yeah, I think as well as, well, it's like
maybe we have that mindset when you've all been to school
in a particular time period. And it's like there's a beginning,
a middle and an end. And it's like you read a book and you start a book at
the beginning. I remember someone a few years ago saying to me that
they looked at MOOCs and massive open online courses
and they only took from them and they want, they didn't necessarily finish them

(21:13):
all. And that blew my mind. It's like, what you mean I don't have to like
go through the whole thing and it's like it, that was, that
was like a, that was like a just a light bulb moment for me. It's like,
it's. We can create the content but it's
up to the, the, the learner, uh,
or the, or the employee to, to use that in the way that
they want. So I, I kind of think of it as more like a, a pick

(21:34):
and mix. It's like they can pick and mix that. And again, m.
Maybe our role is partly to create a pathway
through that and say, you know, you can look at this, you can look
at that and some LMSs, you can actually
have, uh, I've created pathways before where it's like,
you know, there's, there's maybe a video of this or there's some notes on
it or you can pick what you want and either of those will

(21:54):
fulfil the criteria that you've, you've done that. And
again, it fulfils both the needs of
a business and also the, also for the learner as
well. Doing.

>> Karen (22:05):
Sorry, I was just going to say, don't you think there's also that
element? And you put it perfectly,
Katie, which is they're all
individuals and they need to be treated
individually. And I had,
um, I had, I was running some
training last year, two cohorts and
um, we re regrouped in the autumn

(22:26):
and I said to every, how's everybody getting along? How are you getting
on with your social media training? You know what results are
achieving. And one of the members given that
I was using all of my information to watch what they were up
to said, oh, it's not really doing, I'm not really
getting any results. I'm not really doing anything. So I
said, well, have you had done a content

(22:46):
audit? What do you mean?
I said, well, because I knew what she was doing
and um, I said, go out and have a look. How much of
your content is building relationships? How much of your
content is making your future customers feel as
though you're the right fit for them? How much of your
content is educating them? Social

(23:06):
proofing? I said, look at the last
10 posts you put on Face Ache, as I call
it, and come back to me
and tell me how many of them were different
categories. I gave about six or seven different
categories. She came back and I
knew the answer. She says, oh my goodness,
they're all sales posts. I said, okay, so if I

(23:29):
went into a shop and somebody just kept selling,
selling, selling, do you think I would buy from them? She said, well, of course
not. And sometimes it's
those. And she's one of my learners.
Everybody's been given the same information. It's how they
then take it and use that information, isn't it?
Because as you say, quite rightly,
Gaynor is let's give people different ways of doing it. So

(23:51):
I'm always shifting how I deliver my
learning because
they're all going to take what they choose to
take in that moment, aren't they? Do you think that's the case,
Laura?

>> Laura (24:04):
Yeah. I mean, I wanted to say, as a former MOOC maker, uh,
Gaynor, that story of the person taking
exactly what they need from the learning content
really, uh, spoke to me because the completion rates on
MOOCs are terrible. And if that was a success
metric for us, uh, I don't think we would have
continued to make MOOCs. But I love to hear
that story of somebody's gone into a course, they've taken the information,

(24:26):
they've had the experience that they want and then that's enough. They put it, they've put it
back down again, which it
just makes me think a little bit about, about the data
behind the content that we produce and what that tells
us.
And you there, Karen, speaking about, uh,
looking at the types of content you're putting out and what is the date,
what's the traction of the engagement on those

(24:47):
different types of, um, of content? Um,
so what, you know, what can we learn from the data side
of the experiences that we put out and the content that we put
out? What can that tell us about how much people are engaged
with the content and how. And how they're not?

>> Karen (25:01):
I think that's a really good point. I mean, Katie, I bet you've got
loads of information like this sitting behind the
organisation you're part of, because, you
know, I think data's great, but sometimes, as
Gaynor said, we don't.
It's what I. What is that success
metric? You know, how are they measuring success
of their. Say it's an employer bringing some training

(25:24):
in. How are they measuring the success? What is that? Uh, is
it high retention rates or is it just they've
completed the course?

>> Katie (25:31):
I think that for data,
it's actually quite personal to the
business as well, because it depends
on the business's strategy as to what data
you're trying to track. L and D
sometimes tracks completion as quite a
blanket data tracking, but
actually for a company

(25:53):
that care about, um, innovation
and experimentation, actually,
are you tracking how many new
projects come out after a
certain learning initiative? Um, if you're
tracking collaboration, do you then
track how many people

(26:13):
attended from different departments to
the training session, how many connections were
then followed up on
in certain ways? And you do that through
contact or following up with those
individuals? So I think
there's so much data that we can harness,
but it very much is linked to

(26:35):
the strategic elements of the business,
equally saying that there's so much
data that is there. So for example, in my
company with loads of data, we have loads of data of
what engages people, um,
data linked to performance, all
of that stuff. But making sense of the

(26:55):
data and marrying up those two elements
of the business
partnering of of L and D to the
company and the data that's available is
still a bit tricky sometimes. I think we still mismatch
it sometimes. I don't, I don't know if you guys agree, but
it's quite hard to find the balance of, okay, I've got
all of this great data. I'm trying to

(27:17):
solve this problem. Which bit of data
do I need? Which, which bit of data will
show me how people will engage the most?
And I think that's also where we can role model and
experiment and try and look at the data and not be afraid
to fail and go, that did not do what we thought it would do.
It did do this. That's great because there's always

(27:37):
something that happens. But um,
yeah, I would say, you know, thank you for the props,
Karen, of that we would have loads of data and we do,
but yeah, still trying to marry some of that
up sometimes.

>> Gaynor (27:50):
Is it more like an inference sometimes of,
of. Of what you. Rather than a
concrete A to B.
And I think, I always think as well, sometimes there's this.
We want to do an elearning module, we want to do a
course, whatever content. We want to create this content. But
then I'm always the one asking awkward questions and saying,

(28:10):
well, why do you want to do this? What do you want to get out of this?
Because for me you can't evaluate anything unless you
know what you wanted to get out of it to start with. And then it all
starts to get a little bit fluffy, you know, And I don't do
fluffy. So it's like what. So we can say that, uh, we wanted
to, you know, decrease errors in
ordering processes or something or I mean it's that kind

(28:31):
of. It's like we've run this course therefore, if you're getting less
errors and that's what we wanted to achieve, has this
been been successful? And it's not, it's not about L and
D operating in a, in a bubble, in a vacuum. And I
think, I think that's much less now. It's a case. It used to be, it
was like almost like that order training. We need you to
create. And again, Laura, that comes back to what you were saying. It's that we want a

(28:51):
45 minute E learning module to solve our problem
without actually digging down to see, first of all,
is it even, uh, a learning issue or training issue to start with?
And it might be part of that. And that's getting to the
nitty gritty of that to start with, I think, is that's
when we can create content. The best content I ever
created was not technical at all. It was a little

(29:11):
credit card size
card and it was on voicemail because nobody could remember
the numbers for the voicemail. So it was like, do a training course on this and it was
like, it was like a little card and people could put it into their wallet and when they
were out travelling and wanted to change their, their voicemail, they just got
out the, they got out their little card and just pressed the
numbers. Job done. There was no learning course,

(29:32):
no E learning involved in it. And sometimes I think, and I
don't know if you would agree with us, sometimes we tried to use a
sledgehammer to crack a nut.

>> Karen (29:40):
I think you're 100% right. I think some
HR teams will look at learning and
development as a sticking
plaster rather than actually really
understand what's going on in the organisation.
My best friend, um, before she retired was
HR director for one of the biggest car retailers in the
uk and she used to say to

(30:03):
me, karen, we can't, we can't
just fix staff problems with more
training. What we need to do is engage with the
staff and find out what's going to work for
them. And I think, you know, it's like when we go
back to look at data, I was with some clients on
Wednesday who I manage, uh, their social media
for them and if we went purely off the

(30:25):
data, then their best performing post
for March was a pancake race down the back of
their offices. Did that actually generate
any new clients? No, I doubt
it. But actually it's that relationship
building piece that, uh, I think, you know,
is that.
I think data is

(30:47):
incredibly
interesting and I think we can all geek out on
it and that information. But it's how we then
use that information, isn't it?

>> Katie (30:57):
Yeah, I think connecting, as
we've all said, it's that strategy piece of what
problem are you trying to solve? Understand the problem that's
trying to be solved either by someone who's coming to you
for support or just
generally for the business and finding the
data that helps you look at that in

(31:17):
perhaps a different way. Or supports those
decisions. Laura, what about you?
What's your experience of the data
and content marrying up?

>> Laura (31:28):
Um, so as a learning designer,
I mean I'm obviously interested in using
elearning to solve businesses problems, but I'm also
really interested in using that data to understand
the learning experience itself and create better learning
experiences next time time sort of using it as a,
as a kind of digital body language. You know, you don't,

(31:48):
you don't get that classroom uh, experience
online, but maybe we can infer some things
from, from how they've engaged with the content we've
designed. So is there a particular time
of day that they log on to
learn? Uh, are there particular bits of
content that they don't engage with at all or they skip
over or are there videos that they rewatch, do they rewatch

(32:10):
constantly? Are there quiz questions
that don't perform very well or are too easy?
So sort of using. Um, I'm quite interested in the practical
side of the data for applying it for my learning and
design experience. I also have had direct
experience of asking that question, what problem are you trying to
solve? Means that we don't end up creating an E learning piece at

(32:31):
all, which is a difficult position to be in
as a supplier of digital learning. But it's sort of
pivoting then to a uh, a consultancy role
and we're actually going to help you do something different
and it's not, it's not a piece of elearning.

>> Gaynor (32:46):
But then does that make you more of a trusted partner in some. Rather
than creating some elearning that you know is going to
fail and then you don't then have that business with,
with someone it's like maybe that's, it's uh, better to
say no, this isn't the right path for this.

>> Laura (33:00):
And, and this is why I keep, I keep coming back to this question
Katie, that you pose about how can we harness the freedom that,
that, that the amount of content that there is
offers? And I think it is that positioning
learning design as consultancy, as performance
consultancy rather than content creation for me is
a really exciting space to be in. We really

(33:20):
get to think more about human behaviour, about
learning science and about performance rather
than is this going to be a piece of video or is this going to
be a simulation?

>> Katie (33:30):
I think you can also really harness the people who are already inside your
company because of that. We have so
many different things going on because it's
a matrix organisation. We have so many experts
who've already made small bits of
step by steps for themselves or
or taught the person next to them how to do
something. And so when we're in

(33:53):
that discovery phase of what's the problem?
Sometimes, and I think that it's really great for L and D
to embrace this as a business partner. Partner. My role
is L and D business partner. And sometimes
it's saying, actually I think the person you need is
blah, blah, blah, or let's pull in this
person because I think they've done something similar before

(34:14):
and you're actually kind of a touch point
to make connections across the business rather than going, oh great,
no worries, we'll solve that for you. It's
actually, it's uh, also more strategic for us. We have a
bit more time then. But even
I've had someone who came to me
saying they just want to work on their general
communication skills and yes,

(34:36):
I can point them in lots of different
directions, but sometimes it's also
not being afraid to
say, okay, look like, be more
analytical yourself. Look on social media
and see what their communication skills are. Be more
analytical when you're looking at
reels and kind of throwing it

(34:58):
back to them as well as perhaps
leading them in certain directions of there's
a social um, media influencer who I
really rate as a communication specialist, um, who's
on a variety of platforms. But
it's nice because they're on Instagram as well, which I know that everyone's looking at
in our company as well as other platforms.
So you can redirect them and let them

(35:21):
take a bit of control and ownership. Not um,
being afraid to refer to AI as well in that
discovery session and saying, okay, well actually for
Excel and I actually do this guys, for Excel,
I'm straight on ChatGPT, like give me a step by step of
how to move this column into this and do X, Y and Z.
I look like an expert right now,

(35:42):
but it's not being afraid to
actually signpost them um,
in a different direction rather than having to
come up with all the content and a whole training
provider.

>> Laura (35:54):
I'd love to hear a bit more about the user generated
content side of what you produce, Katie, because,
uh, I mean I think that uh, finding experts
in the business who are already doing that work or already have an
understanding of that subject is such a rich theme, uh,
for learning content and especially
how that relates to what we see on social media where in
30 seconds people really succinctly explore,

(36:16):
explain concepts to you before you've had a chance to scroll
on. Um, um, and sort of taking a little bit of that learning
inwards into the business and saying this is what we can learn from
what's going on uh content wise
outside.

>> Katie (36:29):
Yeah, I mean we, I would say
that our people are so
great in the company I work at. Uh, they are really up
for it. Which is already one of the
tricky parts to getting subject matter
experts. Um, but I
think that reaching out
to not only to those people

(36:52):
directly but I reach out within our people department. I speak to the
people partners who know so many people through the business and
say I want to do something on this. Do you know
anyone who's quite good at X, Y and Z?
For example, the manager programme that we're rolling out for
this year is a bit more pick and mix and it's
got different topics and the sessions are much
smaller but for pretty much

(37:15):
each one I'm speaking to a subject
matter expert or someone who's got a really good
experience that they can storytell and share to come
in and be a part of that so that people can make their own
connections. And it's not a uh,
dictated step by step. Here's some
models, here's how you do it, it's here, here's some rich
experiences, here's some models, take

(37:37):
what you will. But also
Laura, I think the, the other thing that is a
really useful part to do is really
harnessing what you said about reels and
different parts of that. We have a great
comms department that use a lot of video so
we uh, often have people
speaking from inside the business sharing

(37:59):
um, what they took away from something, what
they learned um, sharing what they do on
a day to day so people understand bit more about different
departments and that's such a great way
to create content
in a way that people are very used to
now and can be picked up and put down quite
quickly.

>> Karen (38:20):
I think we've got, you know we've got a generations coming
through now that have got very short attention Spanish
and really interesting actually um, I was
reading something yesterday about video content
and you know LinkedIn's trying to
be TikTok now with the way it's changing
its video formats. But what was
really interesting was the information I was

(38:42):
reading was that they're trying to
get us to create shorter videos
but it's also about how we frame that
video that if we don't catch people in those first
10 seconds they're not gonna stay and watch it. Regardless of
whether it's 10 minutes, 2
minutes, it doesn't matter. We've gotta

(39:02):
capture, capture their attention with that
hook. And I think on platforms like
TikTok and Instagram, people will scroll much
more fast on those platforms rather than
actually stay. And so
um, I do lives once a week
and you know, people will be there for a
period of time but I think that's because the

(39:25):
live is on LinkedIn and you
know, you've just got to look at Netflix. You know, skip,
skip, recap, skip, intro. You know
it's, it's everybody wants everything
faster now, don't they?

>> Gaynor (39:38):
Yeah, yeah.

>> Katie (39:39):
I, it'll be interesting to hear your
experiences of. We, we know that
people like learning that
relates to their role and they, they really understand
the connection but the experience of that
in demand learning especially with
AI. As I just said for Excel, I'm um, not going
to go on a course. I'm going to type into chat

(40:01):
GPT. How do I do this? Give me a step by step.
It's like a one up from how Google used to be.
You know when you're thinking of an actress
who's in a movie you've just watched and you want to know their name
instead of trying to work that out and let it be a thought process
and you, two days time you'll come up with the answer.
Google it. You Google it straight away. I was sitting next

(40:22):
to someone in a cinema who got out their phone to
Google who the actress was for
a voice of an animated person in
a film. And I was like, what are
you doing? Can you not wait? But people can't
wait now. So uh, there's,
there's great uh, advantages of it

(40:43):
where there's the
people being able to really take control and find out what they need
for Excel. But also we're missing
and ah, that's my question. Are we missing opportunities for
those connections to expand and be made
slowly?

>> Gaynor (40:59):
Yeah, I mean I think that, I mean back in the day
I used to run a course called Basic Mouse and Windows. It was
going back a long way and it taught people how to do things
like using the file structure in
um, in my, in my, in, in Microsoft Windows
back in the day. And yeah,
it, it feels like we're, we've almost missed that

(41:19):
whole part. I mean if you asked, you know, someone, you know,
maybe you know, a younger person nowadays,
and I'm saying this like I'm um, you know, ancient but you know, you
know, what's File Explorer? I mean they would probably look at you like you
were, like you were, you were crazy. It's like, it's almost
like those foundations that we have
is that we don't bother with that Anymore. We just go straight to the

(41:40):
street to the nice bits about like having your dessert before having, having
your, your main course. And um, and you
know, it's, it's like if you, you can, yeah, you can just Google the little
bits in Excel that you need, but then if you don't
understand this, foundations
below that, and sometimes you can be messy. You can, you're
not necessarily doing the right thing. I mean,

(42:00):
a few years ago, someone created a huge
document and was like, how do I put a, ah, how do I put a table
of contents into it? I said, well, you just look at your style
headings and then, and do it from there. And they were like, what's the
style heading? So they then had to go through 108 pages of
document and add that because they didn't have that basic
understanding of how that worked
before, um, before progressing with the

(42:22):
task. So maybe we're, we're kind of doing things a little
bit, you know, backwards sometimes. We're not, we don't
have that, that sort of, you don't need
a full depth of knowledge, but some kind of
knowledge that rather than just this bite
size. Bite size learning is great, but I mean, that's probably
a question. Do we need to have more
foundations to it?

>> Katie (42:43):
And how also how do we harness
putting that in place if the landscape is
such a focus of this new.

>> Gaynor (42:52):
Culture and constantly changing.

>> Katie (42:54):
And constantly changing. I mean,
perhaps one of the things
that we could do is
helping employees be a
bit more analytical of when, when
they see, um, an influencer
talking about, I don't know, performance management
on, on their Instagram and being a bit more

(43:17):
analytical of like, okay, that's a great
snippet. Does it relate to what I do? Does it relate to
the place that I work or my
own type of, uh, culture and how I
want to be as a manager? But also,
is there anything else I need to know before I try and
put that in place?

>> Gaynor (43:35):
But also is it accurate? Because there's a lot of
people who are experts out there who perhaps don't know
very much themselves. We've been talking for
40 minutes. That only seems like about
10. So, um, yeah. So
I think we're probably needing to start wrapping up
now. Although we could, I could, I could carry on talking
for ages, I have to say.

(43:57):
Do we have any, any final thoughts?
Who wants to start with some?

>> Karen (44:01):
I think I, from my perspective, from
a social media perspective, I would say that,
um, there is so much information out there. Like
we've used the word overwhelm. We're overloaded with
information all the time. I have a 19 year old
who doesn't go anywhere without his phone. They cannot remember what day of
the week it is, you know, and these are our future

(44:23):
learners, God help us. But I
think as you know, as people who work
in learning and development, I think we have to be
constantly, as Katie's put is
beautifully put, is we need to be
questioning everything, you
know, thinking about what the outcome is, is this the best
way to it and to do it. And as you said Gaynor, uh,

(44:45):
it's. Is this the right solution at the
right time for those people
and being curious. Curious is
my word of the year actually. I always say I'm curious why
we're doing this. I'm not losing sight of that.

>> Laura (45:00):
I know we're coming to the end, but you just saying about talking
about what does the individual need
just uh, reminds me that there's a whole sphere of human centred learning
desire that we didn't have a chance to discuss. But you know, really
making content that is, that works for the individual and
defining what that individual needs to do.
Um, but I think, I think really my key takeaway is I'm
going to go think about what I can unlearn this

(45:23):
week and um, celebrate that.

>> Gaynor (45:26):
Yeah. Katie, what about you? You have final
thoughts?

>> Katie (45:30):
I feel that there,
there is a lot of opportunity in
letting go of managing uh,
the content and that
we also have to be very aware that
the rate of change is just getting faster and faster and
faster but to also be aware of

(45:51):
balancing that and taking people on that change
journey. So even though content is changing and
there's all the reels and everything,
to take people on a journey with that, uh, to introduce
multiple touch points, not get rid of everything at once and move
completely in a new direction. Because I think we'll get whiplash
of how many times we'll have to pivot being agile but

(46:11):
remembering that there needs to be a journey, there needs
to be multiple touch points, communication to take
people on that journey with us. And
that's the way that L and D can really role model
that change curve and
technological change curve in the
company as well.

>> Gaynor (46:29):
Yeah, uh, that's it. I mean I
agree with, agree with all of you. I think for
me my takeaway is that uh,
we don't forget about the basics. It's like what
are we doing, why are we doing this, what do we want to achieve
and who are our learners? There's no point in creating
fabulous stuff for learners if they're going to be in an oil rig in the
middle of the North Sea and don't have any

(46:52):
wi fi.

>> Katie (46:53):
Yes. Little cards, Little
business cards are what you need.

>> Gaynor (46:57):
Little business cards for everything.

>> Karen (46:59):
Absolutely love it.

>> Katie (47:01):
Super.

>> Gaynor (47:01):
Uh, yes, thank you everyone. It's been fabulous talking
to you all.

>> Katie (47:06):
Yeah, it's been really great. Really great. Insights
and learnings to take away.

>> Karen (47:10):
Thanks, Guinea. Thanks.

>> Andrew Jacobs (47:11):
Laura, Katie, what a great
episode and we'd love to know your thoughts. So please
do let us know when we finished.
Our guests felt the recording had gone really quickly and they
hadn't covered everything that they wanted to
sort. We've decided we're going to record part two
later this year and, um, with the frightening expansion of AI

(47:32):
content and tools, it seems appropriate and
relevant. A very special thank you to
Gaynor, Karen, Katie and Laura for their
insights into this subject and for their time in making this
such a brilliant recording. We know that
you'll want to connect with them afterwards and their details
are, as usually in the show, notes along with information
about how to connect with us here at Women Talking about

(47:54):
learning. We're back as usual in a couple
of weeks time and next time it's the work
life balance 1. As always,
thank you for listening and we'll see you again soon.