Navigating Digital Assets & Permissions with Ann Rollins
Episode Overview
In today's episode, Ann is going to shed light on an important aspect of learning content development: copyright and protected content. With the prevalence of information at our fingertips, it's easy to fall into the trap of using content without permission, but Ann is here to help us navigate the dos and don'ts of content usage. She'll explain the potential pitfalls of misusing copyrighted content and offer practical solutions to avoid breaking the law.
Ann also touches on the topic of AI-generated content and the legal challenges it presents. From AI pulling content from multiple sources to the misuse of individuals' likeness, the landscape is evolving rapidly, and we need clear regulations and financial agreements to protect creators and organizations. Blanchard is at the forefront of this issue, with dedicated AI think tanks exploring the implications and protections related to AI and intellectual property.
So get ready to dive into the fascinating world of understanding learner needs and content development, with invaluable insights from Ann.
About Ann Rollins
Ann is the Chief Solutions Architect, and Vice President of Custom Solutions for Blanchard, a premier, global leadership development company. I got to know Ann at a recent planning session for the ATD Tech Knowledge conference where she scared everyone about the potential pitfalls of misusing copyrighted content. Yes, today you are going to learn about all the ways you have probably broken the law when making training content. Thankfully, Ann has a really simple solution.
Full Transcript
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Ann Rollins [00:00:00]:
Getting to know who your learners are and what it is that they need, what you're what are you actually solving for? Because oftentimes when you ask the question and you find out what you're actually solving for, what they've asked you to build is not going to solve it. And and if you get close to your learners, like doing persona work, doing some empathy work, oftentimes you can figure out a better way to get it done that is less intrusive on our learners and that is easier for you to build and deploy.
Matt Gjertsen [00:00:28]:
Hello, and welcome to the Making Better podcast, where we talk about making individuals, teams, and organizations better. Whether you are a manager, a coach, or a learning development professional, this show will give you actionable insights on how to raise your performance and the performance of those around you. My name is Matt Jurtson, founder of Better Everyday Studios. And our guest today is Anne Rawlings. Anne is the Chief Solutions architect and vice president of Custom Solutions for Blanchard, a premier global leadership development company. I got to know Anne at a recent planning event for the ATD Technology Conference where she scared everyone, frankly, and me included, about the potential pitfalls of misusing copyrighted content. Yes. Today we're going to talk about all the times that you might have inadvertently broken the law when making content for your organizations.
Matt Gjertsen [00:01:24]:
Thankfully, Anne has a really simple solution for all of us so that we can stop these bad practices. But before we get into the episode, I need to remind anybody new here to make sure you subscribe so you never miss a future episode of the show. And if you have already subscribed, then I would ask that you share this show with at least one other person, because that is how we grow. I can't thank you enough or tell you how much it means to me. And so with that, let's get started. Anne, I am so excited to have you here today. How are you doing?
Ann Rollins [00:01:58]:
I'm doing really good. It's a gorgeous autumn day in the Denver metro. Beautiful. 60 degrees, but it's going to snow in a couple of days, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
Matt Gjertsen [00:02:09]:
Yeah. Colorado is one of those states where it's a state of extremes. I remember from living there where it can be very hot, and when it's hot, it's like dangerously hot because you're so high, so it can really burn you, and then it can get blisteringly cold. And so those days in the middle are magical.
Ann Rollins [00:02:25]:
Yeah, for sure. Thanks for asking.
Matt Gjertsen [00:02:29]:
Yeah. Well, I am really glad to have you here today because, as I mentioned in the intro, we met as part of, we're both on the association for Talent Development's planning committee for their technology conference.
Ann Rollins [00:02:44]:
Yes.
Matt Gjertsen [00:02:45]:
And when we were at dinner, we were talking about intellectual property and protected content, and I know you scared me. You scared other people at the dinner table. It sounds like you give a lot of talks where you kind of scare people around this subject. But the good news is that you have some great solutions. It's not just be scared, it's be scared of doing it wrong and here's how you do it right? So I'm really excited to have this conversation and to set the stage. What I want to start with is when you talk about protected content and you care about this a lot, you see this a lot because you're at Blanchard, which has a lot of content that you yourself are protecting. And so when you say protected content, what do you mean?
Ann Rollins [00:03:30]:
Yeah, for sure. So as we think about protected content and prior to my arrival at Blanchard, I've been there for just about four years and I'm their chief solution architect. So I lead our custom solutions team for the organization. But before then I was leading an instructional design team and we were building custom work products for clients across every industry that you might imagine it might be face to face, it might be elearns, it might be all kinds of content and experience that we were creating net new. And of course, the challenge when platforms like Degreed and EdCast came to be kind of their panacea was you can bring together all of this incredible world class content into your learning solutions seamlessly easily. And that sounded really great. And as we were, my partner in crime, Myra Roll Dan, who many people who listen to your podcast probably are also aware, know as we were building and at conferences and people started talking about using these platforms and bringing in content and importing things that they found online, it started us thinking, hold on a second. Just because we've got a platform that can aggregate and bring things together does not mean the content that you found is actually even though that you could do it, is it legal for you to do it? And we put a lot of thought into and research into what are the follies of our ways and whether you've got a degree in or an EdCast or other kinds of platforms that do that kind of curation work.
Ann Rollins [00:05:13]:
Curation sparked very specific ideas about 5678 years ago in our industry that highlighted the question of if I can pull down a PDF of an HBR article or if I can grab a link to a Ted Talk video that's out on YouTube. What's the harm in me bringing that into, say, a leadership development class for new supervisors? And the answer is it's extraordinary, detrimental when you've got authorial ownership of concepts, of frameworks of thought leadership that is woven around. It's not free and it is protected by the law. So anything that is written by an author that is original thought leadership certainly falls into that protected space. So whether it's answered or it's our authors and our product development team writing content around a model for building trust, or it is an article at Fast Company that talks about learning agility and why it's so important those things are protected by those bodies that have published and actually authors that have written that content area. That's what I think.
Matt Gjertsen [00:06:36]:
Yeah. It's really wide ranging, and I think it's crazy just of how commonplace it seems, so commonplace it seems, so just like, well, of course it's there. It's kind of like it's on the Internet. So the Internet is free. But correct me if I'm wrong. I believe you said there's actually been some laws around this, right? There's been some legal cases around this. Have there been any decisions that you're specifically thinking about?
Ann Rollins [00:07:03]:
Not specific decisions necessarily, but as we were doing our research, there are algorithms that these publishing organizations have. So, for instance, if I'm a member of a small L D team, and I'm putting together my frontline supervisor program, and I found this really great article in sherm, and I want to provide that as kind of a preread. Maybe I'm not going to create content from it, which is also illegal, but I really want them to use this as a preread as part of their program. I have to get permission to be able to use that, and the penalties are extraordinary. Now, of course, there's due process. So the initial step is a cease and desist, say, from Sherm or from HBR or from Ted. And that means I've got to stop using it immediately. That means it pulls out of my program.
Ann Rollins [00:07:53]:
Should never have been there to begin with. It's probably going to be a frightening letter from an attorney. The second thing, if they were to go to litigation, the fines are extraordinary, and the bigger cost, however, is that they can cause you to shelve whatever program that one little article was nestled in. Legally, you can be required to shelve that program. So all of the design, time, dollars, mindshare, everything organizationally that was sunk into building that program, it is now sunset, and it is not legal to use that program any longer. So the consequences can go from a little slap on the hand, don't do that. You don't want to be on their radar. It's poor form all the way to financial judgments against an organization, all the way to shelving your product and larger reputation damage for organizations that hit the radar for behaving in that way, yeah.
Matt Gjertsen [00:08:53]:
And for anybody who well, Ted. Ted has their own free website out there that everybody can just go access. Clearly, Ted doesn't care. Ted cares a lot. Ted created an entirely new business line just devoted to selling their content to companies. So they care a whole lot. And then what about because I think around know, a lot of people might just say, well, it's fair use, right? Like, it's copyright fair use. It's used for education.
Matt Gjertsen [00:09:23]:
It's all fine. Why doesn't that work?
Ann Rollins [00:09:27]:
Yeah, if you're not a teacher in a school system, it's not for education. If you're a company that makes money and if you work for a training department, for a company that makes money, it's not fair use. And so fair use is very specific in terms of who are the people that can actually use it and for what very specific purposes and in what permutations can they use it. Meaning can I copy a link? Can I include a PDF? It's very specific and largely when we talk about people who are doing the work that you and I do every day, we are working for organizations that are developing talent for the purposes of a business to make money. I'm not an education system, not for higher education, not for students that are not part of a unified body. And so if you think about kind of the branch like does fair use apply to me? Yes. No, the first question is do you work in an L and D team that serves an organization that's designed is to make money? And if that is yes, then fair use is out the window for sure.
Matt Gjertsen [00:10:35]:
Yeah. You mentioned in our previous, before we got on here, we were talking a little bit about AI, and I do think, interestingly enough, AI, though, it dramatically exacerbates this problem, it may also, because of that, cause some of the solution to this problem in the sense that I was listening to an interview with the CEO of YouTube. And YouTube exists because of their creators, right? If there aren't really strong good creators on YouTube, then YouTube goes away. And there's a certain level of repurposing that creators do. Like some creators, like they potentially like it when people take their videos and clip their videos and helps them grow. But AI is now allowing know if you're the Joe Rogan show and you have countless hours of video on a platform of you, AI enables just a complete recreation of. So I think in order to protect their creators, YouTube is at least in the beginning stages or different platforms are in the beginning stages of creating things that are more like digital or you can almost imagine like a blockchainification of stuff to control it a little bit better. So that we know because it's going to be because in our world, like Simon Sinek might be a good example, we're not that far off from somebody being able to create a completely fake video of a Simon Sinek talk and people not being able to tell we're not that far away.
Matt Gjertsen [00:12:18]:
But because of that, maybe some platforms are just going to have to find ways to protect it or else nobody would create anymore.
Ann Rollins [00:12:29]:
Right. Just a couple of weeks ago, wasn't it Tom Hanks whose likeness was being used in a video that was built by AI to rep and sell dental services? And so certainly this is an issue that is a hot button in Hollywood. It is a super hot button in organizations that are IP and authorial ownership based. Because when you think about, for instance, let's think about say, a chat GPT, how much stuff is out there that has been kind of ingested from all the sources that we've talked about today, from Hartford HBR, from Fast Company, from all of the periodicals, and suddenly you do Myra Roldan again. She's my best friend. She's actually here with me this week. She's working upstairs in the office upstairs, but she actually did a quick TikTok video that was using Chappie GPT. It was on the same line of discussion and she had to build a course.
Ann Rollins [00:13:42]:
And the very first learning asset it came back with the course was know, lovely, kind of worked through everything it needed to work through. But video number one was a video by Tim Slade, who know one of our thought leaders in our industry right now for E Learning design and development. He has his own instructional design academies and E learning development academies. And the very first video, the very first asset in this program was a video that Tim did not give anyone's permission to use for any personal IP that he actually sells as part of a program. And so the risks of using these tools and I think to your point earlier, the discussion about blockchain or the discussion about some kind of very clear capture and record of where content is, where it lives, where it's being used and making sure that it's not used without permission, without the appropriate financial agreements that need to be in place. I think that's the next frontier. Because right now it's like AI has arrived and it's almost like the horses have run out of the ring and we're going to do a lot of work to get those horses back in the ring and get the right protections. And the laws haven't caught up with it either, which means there's going to be a number of years where things are going to be a little out of hand for sure.
Matt Gjertsen [00:15:11]:
And there's lawsuits against OpenAI right now. There are lots of authors and artists who are saying, hey, I never gave you the right to train on my data. And I do think there is a potential world, and I think this is probably the right world that you only get to train on your data. And it would be great for a company like Blanchard. You have so much IP, you could create a really good AI model based off of your IP and you have enough that it would be good. And so it would create a world that I didn't expect us to go in this direction in this conversation, which is great. It would create a world that would incentivize the creation of IP so that you could train AI models and then leverage it all the more versus incentivizing being the person in the back who's not really doing anything yourself and just kind of like using the work of others to build off of it's. Interesting.
Ann Rollins [00:16:13]:
The conversation is so interesting and lively right now at Blanchard. We've got an AI think tank that has been working through thinking about current state, future state, the implications of AI on our business from how do we actually refine processes, potentially using AI to help streamline in certain areas where it makes sense. What are the things that we need to do on the flip side to protect our business and to protect our intellectual property? What are the things we need to do to protect the identity of people who work for your organization? When you go in to a Chat GPT and you create your account with your work email address, you're starting to give it things that help to isolate so that certainly content queues and searches could be brought up. But I think a really interesting thing as part of our think tank I suggested everyone go in and have Chat GPT write a resume for you, your name first, middle app and see what it comes back with. And it's kind of a Frankenstein that comes back at least. I mean, I'm a medical doctor who is also a learning leader and so I found that very interesting. However, when I kind of bringing it back and thinking about the implication for organizations and having policies around it, there's a lot to think about. And we have clients that are saying I want a clause in the contract that says AI was not used in the creation of my work products.
Ann Rollins [00:17:52]:
And where that stems back to is if you are creating something that is bespoke, that was built for me, that is connected to my values, my strategic pillars to the things that matter most to me. As a stakeholder and a sponsor that is paying a lot of money for a learning solution that will scale globally, I need to know that heads and hands, we're actually the mastermind of that product. And so I would anticipate that we'll start seeing some of that as well. And they are AI detector tools that are out there so clients could run something through an AI detector tool to validate that things aren't coming up on the radar as having used AI to build them. I think that we've got a couple of new frontiers that we are just on the edge of, but it really is an extension of that content curation conversation happening in 2015, 2016. The laws haven't caught up really. So it's going to be long litigation cycles before we have probably really clear and defined guardrails. But the reality is, if we think about our common sense instincts that we have, if it is thought leadership that was generated by an individual that was published as part of a large publication, that that is something that needs permission or a licensing agreement that has to be in place in order to.
Matt Gjertsen [00:19:23]:
So you have a really good answer to this. But before we get to that, I did want to ask you because you kind of mentioned even the creation of content, not just taking an article and putting it into your course, but where do you see the line based on what you've seen? Where do you think the line is between creation and curation? If I'm creating a course, it's based off of all of these books behind me, right? Because I read them and they're in my head. But I'm not going to go ask for permission from all of those authors to do it, because I'm not doing that necessarily. It's all rolling around in my head. So where do you see as the line between this is my idea because there's a clear wrong of I'm just going to take this PDF and throw it in my course, or I'm going to take Tim Slade's video and put in my course. That's wrong. But below other, do you see other lines?
Ann Rollins [00:20:38]:
I mean, I certainly think about like in our space, if we're talking about leadership development, if it's a model, if it's a framework, sure. If it is a language that's used to wrap around a model, it belongs to someone.
Matt Gjertsen [00:20:54]:
Yes.
Ann Rollins [00:20:55]:
Right?
Matt Gjertsen [00:20:55]:
Yes.
Ann Rollins [00:20:57]:
Principle based as you start moving away from that, kind of getting into principles based, if you were able to do research on a set of five key principles and be able to substantiate that with research and evidence, right. Certainly there's a case there to be able to use that kind of content. But it is really sticky. I mean, if I'm an instructional, I say just an instructional designer. I am just an instructional designer, right. I am not an expert in flight. And so for me to write ground school training, I'm getting all of that from somewhere. Whether it's hiring a subject matter expert and doing interviews with subject matter experts to pull my content, that certainly is an option, but certainly for credibility and basis and to stay safe.
Ann Rollins [00:21:54]:
The typical instructional designer is not a deep learning expert on a lot of the topics that we write about. And so whether it's having those internal experts inside, maybe supporting it with some research and citing that research that supports kind of your subject matter experts position, I think that that's a safe place to be, for sure. Or using organizational content that's happening in the organization, being able to cite things that we are seeing that we know work, see citing things that we know don't work, we want to avoid this kind of practice. And so building your learning on what does work based on actually body of evidence that's right here in the organization, I think that that certainly rings true as a safe place.
Matt Gjertsen [00:22:40]:
I feel like as I'm listening to you talk, it's really saying be bolder, be more creative and come up with and have your own stuff. It's making me feel really good about really early on, when I was first getting into instructional design, and I was reading a ton of books about how the brain works and all this stuff, and I came up with this idea of just like, okay, good. In order to get behavior change, you need specificity context or specificity connection and context. And now that's my model that I talk about all the time. Specificity connection, context. Like, I do talks on it, I've written articles on it, and it's just a thing that I made up, and so it's mine. But for the instructional designers out there, it's about having that belief in yourself of, like, you can do this. We can all do this.
Matt Gjertsen [00:23:33]:
We can do the research, talk to enough people. And you don't need to use, like you were saying, the model that this other person used. Now, sometimes there's a reason to because it's research backed and there's like a particular thing that you're trying to get. But that research costs money and it took time. And so it makes sense that you would find a way to credit them or get their permission or whatever it is, depending on the situation.
Ann Rollins [00:23:59]:
Right. And I'll use a beautiful example from one of my clients at Blanchard as we're putting together a program they really wanted to touch on. How do we help people to think through their decisioning and identify if their decision is sound as a leader in an organization, right?
Matt Gjertsen [00:24:21]:
Sure.
Ann Rollins [00:24:21]:
There's tons of models out there on decision making.
Matt Gjertsen [00:24:25]:
Yeah.
Ann Rollins [00:24:26]:
If their CEO had the simplest model right. Excuse me, their CFO, how does it impact our customer experience? How does it impact our revenue growth goals? How does it impact our bottom line? How does it impact our people? That's how we want you thinking about it and actually giving thought. And it's so simple because, again, it is based on the body of work that is happening around you. It is easy to put that kind of a framework together versus going out and pulling and trying to extrapolate or license someone's financial advantage decision making model. Right. It's a much more complex approach. Like you said, you observed, you saw certain things that were common and inherent that would benefit. And to be able to almost categorize these based on what you've seen, sometimes simplest is best.
Ann Rollins [00:25:24]:
And that's what we've got to work with. And it's quickest to deploy. Right. And that body of work that we can base our observations on is right in front of us. Interview senior leaders at the organization. Interview customers. What's going on? Interview subject matter experts, get their perspectives on things. Right.
Ann Rollins [00:25:44]:
A lot of that can live the organization. Lots of it.
Matt Gjertsen [00:25:47]:
Yes, I love it. But then, kind of like we said, there might still be times where you do want to use this stuff. You do want access to it, and plenty of large companies. That's where a lot of their training budget goes, is it's? To go. Purchase IP. But there's a lot of learning professionals out there. I think the most common learning professional out there is the solo learning professional. They do everything.
Matt Gjertsen [00:26:14]:
You don't know what their job title might be. Training Manager. It might be instructional Designer. It might be who knows what they're by themselves, they have very little budget. If they have this book, they just really love this book. Or their whole ethos is around this one way of thinking. What can they do?
Ann Rollins [00:26:34]:
That's such a great question, and it's a really important one because it's not just about building artifacts for formal learn with COVID changed the way we think about learning. Journey based, spaced learning over time, highly blended, happening within the flow of work. Right. Those are the things that we're seeing everywhere, and a lot of that at Blanchard. The way we approach a lot of kind of the connective tissue, the things that are happening in the moment are quick access to resources. I'll use the leadership context. I work for a leadership company, obviously, but this could apply to just about any domain area that you'd be building learning. We've had our formal program on XYZ Concepts, and I want to provide a selection of tools, maybe a virtual library or some digital resources in the moment of need.
Ann Rollins [00:27:27]:
Like, I'm not going to give this to you now because you've already learned some things. I want you to apply them, and then as you need more, you can come back. We've got a library of freemium content that's written by our authors that we use right. To provide that. But prior to joining Blanchard, we were still working to the same aim. But how do you get those digital assets or resources that are in the moment? We have a client, a large global client, who really wanted this to be this virtual library. And so they pulled together so many really great links and we were like, we can't use them. Right? Of course, it's still an area of learning for people in our field, for their leaders, for leaders in talent and HR who might not have that deeper understanding.
Ann Rollins [00:28:16]:
And so there was some education around that of why we can't just wholesale take these even though they're not part of the program. They actually are. If we're directing them to them, they're going to have our IP addresses by the hundreds banging on this article. That's problematic. You can't do that. You don't own it. And so we put together a curation, basically a curation journal. And we had each of these links.
Ann Rollins [00:28:43]:
We went and contacted each of the owners and we found out if would you allow us to use this article in a collection of resources? It's not part of a formal delivery program. It's in the moment of need. We want to give them more to be able to round out. Guess what? Half of them said no, or you need to pay me for it. But guess what? About half of them said, you know what, that's actually really good for me. I'm a small author and I posted this blog post and yeah, that'd be good for me. And so in that we captured the email, which was their written permission, we took that, we embedded it into this Excel workbook. And so we had written proof of the express permission for every single digital asset link that we were using in that program.
Matt Gjertsen [00:29:39]:
There you go.
Ann Rollins [00:29:40]:
Yes. And so that allows really great things. It covers your bases, it provides a permanent record of the request of their response. And it allowed us to move forward, really with a good, clear conscience, knowing that we were doing the right thing by clients, doing the right thing by all of these really great authors who had important points of view that we wanted to be able to share.
Matt Gjertsen [00:30:04]:
Yeah, and it might sound intimidating, but I can't imagine that's really it's not that much work in the grand scheme of things when you think about it. Just like taking the time to reach out to the dozen or so folks that you want to, a couple of dozen people or probably less, depending on the program, keeping track of it. It's not that much work, really, in the scope of everything else that you're doing. And based on what you were saying, it sounds like it probably also, again, talking about incentives, it creates a world where it probably incentivizes you to go hunt for those lesser known but brilliant people and things out there. Like, everybody knows about the top 510 leadership development books out there. They're cited a thousand times. They're probably generally going to be the ones that are like, no, we want you to pay us. Whereas if you find the other people who are still doing brilliant work, who want to, are looking for avenues to work with organizations, it creates a great incentive structure.
Ann Rollins [00:31:07]:
Lovely. And it could be something, for instance, someone writes a really compelling post on LinkedIn, write an article on LinkedIn. These are people who obviously are large and well known authors are writing on LinkedIn, but there are so many incredibly great people with great perspectives. What about asking them if you could interview them and maybe do a recording or a very low tech podcast? And I know, Matt, your work is in the world of podcasting and that has a very clear and defined view and perspective. But being able to capture a recording or being able to have a video call, that then becomes an asset. A lot of these people are willing to do that to give their time. And so there's a lot of ways to go about that that keep you whole, that help you to create different things. Not just a link to something to read, but some.
Ann Rollins [00:32:08]:
Other types of content to consume.
Matt Gjertsen [00:32:11]:
Awesome. I love it. I would really encourage people to before you just because I'll admit, when we first started our conversation back many months ago at dinner, I was kind of just taken aback and just like, this can't be right. This seems like an impossible bar, but the more you sit with it and the more you really think about it, it's not an impossible bar. It's something that's very realistic. So I encourage people to really take a minute to think about how they're using these assets, making sure they're doing it appropriately, coming up with better ways to get this stuff done, to close out, and really appreciate your time. And I want to respect your time. We do have three kind of rapid fire questions that we try to ask at the end with every guest.
Matt Gjertsen [00:32:56]:
Yes. The first question is, what is one book that everyone should read not put in their learning program? But what is one book that everyone should read?
Ann Rollins [00:33:09]:
The book I'm reading right now, it has nothing to do with L and D, but it is called Being Mortal because so many of us are dealing with aging parents and some of us more so than others. Everybody will deal with aging parents. And it's not just a book for people with aging parents. It's like, oh, man, if I'd had this book 20 years ago, I could have maybe coached my mom on some different behaviors now that she's 78. Right? Yeah, that would be my recommendation. I think it should be a must read for anybody with people you care about who you might end up taking care of.
Matt Gjertsen [00:33:45]:
Yeah. Excellent. That is a great recommendation. Okay. What is the one skill that has helped you most through your professional career?
Ann Rollins [00:33:58]:
Skill?
Matt Gjertsen [00:33:59]:
It's a tricky one.
Ann Rollins [00:34:00]:
Yeah, it's a good one, because especially as the world has changed so much, I think learning agility, being able to keep an open mind, and often it's really easy to get into a mode of, I've got to deal with this situation or this emergency or this that I've got to deal with this. We're paid for our thinking ability. We're paid because we can solve the tough problems. And so I think that I would say maybe learning agility and kind of not resilient in the sense of in the sense that we think of it. But I would say it's learning agility and kind of a positive mindset that my job is to do the hard stuff. When I've got the easy stuff, I should probably appreciate it a lot more than I do, because that's actually not why I'm in this job. I'm in this job to do things.
Matt Gjertsen [00:34:54]:
That's right. We are. That is a really great mindset to have. We're here for the hard stuff. That's why if the hard stuff didn't exist, we wouldn't have a job.
Ann Rollins [00:35:06]:
So it's your learning agility and it's your network, because you're not ever going to know everything, to be able to do it all and so cultivating those relationships around you at work and in broader industry. Boy, I'll tell you what it's invaluable.
Matt Gjertsen [00:35:20]:
I love it. Well, especially for you since you've had the opportunity to work in with for so many different organizations. I think this last question, I'm really interested in your response of what is the most common opportunity that you see for organizations to improve their talent development.
Ann Rollins [00:35:45]:
Let's see, I think getting closer to our learners, I think it's a miss. I think we often find ourselves in order taker mode. Yes. Which when we're in order taker mode, we're going to build a solution that maybe half of the people will like. The other half of the people will feel like it was spun up because of somebody said build this. Getting to know who your learners are and what it is that they need. What are you actually solving for? Because oftentimes when you ask the question and you find out what you're actually solving for what they've asked you to build is not going to solve it. And if you get close to your learners, like doing persona work, doing some empathy work, oftentimes you can figure out a better way to get it done that is less intrusive on our learners and that is easier for you to build and deploy.
Matt Gjertsen [00:36:42]:
Yeah, it's so true. I think yeah, I was at a conference I'm saying this a lot now, but I was speaking at a conference a couple of weeks ago where just because of kind of the nature of the speakers, this kind of moment came out where we said asking because the question is often asked how do we get the organization to care about learning? And I think that's the wrong question. The right question is how do you get learning to care about the organization? How do you get us, like you said, closer to the learner, closer to the business, closer to their problems so that we really yeah, I love that empathy frame that you mentioned of being able to really understand what their needs are, what their use cases are so that we can build the right solution. That's a great one.
Ann Rollins [00:37:29]:
If we can make their lives easier and connect that to some of the monetary levers that the business cares about, you're going to have a win win the whole way around.
Matt Gjertsen [00:37:40]:
Exactly. Awesome. Well, Anne, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you are incredibly busy. I really appreciate you being on. I think this is a topic that will rightfully kind of open some eyes but then give some really clear paths forward of a better way to deliver better for our learners. So thank you so much for being here today.
Ann Rollins [00:38:05]:
Hey, thank you. This was great. And I hope that you have a great rest of your fall. And I know that I'll see you on that next Pack meeting.
Matt Gjertsen [00:38:13]:
Yes, absolutely. Okay, have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you liked the discussion, make sure to hit like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. As a reminder, if your team is struggling keeping up with the training development demands of your organization, we want to help. Better Everyday Studios is a full service instructional design team that can help you with everything from ideation to actual content creation and delivery. Please reach out to us using the link in the episode notes below. Have a great day.
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