The show both of you thank you thanks for having us Taran yeah yeah this is a good one to dive into so uh so let's go ahead and just get it set up first with um with the the uh the whole event in it in itself and Matt I know you've been to a few of these in the past um what was this year's like I mean it's big year with Matt you uh Matt Matthew mccon there and uh and of course all the AI buzz what was this year like Matt yeah I think it was uh I think about it was.
Like like most conferences lots of energy right but I think that the scale of the energy the scale of the Expo floor the volume of offerings and the amount of people that came out was really there so a definitely what was really awesome is I ended up and I think everyone C comes there for inspiration Insight you know and kind of getting energy from peers and everyone was there to to get that and give that and it was a I was really impressed with the scale at which this has really gotten to and.
It was really inspiring for I think those of us in learning development to see so many of us out there looking for those things and giving out those things like inside inspiration Etc so I thought it was a really awesome event and uh yeah it's just great to see so many people um you know out there in the star power of mccon and Venus Williams and Daniel pink was and they did a really well I think for a Learning and Development standpoint too one thing is in those talks they did it in a way that really humanized those Stars yeah so even the way that they.
Were interviewed I think was a great symbol of learning development which is where we really do try to make sure that we keep make sure that everyone is humanized in this world of work as it relates to learning and you know the conference itself kind of did that with their the stars of their Keynotes that's that's a great Point like bringing the humanity into into Learning and Development at this moment that we're so focused on on AI Mick I know you I heard you talking about the the uh the.
For Matthew mccon walking and walking and walking and walking to try to get to the end of the line to get in the room you're walking the entirety of the event and it was outside right every single person there was super excited to see Matthew mccon which was cool you know and um and and you know days and confused and there's a there's a I think for those of us that were around when that film came around you know it's like oh we've seen Matthew MCC kind of grow up or whatever I into and if anybody I just finished reading green lights um the other day his book and um yeah it.
Was a fantastic event and and I agree with Matt about the the humanizing and personalizing um aspect of the messages that came from those Keynotes kind of each one of the days um Daniel pink in particular I I think his message or message really resonated um more you know Matthew's messages I think were a lot more kind of about who we are as as people and kind of how do we um you know take ourselves a little less seriously um and and be willing to take risks a little bit more he's um done a really good dra job of kind of uh uh telling.
Stories about the some of the missteps and the mistakes that have led to these huge breakthroughs such as the role in da and Confused the all right all right all right line was unscripted his very first acting gig ever right is the one that like everybody you know knows him for um but it was fantastic you know of of the the slogan I think was reignite your your soul um and New Orleans is such a fantastic place to do that and the the scale and the volume the energy the passion um people just walking around tons of smiles on faces people.
Being very eager to to meet strangers sit at tables have lunches together you know you have these huge scale 10,000 people eating lunch within a 90minut period of time right you know you're gonna sit and meet some strangers and it was really awesome that's great yeah I had this sense that uh we had a guest on recently who said that the the whole the whole landscape of the Learning and Development training industry is like a uh half a trillion dollars or something and it didn't sound like people were scaling back the expense of of showing.
Up with big booths and and uh and attracting talent I I attracting people to your booth uh I did hear some regrets from our booth because a competitor had an espresso machine that was just bringing people in much easier but uh but we had a bunch of people sto next time yeah right um do have any good conversations at the booth what sort of things did people what kind of things that people who showed up at our booth our learnet booth uh what did they want.
Posts Related:
- Wise Owl Answers - How do I unzip files using VBA
- BASICS OF ANIMATIONS IN POWERPOINT - Text Animations - Part 1 Office
- How to Create an ID Card in Word Microsoft Word Tutorials Word
To talk about what was on their mind what were some of the conversations that you had on the floor of the ATD
Conference and let's go to Mickey first and then Matt yeah I um you know I was in kind of an interesting position because I was there as a presenter as well as you know kind of with with the rest of the learnet team but wasn't there necessarily to to work the booth so to speak but um but what was cool was being able to um be there as kind of one of the faces of learn it of you know hey when when you do workshops with us.There's a pretty good chance that you're going to have one with me and it makes such a big difference and and the the message from people was like oh my gosh like it's so cool to actually meet somebody in person who's going to be doing some of this stuff for our organization and like real life human beings kind of getting a feel for the personality and um I think a lot of the conversations when I uh was was at the booth and kind of visiting with folks was this need to have some personal connection and and um you know going back to the basics of building trust.
Feeling psychologically safe with with a with a trainer with a company with an offering getting a sense for who this organization is and not just we're a storefront with a bunch of bells and whistles and like buy into our stuff and everything's going to be fantastic and this is a group of people who's G to really take care of you and people really seem to to like that message um I think too we're a pretty fun crew and there so there was a lot of fun to be had we had a wheel that people were spinning to like win prizes people were super excited about all the different uh packages people were getting some of you know Damon's books or CEO and and you.
Know hats and um full year pass to our classes and stuff and so there's a lot of excitement there but um I think the learning about the wide a range a wide range of offerings that we have and the expertise that we have in the in the house in terms of all of us as facilitators was very invigorating to people but I think yeah meeting meeting face to face there's just something about when you can actually meet another human who's going to not just the person who is there kind of helping to operationalize the process.
For you but actually kind of meeting the humans who you're going to be working with it makes such a big difference to people that that seemed to be a big message for me yeah yeah that how about you what what sort of what did you notice from having conversations with people on the floor at theyd what's uh what's the vibe what are people talking about yeah I mean I think uh I mean like Mickey e like e that was like really just good energy the Curiosity of the folks around the floor so everyone's just kind of going through and.
Cataloging what are all the different options there's actually a lot of of people talking about how the Expo floor itself was so big yet they wanted to kind of see as much as they could um but it was just a lot of good conversations about what they were curious about kind of what they're exploring we talked a lot I talked to a lot of people about just what they do around learning what are some of the current projects they're working on or looking to launch Etc and.
That was a lot of the things that they're looking ahead and then therefore also trying to get ideas so a lot of it was just peer-to-peer sharing of oh yeah maybe it wasn't even just what learn it does but it might have been what other or some of our customers have done to kind of in those same spaces so um but there's definitely like what I thought was the reason why the Expo floor I think is there for a lot of folks is that they know that they can't do it all and that they have to kind of understand what are some patterns and things that.
They see through a vendor's eyes point of view but also what are vendors out there that could kind of do and help them take action on some programs when there's just a lot coming at them there were a number if I could just add on to that too there were a number of folks that I talked to that um you know as Matt said are on the Expo floor looking for Solutions right have a pretty good idea of kind of what is my problem or what is my challenge or what is the gap and are there kind of their lens through.
Which they're viewing things is how do I find somebody to help me solve this problem um and I think that is such a a a a comfortable conversation for all of us at learnet to have is kind of this idea of like real world practical let's solve problems um you know and do this as as in a partnership together um and so there were a number of folks that that I talked to that you know are just standing up you know maybe a smaller or midsize company just kind of just standing up in L &d strategy you know I.
Maybe or they're a department of one you know a Department of three people and
That recognition is you know we need to do more we want to do more but we need a partner in doing that um and and that was kind of one of those theme conversations of like you know we want to be able to kind of have this uh partnership relationship and people were kind of searching for that as they were going through the Expo too which was which was a great place that's very much kind of I think a lock and key sort of place for us as learn it sure so let's.Get into AI a little bit if I was a learning profession and I mean you know already last year and probably even you know even before that AI started to really make a big splash but I think this year was it really dominated a lot of the conversations I have to imagine that people were were having and of course a lot of the businesses on the Expo floor they're just really focused on AI so if I I would feel like if I didn't if I didn't show up it's like things are happening so fast like like stuff is.
Changing very quickly with the introduction of AI in some different ways um what should I like how concerned should I be you know do I am I still G to have a job in three months um is is everything just going to be replaced with AI avatars like like what what what's the story what's the AI story here Matt um give us your your hot take sure my hot take well step back is there was yeah probably a flood of like I.
Think 70% of the talks seem to be a I related uh if not all of them touched on it at some point so it's definitely here right but there was also a lot of people the speakers do a great job of polling right they should be good at facilitating so they're polling the room to kind of take a temperature on where people were and the where people are as far as from AI as far as like I'm G to keep my head in the sand for as long as possible and I want to stay away from it to I'm using I want to use it I use it every day uh it does everything for me.
Right you still saw a brush of like everyone was represented right so I think first and foremost you kind of go okay whoa we're all in this and we're all thinking about it all there there is more and this a lot of speakers spoke to that it is moving more and more to the right like more and more people are using this in and and finding ways to get creative about it and so I think if anything that I think the thing with the AI is no matter where you're at it's just like keep leaning into that and.
Then the message the kind of quote that was is leveraged was um you know is AI going to replace you AI is not going to replace you however the person using AI is the person that's going to replace you so that was kind of like the kick for most of us to kind of think about what did our relationship need to be with AI what does that mean exactly so AI is not going to replace you but AI is going to replace the person using you so those using AI are the.
People that are going to replace the people that aren't using AI so this is a technology set that we all need to be conversent leveraging and comfortable using yeah yeah um because the of what it can bring us like all technology has always helped basically make us more efficient and you know improved you know right if you're not using AI you that's how you're GNA going to fall out but then the question is how should you use.
AI I noticed for myself that um you know I just got got uh finished up working on a delegation class and I used AI a lot but really in a supporting role it almost I have to say for me it almost didn't make things faster for me it just made everything a lot better it's like now it's like oh I can do this I can do this I can do this so I'm gonna do it and it ends up taking me a lot of time but I feel like I have a much better product at the end um is that is that the kind of like how are you hearing about people using AI.
Maybe to design and develop programs or to deliver programs um yeah Mickey what are what are some of the things that that you are hearing this way yeah I mean I think there's you really hit the nail on the head with that of I think that there's there's a grouping of people that look at Ai and they say this is g to replace everything there's a grouping of people that look at things and say this is going to reduce time or reduce effort and then I think there's another group and this is kind of what you just said which is kind of the enrichment or the depth or the quality.
Um of kind of how how we do what we do right and so that's I think the the categories of how how a lot of people are looking at AI I mean there's and and that too goes on that same kind of risk and use Spectrum I think that Matt was talking about is like all the way from I talked to people that they said the you know these websites you know open Ai and stuff like that are like blacklisted by my organization so I can't even use it at work even if I wanted to all the way to people that are 110% all in right um.
And and so I think there's I think like any new technology we're in an infancy stage of exploration and um curiosity and can it do this can it do that and and think about it I mean we were in these same stages 20 to 30 years ago with like you know web-based you know internet stuff right of like oh look at all this fancy cloud-based software like whoa this is amazing I don't have to have something downloaded on my computer right like this is amazing stuff and and and this.
Is the cycle but this is this is a huge cycle instead of taking one step on the staircase we're taking like five steps at once and so some people feel naturally um averse to that you know kind of that risk aversion um but I do hear a lot more and and I think naturally because of being in the Learning and Development field I hear a lot more of kind of what you're saying Darren which is this is cool and wow did I go on a path of exploration that I wasn't expecting but now all of a sudden I have this massive amount of.
Information available to me way faster than even as as fast as a Google search is or something that I now have a lot more for me to pick and choose from and to think about and kind of mull over in terms of what do I want to do and be able to to support people with learning efforts as opposed to just what I know to search and where do I know to go to look for resources or whatever that is um and so I think there's this like richness and this quality piece too that's part of the conversation with AI rather than just this takes this used to.
Take me four hours now it takes me one hour like there is definitely that and that's amazing but there's also this quality and depth piece that's pretty awesome too yeah Matt you have conversations with uh our customers day in day out these are uh maybe business unit leaders or L&D professionals or looking to want to partner with somebody for training um what uh and I and I know they're coming to you with questions or concerns or hopes when it comes to AI uh what are you gonna what are you gonna tell them now after this conference like what's.
What's new on the plate for you to be talking about uh as as somebody who's an expert in this field you know and been part of this conversation when it comes to AI sure I think the one of the maximums that are shared also that I think is a useful way is thinking about AI as your intern so having this intern responsibilities and so what I like about that is one it reminds us that this could be a tool to do more right ter Dar similar to what you shared right I was able to I maybe didn't save time.
But I was able to uplevel the product that I did by using it right I think that's what we use interns to help us right like kind of get to the next reaches or those levels that we're like oh I if I if I had all the time I would do all I would do this also right so it does help us kind of reach that that point and I think but also with the intern you have to you have to like inspect what you expect right so there is this level of.
So like for sure right there are other aspects that come up with AI that can be scary and H create pose real risk right so we still need to be the center of this and kind of looking back and reflecting and really most organizations who have been talking about it right are all setting up how are we going to do this what is our governance around these what are our philosophies around this values Etc and that's a really important exercise to kind of go through um I think there's.
Still a lot of people I know people are still taking action without those in place because it's just here but if anything I think that AI as an intern helps basically both sides of it right for the practitioner and for the business to understand like hey we we need these folks or we need this technology to help us kind of go to those kind levels yeah and so uh treating AI like an intern and I I think another one I had heard before is inspect what you expect is that what you.
Said right yeah right like you you're still you know it's not like here and it goes out there right I have noticed that yeah it doesn't always produce exactly what you need yeah and the prop made to me be different at multiple ways and we would I uh talked to a couple folks that we do the same prompt with different solutions and they it was a really that was kind of like okay I'll use one prompt and I'll use it across these different things because there are a lot.
Of solutions out there that kind of keep coming up to the surface and she commented that she's like it was just bizarre how different yeah they all were yeah but they all got her excited about what the possibilities were um on this on this AI track and we we'll move to some of the other topics in a few moments here but did you uh hear anything or see anything AI related that really surprised you something you hadn't seen or heard before I watched the chat GPT you know 4.0 demo and I was.
Pretty Blown Away by how humanlike the interaction could be but um yeah in terms of like the classes or maybe on the expo Expo floor do you see anything kind of like new and uh new and interesting let's go to Mickey first if any if you saw anything and Matt if you have anything else too yeah I mean I think um you know it's it's interesting that you said that about like the humanlike nature I think those those were the things that really interested me and I I come from a background in of.
Higher education and psychology and stuff so I'm always looking for that like human connection piece but I I love idea of people and organizations and I saw this in several of the different uh booths and and organizations out there of using AI as you know whether you want to kind of think of it as a bot as a cooworker I love this idea of the intern um but having it be it's a it's another program it's another window that we have open that we can kind of bounce ideas off of and like I and I saw a number of.
Different companies essentially having something like that asking quick questions in the same way that and especially I think for for us of all kind of working remotely and distributed in the same way that maybe you would kind of like run down to somebody's office and be like hey I have a quick question for you what do you think about right but using AI in that sort of sense and kind of there's there's a number of different organizations that have different um you know the the the the outward appearance of it looks a little bit different from company to company but that's essentially kind of the ards of it is using AI as a backboard if you.
Think about it like a basketball hoop right kind of using it a backboard for you to bounce ideas off of um and that even changed my methodology of kind of thinking about things of I usually or or up until the conference would go to some of these AI you know services that I'm using with a very specific project or a task or something and now I find I'm just kind of keeping a window open and as I'm curious about something I just put a question in there to kind of again use that kind of backboard idea and so I saw that in a number of different companies and you know not not.
Necessarily surprising or or unique but um a different way of thinking a different way of operating in the same way that maybe um you know I I might keep a search bar window open now I'm gonna keep an AI chat window open kind of use that as a way to kind of bounce ideas off yeah I like that to treat it like a backboard and just bounce ideas off this is how you sort of develop your friendship with AI right right right I'm I'm Gonna Keep a little window open and backboard so what's your favorite thing about me AI just for those days I need a.
Little pick me up I'm gonna train my AI to be Darren yeah the voice of Darren the voice of Darren I think you should go for the voice of Matthew mccon of course they did get in trouble with Scarlet Johansson's voice right right indeed yeah so I think I think Matthew mcc's voice would be dead giveaway um yeah Matt how about how about for you see anything uh that little new revelatory surprising where do you think uh the industry is going to go yeah I mean it's always tricky to think about what might be new to folks but I think one lens that again I think helped folks.
Go through is one of the talks was done where they introduced the they talked up to the ad model which is a popular instructional design model and they shared ways that here's tools that we use in that model here's prompts that we've done in that model that we've just experimented in those areas and they did a really nice job of kind of breaking that down and so I think for like larger teams that could be effective way to to work through the conversation as a group and organization to think about okay in the analyze phase okay how do we do that.
Now if we were thinking that intern well if we had an intern what would the in what could we ask an intern to go do to even do it enrich that Pro part of that process for us all the way down to e which is evaluation mode right um what are the prompts that they shared um and we talk about this a lot internal learn it right we gather a lot of data and we have a lot of these touch points with individuals right how can we kind of distill and share that back and we found really good ways to do that with our.
Programs where we've used AI to summarize and kind of do that and kind of share back those business outcomes that we're helping to achieve through our learning programs um but one of the prompts that was shared a simple prompt that they did share was like they're like hey from this miror board um Point can you give us some of the top five learning objectives that you would recommend in in a followup right so th those are kind of like maybe again they feel like they could be that's a very simplified example but I think if you're.
