Writing for Instructional Design - Shop Floor Training with Kim Lindsey

Luis Malbas  
Welcome to the training, learning and development community. Happy Friday to all of you. Thanks for joining us today. Well, our guest today is Kim Lindsay. She's a senior Learning Experience Designer over at our friends at Cinna. Craft. And we're talking about writing for instructional design, specifically shop floor training. And this one came up, I think it was maybe last week when we were having a TLD cast. And Kim had started sort of posting about this in chat and Joe Cook, who's in the audience now was, was enthusiastically recommending that we have this conversation to talk about it. And it's good to, you know, we've been doing a lot of stuff about more kind of career focused topics on TLC. So it's great to get back to something that is a little bit more focused on, on instructional design, you know, practice shunning and that type of thing. So, so, Kim, thanks. Thanks for joining us today. And yeah, let's get started. You have some slides.

Kim Lindsey  
I do have some slides. Yes. So

Luis Malbas  
yeah, if you could bring those up. And I want to mention everybody, okay. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see there's an ask a question area. If you have any questions at all, feel free to add them to the Ask a Question area. We'll go over, go over those questions during the during the the session. So please feel free to add though, I added a few myself. And so yeah, I'll let you take it away, Kim.

Kim Lindsey  
Okay, well, thanks. And thanks, everybody, for being here. As you those of you who know me know, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, I come from a blue collar background. And my dad was a machinist. And then I spent my only degrees in zoology. And from there, I, I went into hospital laboratory work, which is, even though you have to have a degree, and it's very important work, but it's essentially a blood test factory. So I did that for 1718 years, I also worked in an actual factory in one of my college jobs. So you know, working that graveyard shift and cranking out widgets. And so I do have actual background. But I do want to say as I put that first thing in the chat, I am an enthusiast not an expert. You know, I don't have formal education. I don't have research to share with you today. This is just, you know, from my experience, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you all and seeing what, what experiences and what questions that you have come up against. So I'm going to launch into the slides. And oh, you know what? I'm not I'm going to stop. Closing, I'm going to stop sharing. Close. How do I stop sharing? Okay, stop sharing, it's a button stop share. Because I need to I need to actually have because I have animations. So um, all right. Now let's see if this will work better. I apologize. All right. Now I can use my lovely animations. So here, here we go. The first thing is remembering that these are people and they're not robots. And so that we are designing for people, and I, you know, this is kind of one of my soap boxes. So I will I'll move on from that real quick. That they have, they have, you know, lives like we do, and they have preferences and activities just like we do. These are necessary jobs. And this is something that sometimes I especially during the pandemic I thought about, you know, who can we not do without, I can't do without the guy who drives the garbage truck. He's that guy. I know women do that work too. But in from my neighborhood, it's a man. People who do construction work, people who do work in the utilities. So these are these are very necessary jobs. And this is a statistic that I found. This is the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it's a little old, but from 2017, five years ago, but seven they estimate that more than 70% of workers cannot work remotely. So more than 70% of people are not sitting in front of a computer, in an office or at a desk at home or in a coffee shop. More than 70% of people cannot and even if it's different because of the pandemic It's still probably more than half. So if we're not creating training for these workers at their jobs, we're missing a huge, huge audience. It also, I mean, it depends on what businesses want to you know, where they want to allocate their training efforts and money. I can tell you, when I worked in the laboratory, what my training was, when we got a new a new machine, you know, chemistry or blood count analyzer, your training was, okay, here, read the quickstart guide. Here, I'm going to show I'm the supervisor, I'm going to show you I'm going to run a few samples through, okay, here's a rack of samples, you run them through, I'm watching you, let's check your results. Okay, good sign here, you're trained. And if something goes wrong, it's on you. And that was, that was our training. And it was appropriate, it was very, very practical, and you got what you needed to know. And then you picked up the rest along the way, as far as maintaining the machine, and you already had your science background to rely on. But I mean, the training needs for people in line work, I would call it are different, but they still exist.

We got to think about the environment that they work in, that it might be noisy, there might be a lot of distractions. Now, it might not be a clean environment. Now, some factories are very, very clean. I mean, they polish their floors. It's amazing, you know, and all of the six sigma and the lean manufacturing and the the standards that they have today is wonderful. But we have to remember the actual environment that the person works in, not just where they're taking their training. So if they go off to a class, they go off to a kiosk to do computer based training. That's not their actual work environment. So if we're talking about their work tasks, then we need to keep that in mind as far as what will resonate with them, and what their real world is. Like, oh, my goodness, here's from from Joe, from a tweet today taught skills related to subjects for military personnel. You'd be hard pushed, explanation, demonstration, imitation in practice, that is wonderful. And, you know, isn't that how we do our courses? Ideally, I mean, so we give, we give some background information. Or we can do the Kathy Moore thing and throw them in at the deep end to prove their need. That's more more likely, maybe in soft skills, and maybe less in work in blue collar work. I don't know, what do you think Luis?

Luis Malbas  
Well, I wanted to say I, the example that I would have is a personal sort of experience, I worked for an insulated glass company for like eight years, you know, back when I was in college. And so, you know, my experience working inside the office in the inside sales environment where everything was air conditioned, and, and you know, and any training that happened in there was just was really simple and easy. And, you know, within a much like, I don't know, a softer environment than going out into the shop, where you constantly hear the sound of broken glass. And you know, and there are huge pieces of, you know, like million dollar pieces of equipment that are, you know, churning out like, glass shapes and fabricating windows, and just the sound is so loud. But I used to actually have to write the training for before I know even when that instructional design existed, I would have to write the training for a lot of these guys out there on working some of these this machinery. And yeah, the environment was completely different than if I were actually inside the office and had to teach somebody how to use Windows 98 or Windows XP, you know, which I also did that too. So yeah, it's very, very, very different. It's very relevant as far as the environment is concerned.

Kim Lindsey  
Yeah, yeah. Very true. Louise, please break in anytime. I you know, I don't have it like, I don't have a talk. I'm just I'm just shooting from the hip here.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. No, I love it. Love it.

Kim Lindsey  
The the language and the jargon for a technical job has to be right. Or they won't trust you. They they won't trust you. And and that's going to differ for every company and maybe you know different plants in the same parent organization different plants will have you just never tell course there might be official language that needs to be used. But boy, oh, Hello, fellow. We've got some new people here. This so nice that that, that jargon, and being able to write in the terms that the workers need. That's really important. And I, I'm not sure, but what subject matter experts, they might think a little differently. And so you might have to do a little massaging, and a little explaining, to get your, your subject matter experts to understand how the workers need to be addressed. And I Please understand, I don't mean any of these terms in the pejorative manner. I'm just as, as a convenience using these terms, everybody's a worker, and it's just a convenience. And, and this is, this is, it's a little dangerous to have Kim shooting from the hip.

Luis Malbas  
No, no, totally. And I can, I can sort of back that up with, like, when I you know, like, Bridget, saying, getting the terminology is so important to building trust with learners. And in the environment that I worked in, you know, I would say that 90% of the, the workers on the floor were Hispanic, right, and so they all spoke Spanish and, and so when I would create training, I would have to, you know, bring somebody in and just help with with translation and to work on that. And also, the way that they wanted to be able to train one another was probably different than, you know, then how I would want to do it, but they had kind of, there was a culture there, that was a little different. And it was also because the materials we're working on, were dangerous, if you did not know how to work with glass, carry glass correctly, do things like that you it could potentially be fatal. So, so they were really, really particular about how to train each other. And I needed to be able to grasp that to properly you know, make the training stick and something that they would use over and over which we just just kept it in, like these big black binders.

Kim Lindsey  
That, that is excellent. And what a what a fabulous resource they had in having you who could do the bilingual training. I mean, I hope they, I hope they recognize that. So it's it is it's being and then you mentioned culture, and culture, I have another point about culture, a few a couple of I think on the next slide, but culture is so important. And if you do have different cultures, especially shift workers, sometimes, you know, day shift, we'll have a certain culture and then afternoon shift, and then night, graveyard shift night shift, there will be a difference in culture, that sometimes there's even a pecking order amongst people and, you know, training, probably, this, this is something that we can help people see themselves as more of a cohesive team and not have that inner shift. rivalry, although that you know, that human nature is what it is. And I very much agree with Laura, with what you've said, this all impacts cognitive load. You, we don't want to have any unnecessary stuff in in training where it is. It's just funny, because I think so often we think that that people who, maybe they're less intelligent, that no, it's maybe it's just what they enjoy doing. Maybe it's what opportunities that they have had other circumstances in their life, maybe it's a phase of their life. And I know that like looking back on the jobs that I have had. I mean, I'm sure you probably agree, Luis, that the things that we've done before they inform our training and what we do now by by being able to put ourselves in those shoes. Right, right narrative murals first principle theory. I have no idea what that is.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, we'll have to look that up. Thanks for that. Laura. Let's I'm gonna go. I'm gonna copy copy that one and have that one to look at later. No, it's true. Because I used to create I also used to manage a video store totally dating myself, but, you know, manage a video store, I had to create the training for that. So that's very different than, you know, like doing a video store, right? High schoolers and college kids that I was working with checking videos in and out versus you know, working in a warehouse with these, you know, huge pieces of glass that we had to had to had to fabricate. So yeah, definitely.

Kim Lindsey  
And when we're saying shop floor, that doesn't necessarily mean just in a warehouse or a manufacturing plant. This could be like any kind of blue collar manual labor setting. It's, it's, it applies Way, way farther than that. So let's see, I did want to say that we need blood many times you need to include everything, and you can't assume. Hi, Lisa, good to see you. And that's, that's something that it might have legal implications. As far as what needs to be included, I mean, I've just done done some specialty safety type training, where it's like, because if somebody can say you didn't train me, then there, there are things that they're not responsible for. So of course, we we had somebody at one of my jobs that even though you train the person, they would say, oh, no, the know that. And it's like, Oh, my goodness, but you always get those kinds of people in every field. So not being not assuming necessarily, that the person either knows something, or can connect one thing with another, to make things very clear. But yet, you don't want to talk down to people, because they'll sense that just the same as you would. My next point lips, to be curious about the workers world, and to see through their eyes, meaning if you have the opportunity, like Luis did, to actually go out into the plant or out into the warehouse floor, or into a different area. What a resource that is, because you can see it yourself. If your consultant like me, I'm going more by what I imagined or what I can remember. You got anything on that? And Luis? Yeah, you

Luis Malbas  
know, I'm curious about your how you relate to this, because you're right, you know, I was right there in the shop, I could just go out. And basically, it was sort of, you know, when I'd have to do like a task analysis type of thing, right? I could sit there and I could, I could hang out for you know, an entire day, just watching somebody, like seal a window, and make sure that I have every single step documented, so that you know, then I can transfer it into into a written document. But in your case, like, you know, what's that process, like when you have to when you have to assign yourself this task of like, you know, seeing through their eyes? What, whoa, tell me how you work through that.

Kim Lindsey  
And, of course, I'm speaking as an enthusiast and not an expert. And I can only speak for me. But I do draw on my background, as far as because by the time I graduated from college, I'd had like 20 jobs, you know, all different kinds of stuff. And so I remember my own experience, and I'm sorry. And then also I am if if the client has the documents they give us if they come from, like their technical writers, there that the people at their people at the company, and they have been, you know, doing exactly what you said, Luis, and so I am counting on them. I'm also counting on my imagination. I had one course that was about it was related to the mining industry. And I went out on YouTube, and you know, these minds, they have like, like, let me take you on a truck and tour you through our mind and you're watching the people do the work and you know, in their actual because they're, they're proud of their work as they should be every worker should be proud of their work and kind of making a contribution to civilization as a whole. And so you might be able to find something like that. But it's I think the key is not assuming that you're stakeholders on the learning project, whether they're an l&d department, or even line of business people, even the person's first their manager, that person that they report to, is not necessarily going to see it the same as, as the worker themself. So it does require, you know, that empathy and a little bit of imagination, and then all you can do is do your best.

Luis Malbas  
So how often do you work? Like, if you are doing shopfloor training, do you ever work with SMEs yourself?

Kim Lindsey  
Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, not face to face, it's always you know, over the phone or zoom or something like that. I think a couple of times, if it's local, but I don't really travel to and our customers are all over the place. Our video people do go to the sites and sometimes they can bring back you know, good information, but that's after the project. Usually I'm done with it. So

Luis Malbas  
right. And so tell me just can you describe a little bit of what your interaction is like when your work King with an SME, that isn't a job that is like, you know, somebody that is where you're creating, you know, like warehouse or shop floor training.

Kim Lindsey  
Which I have a an example that I can share with you. I'm it's not always important to know, you know things like, you know how far the machines from each other what's the decibel level? Or? It's, I'm more thinking about motivation? And and what do they really need to know, in order to do the job. And as opposed to what's nice to know, which is what subject matter experts, they always want, you know, all this extraneous stuff that is going to be as, as someone said, Here, more cognitive load, and that learner won't know anything, I find that the thing that comes up the most often is having to educate my subject matter experts about cognitive load. And you know, what, what can you expect the learner to walk away with. And that's true, whether it's elearning, or if it's instructor led training, I have come across times where the this I can I say this. Sometimes when a person is doing instructor led training, and this is true with soft skills, or even if you've been been in like a workshop or something like that, and the person who is leading it knows that material so well, that they think they've said things that they actually haven't set. And they're counting on people to have read their slides, or they're counting on people to make a leap between points. Maybe they're giving too much detail on one thing to really emphasize it, but then they're skipping other things that are maybe more critical to the worker. And I had, I just forgot, I just thought of another really good point. Oh, well not meant to say that. It was actually from an ATD meeting, something that came up and now I'm forgetting it. But it's it is it is putting things together and reading between the lines as you're formulating good questions, because you don't want your subject matter expert to, you know, you don't want to put them off, or them think that their contribution is not important that you need to collaborate. And sometimes that involves a little education.

Luis Malbas  
It's true. And you know, I think Danny has a great point here. Danny's saying context, culture and empathy matter when workers are being trained on site, they need to feel understood and respected. It's on the trainers to recognize that and to build trust. And I know that for myself, even when, when I was creating training for these folks, like the people that I would, of course, like have review, what I would come up with, were the people that were actually doing the training in, you know, in the, on the floor. And you know, and so I would have to, I would, I definitely felt like empathy was incredibly important, like being able to understand their role, how they relate to the other workers that are coming in, and just even where this training is going to be applied during, you know, their their daily work, because, you know, these guys have so much to do on any given day. And actually training is one of the last things that they really want to deal with. And so, so yeah, it's that empathy piece, I think is really important that that's speaks to this slide appropriately.

Kim Lindsey  
I think that Oh, definitely. You're you are spot on. And we even do that on a notch assessment, center craft, but everybody in our field, we need to do that kind of thing on every project when we're dealing with just subject matter experts and asking them to review our drafts of things or our alphas of our courses, because that's not their main job. And so we're just applying that same principle to getting our source information from the subject matter experts. One thing I did want to say and this is back from my hospital days, I worked in several hospitals or three hospitals. And this was basically true at all of them. And I have been out of that field for over 20 years. So that I need to say that my knowledge is not current. And things might be different now, but it was very consistent. We who worked in a more production oriented department, we would look at The people who took the leadership and communication skills classes, and the people who led that training, we would think, well, somebody has to teach these people how to be a nice person. And they're going to a communications skills class so that they can learn how to manipulate us. And so if you are out there, from a learning and development department, interacting with people in the, on a shop floor, or warehouse or some kind of an environment like that, just something to keep back in the back of your mind, that they might have a negative connotation of you that that you don't even know of, and you don't deserve. But it it's important to, to build that trust, as we've been talking about trust with the with the end learner, but also trust with the people who are giving you the information or you know, it, it's just, it's a different thing. And I, I can say that I haven't, I have no idea. If that is true in business, it has not come up in any Synod craft project, or when I was a technical writer, but it was definitely true when I worked in healthcare, that type of work,

Luis Malbas  
right. I mean, you know, and I hate to say it, and I this has been, you know, mentioned like tons before with through in other casts, but just like when you're trying to relate with other departments, you know, it or whatever, you know, bring doughnuts or a big bag of m&ms, or something like that, because I know, that's, that's what I would have to do before I get circus. Some of these, some of these guys that I would work with were not exactly like, you know, the nicest people in the world, like a few of them were kind of alpha and, and so I'd have to be able to get on their good side to get to get like some decent task analysis done. But yeah, yeah,

Kim Lindsey  
yeah, that's true. When I was a tech writer, I mean, you always wanted to give people the IT department, you give them food. And also, I found that if there was a way that I could present, you know, what I was trying to do in a way that it would make them think that it would make them look good. In the end, you know, that this will make you look good. Then that was that was also helpful and getting information and I wouldn't do anything that wasn't truthful. So, you know, I have my integrity. But so to me, it's kind of not manipulating. It's just presenting something in the best light that you can. Sure. So and I do I think that humanizing or reflecting you know, that's also that's a very good way to put it. Although we people are already humans, but we're remembering that they're humans. And, yeah, that's good. This is a point that I wanted to bring up, you know, it's the technique dependent tasks that lead to a sense of mastery and job fulfillment. It is true in our field, you know, I mean, whether you're working in the authoring tools, or whether you are, are good at writing, you know, like, my role would be or whatever. But this is also true, certainly, in our more blue collar, manual labor type of fields. It's a technique dependent tasks that lead to a sense of mastery and fulfillment for them. So they want to be masters course, sometimes they think they have a little bit more mastery. And then we need to have people unlearn things. But how often do businesses want to eliminate technique dependent tasks? This is, this is something and this is I'm not saying this is something that I've just noticed in the news, probably for 20 or 30 years. And this is not anything of a project that we've done, it's in a craft, but you do you see that we want, we want to dumb it down. We want to make it idiot proof. And that language lets me know that whoever is saying it thinks of that worker as potentially an idiot. Right. And that is not a message that we would ever want to send. I don't know it's just this I'm this. This is a little bit of Kim's soapbox, and I'm a little controversial here. And emphasize not sin a craft. I've seen this for decades, you know in the in the news. But what we are teaching people is their technique dependent tasks, and something that will lead them to Job fulfillment. So I think that's another motivator for us. So I'm going to move off of this because it's

Luis Malbas  
you know, and it's so important because when it comes down to it, you know, when you're on the floor and you're working, you just want to be able to pretty much get through your day and and go home and live your life right? I mean, it's not and so you If you want to have mastery over things, and if you're trying to, you know, train a new employee or onboarding somebody, you know, if you have the right materials to help them succeed, it's just gonna make, you know, the, you know, the trainer's job that much easier. And so of course, you want to be able to hand over something that will help them all succeed. And yeah, so I totally, I like this slide.

Kim Lindsey  
Yeah, I, it's something to at least keep in the back of our mind. Because the thing is, is that these are the kinds of tasks that companies also want to automate. And workers know that there, they might be replaced by a robot. And it's, it just helps us to understand how to interact, how to empathize, and what tone to take, so that we're not condescending, we're respecting them and saying your work is valuable, just even in our whole approach. All right, let's go to like jobs I would like to do is not equal good jobs. This is a little bit of, you know, I have seen this. In, in just social media, for our field. It's sometimes people, they really only want to train create training for jobs that they themselves would like to do. Because those are the good jobs. And like we said, 60% of the people or more don't work in front of a computer. And I was really, I was really I was at Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house, and she's a school teacher, a high school teacher. And she's telling me about her school and how they're so proud of the the percentage of their graduates that go on to college. And I said, you know, this is somebody I know, in my personal life is not a work colleague at all. And be like, well, there, there are lots of good jobs that that don't require college. And she I'm not even making this up. She looks at me. Oh, yeah, a lot of a lot of kids go into those lesser jobs. I would think and if I was not at your home, and you weren't hosting me, I might have something more to say about that. But I just left it as is. Hat. I'm to me. It seemed arrogant. And I just those are not lesser jobs. Those are necessary jobs. Those are the jobs that still went on during the pandemic, when, when a lot of people were furloughed, or you know, their jobs changed. The people still were in the grocery store. Right? I saw a video last night that you know, Starbucks only closed for four weeks, during COVID. And it Yeah, okay. What we need to remember is diversity, what seems like a good job to you is not necessarily a good job to somebody else, somebody is going to be very proud that they have that job that you really want to do. Well, they have a right to be proud. They're making a contribution to the society. And they're, they're making a living and and providing for themselves and their family. They have a they have a right to be proud. And this is another area of diversity, the same as race, gender, religion, socioeconomic level education level, you know, it's the same thing. different people like different jobs, and we should be happy about that. And I know I'm age also. Yes, yeah, I'm old. But that's something that we can eat, whether or not we actually would say that probably wouldn't happen. We can keep that in the back of our mind as we're designing. And it it does to me, I'm always thinking about this. It's yet another part of empathy. A young black teenage Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I don't know, Louise, do you want to say anything about that? It's kind of I'm just

Luis Malbas  
I'm still I'm stuck on Bridget's comment here where Bridget says part of the joy of being an instructional designer is the power to dignify all types of work. And I think that's that's beautiful. I just took a screenshot of that. And I'll probably share it and then I love. And that's great. Bridgette, because it's true, I think, well, you know, I, I'm sure many of you know, I come from my dad was a farmer and, you know, that used to harvest just vegetables here on the west coast to California and, and you know, and so I would go with him to work sometimes and just watch people, you know, cutting celery from the ground, you know, all day, like five days a week, just like this back breaking work, you know, cutting lettuce or, you know, picking onions doing things like that. And that is that is tough, tough, tough work. But that, you know, they were still like, I mean, they had still had joy, like the way that they would, you know, they would play with me, like at lunchtime, and I would get to run around and do all of that. It was still amazing. And when we'd get together with everybody on the weekends, it was still like, incredible. And so, you know, that that sort of speaks to, you know, when when when you are creating this kind of training, just, you know, keeping Keeping this in mind, you know that, that have some empathy for for the type of work that these people are wanting to succeed in?

Kim Lindsey  
Absolutely. And well, and, Luis, you gotta know that you brought them joy to by being there. So it's not a surprise to me that you would have fun. Yeah, I tell you, sometimes I have such a cognitive overload in my job, which I'm so thankful we're so busy. But I'm thinking, like, going out and pulling weeds all day. That That sounds like a good job to me.

Luis Malbas  
Right now, it's true. It's true.

Kim Lindsey  
Yeah, actually, I was thinking of going with volunteer work. And I'm thinking, well, maybe I can join the handyman ministry. So I can like paint and drive nails. That That sounds like a good thing. Let's see what Joe is sharing. And she worked for Time Warner, she wanted to run training for the broadcast team overnight. Oh, yeah. That's true. And how often those businesses, whether it's, I mean, this had happened in health care, you know, they'll they'll have trouble training third, you know, third shift employees or second shift employees. Because, like, if you, if you put at the end of first shift in the beginning of second shift, you're missing the third shift. And then do they get, you know, and none of that nobody wanted to come in at like, you know, six o'clock in the morning and train that third shift people. And so that that is definitely, definitely a good point. And something else, I mean, if we are creating training that is, you know, live training, how do we, how do we adapt for that? How do we do we need to adapt for a shift audience. So, anyway, yeah.

Luis Malbas  
So, um, Kim, I'm not sure how much you've gotten on slides. But I do have a few questions that I wouldn't mind that are probably, you know, they're definitely related, but sort of a bit of a segue.

Kim Lindsey  
Get, I have only one more slide. And that is that I wanted to remind everybody about my favorite book here, the shift, how seeing people as people, it does change everything. And, you know, really, most of us, it probably already does, but then we can walk that out. As we designed training for workers who have jobs that are different from ours. So and I don't have the link to that. Kimberly white, the shift. It's on Amazon and everyplace else, so I'm sorry, I don't have the link. So but anyway, that was all I had. So let's go to questions. Okay, I got cursor new

Luis Malbas  
questions here. Um, how about the difference between technical writing and writing for instructional design?

Kim Lindsey  
Oh, yeah. Because I've done both, and evidently, so has the least so it's, it's very related, but it's different. You know, of course, technical writing, you're not worried about seat time. You're worried more about, am I getting the steps in order? And is my subject matter giving me the steps in actual order? And you some of you have probably heard me give the example before where I worked at a fortune 500 company, my subject matter expert. She's in Mensa. She's an IT department. She's a brilliant woman. And she gives me she says, okay, all you'll have to do is just, you know, put some formatting on it. It'll be good to go. And I got like, like 40 steps. And at the bottom and big red letters, it says, but first before you do anything else, you need to blah blah, blah. And I'm like, is this a bridal shower? So I just had to go over him very politely and meekly say Would it be okay, if I made that step one? And then she's like, oh, yeah, sure, that's great, you know, but they don't necessarily think of stuff that you know, your technical people, they don't think of it in the way that the worker or the learner or the person who's using the documentation needs it. documentation needs to be more complete, absolutely complete. Whereas for us, if we cover our learning objectives, that's good. But, but something, you know, we would shove a lot of stuff over into a job aid, if it didn't fit into a course. And if it was something that they would have to look up later, will technical writing, they're always going to be looking it up later. They're going to be consuming those software tutorials, you know, or or, you know, a walkthrough, they're going to do it at need, rather than, you know, as a part of getting trained, it'll be might be part of their training. And I'm sure you all have times where things that are in the online help or are part of your ECE that your, your source material, or you're referring people to it. So I don't know, what do you think? Well,

Luis Malbas  
that's fascinating. I think that we could probably have a an individual episode just about this right now.

Kim Lindsey  
And, and actually, we had a an intersections where jen yarborough's, who's also at cynic craft. She's another person who came to center craft from technical writing company that I worked there, but our our tenures didn't overlap. And so we have that, but there's, there's a lot more. And it's, it's good to know how to collaborate. technical writers tend to be more geeky people than we do. And so, learning to interact with them, it's kind of like learning to interact with a subject matter expert, they are subject matter experts to the same as we get to be after we study stuff.

Luis Malbas  
Right? Yeah. And we also did that writing for Instructional Design Series earlier this year that that was really, really good that, that people can go back and review now. So last last question. Just real quick, Kim. When you are writing for instructional design, what kind of tools do you utilize to keep learners engaged?

Kim Lindsey  
Um, well, my role at Cinna craft is that I write and I describe in, in a word of my storyboard, and Microsoft Word, I describe what I'd like the programmers and the artists to do in the animators. But so I'm just coming up with ideas and other people make it real. But it's important for me to know what the tools will do and what examples there are out there to follow which I have trouble keeping up with that, because there's so much and I'm so busy with, you know, loading, cognitive load with the, with the content. But it's, it's important to, you know, if you can have interactivity, and let the learner do it themself. That that is good. I will say that, you know, I did done a course for, you know, for example, for safety in warehouse, where the person is supposed to, like, measure something, okay, well, here's, here's a little, you know, gauge, drag it over to here. And then you're going to need to drag it to several more places, to you know, and then you can move forward and say, Okay, here's your measurements, is this problem or not? Or, you know, you have successfully done this, you need to label this piece of equipment. Here's the label, click and drag it on to the graphic of the equipment, you know, try to make it at least a little bit doing virtually, tasks that person would would do in the field. Yeah, no, no, no. Ideas?

Luis Malbas  
Well, for myself, like when I did it there, actually, you know, because I think we had such a focus on safety that there wasn't, it was almost like, I would, I would say, in some ways, it was like a life or death situation, you need to just take this material really seriously. Otherwise, yeah, like, I mean, I ended up with like, you know, having to get like 20 Something stitches on one hand. I didn't follow instructions. Yeah, I just I was I was trying to be a part of the, you know, of the guys out there. And so I was helping them build some windows and then some glass cracked on me. But

Kim Lindsey  
yeah, you know, that's another point. You brought up a great point, Lisa, is that when you have and we've had this happen, where they will have an expert helping us on a video shoot, and they'll do what they commonly do, but it's not really by the book. So you know, they'll take a few Short Cuts. And so you have to be careful if you're writing or especially if you're getting a video of something, it that person needs to rein it in a little. And they need to do it by the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Luis Malbas  
All right, Jim, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Great way to, to wrap up our Friday. And yeah, and let's let's schedule another one sometime. I'd love to hear from you and anybody else that is out there. In the to DC world, if you have any other instructional design topics you'd like to cover, I was just talking to my wife about this over the weekend. So I think we started doing this in 2017. And so it's been over five years now that we've been doing TLD casts, and I don't even know how many episodes we have. There's some like I think around 800. And it's like, how do you keep coming up with new stuff to talk about, but so you know it but if anyone has any topics or interested in being a guest on CLDC, let me know. I would much appreciate it. And with that, I'm going to close it out. Thanks, everybody. Have a great day. And yeah, we'll see you next week. Okay, bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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