Ep. 9 Building Learning Products WITH Your Audience

Greg Arthur (00:01.551)

Cool. Alrighty, right, so we're going to start now. So welcome to the Product Design for Learning podcast. This week we have Laurie on and we're going to be talking about building in public and probably some stuff about communities and product design and learning and all the things that we talk about usually. So Laurie, welcome. Thank you for joining us. We're going to get straight into it. So first question for you.

Laurie (00:23.918)

Thank you so much.

Greg Arthur (00:30.755)

Could you summarise in as close to 60 seconds as possible what you mean by building in public when we're talking about learning products?

Laurie (00:40.662)

Absolutely. This is something that I have been mulling over and mulling over. 60 seconds, so put it on the clock. I think that building in public really means that you are in consultation throughout the entire build process with those who going to be affected by that build. So I'll talk about this, I think, as we go through today because I am an avid believer that an L &D designer, provider,

Greg Arthur (00:56.6)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (01:09.038)

team is actually a product team that just specializes in the product of education. So keeping that end user, that customer in mind throughout the process, involving them in the process is such a critical and unique way to address in my mind, a learning product, an educational product, or even just team training, as we like to call it sometimes. I think I maybe did that in 60 seconds, might've been a little longer.

Greg Arthur (01:11.852)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Arthur (01:35.47)

I wasn't even timing it but it felt about like a minute. I was actually more enthralled in what you were saying. I don't disagree. I see this a lot. said, disagree with what you said and then say something that disagrees with it. I really love what you just said. And this is a lot of what we say as well around we're basically product teams that don't call themselves product teams. But then I feel like there's a disconnect with

So I'm fully on board with what you just said and I feel like we work in this way as well. But then there's a lot of people in learning that probably agree with that, but then don't do it or don't do it enough. So why is that an approach that you work to?

Laurie (02:20.394)

I think because I came into learning as a career at quite a late date, I actually have a history in what used to be called retention is probably now a better term customer success. But it was the idea again of making sure that a customer found value in the product. So a big, big part of that is education and actually product education is something that is like, again, a really important tenant of customer success.

to make sure that your individuals are onboarded onto the product, that they find that aha moment, as we like to call it in product, and that then they eventually get to like a real advocacy point where they are so involved with your product that they want others to get involved too. And it just makes sense for learning to be that same way. If you don't engage someone with their learning, they're not going to walk away and do anything with it. They're not going to better themselves and therefore no one's going to come to you again to ask you to teach.

Greg Arthur (02:56.503)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (03:20.357)

to ask you to train because they've not seen the effects of that product. So when you boil it down, it's that same exact process.

Greg Arthur (03:28.907)

Absolutely. And I feel like this is the same for, so I bang on about this all the time where we talk about loads and loads of products that aren't learning just like external consumer products. Like I usually use Monzo as an example, like the bank when I'm doing presentations to people and explain to them that I don't actually spend when I'm on my phone, because I've tried the desktop and it just tells me open up the app. I don't really spend.

on an average day more than 20 seconds at a time maybe it's a minute if I'm looking for something but that's my choices in I can't find what I'm looking for because I've done something silly but usually 20 seconds do most things I want to do so if you looked at just session time only I'm not really spending a huge amount of time with it but I have my personal account and my business account are both with Monzo because it's so good and it's so useful and

I don't need to hours and hours going through all the features like, cause there isn't a winter in it that long anyway. So in terms of building in public and when you talked to there about, customers having that aha moment for me, for my aha moment from Monzo was it was a trust thing. It was needs of use and the trust thing as in that's why I was like, I'm going to put everything into those two accounts. Whereas with what you're saying, what kind of things do you feel like?

What kind of things do feel like people are missing in terms of building a product that means they're not getting to that aha moment? What kind of things are, what kind of approaches do you take, I guess, to kind of say, this is where we're kind of driving them to it, or how do you kind of, yeah, move people along that way?

Laurie (05:14.668)

Yeah, I think it comes back to the theory of, while we're staying in the product realm, product-led onboarding. Making information as easy as possible to access.

getting to a point where your customer engages with that and feels that they can take something away from that product. So you're talking about Monzo. It was probably a slow process in the beginning. You used it just for necessity, but now you have a trust there. You have that long term. And because you have both personal and business on Monzo, that means that

in order to extract yourself from that and go to a different provider might actually be the thing that prevents you, even if Monzo makes a mistake in the future or there's something that they don't offer that you wish that they did. Another really great example of this is something like Duolingo, who does that same very small piecemeal, but they're a big proponent of product let all in burning, right? You get into the product, it's gamified, it immediately starts like...

rewarding you for engaging with it. It sends up little reminders. Hey, don't forget you haven't done your study today. It's those types of product-led onboarding. Onboarding, getting someone into it and over and over and over again because that repetition, as we know as educators, is critical and repetition eventually then turns into deep learning.

Greg Arthur (06:25.62)

Hmm.

Greg Arthur (06:32.863)

Yeah, yeah. And absolutely. I think if it's, if it's things like tasks that are trying to do, especially with things like you saying about Duolingo with like repetition of language, that kind of thing, I can, can understand it there more from a building in public perspective. So I've seen, I've said, actually there's a company I work with that, that their whole thing is that they're building their, their, their team in public. They're being very open about these are things we're learning about as we do it. And I love

I really love working with them and they're very open about successes, challenges, these kind of things. But then that's more of a, I guess it is a product, it's business, but it's product. But when you're talking about building products in public, you're talking more about you're building it with your audience. So how do you, and I guess when we talked about this previously, you were talking about community a lot as well. So where does that kind of come into it in terms of

you're building something for someone, you're also building it with them. Like how does that approach, I guess, differ to we're building something over here and we'll just update you on this as and when things happen.

Laurie (07:41.603)

Yep.

So I'm really lucky to work for an organization, the Alliance, that has a really unique go-to-market method. We use something that's called community-led go-to-market. So what we do is we build up a community of like-minded individuals. We happen to sell our educational products, so we're an external L &D provider. And as part of the work that the Alliance does, we pull that community together through LinkedIn, Slack, all

the sort of normal community spaces, excuse me. And then we sort of ask that community, what do you want to get to that next level in your own career? How do you want to better yourself? And then we build it with them and give it back to them. And I think that this, I'll talk a little bit more about that. That was super brief, but I think that this really comes back to this idea of authenticity in learning. So, and purpose-driven learning. So learning not just for the sake of it.

Greg Arthur (08:13.802)

Hmm.

Greg Arthur (08:34.943)

Yes.

Laurie (08:40.936)

In a lot of L &D circles that I'm in, it's always, well, the first question should be,

Do you actually need a learning intervention or do you need a better CRM system or do you just need a process that's put in place? And that is a really, really important question. And that's a question that we get to, like I said, ask our community all the time. What can we do? What can we provide for you? So sometimes we do things like provide a space where they can talk to each other. We have as part of the Alliance, community meetups, a social place where like-minded individuals can go and talk about the

challenges of their role. Sometimes we host really big events where market leaders get together and they tell their own stories and you get to learn from those real-world experiences. And then there's my team that works in the actual certifications and we produce

Greg Arthur (09:16.073)

Mm.

Laurie (09:31.042)

content that they can take and learn in a really like traditional online learning format. Sometimes that's on demand as we call it, so it's self-serve. Sometimes it's cohort based or sometimes it's even live and in person, but much more traditional in that what we would think of as education. But each of those different formats, meetups, events, and our certifications are all actual learning experiences and we build them with the community by saying, what do you want?

out of that. In my team especially, we have as much as possible involved with the community in each step of the process. So if you think about building a course, first you start out with a learning objective and you think, okay, what do we want our users to learn? So we go out and we say, what do you want to learn? What's good for you? What will get you that next role? What will get you that promotion? What will make you feel confident in your role? Then we build out a curriculum.

If you're not in the education business, it's an outline. That's how we describe it to our community. This is an outline of what we're going to include in our course. What's missing? What do you wish we had? If you could write this yourself, what would you include? Then we actually script out our lecture portions because we video record them.

Greg Arthur (10:42.857)

sorry, I have to go, sorry. Go on, mate, carry on, carry on,

Laurie (10:52.076)

And we send that out to our community and we say, what have we missed in here? Do you like these real world examples? Are there other examples that you know about that you think we should include? And then finally, once we have all of our assets together, we beta test it with the community. So once again, they're involved in saying, yes, we think that this product is ready to go to market. This is everything we would want in a certification on for our product marketers positioning or for our customer success manager, something like retention.

Greg Arthur (11:19.783)

Yeah, that's cool. mean, if we go back to like the early stages of that, like so when when we've gone into to clients, companies and both their audiences and we said the same question you asked, how do you know this is learning and what's the problem? We've kind of gone through all the usual questions up front. Most times. And it feels like more of a stakeholder thing than a learner thing. I'm not going to bag on stakeholders, but

They seem to say a lot like we would like and then they just tell you the exact thing they want. They go, want this kind of thing and I want it by this day and just go get it done. And then obviously we'll say, it's not really how this works. Let's talk about this properly. But then when you're speaking to people about what kind of things do you want, how do you differentiate between what they want and what they need? And how do you kind of...

Because if you've got a big enough group, there's going to be conflict and there's going to be difference of opinion. So how long do you let them kind of, I guess, argue it out before they kind of come to an answer that they're all happy with.

Laurie (12:30.39)

Absolutely. I think this comes back to good product design. You do market research, you do competitive intelligence, and you talk to your customers. So by putting all of those three things together, we generally have a pretty good idea of what people want and need. And then we go and we affirm that. And that helps us with scope. So sometimes we say, you want to learn about this particular thing. Is this a critical part of that? Or would that actually be something that is enough for a whole other course or a whole other opportunity?

Greg Arthur (12:58.664)

Mm.

Laurie (13:00.346)

And so, yeah, I would say that we're again blessed in that there is a lot of market research and things out there. But even for internal L &D teams, I think that they can do the same thing. You can absolutely canvas other.

departments in your organization that aren't involved in the learning. Look at other organizations that are in similar places to yours and what kind of learning opportunities they have and that they desire. And then again, like actually go and talk to the customers. So not just the stakeholders, but the end users. Get permission from those end users to go in and say, what are your actual challenges here?

Greg Arthur (13:16.85)

Yeah, 100%.

Greg Arthur (13:30.504)

Mm.

Laurie (13:37.964)

And you can take that evidence and hopefully that means that you can build an amazing learning intervention, but it could also help you to really drive that scope. So instead of going away and being like, my gosh, I have to teach leadership. What does that mean? You know, like that is just the biggest, that's years of topics, really going in and saying, okay, leaders, where are your real challenges? And then you drill it down and you see that it's actually change management that's a problem. Okay, now you have that scope.

Greg Arthur (13:51.279)

Okay, crikey, yeah.

Greg Arthur (14:06.044)

Yeah, absolutely. like there was, and bearing in mind this is what, maybe a week. We're recording this a week after the election and I'm not going to go into any details about it. Yeah, it's, that's a whole other episode. That's a whole other podcast. But I read something again on X. It was, you know, it was a post. wasn't by him. But it was, it was someone talking about product design and they'd said,

Laurie (14:16.066)

as you can hear by my accent as well.

Laurie (14:21.442)

Thank

Greg Arthur (14:34.024)

And I've read something actually similar about Steve Jobs as well, but it was an Elon Musk kind of rules of product design. Some of them I didn't particularly agree with. They were very, they were a bit too cutthroat, but there was one at the very top which said, if you don't have, if something along the lines of, if a feature doesn't have an obvious and direct purpose, it shouldn't exist there. And if anything that's going into your product doesn't have a benefit,

shouldn't go in there and I was thinking about this I was like is there I mean that's very hard and fast and that and it was also on a list whether he said this or not I have no idea but it was on a list of things that people had said and then I started to think about this around I love the I love the cutthroat nature of some of those things that make sense but what about in the real world when you say well this thing on its own doesn't really make sense

But if you combine these two or three things together, they will have this kind of benefit. So at what point do you then say to your community when you're talking to them about what should go in, how do we get this out? So you mentioned about what kind of other things would you want when you're talking to your audience? Is there a or how much of... I'm trying think of the best word this is there... Right, I'll start all that again. Where is the best? I'm trying to think how to phrase this.

Where is the point where you say to them, this list of wants and needs is great, but where is the benefit? As in where is the outcome? So we could create stuff on all of these topics that you said you kind of want, that you need, these are essentials, but at what point do you say to them, or do you almost challenge them to say, for what purpose? And how do you measure that? And is it just because you're not gonna get it somewhere else, you want it here? So is that more of a draw, or is it a case of this is essential?

and we're gonna make sure it's in there because it's essential. Like at what point do you challenge them to say, this is just, you know, fun time. So that goes out the window, but this is essential to the topic.

Laurie (16:42.478)

think that you've hit the nail on the head when you mentioned about the idea of it being essential. So in my role, if we're able to think, okay, anything that we feel can get that individual to their next promotion or their next role, that is essential. However, because I work at an organization that has events, has meetups, has other stuff, is a certification essential? Or could we answer that with a one hour webinar?

Greg Arthur (17:08.943)

Hmm.

Laurie (17:12.494)

Could we create a template for you so that you have a pricing roadmap that you could take with you and build out for your own organization? Do you need that certification? And I think that that's the, again, something that hopefully a learning team that does internal learning can learn from as well. Does it have to be what we would traditionally call training or are there other ways?

Greg Arthur (17:19.237)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (17:31.045)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (17:35.365)

Yes, yeah and I think that's a whole and there's I'm gonna say big Nick so Nick Shackleton Jones like obviously and I've seen loads of other people talking about the difference between training and education and to a degree I think some of it's semantics but then when you look at the logic of it I I know it kind of gets obvious what they're saying and I get it but I think just in case anyone comes after us for saying training and education too much on this episode we get it but what I'm trying to say is

There is definitely an element of, if you're not thinking about what shape or form the product's gonna take at this point. So for me, we kind of leave that till probably halfway through the process. It's when we actually start to think about what vehicle are we gonna put this in, or vehicles. But at the start, you're only really thinking about what do we need to do? What do people need? What do we need to create in terms of is it creating or curating content, all that kind of stuff?

for someone to actually do the thing that we're trying to get them to do. Like at what point do they get engaged? At what point do they kind of go, if I don't have this missing piece of information, everything else falls apart or this doesn't make sense or I only know the theory but I can't execute it. Like at what point, so do you ever get into that with your community around, I guess the way I was phrasing it around like vehicles, like formats of content, that kind of stuff.

Laurie (19:02.198)

Yeah, absolutely. And we have recommendations. think that I come from a background, I've worked in EdTech. I actually worked in a role that was K-12. So a lot of my learning theory is adult learning theory that's been adapted from essentially school age learning theory. And for me, one of the things that I try to keep in my mind at all times is what do we need to learn and how are we gonna assess that learning?

Greg Arthur (19:09.815)

Okay.

Laurie (19:29.71)

Because in a classroom setting, that's key, that's prime, right? You have a curriculum, how are you going to make sure that that curriculum has been hit? And I feel that that actually works for adults as well. the how are we going to assess it often really suggests the vehicle to which it is best suited.

Greg Arthur (19:49.23)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (19:49.664)

So if it is a fundamental number of competencies or a huge area of someone's role, then something like a certification has a lot of weight in conversation. But if it is helping someone through a problem or a challenge that they might have or helping them to find resources.

Greg Arthur (20:01.529)

Hmm.

Laurie (20:12.778)

that then has a very different vehicle. So thinking about how can we check that that learning has occurred, whatever that learning might look like, or helped that individual to go and find their own learning journey, really, in my opinion, can dictate exactly what form that learning takes.

Greg Arthur (20:28.291)

Hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, and when you mentioned classroom, they're like, it's usually the easiest one for people to jump on and go, classroom's rubbish and doesn't work and all the rest of it. And to a degree, yeah, but also to a degree, you know, we had COVID, was it three years ago, whenever it was, a couple of years ago. And we all got told to stay indoors and not talk to anyone and everyone hated it. And as soon as we were told it's okay, you can go outside again, everyone just, everyone went out.

even if it was raining it's like I'm going out, it's lovely. And I feel like with learning people are doing the same sort of thing, like there are, there is so much choice in non-learning products and services that we all have access to that we can choose to do certain things like if I buy my weekly food shop we'll buy it online because it saves me walking around the supermarket, it's one less thing I've got to do.

But in terms of watching a film, I can watch it at home, I can get it on Sky, or I can go to the cinema. And it's a physical thing, I've got to leave my house, I've got to go to a building and engage with a person to buy a ticket, then go and sit in a particular seat. And I really like doing that because I love going to the cinema. So there's certain things where can pick and choose around, do I want to stay and do this at home or do want to go to a physical setting. If you take all of this into context of like a classroom course.

there are certain things where being in a room with your peers and talking about something and working through something can be really, really beneficial. I feel like if you just cut it off there and go, well, it's done now, you've turned up, everyone's fine, everyone heard what they said, then yeah, it's probably not going to land very well. But I guess it's depending on like what vehicles do you put around that? What kind of experiences do you put around that? How do you get people to buy into it?

Greg Arthur (22:26.595)

And guess when you're building in public, that's a really great example of, or sorry, a really good opportunity to ask people around, how did you get to where you are? Like, because you clearly didn't just sit and read the book and then go and get the job. Like, you must have done some stuff. Like, what stuff did you do and how did that look like? And how do you get into those kinds of things with your community? Because I guess we're not talking small numbers, right? We're talking big numbers of people.

Laurie (22:52.622)

Absolutely, yeah. our, gosh, this is gonna be like me misquoting and then my CEO being like, how could you? In our largest community, which is called Product Marketing Alliance, I believe we have something like over 12,000 community members across the globe, which is like having your own limitless library of real world examples. And I cannot tell you how much we, I don't wanna say abuse that, but take advantage of that, just as you said. So.

Greg Arthur (23:05.441)

Wow.

Laurie (23:21.354)

how did you do this? How would you face this problem? What's your advice? And I mean, when you get to sit down with someone who is

I don't know, head of or VP or C-suite at some of these huge named organizations and actually interrogate them. How did you set up your competitive intelligence program at your organization from dot to success? And they walk you through that, that level of learning, you just can't get anywhere else.

Greg Arthur (23:41.858)

Hmm.

Laurie (23:51.598)

Again, this community thing is really amazing, but I would urge that even in a small scale, even like with an organization that maybe has 40 people, your people on the ground have had to figure out how to do something. And so maybe the book says, do this and this and this, but actually if you switch two and three around, you can save yourself a week. You won't know that being the educator because you're not living it.

Greg Arthur (24:15.895)

Yes.

Laurie (24:21.09)

But if you go and you talk to those people, then you build an authentic product for them. You build an authentic learning experience for them that actually also means that that person who gave you that information has that little bit of like, I helped, right? It's a bit like having a product focus group. You have an individual come in and say, and they say, you know, what features do you want on your iPhone? And you're like, well, I would really love if we could have it dim after two minutes, but not entirely turn off because sometimes I don't know, my daughter runs.

Greg Arthur (24:35.42)

Yeah.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Laurie (24:51.164)

in and I have to put the phone down but then I have to put my passcode in and it's just a pain and then you see that come out and then you're like hey I helped with that I'm gonna stick with iPhone it's that advocacy that we get back to so having those individuals build with you is just such an incredibly rich way to get authenticity real real real learning in a way that you never could from books and reports and LinkedIn posts but then also to bring it full circle and have those people

Greg Arthur (24:58.506)

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

Greg Arthur (25:17.57)

Yes.

Laurie (25:20.944)

want to engage in learning afterwards.

Greg Arthur (25:23.093)

And it's those kind of things. It's that last two minutes of everything you just said, it's that kind of thing which feels like the... So right back to the very beginning when you said about, you feel like learning teams are product teams. Like it's that two minutes of what you just said, that's what they should be focusing on in my mind. Because if you don't focus on that, and again, partly the guy that we were talking about with his little product features.

If you don't take all of those things into consideration I don't think you're going to make a product or a service that's actually going to work. As in if you're not spending time with your users and asking them those types of questions and getting into that level of detail with them. If you're not thinking about the features and then the real life practicality of it. So like, so I use an iPhone. can't believe you only pull down from the top and you've got like your wifi and bluetooth and all the other bits. Where on the new iOS they've kind of customised it where you can

Fill it up with loads of other things now. So I've now got Shazam on there, as in like, if I'm out and I hear a song, I can go, so I haven't got to go and look for it, I can go, it's finished now, I can't find it. Whereas I can just go, it's there and hold my phone up and go, you're listening to, yeah, whatever. And I go, great, I can go get that now. But Shazam is an incredibly specific app, like to that point around, it literally does one thing.

Laurie (26:27.362)

Brilliant, so if you're out you need it quick.

Greg Arthur (26:49.088)

it's super easy to use it's a little thumb coming up on the screen. So basically like you just hold a button down and go, what's this? You don't even have to say it, you just hold it and it's doing it for you. And then it tells you, it is the greatest benefit of a product where, sorry, like to solve a problem basically where it says, I was out and I heard a song and it kind of goes like this and then someone humps it and they go, I know, I've not heard it. Whereas you're going to get your phone and go, what's this? Super easy. Like,

And I feel like a lot of our learning products don't have that immediate of log line of just saying, this is what this product does. This is the benefit. You didn't know what this song was. You just push a button and then you know what the song is. Like I appreciate learning products need to be a little bit more complex than that. But like if we can give them that kind of level of product feature and product benefit and explanation, like that kind of succinct explanation.

we'd be winning like every five minutes we'd be like great we all we'd know what not to work on we're like we can't really explain it doesn't really have a purpose and is it more of a vanity product that kind of thing like but yeah I feel like there's a lot of missed beats around what is happening to what could be happening

Laurie (28:08.088)

While you were speaking about that and about what Shazam was doing and how easy it is to use, it really made me think about the idea of 70-20-10 as like, this is the learning theory, right? This is the thing that everyone is doing and making sure that they're doing. And it's, know, okay, well, why is it successful? But flip that into a product language. And all we're doing is talking about stickiness, aren't we? Yeah.

Greg Arthur (28:18.112)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (28:32.062)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (28:33.216)

All you're doing is saying, how can we make it so that that's as easy to access as possible? The easiest way to access learning is to do it in your day to day because you have to do your day to day. So you got to get that stuff accomplished. If the learning is a part of it, it stays sticky. So again, through and through, learning is all about good product design. It's all about making sure that you start at those very, you know,

basic research things. were talking about, you mentioned stakeholders and just trying to get stakeholder buy-in. But if you're thinking about like a B2B SaaS product...

You have the seven different, I don't even know what they are, but there's like seven different people that you need to convince to buy your product. Some of them are, you know, the financial decision makers. Some of them are, it's the pretty much the same for a learning team for the most part. You have to get lots of different buy-in, but one of those people in a B2B SaaS product and in learning is that end user. And I think sometimes we get so bogged down in making sure that we're listening to the stakeholders.

Greg Arthur (29:16.094)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (29:29.321)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (29:35.584)

And then in the joy of the product design, because let's be honest, if we could, most of us would swirl ourselves away in a room and just design products, design learning products forever and ever. But if we don't then consider that end user and actually involve them and build them and in front of them, we are missing a huge part of that conversation.

Greg Arthur (29:39.903)

fun bit.

Greg Arthur (29:50.473)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Arthur (29:55.551)

Absolutely and I'd said this on the How Now podcast and it's part of our process basically so one of the very first things when we walk through our process is we have this kind of four box grid of stakeholders so we kind of get some say just tell us every single stakeholder that needs to be involved in this and make sure we've got as many if not all of their names up front because we don't want to come like right down the road and realize to someone that's really important that we haven't spoken to and then we we grade them as in like

Who are they? What are they here for? We're not asking if they're a nice person, we're just asking like what's their purpose? So John might be the nicest guy, he has zero interest in this product or zero influence in it. So really, sorry John, you might come with us on the next product, but not on this one. And then we basically make sure that we've given them a ranking and also a reason to exist in this product. And if they don't,

have a reason or a good enough ranking we kind of have to say within our project team we need to have that conversation right up front say we need to sideline you and hopefully it works and most of time it does work but and we explain it in a nice way but it's trying to it's trying to reduce the amount of people that could say no or offer a kind of opinion that is kind of ill-informed or not valid enough and again the thing we say to every stakeholder is

you're here for a reason, we've defined what your reason is, could be financial, could be a technical thing, whatever it's going to be, but none of us, as in none of the stakeholders, none of us in the project team, none of us can supersede the user. Like the user, the end audience, everyone who refers to them, the learners, they are the ultimate people that decide if this product is good or not, if this is a success or not. So we have to always hold that in mind from day one.

And again, we talk about external products. If you made the iPhone again from the beginning and then just didn't really listen to what people said about it afterwards or even before and why they weren't as fussed about BlackBerry and all the other ones that kicking around at the time, you either wouldn't have an iPhone at all or it wouldn't have really got past version one or two. You wouldn't be on version 967, whatever it is now.

Laurie (32:21.108)

So, at least.

Greg Arthur (32:22.366)

But it's but yeah, it's mad. It's mad to think that people are not thinking about learning products in the same way that they think about external products that they use every single day and there's some that they don't use because they hate them or they doesn't do anything for them or they don't know about it. Like yeah, it's mad.

Laurie (32:44.524)

And I think if you are, if you get comfortable talking about learning experiences as products, then you start thinking about all the reasons that you love the products around your house. Like, let's take for example, my washing machine. I love my washing machine because I can set it to go off when I want it to. I want learning on my own time. I want to be able to do it so that it doesn't impact the rest of my day.

Greg Arthur (32:54.343)

Yeah. Yeah.

Laurie (33:09.652)

I love that why washing machine plays a little bit of music at the end when it's done. It's cute. It's fun. A learning experience that's cute and fun is okay. It's good to have laughter. It makes that learning stick. So think about the products that you love and why you love them and how your learning experiences can have those same qualities, can be those same answers to other people.

Greg Arthur (33:14.151)

Mine does the same.

Greg Arthur (33:34.877)

And I also think to that point, complete reverse of that, I think a learning product that doesn't really, doesn't really do anything apart from the job it's there to do. So like a tin opener is like a really basic example now. And I appreciate a tin opener is not a learning product, but like, I don't really care what it looks like. And I don't really care much about it apart from

can I find it? So it's usually have I put it somewhere it shouldn't be. So as long as I can find it and it does the thing I need it to do pretty quickly, it can go away again until I need it. And I don't really have to think about it. I don't care what color the handle is. I don't even care if it hasn't got a proper handle. Like can I use it? Does it work? Done. That's all I needed to do. I feel like if you have a learning product that does that, that's also okay as well. Cause if it just needs to just do a thing,

really effectively, really quickly, great. Just get it done.

Laurie (34:35.886)

I mean, that's all regulatory. Sorry, I shouldn't say all, that's a very, very, but that is regulatory training often, isn't it? Or regulatory learning. You have to know those things because if you don't, you could get in trouble with the law. But that doesn't mean that learners have to spend hours going through that. And that doesn't mean that designers need to spend hours designing and crafting an amazing experience. It can be utilitarian. And then you get to spend your time doing like...

Greg Arthur (34:42.459)

Yes.

Laurie (35:02.252)

cooler things with that. So maybe the exciting bit is that you get to do some role play or scenario based learning around that. So you have to read the book, but then spend your time and effort on the other bits and pieces. So if we're talking about maybe like the can opener experience, maybe it's you being able to...

find another kitchen utensil, like maybe an electronic can opener that is like the next level up, right? Like what does that look like? How can that experience be joyful? And I just, I really think that yes, there's absolutely purpose and coming back to this idea of scope, really understanding the scope and the needs within that particular product. Shazam doesn't need to be anything more than hit the button, tell me what this is.

Greg Arthur (35:28.409)

Yeah, yeah.

Greg Arthur (35:43.921)

Hmm.

Greg Arthur (35:50.852)

No, exactly.

Laurie (35:52.332)

But they've done some cool things within that, haven't they? They allow you now to hum into it. And the AI has gotten good enough that sometimes you can actually like hum and it picks it up. And I can definitely not hum in key and it has still worked for me. So the AI must be getting very good. Obviously they have to buy larger and larger libraries. So they're just doubling down on those bits and pieces of that experience that they know will create a final experience for users.

Greg Arthur (35:59.069)

wow.

Greg Arthur (36:21.244)

Yeah, absolutely. And it's again, it's a feature that's been tried and tested and they've kind of, it's not, you know, we've got 15 features, which ones you like, we've got one, we do one thing and it's really simple and it's really easy. And same as the Monzo example, you can be in and out in five, 10 seconds, do a thing that you need to do and then leave again. Great. That all you need to know is that you're happy with that. Just when you were talking about solutions and that kind of stuff as well, one of the things I was thinking about,

We recorded an MVP episode a while ago, which is out soon. It'll be out before this one's out. But basically, I said this on that episode, that that's my, the MVP said is my favorite part of the process. Not to pick favorites too much, but I really like the fact that you're, you talked about scope, so like your scope and then your potential solution and then your problem statement and your audience research and all the rest of it, all kind of just collides over and over again.

whilst you're doing that kind of MVP stage when you're testing it with people until you find the best fit. So we tend to do this, it's to a point in public, it's in we'll get groups of people to come and show us what they think. But it's maybe not with 12,000 people. So how do you, when you're talking about building in public, how does that support you when you're in like an MVP stage versus if you wanted to say, we wanna.

We're gonna try this out kind of privately first before we're ready to show something like, or you just go straight out and say, tell me, what's going on.

Laurie (37:58.072)

We have a group of really trusted individuals that we do a lot of our sort of pre-work.

before we do some more public work. So we do build in public, but we build in public with like a select few, which I think is not uncommon. We have, for example, a team of ambassadors who, for each of our communities, promote the things that our communities are doing, but we can always ask them questions. So my team will do things like have research calls where they'll, again, ask these same sorts of questions. But these individuals are so used to these questions now that they can really be quite good guiding lights. So obviously,

Obviously, as much as possible, we want to get the masses involved. But as you mentioned in the beginning, if you do that from the very start, it can become a cacophony of opinions. So we really go with some trusted opinions. Individuals who have been in post for a very long time have a lot of experience under their belt. So we know that those are individuals who have something really meaningful to say on this particular topic. And then we'll take their ideas, and then we'll take that out to public. And that's what we do the next time around.

out again that curriculum with trusted individuals and then take that out wider to the public. So we kind of build MVP of each step and then actually build out properly with a larger group of individuals.

Greg Arthur (39:23.418)

And that's again, I know Apple were very guarded about how they How they research and design and build and those kind of things But I think that's a similar approach to how what I've heard could be wrong How they did the iPhone was in the iPod was out beforehand and And they when spoke to people about features rather than the end products they never said to them it'll be a you know a no button thing Where you just kind of go around do these bits and pieces. There was no I don't even mention the word apps

They were just talking about features around what do you like about the iPod? What do you like about the BlackBerry? What do you dislike about these kind of things? What would be, you if you were in a perfect world and we're in 2075, you're walking down the road or you're in your little hoverboard going down the road, if roads even exist then, and what would you want on you? So I guess they were maybe even talking about wearables then at this point.

but they didn't really ever mention from what I read about what the product is they were just saying what would you need or what would you like or what would you want what don't you want what's going to get in the way what's a barrier and then also why they took all of this back and it was almost like a but it sounds a bit like a weird game of chess they were having with themselves to go well if we have these three features then it's gonna it's gonna counteract this one that they really like so how do we get

How do we get this in without upsetting these three that we've already got in and they had to kind of have this weird kind of game of getting things in. But I guess that's similar way of building in public is going with thinking about doing these things. Where are we missing the point or where is that gonna cause friction or yeah, I love that idea of just kind of just putting everything out and just saying, tell us like we think we know what we're talking about. Here's a thing. You either love it.

or you don't. But tell us why. Like, you've kind of got to be open to people going, this is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. Don't do it.

Laurie (41:25.331)

Well, we have hopefully smartly protected against that a little bit with our certifications because when someone purchases a certification, they actually have lifetime access. So our commitment is that we won't stop building for you. So we are a bit like the, mean, we're not a bit like the iPhone, but we are a bit like the iPhone in that we continue to release updates based on.

Greg Arthur (41:35.374)

Okay.

Laurie (41:47.054)

actual real engagement from the community based on changes within the community. If there are new topics or new business ideals or whatever it happens to be, new technology, mean, obviously AI, we have updated so much stuff now because we are committed to trying to stay on the edge of it. And then someone can come back to our content again and again.

Greg Arthur (42:09.462)

Yeah, yeah. And so we're talking about data, as in like, as in people giving you their opinion is that is there is a data point. And again, in the data episode, which came out maybe last week, week before we were talking about how much, how much data is enough. And when do you move on and Bo was really good about talking about how she kind of gets to a point to go, this is enough to make a decision. So I'm going to go ahead.

but I'm still collecting data as I go ahead anyway. So if you're building in public, I'm assuming, and you mentioned about you will build for them forever. And that's a heap of information. So is that overwhelming? Or how do you manage that kind of influx of, I guess just constant noise, but a good noise, but it's constant still.

Laurie (43:00.641)

Yeah, when we are in the before launch, I would say that we try to, we would consider launch ready when we feel that our students could take the course, take that certification, and then the next day do something in their role that would make a difference. So we think, is there enough in here, enough teachings, enough examples, enough information that someone could feel really secure and test something out?

whether that be something like a piece of coursework that really resonated with them or a template that they'll take in. And that helps us to understand kind of, again, that scope when we think we're ready to launch. But what we do with regards to feedback is,

Laurie (43:49.522)

probably going back to product design when you are iterating on feedback. Sometimes you go for that low hanging fruit because you know that you're going to get some really great results right away. And then sometimes you invest in those areas that keep cropping up. But we do lots of...

product analysis. we get customer feedback. We look at time spent on our products and understand if there are particular sections where no one's visiting. Okay, what's going on there? How do we fix that? Why is this wrong? And then go out to the community and say, no one's looking at this. Why aren't you looking at this? Is this not of interest? Do you not think that this is right? And then maybe we'll find something like...

Greg Arthur (44:25.943)

Yeah, yeah.

Laurie (44:31.402)

you've described the product development lifecycle in this way, but in my organization, we actually use it in this way. And then we start digging in and then we're like, there are like three or four different ways to actually talk about the PDLC.

Greg Arthur (44:42.264)

Mmm.

Laurie (44:43.296)

OK, let's do an update that actually addresses the fact that we're going to go into detail about this one. But you can also use this article to find out about this one or this template for that one. And so we can then hopefully drive people into that. So something that didn't resonate with them, even if it's not incorrect or anything, or even sometimes if it is. Like sometimes we make a mistake and we pick the wrong quiz question answer and everyone goes, I think there's a problem there. But those types of.

Greg Arthur (45:07.34)

Yeah.

Laurie (45:10.42)

of bits and places where we can react. If everyone's failing on that one multiple choice question, then we look and we go, okay, is that us or is that you?

Greg Arthur (45:10.956)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (45:17.752)

Yeah, yeah. And I guess it's also like you're talking about if someone isn't, or if your audience isn't looking at your product, it could also be down to marketing. As in like how it's been positioned and that's one of the things that I found, I think it still happens quite a lot, is that it seems to be a bit of an afterthought. As in like people spend so much time doing the fun stuff.

and designing their product that they kind of forget about which can also be quite some of the fun stuff is how they're going to position it with their audience as in it could be the greatest thing they've they've made but if they haven't told anyone about it or not told them in the right way or engaged them early enough or done anything just like this at all chance are they're not really gonna know or care about it and I was trying to think about how to how to more newer but bigger brands

Like how did I hear about him? like Uber I'd heard about it in a pub garden. I was with some friends, someone said I'm gonna get a cab home and I said do you need to call one? I didn't know Uber existed at this point, so now I'm gonna get an Uber. I was like what's that? And then that's how I heard about Uber. He showed me the app on his phone, I was like my god this is the future, this is amazing. And then again I was probably out somewhere and I kept seeing the little pinky red card. I was like everyone's got these little...

these little cards that they're waving around and then realized it was Monzo and then did my own exploration found that out. Like it doesn't always have to be the standard that send an email to everyone or let's put a great big senior leader billboard quote up on you know in our in our office or anything like that. It can be something that's more organic where if you've got enough stories to tell people you mentioned about authentic earlier but authenticity even sorry.

If you can have real life advocates that can be genuinely advocates to be able to talk about it and show people, I feel like that can sometimes be so much more valuable than just going, like physically going out to people or waiting for them to see your marketing. I feel like that's definitely a step that gets missed.

Laurie (47:30.796)

I think it also comes back to the idea, I know I'm misquoting this, but something along the lines of if you design a product for everyone, you build a product for no one. It's okay to not meet everyone's needs with a learning experience. It's okay to say you need at least two years of experience doing X in order to benefit from this. It's okay to build.

Greg Arthur (47:42.09)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

100 %

Laurie (47:58.094)

with personalization in mind, even if that personalization is someone needs to supplement. I'm a member of the L &D Shakers and I was in a chat, I'm part of the Birmingham group, and someone mentioned that they will often put resources at the end of any kind of training or learning experience that they do to say, if you want to know more, go here.

Greg Arthur (47:59.893)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (48:22.86)

Because that way, for anyone who is self-motivated or who is really interested in that topic, they have that next step that they can do on their own. But within the realms of the particular learning that they're designing, that's out of scope. So, point people in the right direction. It's okay to say,

Greg Arthur (48:29.066)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (48:39.764)

this product isn't the one for you, you might want to try this other product. Or again, like you're brand new and so we think that you should do this and then maybe after you've done that for a little while, try this next thing. We'll catch you on the next go round. And I think having that conversation with stakeholders as well is really, really critical because stakeholders are like, I would like all of my team performing amazingly within two weeks time. And you're like, okay, but they're all humans. And that's not how humans work.

Greg Arthur (49:06.485)

Yeah, no, no exactly and I think that's definitely the way to think about it as in like, again I keep giving the iPhone as an example I think in almost every episode we've recorded but it's the same product out of the box so to one respect of your quote you are designing a product as in a singular product for everyone but as soon as you turn it on and start customising it and doing your own things with it then you've built a

kind of a mishmash of you've built something for everyone something for one person and I think that's okay because you can decide how far you take it and that's obviously a very user specific, sorry case specific thing but I think when we're talking about learning products you if you don't have your features and your purpose and your outcomes nailed down then you will end up building something for everyone but also something for no one because it's going to be too bloated it's not really going to have a

clear narrative or a clear kind of reason why it even exists and you always spend more time trying to explain it to people than Then you will people using it and it will just become just a an endless amount of Explanation with no action, which is nuts. So yeah

Laurie (50:21.698)

Absolutely. I absolutely agree with that. And I think that it also becomes untenable for you to deliver as well. So whatever you do deliver will no longer have that vision that you had at the beginning. And part of the joy of delivering learning is seeing someone have that aha moment.

Greg Arthur (50:29.438)

Yes.

Laurie (50:44.172)

right, especially in education, that feeling. I mean, I imagine all of us like deep inside are just like, I can't wait until someone learns something because of me. But if you aren't designing for the ability for each person who uses your learning to take their own path with that learning, I think that you really aren't going to have as many of those experiences. It is a bit like having, you know,

Greg Arthur (51:01.288)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (51:10.018)

the government take an entire curriculum and turn it on end and be like, everyone will be fine. And you're like, yeah, but you're missing like half of the country now. So I don't think everyone will be fine.

Greg Arthur (51:18.195)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, that's definitely a callback to when you're talking about speaking to people that are doing this already, like where have they come from? How did they get there? And also the new people that are saying, you're sorry, when you're asking them what do you want? So you can take those two kind of, you know, the expert level been here, done that living it, living it very successfully. And then the people that are like, I need this is trying to like match those two up and be like, where are the common threads?

Where are the things that we know will win? And you've got to take a little gamble here and there, but there is still an element of, what's the way of saying it? Like maybe being a bit more scientific about it and saying, we know that these things come up all the time. So we need to put these things in. We know that these features work universally in other products that are similar or they're digital or they're wherever they are. So we should probably include those as well.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with innovation, but I think when it's a standard, use a standard. It's probably easier for like UX and UI and that kind of stuff.

Laurie (52:26.006)

Absolutely, especially in education because when we're talking about what's traditionally called market research, I mean, we're talking about thousands and thousands of years of people learning. There's lots and lots of stuff that we know works. So use the stuff that works. You don't have to reinvent that bit. Reinvent the stuff that's unique to your particular user.

Greg Arthur (52:35.005)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (52:42.003)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (52:47.571)

Absolutely. I think that goes into a whole other thing about environment and where they are and what motivates them and what kind of outcome you're looking for for them. I think those are all things 100 % tied together. We're nearly at time. So my last question for you. What are the three biggest lessons that you've learned from experience about building in public? And are there any rules you've set yourself to work by because of what you've learned?

Laurie (53:15.916)

I think I can do this one almost as succinct as that one in the very beginning. For me, my biggest lesson and my biggest joy at working at the Alliance is understanding the power of community and again, using your end user to help you build the product that they want, to build the learning experience that they want. There's just nothing like that. And I'm so excited to have learned that and to see.

Greg Arthur (53:26.995)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (53:40.778)

this community actually building their own knowledge together by having conversations and us being a part of that is just endless, endless joy for me. I think that it's also a lesson I've learned is it's amazing to not be an expert and to be a facilitator. You often, know, the sage on the stage sort of situation, it's sometimes attractive to want to fall back into that and to think, okay,

Greg Arthur (53:57.991)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Arthur (54:07.315)

Mm.

Laurie (54:08.234)

I know learning, so I know what we're doing here. But then you get into those conversations and someone's done something or describes it to you in a way where you're like, I couldn't have said it better myself. So we don't, we just take their words and we say, can we quote you? And job done. So not having to be the one that's always delivering on that learning is really, really empowering because you get lots of different viewpoints and they resonate with different people.

Greg Arthur (54:18.451)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (54:28.317)

Mm-hmm.

Laurie (54:34.528)

And then I think building in public has really taught me that iteration is necessary and that actually by iterating you build a lot of trust. So it feels scary in the beginning because you're exposing the fact that you don't have the perfect product or you haven't answered all of the questions. But if you go in and you say almost let's learn together.

you really do build up advocates and people who want to go on that journey with you again and again because they know they're going to get something really valuable out of it. So then a rule. I think my rule is probably...

Greg Arthur (55:03.24)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Laurie (55:11.084)

Talk to that end user, work with that community, build out that community in any way that you can. And even small steps are good there. So maybe you can't let go of your whole process, but what can you let go of? What can you invite someone else to come in and critique and look at and have a conversation about where are those safe spaces for you to open it up to others, to the community, to your end users so that when you are building, you're building something that they already have a stake in and that they

Greg Arthur (55:22.514)

Hmm.

Laurie (55:41.048)

already want to see succeed so that you can succeed together.

Greg Arthur (55:44.434)

100 % I think it's that last bit on your rule around You mentioned about safe spaces. I think if you're not If you're not and I don't say vulnerable except for it's a bit a bit heavy But like if you're not being open enough or willing enough to invite your user in say This is super early draft or this is a really basic prototype You've told us loads of things. We've asked a load of questions. We've had a little chit chat here's our first attempt at it if you're not willing to put that in the bin because

you get a fairly unanimous response of this isn't going to work then you shouldn't be in product design. If you kind of just go against your audience and go no I really like it because I made it you're wrong like come on like that's madness you need to be you need to be you need to be flexible a lot.

Laurie (56:21.358)

Absolutely.

Laurie (56:34.316)

Yeah, and to be willing to let go because I bet when the iPhone was put out there for the first time, they didn't know it was going to look like this. I Monzo didn't know that it was going to turn into what it is, but all of those businesses have in common at some point, they let the user shape the future of those products.

Greg Arthur (56:37.191)

Yes.

Greg Arthur (56:42.254)

I hated it.

Greg Arthur (56:52.274)

100 % I mean, I think the first iPhone I got was the full show almost like the little squared corner one That was the first one I go The fancy one yeah the early fancy one I am I hated it when it came I was like, who wants that rubbish? I got a blackberry and then and now I'm yeah, I'm completely sucked in like it's it's brilliant, but I'm

Laurie (57:00.782)

I think I had that one too. think I had, my first was the one was the 3G, I think. Maybe one just before.

Greg Arthur (57:21.115)

But yeah, can, can, as in like, I don't think I was sold by the initial wave of everyone telling me how great it was. I had to wait however many, three, four years to see people properly using it to really understand the day-to-day benefits of it compared to my BlackBerry, whatever it was. BlackBerry bowl? One of the BlackBerrys, the one without the pencil. And and it's only when I kind of really sat there side by side, was like.

This is so much better. I need to get one. But again, think there's, same with the learning product. You'll have early adopters, you'll have late adopters, you'll have people that aren't really sure straight away. But I think in those early steps, going back to your rule, you need to be willing to let go and for people to tell you, this is what I think, but they kind of need to use it, even if it's a really basic prototype, rather than just hear someone going.

Laurie (57:52.238)

Thank

Laurie (58:16.398)

Yeah, you have to do that.

Greg Arthur (58:18.191)

here's all the really good things about it. It's like, give me all the bad things as well, because I need to know everything. Otherwise, I can't give you an opinion.

Laurie (58:22.179)

Yeah.

Laurie (58:25.614)

I was gonna say you have to let go again and again and again and again. A bit like the assessment of your learning product isn't the smiley face survey at the end of the session. like you have to go in and you have to make sure that people are actually applying that learning. And if they didn't, you have to go, where did we go wrong? What didn't work? And then you gotta try again.

Greg Arthur (58:28.537)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (58:36.815)

No. No, God, no.

Greg Arthur (58:47.172)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for coming on. We're at time now and I'm very conscious that I'm going to take up your entire afternoon banging on about rules and building in public. But I really, really enjoyed this. It was lovely to speak to you. Where can people find you? Where should they talk to you? What can they talk to you about? Where can they get to you?

Laurie (59:00.845)

What the?

Laurie (59:13.159)

Absolutely come and hunt me down on LinkedIn. As I said, I'm also a member of the L &D Shakers community, so if you are in learning and you're a part of that community, if not, you should be, but you can certainly come and find me there as well.

Greg Arthur (59:27.88)

one. Brilliant. Well thank you so much and we'll see you very soon and we'll see you on LinkedIn. Amazing. Cheers. Thanks Laurie.

Laurie (59:33.688)

Perfect. Thank you. Bye.