The 2022 State of L&D with host Cara North

Cara North  
Hi, everybody, welcome to Friday on TLDC. We are The Training, Learning, and Development Community. I'm your host today I am Cara North. And if I haven't had the pleasure to meet you yet welcome training, learning and development community or CLDC. We are a professional development community for learning and development professionals. This is a very open, safe, inclusive space, and we have a Slack channel that you can get involved with. And then we also have various membership options as well. So today, I'm really excited to talk about something a little bit different. There's been a lot of change, especially in the last couple years when it comes to learning and development. And this year has been quite something hasn't and I'm sure that you all have seen a lot of the stuff going on as well. So I want to just take a moment and welcome all the wonderful people that are here. So J Hill, Brian Kim, Jamie, Delores, thank you all so much for being here. Really appreciate it, Tom totally forgot. Can't forget about Tom McDowell. Um, so today's gonna be kind of a conversation about different topics in learning and development. I do not know if my voice will last the whole hour I am.

Excuse me, actually, just one second, here. I am. Pardon me recovering from you know what, and so I still have this stupid cough. And I'm gonna try my best to get through it today. So want you to participate. This is going to be in the state of l&d and just facilitated by me. And just to let you know what the topics we're going to be talking about today, I'm going to kick it off talking a little bit about the job market. And then I'm gonna pivot a little bit and talk specifically about different sectors of the industry, right, so then we're going to talk about corporate higher education, freelancing, then we're going to wrap it up with professional development. But this is not just about me, it's going to be about you. And I really want to hear from you. And so I am experimenting today. So thank you so much for being part of this journey. I love the feedback on this. So I'm using a new platform today to me called off slides. I used to be a writer die with Poll Everywhere. But we have, as Gwyneth Paltrow would say, unconsciously uncoupled. So I'm trying out, I'll have slides today. So if you actually look underneath the video, where I'm at, there should be a button that says participate in the discussion. So I will actually have different parts after each one of the topics where I want to hear from you, you're also obviously able to talk in the chat, as well. But if you really want to get involved in the discussion, you can use the link underneath me to get involved. And so after every topic, I want to hear from you kind of the good or the bad, you can pick either one, and then the community will vote for the ones that they like the most. And then we'll just have a lightning round to recap each part of the agenda today. So that sounds good. Let's go ahead and hop on into it. So let's talk about this job market right now. There are just if you scroll through LinkedIn, go on Twitter, wherever you like to hang out to talk learning and development, there's a lot of different stuff going on. Right. So you may see some people that's talked about layoffs, which is unfortunate, you may have seen the great resignation of people kind of leaving their roles to go do different things. And it's really kind of chaotic. So I love talking jobs. I love reading job descriptions. If you know me, I try to post learning development jobs every weekday, on my LinkedIn to try to help as many people in the community help find jobs. And I'm just fascinated by just the composition of job descriptions. And please don't judge me, I know that that makes me a little bit weird. So I'm wanting to look at the numbers though, and really take a get a sense of like, what is going on from a number standpoint. So I went to a couple of different sources. One is the Bureau for labor statistics. I also went to o net, which is a great resource, occupational data, again, US base, but then I also brought in some data from the most recent 2022, LinkedIn Workplace Learning report. And so I just want to talk a little bit about this. Because one thing that I think has been difficult in the past couple of years is there has been a lot of different reports out there. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about this in a moment that are just self reported only now, you're like, Carol, what's wrong with self reporting? Well, there's a couple of things wrong with self reporting. One, I hate to say those ready, people lie.

There's that and two, there's really kind of no way to verify the authenticity of it right. So There's not really a lot of statistical tests, sometimes that you can do on this self reported data. So I really wanted to go to primary sources of data to talk a little bit about the size of the market. Okay. So, from 2020, it said that we have almost 330,000 learning development jobs open. And now again, this is from a US standpoint only. If you're not in the US, I'd love to hear your perspectives on this as well. So feel free to put them in the chat. And I'd love to see if there's any kind of differences or similarities depending on your location. Another one that I think's really interesting is the from 2020 to 2030, the markets predicted to grow to 11%. And you're like 11%, that doesn't sound like a lot. So on average, usually, job markets grow about 8% Over a decade span. So here, it's 11%. So as you can see, it's actually a little bit higher than expected. Now, this one was actually pretty surprising to me, because I don't know about you all, but I certainly feel like starting in 2020, it's like people actually know what we do for a living now, right? And I was like, This is our time in the sun. This is when we can be, you know, the knights on the horses and come in and save. Save the day, right? So it's interesting that it's 11%. Yes, it's higher than average, but just a sliver. And maybe I guess I was thinking looking at it that it would be bigger than that. But again, based on I get this primary data source, that is what it is currently stating. Now, what I think is really, really fascinating, is the LinkedIn learning report. And so the LinkedIn learning report, I can actually I'll dig out later and share a link. So you all can go through that, at your own leisure to it's fascinating work that they work that they've done. But what I found super interesting from that, and the stat that I kind of cherry picked was there's a 94% increase in the demand curve. So demand curves are calculated, I believe, quarterly. So there's like, quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four, so from quarter to to quarter, three and 2021. So you're thinking March to June, and then June to I believe September, right? There was a 94% increase in the demand for jobs in learning and development. And so what I think is fascinating about that is if you think about some of the people that are transitioning into learning and development jobs, do you all know what they usually do? They're, they're in the education system, right? And so to me, that makes sense, why we're seeing that big of an increase between the quarters, because it's summer break for people that are educators. So yeah, just humor me, I hopefully that was helpful. I just like going in and looking at different patterns stuff. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully, they'll give you some food for thought. Now, here is some of my different takes on it. So each one of these, I'm going to be sharing my opinion, it is an opinion, you can disagree with me, you can agree with me. I'd love actually both. So feel free to make comments, obviously, in the chat as it as it goes out. So I do think that there's a lot of different roles available, but with every role are a ton of applicants. So case in point, my last role I heart was hiring for a learning experience designer, and I think we had over 200 applicants and maybe a day or two. Now, I'm going to teach you all kind of a hot Take a tip from LinkedIn that a lot of people don't know. So let's say you're on LinkedIn, and you see a job opening, and you click on it, and it says over 200 applications. So one thing that I have found is that the way LinkedIn tracks that is if someone clicks on the actual job application, it doesn't necessarily reflect the number of people who applied. So some people are like, Oh, my gosh, I really like to work at this company, I see that there's over 200 applications that may or may not be true. So don't let that number on LinkedIn scare you. That could be somebody who just started the application. You don't really know if they finished it or not. But that's the way that LinkedIn currently tracks those applicants. But truly, as a hiring manager, I did get so many applicants for the jobs that I had had open and it was really hard just even going through the applications, the portfolios I mean, it was it was just like overload. Another thing I'm seeing is kind of this dichotomy in this, this fight against work from home versus the office. I think that there is going to continue to be a tension around this. I had shared an article I want to say last week about It kind of this this thought of, if you live near an office, that they're, they're telling people they need to come in the office. But yet if you don't live near the office, you don't have to. And I experienced this. And when in my own interviewing process, there was a company I was interviewing for that was said it was a remote job. And they said, Oh, you live in Columbus, our headquarters is in Columbus, we'd like you to come in, you know, a couple days a week. And I said, why? I was like, because let's say you're punishing me because I live here. Like, if it's a remote job, let me work remotely. Right. So I think that that is that that's something to call out to, because I do think that there are a lot of people looking to, there are hybrid jobs, but I think a lot of people are still looking for remote only. So if you want to follow those again, on LinkedIn, if you follow hashtag hot ID jobs, I try my best to only post remote roles, I often get people asking me to publish hybrids or in office, and I try not to do it at all, because my inbox just gets inundated from people, well, is this a remote job? I don't know. I'm not a recruiter, you know, if you want to follow up with that, that job poster, please feel free. But I you know, I don't want to deal with it. And that's kind of selfish, but that's the way that it is sometimes, um, Yes, Cam, if you click the button underneath my video, it should take you to the AHA slides to get you in there. And then finally, I think a lot of the jobs I'm seeing are from cleaning up messes. So I think there was a lot of messes that happened when the pandemic hit, there's this term that I've kind of came up with called panic Gaji. You know, because I don't think it was good practice what happened during during this, it was a lot of emergency remote get stuff over, I think there's still a lot of jobs around it that are cleaning up some of those messes. So from where I'm standing, that's kind of my take on the job market trends. But I want to know what you think so can the perfect segue, I would like you all to go over here.

And I love to know something good or bad that you've seen in the IT job market. So you should be able to go to this URL, or you can click the button underneath main. And it should take you there. And then you should be able to just type in a couple different entries. And we should be able to see here. And I love the fact that I can see emojis and the number of people that are on it. Or if you don't want to do this at all. That's fine. I'm happy to call out anything that you put in the chat. So something good or bad that you've seen about the IT job market. I'm leaving it up to you maybe I should have been more optimistic. Today was far more spicy. Yes. So access code. I don't know. You shouldn't be able to just get there by the AHA slides about comm slash LD 2022 I believe the access code may be the LD 2022 Sara, that helps. All right, so we have some different ones coming in here. About number of applicants company now realize how important the job is absolutely. overly optimistic applicants applying for senior roles. Oh my goodness, I'm sure there's a story there. Companies attempting to launch education products. Yeah, that's so true. There's so many different orgs that are now thinking about their strategy for this so absolutely. More remote opportunities. Yep. larger variety of FTE jobs and more to choose from with contracting Yep. I love this one jobs don't aligning with applicant expectations. Oh my goodness, you all are killing it right now. PayScale not consistent yes. Great that there's more IT jobs less good if the field gets saturated. You know, I have a really hot take on that as well. I think there's a lot of people interested but qualified candidates that can actually do the job I still think that the market is saturated with that right now. I think there's a lot of people that have called themselves instructional designers but have not put in the work to upskill and that's a super hot take so sorry about that. All right, the number of rounds applicants go through Yeah, absolutely. That's a bad one. Move towards performance more than knowledge. Yep. Work from home. I know who this one is who put this one in the faking? It does not equal making it Yes. I cannot stand that. And again, this is another hot take that you didn't ask for but people that have everything in their headline that they do everything I assume they can do nothing. I'm like yeah, you probably can't hate to say that. Um, quality seems down recruiter. Okay. All right. Everybody get at least one in that they want. Yes, it does take such a long time. Alright, so what I want to do now is I want you all to vote for your favorite one. So it's kind of like a fun little surprise. Hear, so I won't go next to voting. And so you will want to hide them. So go ahead and take one minute to vote for your favorites. And then we will see what the top ones were that we, we all kind of agree with. So take one moment to do that. I should have had some music queued up or something. Let me know what your favorite summer song is right now. Type in the chat. And I'd love to know. I've been listening to a lot of Jack White. He's got a new album coming out, believe next week, but I went to go see him in concert earlier this year. And it was incredible. Love Jack White. All right. God votes votes votes. All right. Wow. 33 votes love it. Okay. I'm going to show the results in three to one last Oh, okay. All right. All right. Now what I love about this is it is a mystery. So there we go. So boom. So looks like we have a two way tie for number one that companies now realize how important it is. And there's more remote. So hopefully these are both goods. We had a tie here for second place, which it says three but PayScale not consistent. And then a move more towards knowledge and performance. So I'd say that's a bad enough. Good. And then we had a lot of different Oh, you know what? It didn't show it in order. That's weird. Sorry about that. Or no, no, it did. I'm sorry, I can't count. So yeah, I'm like going to jail. Just want to do something different today. All right. We got through that. Let's go ahead and keep keep talking, shall we? Now this one was a little bit longer to kind of get in the flow. But I do want more engagement from you all. So I'm going to keep the rest of them a little bit short. Because I want to spend a lot of time talking about about your all's thoughts. Because you don't care about what I say openly. I really I'm just wanting one voice, right. And so I want to hear the collective voice of all the wonderful people that are here. All right. So let's talk

corporate. And if you're in corporate, you know, what are you working on? You know, what are you doing? And then the big question that was asked is how are you? How are you growing? So from me, again, my observations here, here's kind of my takes on on the trends. So going back to that LinkedIn, workplace learning report that I really enjoyed reading. 55% of learning and development departments are either owning, or sharing ownership of dei strategy and programming. Now, what I think's really interesting about this, and Tom is here, and Tom and I actually talked about this on his incredible ideas podcast is, you know, is it really learning development and should own that, I don't know, I don't have the answers to it, I think that we have a tremendous opportunity. But ultimately, my main thoughts on it is no matter what we do, the culture of an organization, is the behavior that It tolerates. Now we can put out all kinds of content around it. But if the organization isn't holding people accountable, and isn't sharing what those norms of the behavior that it wants its employees to do, then it doesn't matter what we do, right. So that's kind of my hot take on him doing more with less. So as people are leaving, we talked a little bit about it before, about, you know, it's longer to fill in positions, some don't get positions filled, like they just leave, and then they just cut that from the budget. And then they have to figure out the priorities. You know, some people get more priorities on them, and they will, you know, not have enough resources to get things done. So, it's, it's a problem. Um, I will be extremely transparent with you. In my last full time role. I had to do everything, play, I had a director title, but I was in charge of strategy. I was over the onboarding. I built all the elearning I was implementing a learning management system. And it burned me it burned me to a crisp, because I couldn't do all of that. Well, having all those spinning plates. So it's, I think it's a real thing in corporate right now. And then another big one, and this is certainly not a trend. I think it's something that's happened for a long time. But you know, one of my mentors, Dr. Don Schneider talks a lot about what does good look like. And I think that is something that as an industry, we need to consider more because a good learning development experience in one place could be a PowerPoint, whereas in another place, it needs to be, you know, scaffolded to different job levels or whatever that looks Like, so it kind of depends. And I think that's why it's so difficult, especially for new people transitioning into this to really know what this this looks like. So I, you know, just kind of want to put that put that out there. Kim puts makes up a good point here about outsourcing. I think it's it's could definitely be an issue. I think outsourcing is very transactional. I don't know if I'm seeing a lot of outsourcing and from full time jobs, but I am seeing a lot of organizations bring in different consulting clients for different different needs. So Jay Hill's talking about how it's He's deep in the weeds of the variability for us. Yeah, it's so hard, isn't it? Because you do want to have that high bar of quality, but then you may have an issue with, you know, the talents, not there to produce it yet right, that they can't perform at the level that you're looking at, or you don't have the time and resources to support you in that. So yeah, it's definitely definitely an issue. All right. My take now I want to hear your take again, so thing deals we did before. So what is something good or bad that you've seen in corporate l&d and Kim, you kicked us off with outsourcing? I think that's a great topic to talk about a little bit a little bit more. Oh, I'm so sorry. Who asked about the EI, Candice. Sorry, Lisa. Sorry about that. Hello, Mike. Good to see you. All right. So go ahead and put in your votes about something good or bad that you've seen about corporate l&d? I'd love to get your your thoughts here. Again, I wish I had like some background music or something, but

hopefully there's a lot of typing going on. Who that is a good one. That's a that's a dynamite one to start us off. So people in other departments dictating what l&d should look like, like how long the courses should be? I think that's always been a problem, right, that people don't understand the nuances of the work that we do. A good that there's a lot of work out there. Yes. I think it's very scary to see people getting laid off on LinkedIn. But I do think that there are still a lot of opportunities out there. realizations that technology doesn't fix issues, it just moves through online. Absolutely. Lack of team and expecting one person to do all things a learning and development. Yes, I have suffered that myself. Example The bad companies expecting ideas to do everything. Yep. Thinking anyone can do the job. That's another huge one. Right. And I think that's kind of an issue with some of which I saved the best for last for the spice factor. So I won't tease that out too much. But I know there's people in the audience that probably know what I'm gonna say. One ID to do everything overwhelming workload, manage IT managers with no ID background, you know what that was probably the biggest realization for me when I transition into learning leadership was that so many you're right, people that manage the function don't have any practitioner experience. And it made me I think, a different manager, because I can understand the nuances of it. But I also think that's why there's so many poor hiring decisions. Yes, it. Okay. Increased honesty and feedback and input from employees. All right, outsourcing. What good elearning looks like? Yep. Leaders of the department. So saying, good partnership between l&d and HR teams. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes we work in HR departments that kind of in the war we set and the business focused on quantity of learning versus quality. I'm chasing. Oh, cool. You see that? That's kind of cool. I will start doing that from here on out that I can hide it. Again, working out loud, being transparent here trying a new tool. So thank you all. Alright, so I'll go ahead. These are all wonderful. Just looking at the clock. Make sure we can get through everything. Let's go to vote. So we'll hide the votes this time, make it a little bit more, more spicy. So I'll give you one minute to vote. And then we'll we'll see what the top ones were. So again, what is something good or bad that you've seen about corporate l&d? Again, thank you all for hanging out with me on a Friday. It's pretty cool. TLDs CLDC has been my professional home since 2017. And it's good to be back. I've been been away for a while but it's good to be back All right. I'm 26 votes want to go over in 321? Okay. All right, here we go. Boom. All right, so top one here as people in other departments dictating what l&d should look like, yes. Maybe we need to come up with a way that we can own a band together and figure out how to battle that, because I think that's a battle everyone has, you know, in their in their organizations. Mike says that he's an IT manager and insist on working on actual projects, using the tools. I love that that's, that is true leadership, actually meeting people where they are and being vulnerable and working alongside them. I love it. Yes, Sarah, great, get created elevator speech, that would be great. All right. Second one is thinking anyone can do the job. And then one ID to do everything with the tie with being with the ID managers with no ID background focused on the wrong things. All right, Mike looks like you got to take her of if you're hiring. So Mike's pretty amazing. So I think working for him would be a great opportunity. Okay, let's keep going. Let's go over to higher education.

Specifically, what I'm really talking about here is what is formal learning development education look like? And how are students being served. Alright, so here are my takes on it. So one of the things that I've said for a very long time, and one thing I'd like to see in my lifetime, is more what I'm wanting to call second and third generation instructional designers. So I know that myself, and I'd venture to say a lot of you accidentally fell into the work that we do. And if I had a time machine 20 years ago, yeah. I went to undergrad. I think if I knew learning development was an option. I would love to again, gotten a bachelor's in it. So one thing that I've seen, especially in the last year, as there are more l&d Bachelor programs. So here are three places that are getting getting started. I think northern Florida officially starts this fall. And I believe Kennesaw State does as well, Sam Houston, I don't know I need to get an update from my my friend, Dr. Shaun chin over there to see how that's going. But I love the fact that there is going to be at least options at a bachelor level. It's been at the masters and doctorate level for a while. But the fact that it's been this bachelor program, that's pretty exciting. Another one is just this weird identity crisis at higher ed is it's almost like they didn't learn anything from the pandemic, there is an influx of students that are wanting more options when it comes to their education that maybe isn't always on campus. But the administrators is wanting to bring those people back to campus because it is dollar signs, right. So there's this kind of weird little tension between that and also with the staff of the organization as well. I'll tell you, I have a friend that still works in higher education. And she actually came over to my house. Last night, we were having a discussion. And what's fascinating is she is not a student facing role. She does research and she's a staff member, she has to get a document pre approved, signed, before she can work from home every single time. Whereas if she was a faculty member, they don't care, she can go do whatever she wants. And you know, that that power struggle and that weirdness. I mean, that's, that's it's going to blow up at some point, it's not going to be not going to be pretty and I don't think that's unique to just the university, my friend works out, I think that's pretty much across across the board. So I mean, the staff want more flexibility. And the students want more flexibility. And big one is I still think that a lot of people that kind of got through 2020, right. So they they got through, they're like, oh, this this online course stuff's easy, right? You just throw a syllabus up there and put a gradebook and you're good. So, you know, students are demanding better learning experiences, right? You know, I cannot tell you, when I worked in higher ed, how many instructors and faculty would record themselves talking for two hours? And it's like, yeah, it's mandatory, they have to watch as it who's going to sit and watch your talk for too, you know, so really focusing on not replicating the in person, but thinking about how you can transform it for better learning and experiences I think is really important. All right. So yeah, my takes on higher education.

Now, I want to know yours. If you have any. Again, I just think it's really important to talk about these three areas corporate higher ed and and freelancing. So you know, what's something good or bad that maybe you've seen for on higher education, learning and development, you know, I'm talking about formal programs. Don't worry, I'm talking about the boot camps and academies toward the end. Okay, so I know some of you are waiting for it, but the formal, okay, it is thinking it is just elearning. Yes, that's a huge one. And I'm teaching a class right now at Boise State on storyboarding and scenario development. And that has actually been one of the things I've challenged him talking about is, you know, not everything is elearning, you may want to do a virtual instructor led, or maybe instructor led, you know, that that is out there. Students are given practice projects that are nothing like the real world. Amen. I know it and I'm trying to help be the change I want to see in the world. And so that is why I am adjunct teaching at Boise State, I'd love to potentially adjunct at another university as well. But my classes I try to make them extremely practical. We have a great textbook, we use the Ruth Clark scenario book that I tried to crosswalk to what it looks like in in the workforce, but you bring up a great point, whoever put that a lot, especially in these masters and PhD programs, they're taught by researchers who have no experience doing the work, or worse, their online courses look horrible. And it's like you're talking about best practices on how to build but then this course is like, busted like a can of biscuits. I'm not trying to, you know, make anyone feel bad or anything here, but I'm just saying, in my experience, I've seen a little bit of everything. slow to adopt the variety of options. Yep. Real world is a problem. Yep. The lack of trends and tools lack of money. Yeah, there. I don't know, any program that. Well, I think there's a couple that include different technologies in it. Too much research and theory. Yeah, I, I agree. Lack of human design. Content dumps from speeds they don't collaborate? Yes. Very old school. Yes, I'm with you. So these programs are coming out. But how are they applied? Okay. All right, right. Bad habits. Okay. Awesome. All right. So let's go ahead and hop into voting will hide the boat skin. That's kind of one thing you'll hopefully I mean, we're halfway through if you're getting value out of this, let me know in the chat. If you're bored to tears, let me know in the chat, I can switch it up. Just trying something new today, you know, different topic today. I wanted to be a little bit collaborative. I didn't want to talk at somebody for for an hour. But I love hearing what you all are saying because I agree with so much of it. All right, we'll go ahead and get off this and go to the results in three to one. Okay. All right. So let's see. Okay, so looks like the some of the hottest topics, you all agreed on the ones with the most votes. Number one is higher education has a lack of real world contextualization, to or that students are given practice projects are nothing like the real world. And then we had a tie for three IDs, thinking IDs is just in learning and higher education programs focus more on theories than developing skills. Alright, so I got a question from my Carolyn chat about why LMS is looked like the internet of circa 1996. Oh, goodness. I don't know. I think that. I don't know. There's a there's a big name in the LMS market that is taking up a lot of the higher ed space, especially in the last five years. I'm sure you know, what I'm talking about. That one's a little bit more modern. But to your point, I think that maybe it's made that way, because it's easier for old school administrators to follow it. I don't know. But I agree with you. I think it should have a little bit more aesthetically pleasing interface. But then I also wonder, is it something that the universities could use? I don't know. So, just just my thoughts. Um, what's up with bad LMSs? That's a good question said, Jonathan rock, who I don't know is here had a great quotable that I made a little fake meme of about LMS those are like cafeteria food. You're never happy with what you get. So I just roll with that. I think that's a great analogy for it. I don't think anybody is very happy with their with their illness. All right. That's fair to Tom. Most of us are still in 1996. I mean, it was a good year.

All right. So let's talk freelancing. Okay, so again, talking a little bit about where you're working, going, etc. This one's going to be a little spicy. I'm just going to warn you. So I don't know about you all, but I've seen So many opportunities that one FTE or full time equivalents or full time employees, just a ton of different things out there that won't that those 40 hour work weeks. And I don't know about you all, but me, I'm not interested in taking on those projects, if I don't have to, I like to have a little bit more flexibility. I like to do things more asynchronously, etc. And, you know, if I wanted to work 40 hours a week, in that capacity, I go back to working full time, just just my two cents. I'm also seen, especially in the last couple of months, wage variability, like huge wage variability. And so where I'm getting some of these numbers from, again, jobs on LinkedIn, sometimes, indeed, but I've seen some contracts have really low wages from 20 to 30. an hour, but then I've seen some, excuse me, advertised, like, up to $200. an hour, and I'm gonna, okay, so, who knows? I mean, I don't know how much that is to, you know, kind of get different types of people to apply? I don't know, and I don't know, if people are actually getting those numbers, or if those are starting points. You know, I don't really know. But I know like, it's just really hard to find people, they're willing to pay what I call the Goldilocks range of just right, right. And then this is this is not just a trend for this year, but I think it's a trend for anyone that freelances is just just the work on your pipeline. And so, you know, I've now been doing freelancing full time for for a month, which I know that's, that's not a lot. But hey, you know, there's people that are supposed to thought leaders that don't even have a month of experience, oh, there's some spice. So I'm just shocked how much of my time each week is, in developing relationships, trying to take kind of a, I'll say a tepid contact and make them red hot that where they want to work with me. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done in that as well. So those are my freelancing observations, I would love to again, get get your takes on that. And so of course, here we go. And once you get your thoughts so, um, again, your experience your thoughts, what's something good or bad you've seen about freelancing, learning and development? And we'll do something a little bit different here. Yeah, I'm gonna see if I can hide them here. And then we'll we'll show them as they come in. So Kate's asking the best methods for getting freelance jobs. Really, I think there's a couple different options. If you have a brand, they come to you. But if you don't have a brand, I would say partner with other consultants and freelancers and say, Hey, listen, I'm looking to get started. What's some work that you have that maybe I could help with? Because I know myself right now, I have projects that there's some work on this one, I can do it, but I could really use some help with it. So I think everybody kind of has those buckets of work that they they have to do, but then they would be better off like free giving it out to others, if the contract allows it, of course. So. All right, so we got some stuff coming in here. So obviously good is the flexibility. Yes, it's amazing. How many freelancers are actually good ideas? I don't know if that's a good or a bad I will read between the lines. They're a good way for first timers to get experience at Yes, Jamie. I did cover that more on the idiotic with Brent. And I just forgot the gentleman, Chris from Dominos last week. So you can watch the replay of that. Or if you go to my Crowdcast here so I think my progress things North hyphen 129. You can watch a recording where I did this, I did a presentation at the ISE around five tips to get you started. And it was basically there's no room left in the room like people got turned away. So I wanted to do it again for more visibility to help people get access to the information so I can share that with you. Um, let's say good time to get experience. It takes a lot of time and money to start up. Yes, it does. pay rate can be commensurate with experience. Thank you. Thanks, Jamie. That works. Hey, Tracy, good to see you. All right.

Freelancers used to be the cream of the crop now. It's, it's messy. Yeah, I can see that. All right. So let's go ahead and go to voting because we have two more things to talk about. Want to hide the votes here. And we'll just do a speed round vote for your favorites. We'll do 2030 seconds again. I wish I had some cool music to play. But we'll get voted started here in just a moment and thank you to whomever warded away the cough for me for for this time I was really concerned getting through this but I'd better knock on wood. So far so good. Probably a coughing fit before the end. Which I'm getting ready next week I'll be in San Antonio for atds core four. I'm just praying I can get through my presentations there without without coughing. We'll see. Okay, all right, let's go ahead and rock and roll. All right, your top voted are freelancing used to be the cream of the crop now it's messy. Bad the pay rates not commensurate with experience and then you're expected than expected work product, you get what you get. And then long term freelancing gigs that carry the expectation you will function with a full time employee, I'm assuming with none of those benefits. Yep. All right, awesome. Okay, so now, let's talk about professional development. Okay. So I love this platform. I love to LDC I cannot tell you truly and I'm not paid to say this, I promise. How much to LDC has helped me in my own career. I've met some of my best friends in the industry through to LDC. And so, I think it's really important whether you have a budget, whether you don't have a budget to be doing something to continuously grow. I think so many people say they're lifelong learners, but then do a bad job of kind of keeping, keeping that going. Right. So here are some of my thoughts about professional development in l&d. So I did get to go to a TD ice, the International Conference and Expo, it's kind of weird, they call it ice, given that there's a name of a US entity that does have a good connotation with the word ice. But I went to that last excuse, don't use me, as I'll say last month, but it's currently July. And it was in Orlando, Florida. And what's interesting is they had an online option. But you know, I am seeing this kind of all or nothing approach to conferences. So while there was an online option, I don't think it gave you access to all of the different content. I don't think that it was synchronous to where, where maybe it was that you could ask questions. I think some of the sessions were but definitely not all. And just speaking for my own experience, I had one of my sessions that was recorded for the conference for people online. And they didn't like mic me up appropriately. I think I had like a, I was holding a mic. And so when I watched the recording, it was horrible. I sounded like you'll work God. Like it was such a hot mic, and it was horrible. And I'm thinking, you know, what, if somebody like wanting to come to my, my session and couldn't make it to Florida, and they purchased this, I was like I would I was just not very happy with it. But I really hope that conferences in general, really think about how to involve people at a distance better. I think that there's kind of this Oh, it's it's, it's all or nothing, it doesn't have to be like and that's another reason why I love to LDC, I remember, I think it was 20 2019. Specifically, we had to LDC conference in Phoenix, Arizona. And I thought it was really great. The way that everybody was incorporated was through you leverage Crowdcast you could talk to other people that were watching from a distance and it really was, you know, I think did a good job of giving access to all the different diversion.

Were there hiccups, of course, I think there's always going to be hiccups for that. But I just say this out loud to just say, you know, I want it to be to where no matter if you can come, or if you join online, that you're able to enjoy conferences in entirety. That's just kind of my two thoughts about it. With that, I don't know if you've seen the prices of going to conferences lately. But Mr. Jonathan hill here I am on a crusade to get him from England to come to DevLearn this this this year, I'd really love for him to come. But it's expensive. I mean, if you look at the ticket prices, I mean, a lot of these different ticket prices are creeping up to $1,000. You just for admission to go to the conference. That doesn't count your airfare which flights in the United States right now. Absolutely. Bananas. I've already had my flight change three times for my DevLearn trip. It's It's bananas. hotel prices aren't getting any cheaper. If you have if you rent a car or whatever, gas prices aren't getting any cheaper. So You know, whether you're flying and driving, I mean, this is all adding up. And so really, you know, previously these, like discounts that were pretty lucrative for like groups and things like, it's a hefty bill and your organization may have that money, they may not have the money, they may say, Well, you know, we'll cover part of it if you cover part of it. So it gets a little bit messy. But you know, prices are definitely a factor, I think, in these conferences. And finally, the rise of academies and boot camps, they are everywhere, I don't think all of them are bad. But I also think that there are a lot of dangerous claims being put out there that I have tried to push and encourage people to just think critically, assess claims, ask for the receipts. And what's fascinating is, I found at least when I asked for the receipts, and that's the cool kids slang of, you know, show me the evidence, right? I get attacked just for asking for evidence, you know, that I don't even go on the Facebook instructional design group anymore, because I've been personally attacked by individuals from a certain Academy. You know, I just don't understand the viciousness of asking for evidence of of different things, right. And so think about them. And so by is getting mad when you're asking for evidence of things, what is that really telling between the lines, maybe they don't have the evidence, and maybe they're not really given the information that they say they are. So extremely hot take, I will stop there, I could go on if you really want to poke me. But that's just my take on it. I don't think that they're all inherently bad. I think you can get some skills from them. I think that you can meet people through them. But I don't think that they guarantee you a job. I don't think they guarantee you a salary. And I don't think that a lot of them provide things that they say they do, like feedback from the leadership of of the stuff, often you're getting peer feedback, so you're getting feedback from other new people. Right? So just be very careful before you give anyone your credit card number, so I'm saying, all right, that's it. So I want to know about you. So what are some good and bad that maybe you've seen an l&d professional development over this past year. So the good and the bad? Take your time, love to get your thoughts. And we're actually doing really well on time. So I've timed this out pretty decently I was, I've been a little rusty, I haven't done it CLDC in a while. So I was kind of concerned on how everything would go. But I always forget how awesome this audience is. So again, until we see as the best people that comes to it. I love it. Oh, that's very interesting. Thinking that working on different projects as a former professional development. I'm

so sorry that it cut that out. If I click on OK, there we go. The amount of research and analysis is done for a project designing is actually close to its science. Okay. Yeah, I agree. All right. People are great resources to learn from. Not so great resources are Well, alright, we'll fill that in. I think that Tildy says good. Yeah, I completely agree. Of course. I'm biased. But yeah, lack of professional development. So I'm assuming maybe that's that's a budget constraint. Yep. So companies who budget for development, but only allow you to watch a Udemy course. Interesting. Okay. One final Twitter. Yeah, I think social media is fantastic for professional development. But I just caution you to do what I say is weed your garden. Right. So make sure that you're choosy on who you follow. Um, emphasis on research based professional developments better. Yeah, like the thing is the LDA. The Learning Development accelerator will fall Heimer and Matthew Richter kind of co founder, and I think Clark winds involved in that's a great place to go to lunch focused on shortcuts to proficiency. I'm just gonna laugh and put this on the screen and not say anything else. If you're listening to the podcast, I guess that doesn't translate. Well. It says unaccredited academies promising six figure salaries for new IDs. Yep. All right. Yep. Some of the online conferences recorded sessions and months afterwards. Yeah. And then there was another one too that I went to that they would show different sessions, but then they would unlock them at weird hours. Like I believe there was one that unlocked at like 1am or something in eastern time was what what is going on? Um, claims that someone can improve the spill skills, but they need to spend the bucks to purchase the software. Okay. So much valuable for three YouTube or Right. Yep, there are amazing people out there that, oh, I kind of want to say the word but I'm not going to know their stuff. I can help out. People think they're writers and we're applying grammerly. Alright, excellent. Okay, so let's go ahead and go to the vote. Can you show Hey, good to see you. And thank you. I'm glad glad that you like it. Just trying something different today. I've never used this aha slides. But I'm kind of liking it, too. All right, so go ahead and vote, then we'll see the results. And then we will close. Close this out a little bit early on a Friday. Give me some time back on your day. Unless there's anything else you all want to talk about. All right, I will stop the voting in 321. All right. Okay, let's see. All right. So the first one here is the working on different projects as a former professional development. Yeah. Now I will say, Yeah, professional development. I think the the key word here, one thing that I really credit a lot of the my career trajectory to is the fact that I took on stretch assignments, because I wasn't getting the challenges I needed in my full time role. I think that that's that can be helpful. But to the point of whoever wrote this, I think you need some guidance, guidance on that TLD C being good. And then you can have a question that you can't locate the answer to and there's people that will help you. So those were our top ones. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you all. I agree. I think Tom's online conference is amazing as well. So I will go ahead and stop sharing. Okay, so thank you, again, for being part of this 2022 state of l&d, facilitated by me some of my opinions were in there, but also wanted to highlight the opinions and work of the CLDC community. If you found today valuable, please consider signing up as a member or joining our Slack community, we'd love to have you feel free to also share your insights about this. I think there will be access to a recording if you did sign up, I know that this event got full which shocked me. So thank you all I'm humbled that so many of you would want to come hang out with me on a Friday, but I think that this will be posted on the YouTube afterwards. So it can be kind of to share that with people if you found value in it. Check out I'll have slides if you want to try something new again. Me and Paul everywhere we we broke up but I'm like in my new boo here have AHA slides. So feel free to check that out. And I am Cara North again. It's been a pleasure to spend some time with you today. Go tell someone that you love them and have a fantastic weekend. Thank you all see ya. Bye

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