>> Andrew Jacobs: Hello everyone and welcome to this episode. The Content one of the Women Talking About Learning podcast. I'm Andrew Jacobs. In the ever changing world of learning 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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: Hi everyone, how are we today? Laura, how are you today? >> Laura: Oh, uh, great, thanks Kayna. I'm doing really good. How are you? Katie? >> Katie: Yeah, I'm good. I'm excited to be here and speak with you all. And Karen, how are you? >> Karen: Great, absolutely great. It's been a crazy week, but great and lovely to be with all these incredible women. >> Gaynor: 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 is really social media. >> Karen: 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 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 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 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: 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: 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 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 perspectives sort of align. How about you, Katie?
>> Katie: 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 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
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: 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 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 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: 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: Way you know Nothing, ages, no experiences.
>> Karen: 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 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 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 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 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: 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 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 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 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: 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 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 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 it's not 45 minutes of content? >> Katie: 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 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 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 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 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 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 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: 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 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
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: 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 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: 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 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 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: 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 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 when we've made a mistake, that's the one that sticks. >> Gaynor: 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: 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 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: 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, 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. 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
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 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: 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 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
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
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: 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
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 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 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 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 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: 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, 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 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: 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
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: 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 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 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 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 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 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 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: 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, 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 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 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 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,
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: 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 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 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 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: 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
perhaps a different way. Or supports those decisions. Laura, what about you? What's your experience of the data and content marrying up? >> Laura: 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, 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
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 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: 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: 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 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: 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 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 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, 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 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
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, 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: 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, 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: 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
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 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 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 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: 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 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 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 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: Yeah, yeah.
>> Katie: 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 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 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 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: 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 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 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, 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 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: And how also how do we harness putting that in place if the landscape is such a focus of this new. >> Gaynor: Culture and constantly changing.
>> Katie: 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 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: 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.
Do we have any, any final thoughts? Who wants to start with some? >> Karen: 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
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, 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: 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 week and um, celebrate that. >> Gaynor: Yeah. Katie, what about you? You have final thoughts? >> Katie: 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 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 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: 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 wi fi. >> Katie: Yes. Little cards, Little business cards are what you need. >> Gaynor: Little business cards for everything. >> Karen: Absolutely love it. >> Katie: Super. >> Gaynor: Uh, yes, thank you everyone. It's been fabulous talking to you all.
>> Katie: Yeah, it's been really great. Really great. Insights and learnings to take away. >> Karen: Thanks, Guinea. Thanks. >> Andrew Jacobs: 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 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 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.