26: Getting into L&D for FREE with Cara North

pay for an ID Academy. And some of the extra work we believe is necessary to move into the l&d field and grow as an l&d Professional. Whether you're an aspiring ID and novice ID or an ID with 25 years of experience. There's something for you in this episode. Hey, Cara, how's it going?

ID. Today, we're going to be talking about something along the same vein. And Cara has recently released some videos on YouTube. And I'm just gonna let her tell the story of how those videos came to be what they're about what the response has been. So go right ahead, Cara.

And guess what hiding, I couldn't really find anybody that's actually talked about them. So I've started this series, just basically going through and started off really kind of innocently thinking, Okay, what would be some questions that you'd want to ask in order to kind of vet if something is a good opportunity for you that includes, you know, who's running the program? What am I going to learn in the program? If it's not for me, can I get my money back? I mean, again, really basic questions.

Because, again, I understand there's a lot of people who's recently found learning development, I get super excited, being around people that are new, I think that that just brings new energy, and the waters Great, welcome. We're

glad that you're here. But I do think that there's some nefarious things at play, not saying all it academies are bad, bad, you think there are some that are preying on the emotions of people, and there are things out there that are being promised that, unfortunately, is just really not realistic. And so I put that out there, overall, got a really good response, get get a really weird response, I basically got a threat in my inbox on my Contact

Me form on my website. And then I was like, I'm on to something here. Like, there's gotta be more to this story. So I'm continuing to kind of again, massage this out, think a little bit more about what people need to be aware of. And my last one that I just did was about exposing some things that people promise that is not genuis. So some of the things include, hey, we say that you're going to get

work in the program. But then if you read right before you give them the credit card number, so yeah, well possibly, although on the marketing copies, like yes, you will get work with clients. And then the other one was about using Articulate Storyline, which is, you know, is a very popular ELearning Development tool, encouraging people to break the terms of service of articulate and use multiple trials in their program, they get charged 1000s of dollars for

their programs. So I've only I think, just begun to open Pandora's box, so to speak, Heidi, but I really just wanted to put a series out there for people to Again, pause, do their due diligence and go through some kind of questions with themselves as well as with these academies to really make the best fit and choice for them. And, again, I'm gonna sound like an old timer here, but back in my day, I didn't have an eye The Academy, right, so I'm of the accidental instructional design

generation. And there's a lot of us that kind of wear that badge, probably. And that's from Kenny beans, awesome book, I can't recommend that enough. And, you know, we just kind of figured figured it out, you know, and we banded together and work together and figured it out. So I do think there's some value in what some of these academies can offer. But I, again, I just want people to slow down, make good choices for themselves in their

family. Because again, I think there's a lot of desperation right now in a lot of emotions. And when people are emotional, we know that as critical thinking skills usually aren't the best.

resume service? And, you know, my answer is always is it something that we at CPLD can provide for you, because a lot of times, it is we try to be super comprehensive. And we've exploded, which is also like a very weird thing, because it was like this little grassroots webinar series is what it was originally supposed to be. And it's now grown into something

much larger. But the other thing that I that I see, to kind of add to your your marketing and sales pitches is a lot of these places who are saying, you know, you can make six figures or I make six figures, right. And they're not including the fact that half of that six figures is coming from people like you paying them for their coaching services, right? They make it sound like it's all from the

instructional design work. But if that were true, they wouldn't have time to be coaching also, you know, and so that's one of the ones that really grinds my gears, but meeting with all these different people and having them say, you know, I'm thinking about throwing money at something, because I'm so desperate to get out of the classroom is heartbreaking.

Because I've told people, and we've talked about this before is never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever pay for something for a bullet point on your resume, that is not the reason to pay for anything, ever. And all of these different, I'll say this about all of them, all of the different academies have a different focus. That's the whole goal. And so if their focus doesn't align with your focus, it's a waste of money

already, right? So I think it's really good that you're doing this, because a lot of the educators that I've met lacked the confidence and are looking for that. And they're, they're vulnerable. And sometimes, when I have these just half an hour meetings with educators I've never even met before, sometimes all they're looking for is someone to talk to you about how bad their past year has been navigating the pandemic as a teacher. And so I think what you're doing is really important.

really had a horrible time. And what really, I think upsets me the most about the survivor stories, as I'm calling them, is they're afraid to speak out Heidi, and I've really just kind of dug around like, Well, why are they so afraid to speak out? And then you know, back in my mind, I was like, okay, it makes

sense. Think about it. Some of the people in these academies are just putting themselves on a pedestal, they're selling, how great they are, how wonderful they are, whatever, and you are transitioning into a new career, right? And you're petrified, hey, if this person is the big deal that they say they are, and I go out, and I speak out against them, what's that gonna do to me? And my chances, and I think a lot of people are afraid to share those stories for that reason.

really good thing. But sometimes the problem is that people don't know where to start to find the resources that they need to accomplish the goals. What they want to accomplish. And that was a big part of why Sarah started TPL D. But it's also why the sales tactics for these different companies, or academies or boot camps, whatever, are so popular and so effective is because people don't even know where to start.

And so I want to spend a little time talking today about like, who are some good people to start with, and who are some good people to follow that have free resources.

to follow. I think their website is td.org, you can go there, I go there about every day and just see what people are writing about, they have a capability model that shows kind of where the field is going. So there's a lot of great value you can get from att. And bonus, if you're in the United States, you may have a local chapter near you. So you may also be able to get involved with your local chapter. I'm a big proponent of

that. And honestly, I used my experience in my local ATT chapter to help kind of catapult myself to the next level. I was president of my local chapter for a few years and really got a lot of leadership experience out of that that was really craving at the time. So love that. Another place I highly recommend is the training learning and development community. And that website is to ldc.us. And what I love about that is this has been going on since Gosh, 2016 and

2017. And it used to be a daily show, I mean, you can go back in the archives and just get a ton of content, right. And the person that runs to LDC, Luis MOBAs, one of my mentors, one of the nicest people on planet Earth, and really has a lot of great content that is produced. So those are two that I would recommend. Now, if you're looking to do higher ed, higher ed, there's some different ones you might want to look at. One place that I recommend to get some great resources is actually

ed tech books.org. And so this is open educational resources of some academic journals, including the Journal of Applied instructional design, a lot of great instructional design books. And so again, it's giving you kind of information about more of kind of the theory, and then you're going to be using a lot of that language more in a higher ed space than you will in a corporate l&d role. So again, to kind of temper your expectations, and give you the

information that you need. Those are some of my favorite kinds of places to get started for people. And again, absolutely free to go to go through. And a bonus learning guild is also another one that you can get a free account for. They do monthly research reports, there's a lot of in their archive of a lot of different webinars and presentations. And, you know, in my opinion, learning guild has probably the best conferences, so I love learning solutions and DevLearn.

Those are two of my personal favorites. So those are

piece of it. But I believe they do is every Friday at noon, they well noon, Eastern Time, yes, Eastern Time, noon, Eastern Time, they do a meet up or they just stick you in breakout rooms with other people in lnd. And it's a good opportunity to just kind of get yourself out there and meet other people.

freelancer? Or do you want to work in higher ed? Or do you want to work in a nonprofit, I mean, all of these decisions will kind of also influence the content and the development that you'll need to be your best version of yourself in that

particular role. So for example, one thing that I am a little bit concerned about, in these Ivy academies, it's something I'm gonna be talking to about in my keynote for ATD, Central Florida next month, is I do worry, there's so much focus on the transactional piece of learning and development, about the creating of content, right. And I am so fearful that if this is the direction we're going, we're losing our value, right? Because that's why a lot of things get

off short. Oh, I can just, you know, somebody else can make it somebody else can whatever. For me, and this is what drew me into learning development. The thing I love the most is being that problem solver and being that business consultant and really like, Okay, what is it that we're really wanting to get, get down and help with great example, it's actually happened yesterday, at work, we got a request in to do some training around a product line

that we have. And we're asking questions of the stakeholder and come to find out one of the issues was the environment that they manufacture this? And they determined, yes, we probably need a little bit better lighting, so people can see some of the things that are being done. I'm like seeing right there, had we not asked those questions, you know, maybe that wouldn't have came out. So that is the cool thing I think about learning about Yes, making

content is fun, too. Don't get me wrong, building something really fun and engaging. That is to me icing on the cake. But to me, the real like draw of this profession, at least to me, is being that business partner. And we have this really awesome way where we're not necessarily in one. But I guess it depends on where you work at. Let me

rephrase that. But I think you have a unique perspective, because you're not necessarily that frontline person, but you're not necessarily like the top of the food chain in the org either. So really kind of being the liaison between the two is something I really enjoy. And I don't know how you get that out of an academy, honestly. And I think that's something you get

with experience. But you know, knowing that, even if you get really good at developing in storyline, or Captivate or whatever, that's not everything, right? That may be very good if you want to just do one piece of it as a consultant for the rest of your life. But if you really want to grow, if you want to get into management, if you want to go on up the ladder, you're gonna have to be a little bit more deeper in your expertise.

as well. And these are all critical skills for instructional designers to have in organizations, if they're not just making the pizza, as I like to put it. You know, if you want to do more than make the pizza, those are all skills you need to have. So that's something you should be looking for in these different academies. But like you said, there's a heavy, heavy emphasis on learning the tools.

And what that results in, from my experience, and from talking to people is this really shallow idea of what an instructional designer is and what an instructional designer does. And what we're really doing is we're really setting up this new generation of ideas, who have so much potential to fail, when all they do is make the pizza because as you just said, it's not always that's not always the problem. That's not always true.

You know, someone coming to you and saying, I need a training on x. Making a training on x is not always going to solve the problem.

somewhere. But there was one person that put something out there. And I made a comment about it, because I didn't think that it was 100%. Accurate. I was like, well, technically, maybe you need to look as another person Academy, like attacked me as a no, you're wrong. You don't know what you're talking about, and then cited this blog on that was from seven years ago that also talked about millennials having short attention spans is like, Oh, cool. So you're telling me that

I'm wrong. Plus, because I'm a millennial, you're saying I have a short attention span? How cool are you? So I do worry about that. Because if you're getting these big, Pat's on the back of Wow, good job really, really good. But then you go into an interview, and that's your portfolio. And it's like, you know, I I'm just seeing, I'm just really concerned about that. And the other thing too, hiding, you know, this, right?

It's not all rainbows and unicorns in the workplace, ladies and gentlemen, you can make the coolest learning experience and love it. And that stakeholder and that's me could rip it apart and be like, What are you doing? This is the wrong direction, and you got to have a backbone, you got to have a backbone, you got to be able to see other perspectives, you got to come to consensus. And that's what I worry about, to your point about the new generation of IDs. I worry, they won't have

that. And they'll just okay. Yeah, sorry. Are you know, I don't know. I'm, I am concerned about that for the future.

And I have to be like, that's okay. You don't have to guess what you don't have to, you know, you can find a role where storyline isn't used or where you're not developing, and you have elearning developers who do that for you. And it's just, I think the view has narrowed a little bit too much. And I think

it's becoming problematic. And we're not talking about some of the some of the basic foundational instructional design principles that you and I have both had to learn as part of degree programs, you know, and we both said, you don't need a degree program. But you do need those foundational ID principle principles, because that is how you're going to stand out in an interview. I don't know about you as a hiring manager. But I recently went

through a hiring process. And immediately out of the running, were people that lacked those foundational answers to very simple instructional design questions such as, what model or framework or theory would you recommend all new instructional designers use? If you don't have an answer for that? Right away, I know that you haven't done your research.

And I'm like what you've been doing, you know, like, you gotta keep pushing yourself. Gotta keep growing. Right? And so I really am concerned about, you know, people that just think, Oh, well, I went to this Academy, I got this master's degree, I got this doctorate. I'm done. I know everything. This is not the space for you, then. I mean, even in the past five years, Heidi, I've seen a ton of change, right? And I can't imagine if I would have

been that closed minded. I couldn't even be where I am today. So if you don't like to continue to learn, and push yourself, I mean, I'll make it really simple for you. This probably isn't the best space for you.

changes at a breakneck pace. If you're not ready and willing and able to keep up with that, I mean, four years ago, AR was like a pipe dream. And now people are using it in the classroom. You know, if you can't keep up with that technology, if you are somebody who is still doesn't have a solution for all your courses in flash, you know, hello, you're gonna fall behind, and you're gonna lose out on job offers compared to people that are

keeping up with things. And once the tool is obsolete, what do you have left?

storyline. We've been trying to troubleshoot whatever, if I were to contact, you know, help support or if I, you know, needed to pay money for a consultant to help me how much money would that be? How much time would that be? Because I foster relationships with people. And because I've provided them help, and they provide me help, we kind of have this back and forth. That is so important, because the other thing that I hope you get out of this conversation, is you can't

boil the ocean. Even today, I do not know everything about learning and development. And I'm okay with that. That's actually what makes l&d so amazing is that there's always something else to learn and grow from. So your areas of opportunity, continue to work on them, but connect with people that have those skill sets and those gifts that maybe you don't and so that way when you need it, you can lean into them, and then hopefully they can, you can pay it forward back to them if

they need your assistance. So don't get discouraged. I do think it's really easy to do, especially as you're new. And you're like, How on earth am I ever gonna digest all this Heidi, right? But it's just really important to know that you won't know everything. And that's okay. And there's a lot of great people that will help you along the way in your career.

positive. So I think probably what's next I'd like to get into more questions specifically where you want to go career wise, whether you want to go into higher ed, or corporate or nonprofit or consultant, because I need to touch that yet in the in the idea Academy world. So I think that might be where I go next with it is you know, if you're looking for this, what are some questions to see if it would help you in a higher ed

career? What are some questions for a consulting what would be some questions for a corporate I think that might be my next move, Heidi?