When content generation becomes fast and frictionless, do learning specialists need to be involved at all?
In this episode, Matt sits down with Tim Slade, Speaker, Author and Founder of The eLearning Designer's Academy who discusses the human vs. the automated in instructional design today.
Tim acknowledges that as content generation has become easier and faster, audiences are developing digital media fatigue and how as creators we can aim to overcome this.
Tim emphasizes that 'the human’ exists in ensuring that what we are ‘churning out’ is the right thing to solve the problem - should we make this? Why? What changes if we do? He argues that one part of the work still can't be automated, sound judgment.
The conversation also gets into how most people tend to use AI for practical reasons, and how the online discourse leads audiences to believe they are somehow ‘behind the curve’ in their AI skills. Tim dubs AI a ‘replication tool’ and discusses the issues that arise from getting carried away with the capabilities available to us.
The Instructional Design Handbook by Tim Slade is available for pre-order through May 29th. Pre-orders include a hardcover signed edition with a dust jacket. 10% off when you use TECHSMITH as the coupon code.
Learning points from the episode include:
Important links and mentions:
In a world where you can generate anything
Speaker:in an instant, what becomes more important is that you're generating the
Speaker:right thing to solve the right problems. Otherwise, it's all
Speaker:just noise. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon,
Speaker:wherever you are, wherever you're watching from, welcome to Visual Lounge. Today we're going to
Speaker:be talking about the Instructional Designers Handbook from Tim Slade. We got
Speaker:Tim with us. Today we're going to be talking about, you know, these foundational things
Speaker:that you. You need to know and why you need to know them. And Tim's
Speaker:got so much great advice. He's been a guest on the show many times before.
Speaker:So let's go ahead and dive in with Tim. Tim Slade, welcome to the Visual
Speaker:Lounge. Yeah, thanks for having me, Matt. I'm so happy to be back. You
Speaker:know what? I always enjoy just talking with you. In fact, we had a. We
Speaker:had to stop all of our conversation so we could record this. But. So,
Speaker:Tim, of course you've been on the show before. We're always glad to have you
Speaker:here. But you've got exciting news. A new book that
Speaker:is coming out. So Handbook. Tell
Speaker:us a little bit about the impetus. What is this book that you
Speaker:are getting ready to release? Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I,
Speaker:as I was getting ready to launch the book this past week, and I
Speaker:was trying to figure out how I wanted to market it. I was, I was
Speaker:scripting out my launch video, which I only
Speaker:scripted and filmed like this time last week. And
Speaker:in that video I was talking about my first book, the Elearning Designer's Handbook. And
Speaker:one of the things that dawned on me is the timing in which that book
Speaker:came out, which was in 2020, was the second edition of that book when it
Speaker:came out. And that book is all about elearning design and
Speaker:development. One of the things I realized retrospectively was that book
Speaker:came out at the right time. It was the right message at the right moment.
Speaker:Because at that time, if everyone remembers in 2020, it was the pandemic, everyone was
Speaker:going virtual. Everything was about elearning. And, and that sounds like really
Speaker:intentional on my part. It was not intentional that I released an E learning book
Speaker:during that time. And then I realized in that
Speaker:contrast between where we were in 2020 and where we are now,
Speaker:again, I would love to say that it was intentional, but it's not
Speaker:this book. I feel like we're in another one of these moments in our industry
Speaker:where we need a book that,
Speaker:or a message that kind of can help ground people and,
Speaker:and remind them what the core and
Speaker:the spirit and the soul of what instructional design is about. Because right now, like,
Speaker:AI has muddied the waters in so many different ways. And I
Speaker:think a lot of people are wondering, like, what is instructional design anymore? And what
Speaker:is the role of an instructional designer? And where is the human part of the
Speaker:work versus the automated part of the work versus the agent part of
Speaker:the work? And so the impetus for the book and my goal in it
Speaker:is to remind people where the human
Speaker:still fits into instructional design. Well, we
Speaker:are fans and I do happen to have a copy of that. Oh, that's my
Speaker:really old one. Oh, my gosh. That's like. That's the. Before the 2021.
Speaker:That was like. That was like the beta version of the book. Yeah, well,
Speaker:the elearning design, it's been. It sits on my shelf because I do, I do
Speaker:think it's a valuable piece of work. So. But I. But I love this that
Speaker:you're thinking about this, because you're right, the world keeps, like
Speaker:the industry of learning, if we can call it that, keeps evolving
Speaker:and changing and there's. There's new challenges. And do you find that
Speaker:people are still coming into the industry who are not
Speaker:necessarily. Well, I don't say prepared because I think that's unfair,
Speaker:but it's more like they're just not. Like, I'm not a learner or not a
Speaker:learning designer. That's not like, that's me. I went to grad school
Speaker:first and then I became this. In this learning role. Do
Speaker:you find that most people are still kind of like, I was doing engineering work
Speaker:or I was doing marketing or I was doing something, and now I'm
Speaker:here in this world of learning and development. That's interesting.
Speaker:I think for a hot minute it was. We had moved from
Speaker:an industry of a bunch of accidental instructional designers to people who are now
Speaker:becoming more intentional instructional designers. I mean, there's all sorts of university
Speaker:programs for instructional design that didn't exist 10 years ago.
Speaker:And. But now I think. I think what's going to happen is now that
Speaker:AI is making it easier to generate things,
Speaker:I'm going to be really thoughtful of my words here. It's making it easier to
Speaker:generate things, whether they're good things or bad things or
Speaker:effective or ineffective things. I think we're going to see
Speaker:a swing back to, well, you're the expert
Speaker:HR person, so why aren't you the one creating and generating this training?
Speaker:Why do we need this person generating? You know what I mean? I think it's
Speaker:going to result in a, a lot of people having instructional design
Speaker:tagged on to their work, which existed before
Speaker:2020 and before instructional design became a more recognized thing.
Speaker:So that's what I think about it. I think the, the, the challenge for a
Speaker:lot of new people coming into the industry is it's not so much.
Speaker:So, hey, I'm all of a sudden an instructional
Speaker:designer and I don't know how I really fell here and I don't know what
Speaker:I'm doing. I think the issue is, is that there's such a
Speaker:disparity between what people hear and see
Speaker:online about our industry and then what they experience when they get into
Speaker:a regular job. I mean, the disparity between LinkedIn and the real world,
Speaker:as one example, is so
Speaker:incredibly kind of beyond further different
Speaker:ends of the spectrum, in my opinion. And so I think that is the big
Speaker:challenge for a lot of new folks is they're like, wait, where are all the
Speaker:AI human hybrid performance agents that we're deploying to do our needs
Speaker:analysis for us and launch adaptive learning experiences? I thought I was going
Speaker:to get that and then they really just got stuck with copilot. You know what
Speaker:I mean? Do you see what I'm saying? So I think figuring that out is
Speaker:the challenge. Yeah. It feels a little bit like the difference between watching a
Speaker:reality TV show and real life. Right. Like it's. Right. It's
Speaker:like hgtv. I thought this, I thought my house makeover was going to be
Speaker:$10,000. I was going to get a first day all cash offer and it's like,
Speaker:yeah, it wasn't that simple. Right. Yeah. So
Speaker:from your perspective as an author and looking at this kind of need
Speaker:that we have within the industry and I
Speaker:don't want to give away all the things in the book. That's why you got
Speaker:a book. Right. But I am curious, from a foundational
Speaker:standpoint, what's the kind of the
Speaker:architecture that we need to look at here? What do we need people
Speaker:to know to be successful, kind of current day,
Speaker:current circumstances that we're in? Yeah,
Speaker:well, my, my premise, my thought and my theory
Speaker:about instructional design in today's day and age with AI and
Speaker:how it's affecting everything. What I've come to realize is that
Speaker:as content generation becomes increasingly
Speaker:easier, like you can click and generate content like the pole of a
Speaker:slot machine and just keep churning out. Sorry, I shouldn't say that. Churning crap
Speaker:out meme. As you keep churning that stuff out
Speaker:and that becomes easier and easier and easier, then the, the
Speaker:Result of that is that it becomes
Speaker:increasingly more important that what we're churning out is
Speaker:the right thing to solve the right problem. And so what I really believe is
Speaker:happening is that while AI is
Speaker:empowering people to develop things quicker or edit
Speaker:video quicker or whatever it is that they're developing the
Speaker:work of building the thing, as that gets easier,
Speaker:then the shift gets put on. The parts that aren't, can't be automated. The
Speaker:judgment part, the human part. Should we be creating this video? Should we be creating
Speaker:that elearning course? Is that solving the right issue? That's
Speaker:the part that I think is more important nowadays and will become increasingly important is
Speaker:the human judgment piece. Because the humans come with the context, the understanding of the
Speaker:culture, the collaborative skills. And there are
Speaker:people out there who believe that that's going to be automated maybe one
Speaker:day, but not in 2026 or 2027 or 2028, I don't think so. I
Speaker:think the work that we do is still very human and that's what the book
Speaker:tries to capture. So,
Speaker:because I think you're right. And if anyone's watching any of the content
Speaker:from TechSmith, we've got our human framework we've talked about on this show. We just
Speaker:released a YouTube video and I think it fits here. But it does feel
Speaker:like teaching someone to understand context
Speaker:is really hard. Right? Because my context of the
Speaker:world that I live in, in say the organization of TechSmith
Speaker:is probably very different than the organization that Tim Slade sits in.
Speaker:That is different than, you know, in your elearning academy, you have all these folks
Speaker:who are also in a thousand different type of roles,
Speaker:situations. So, so for someone who's watching
Speaker:this and saying, okay, I'm curious, I want to get better at that human piece
Speaker:of this because I see, I see the challenges, but I see the benefits of
Speaker:AI. What advice would you give them to help them improve
Speaker:in that capacity? Yeah, I was just speaking to somebody
Speaker:else about this this morning and the thing that I said to them is that,
Speaker:you know, if I were new to the industry
Speaker:and I was taking on an instructional design role in the private sector
Speaker:as one example, I would prioritize a
Speaker:lot of time learning business acumen and how does
Speaker:my business operate and what's important to my business, and that's.
Speaker:That sounds ridiculous because I think we all would agree that that should have always
Speaker:been the case. But I think for a lot of people
Speaker:existed in this industry where they were just taking
Speaker:slides that their stakeholders and SMEs gave them and added next buttons and put it
Speaker:in the lms, and that still exists. But again, if that becomes increasingly
Speaker:easier and that stakeholder who once relied on you to do
Speaker:that, if they can do that themselves, not that they should be doing that, then,
Speaker:then what problem do you solve for the business? And I think then that's
Speaker:where you have to become more intimately knowledgeable with your organization and
Speaker:understand that. You know, I, I once when
Speaker:I used to work at a clothing department store, I always had a
Speaker:VP that always reminded us, like, no matter what cool project you're
Speaker:working on that you're kind of sucked down into and you
Speaker:feel so far removed from the core of the business, you have to remember like,
Speaker:that at the end of the day, that business was about selling socks and underwear.
Speaker:Everything we had to do had to go back to how do we sell socks
Speaker:and underwear? Does that mean we need to help people ring up
Speaker:customers quicker or pitch the credit card better, or
Speaker:get product off the dock and onto the sales floor quicker? Like,
Speaker:everything has to come back to that. Just like at TechSmith, at the end of
Speaker:the day, everything you do is about like, how do we renew licenses, how
Speaker:do we do customer retention, how do we expand our market base, that is
Speaker:it to get people using your tools. And I think that's the same is true
Speaker:no matter what your, what context you're working as. An instructional designer is
Speaker:having that deeper understanding of the business. And I think that's going to
Speaker:require some people to get in the weeds
Speaker:of the business with their stakeholders and their subject matter experts and their learners
Speaker:more than they had to previously.
Speaker:So I appreciate that perspective and I agree. And I think we just
Speaker:heard something very similar from Tracy Cantu. She's got a new book as well that
Speaker:we just did an episode on, very similar. She's talking to these kind of
Speaker:like your director, maybe you're a VP or whatever,
Speaker:learning. And so that resonates with me. I do
Speaker:feel like, again, looking
Speaker:at just our industry and we've been in this situation
Speaker:where I think a lot of people have been maybe isolated from that,
Speaker:maybe, maybe you have advice or is there something in the book that you
Speaker:talk about that kind of process? Does that help?
Speaker:Yeah. One of the things I include in the book that was really important to
Speaker:me was that, you know, in the world of instructional design, I think
Speaker:we do a really poor job of connecting
Speaker:theory to practical application. And, you know, you always find people in two groups
Speaker:in this industry. The people who are the theorists and they're the instructional design
Speaker:purists and Everything comes back to theory. And then the people who are the
Speaker:pragmatist, practical people who are just like, how do we get this project
Speaker:done and get it out? And, and my belief is that those two
Speaker:things are, have to be closely tied because, like, the theory
Speaker:is only as good as your ability to operationalize it, and how
Speaker:you operationalize it is only as good as it's grounded in theory. And I think
Speaker:the third piece of that equation is like, the theory,
Speaker:the process, and then the business part of it. And so one of the things
Speaker:that I included throughout the book, as we go through each chapter
Speaker:and we explore the instructional design process, I have a whole case
Speaker:study that walks through the whole book where you follow along this instructional designer,
Speaker:and it goes from how do they approach a training request that maybe
Speaker:isn't training, or it's not exactly what they thought it was going to be? How
Speaker:do you do that analysis? And then how do you present that back to your
Speaker:stakeholder and how do you gain agreement? And then how do we create an experience
Speaker:that's grounded in good learning theory and then, and also appeases what
Speaker:your stakeholders want? And then how do we do an evaluation at the end to
Speaker:prove the value of our work at the end of the day? So it has
Speaker:this case study. And then the other thing that I have in the book is
Speaker:I have these, I have these little segments called examples in action. And
Speaker:there's just dozens and dozens of them throughout the book where it's, it
Speaker:walks. It's like a mini case study that explains how what
Speaker:we're doing connects to the business or,
Speaker:or, or the goal that we're trying to achieve. So
Speaker:I, I want to, I've got another question I want to get to eventually, but
Speaker:I want to ask about the book before we, we get to this other piece
Speaker:is, let's say I'm someone who, I've been in an industry for
Speaker:a while. It's not like I'm based, I'm new to this whole thing.
Speaker:What, what would you tell me for, like, if I'm considering, like, oh, that looks
Speaker:kind of interesting, but I kind of feel like maybe I know this stuff. Like,
Speaker:what's the value for the people who maybe, you know, they're five years in, 10
Speaker:years into the career, what are, what are they getting out of your book?
Speaker:Yeah, that's a great question. What I hope they get out of the book is,
Speaker:if anything, like a little bit of validation. Because I think a lot of
Speaker:instructional designers who've been around for a hot minute
Speaker:they, they sometimes exist in a world of isolation where they think, oh
Speaker:my crazy stakeholders is all I deal with. When in real. These are,
Speaker:these are universal problems that we deal with and, and, and
Speaker:really practical strategies for how you can overcome those.
Speaker:Right. So the, the book is good whether you're completely brand new
Speaker:or you're somebody who has a little bit of experience or maybe you're an L
Speaker:and D team trying to operationalize a standardized process for
Speaker:how, how does instructional design work in your organization? Yeah,
Speaker:perfect. Well, this other question I want to ask about is you said something, you
Speaker:reminded me of it at, before we got onto the recording. I've
Speaker:seen your LinkedIn post. It's about this IDE over content
Speaker:and I, I want you to talk a little bit about that because that does
Speaker:feel like it aligns with this idea of human. So tell us a little
Speaker:bit about like what does that mean for you to have connection over content?
Speaker:Yeah. What I'm about to say is going to sound very anti
Speaker:AI and it's not, it's not anti AI. What I'm about to say
Speaker:it's more pro human and acknowledging
Speaker:that AI doesn't fit into everything that we do. I suppose. So I,
Speaker:I'm of the belief that
Speaker:collectively we as an industry, we as people
Speaker:are, are experiencing content fatigue,
Speaker:digital media fatigue to a certain extent, especially
Speaker:following, you know, I go back to the pandemic and how everything went virtual
Speaker:and everything went remote and everything was an elearning course, everything was a micro
Speaker:learning course, everything was online. And
Speaker:I feel like again, as there's more and more content,
Speaker:some of which is, you know,
Speaker:could be misleading. It could be. Is that real? What I'm reading or seeing
Speaker:is is there expertise behind it or not expertise behind
Speaker:it. I think what happens as a result of that
Speaker:is then people start prioritizing human connections
Speaker:and you're seeing this. There's, there's been an increasing demand in in person
Speaker:experiences and conferences. There's companies who are now prioritizing
Speaker:in person training experiences again because I think they're experiencing
Speaker:that contact fatigue. I also think, and this might sound
Speaker:a little bit more AI, but I think it's an accurate read. There's
Speaker:a really interesting phenomenon that I think exists where
Speaker:it's AI for the, but not for me.
Speaker:So we all can recognize the business
Speaker:benefit of AI. We can churn out things quicker and faster. But then when
Speaker:you start speaking to people individually, like I don't want to be the. On the
Speaker:receiving end of certain AI things or commercials or Certain
Speaker:AI generated content, and I think most people don't want to
Speaker:be, but it's good enough
Speaker:for everyone else. Like we're going to create it for everyone else. And I, and
Speaker:so I. The idea of connection over content is
Speaker:prioritizing, learning from one another,
Speaker:having an honest conversation where AI fits and doesn't fit.
Speaker:And AI is not a replacement for your expertise or my expertise.
Speaker:And maybe the way that we start sharing that now
Speaker:is more interpersonally than
Speaker:putting out a video, because again, we're getting to a point where anyone could put
Speaker:out a video about anything and look like an expert and it can be totally
Speaker:just bogus information. Right? Yeah, well, no, I think it
Speaker:feels like it's that cognitive load of trying to always discern,
Speaker:is this accurate, is this real, is this
Speaker:authentic? Right. And I do think when you're, when you're with people,
Speaker:you still have to do discernment, you have to decide. But I, but
Speaker:I do appreciate, I appreciate that perspective because I do think there is
Speaker:something to be said about having real moments.
Speaker:Right. And, and look, I love video. I've been teaching video for 20 years. I
Speaker:work for a company that makes the video tool. Of course, we love video. But
Speaker:I also can recognize inside of TechSmith, one of the things that we do is
Speaker:we share a lot of video with each other. Like, here's an update, here's the
Speaker:status. And, and I know it can become
Speaker:overwhelming. Like, I, like, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can't watch one more video.
Speaker:I wish someone would just tell me that. So I definitely can appreciate that.
Speaker:And it does feel like, in particular, if you're
Speaker:involved in certain platforms where it's kind of publicly,
Speaker:it becomes even more of a challenge. Right? Because it's like just thrown at
Speaker:you. And then I think there's also, I'll add to what you're saying is
Speaker:there's this, oh, you must be behind or you're probably
Speaker:behind, but the reality is maybe we're not
Speaker:behind, but it's that people are so far ahead.
Speaker:Right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I also think
Speaker:that most of the people who probably feel like they're behind,
Speaker:they're not at all behind. They're just, they're, they're, they're, they're using AI
Speaker:in practical ways that probably most people are using in practical ways. And
Speaker:they've conflated the hype that they see online with reality.
Speaker:And not to go down a
Speaker:rabbit hole, but I also think there's, you know, I'm always Fascinated
Speaker:by the examples that we see out there that are
Speaker:presented as evidence for these amazing things that AI are might be able to
Speaker:do someday. And then they seem to fade into the,
Speaker:you know, the ether, and you never hear about it again. I mean, we saw
Speaker:that with the. The action
Speaker:figures, and then, you know, right now, like. And
Speaker:it's already started to fade. The infographics, you know, I mean, the infographics had a
Speaker:whole thing this first quarter of the year. And then when you actually,
Speaker:like, zoomed in on the infographics, a lot of it's gibberish because you realize not
Speaker:only is the person who's creating it or generating it,
Speaker:they're not even reading it. And I'm like, nobody else is reading it, because if
Speaker:anyone was reading it, you would be like, these words, these aren't. There's not even
Speaker:letters in there. It looks like letters, but there's not letters. You know what I
Speaker:mean? So it's just. It's just a really interesting thing. And we're.
Speaker:I described this to a person earlier today. I said, you know,
Speaker:AI is like, we're. It's like we got handed
Speaker:replicators from Star Trek for the first time. And you're like, I can
Speaker:replicate anything. And so I'm going to replicate a
Speaker:sundae. No, I'm going to replicate a sundae with chocolate and
Speaker:10 cherries on it. And then. Nope, I'm going to replicate a sundae
Speaker:with chocolate and 10 cherries, and there's going to be a unicorn coming out of
Speaker:it, and then the unicorn is going to turn into a birthday cake, and I'm
Speaker:going to consume the whole birthday cake, and it goes back to,
Speaker:like, when. When you can generate sundae with chocolate
Speaker:and sprinkles and 10 cherries and a unicorn that comes out of it and comes.
Speaker:Becomes a birthday cake that you can eat. Like, eventually you have to go, wait,
Speaker:should I be eating that? Like, maybe I need to generate. Like, maybe I need
Speaker:to replicate a vegetable. You know what I mean? A vegetable's boring. Like, I think
Speaker:the same thing is true with AI Right now. Like, it's like a replicator, and,
Speaker:like, maybe we need some nutrition in what we're replicating. Does that make
Speaker:sense?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, my gosh. Like, so many tiny little things that I do throughout
Speaker:my day. So, like, I have a whole process. Like, if I'm. If I'm going
Speaker:to be putting out a new video on YouTube, I will.
Speaker:I'll record the video, I'll edit the video, and then I upload it.
Speaker:To when I'm working in Camtasia. Then
Speaker:I'll put it in audiate and I get my transcript out of it and I
Speaker:copy the transcript and then I figure out the timestamps and I have
Speaker:it automate my timestamps and then I have it SEO optimize my
Speaker:timestamps. I'll do stuff like that. Or I'll have it take my script and
Speaker:I'll be like, okay, you know, edit out what would be good for a YouTube
Speaker:short. Like, there's all these little practical things that
Speaker:I use it for that that are.
Speaker:Save me a ton of time. They're not sexy and
Speaker:beautiful cool things that you can put on LinkedIn that anyone could see. I mean,
Speaker:it would take a little bit more to explain that, but I use it for
Speaker:those sorts of things all the time. I use it all the. Like, if there's
Speaker:one. Probably the. My. My most common use case for an AI is like
Speaker:removing the background from an image. It does such a great job.
Speaker:I used to do it in Photoshop by literally tracing myself with the thing. It
Speaker:would take me an hour to do a really good job with it. And now
Speaker:I just do that. Little things like that are the practical use cases.
Speaker:I did a survey a couple months back and
Speaker:I gave the data to AI and it helped me figure out
Speaker:insights because if I have to open up Excel, then I don't know if I
Speaker:want to work in this industry anymore. It did that for me
Speaker:and it was great and it did an awesome job. So
Speaker:again, it's not being anti AI, it's just being about honest about
Speaker:the practical stuff. And the practical stuff isn't always the cool, exciting stuff.
Speaker:Yeah, I'll just say similar use cases.
Speaker:Right? I love. Like, even today we were working on a script and we're trying
Speaker:to rephrase because we'd use like the same word and we're like, can't use the
Speaker:same word twice within that same kind of proximity. And like,
Speaker:just like, okay, how do you give me some options? How else could I say
Speaker:this? Right? Just to get it going. And. And that's super helpful because
Speaker:even though that I was working with someone else, like, we were both feeling like
Speaker:just stumped and on that. So I do love those little
Speaker:practical things. I love using it as a writing
Speaker:partner to say like, okay, help me to. I. Trying to come up with a
Speaker:better illustration or not imagery but like
Speaker:words to make, you know, to describe things or.
Speaker:Or even. Even getting. I know you just talked about the
Speaker:infographic. I actually Just did have create one that actually turned out
Speaker:really great. Did you read it? You read the infographic?
Speaker:I did read it, but I also gave it so much information. Right. It
Speaker:wasn't like I just said make this thing. It's like here, here's the
Speaker:concept, here's the ideas of things I'm trying to do.
Speaker:And so I do think there's this amazing opportunity. Would I use it
Speaker:for everything? No. In this case, did it help me visualize the thing that I
Speaker:was trying to kind of understand? Yes. Right. So
Speaker:I'm with you and I love those examples. Well, I think the thing,
Speaker:the thing that's important, the lesson in what you're describing and my experience
Speaker:with it is that it's AI,
Speaker:just like anything else is garbage in, garbage out. So you still
Speaker:have to have a vision at the end of the day of what you want
Speaker:it to do. You know, I think the mistake is people who think it's
Speaker:just going to be like one click video creation, one click course creation
Speaker:and it's going to output something amazing. It, it can't. It,
Speaker:you really gotta, you really need to have a vision and be able to explain
Speaker:it. And, and I guess I'll say on that too, like, this is the other
Speaker:epiphany I had when people talk about like AI skills, like you have to be
Speaker:AI literate. I'm just like, I don't know, like what does that really mean? Because
Speaker:there's most AI tools are just like typing things and copying and
Speaker:pasting text and hitting a button. And I've realized that AI
Speaker:skill, being AI skilled is really the human skill
Speaker:of describing what you want to something somebody else. Like having a clear
Speaker:vision. And if you can do that and
Speaker:then you can use just about any AI tool to get what you need out
Speaker:of it. Yeah, I love that, that you got to
Speaker:be good at describing things. I also think being able to have the other inputs
Speaker:right, like I find more success when I'm like, hey, here's this document
Speaker:that is like, that gives all the context for this
Speaker:thing and that makes all the difference in the world or training the GPT
Speaker:to like, hey, here's, here's our brand voice. This is what you
Speaker:need to use. So. Absolutely. Well, Tim, as we
Speaker:get, as we get close to wrapping up here, we've talked
Speaker:about a lot of things. Thank you for going down this rabbit
Speaker:hole on the connection over content. I think it's important.
Speaker:Is there anything else we haven't talked about with the book that's coming out that
Speaker:you'd like to tell us about that you think would be helpful for the audience?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, the only thing I'll say is that, you know, it's, it's. If
Speaker:I'm, if I'm gonna plug it, I'm gonna plug it. It's currently available for pre
Speaker:order through the end of the month. So May 29th. And for those
Speaker:who pre order, I'm getting a limited run
Speaker:edition of the book. It's, it's a hardcover with a dust jacket and I'll be
Speaker:signing it and so I know you guys will be including the link down below.
Speaker:And then for anyone who pre orders, I'm giving 10% off
Speaker:when you enter TechSmith as the coupon code. So it's
Speaker:a great book. It's, it's truly the.
Speaker:The other night I've been just so in the muck with trying to
Speaker:get it done. The other night I had the first opportunity to just like sit
Speaker:down and look at it as a thing that I created. And
Speaker:you know, like, it's like when you get a chance to like finally watch the
Speaker:video you edited because you're not editing it anymore and you get to be in
Speaker:awe of what you created. That's what I got to do. And it's, it
Speaker:really is just the culmination of a decade and a half of really
Speaker:practical, no fluff practitioner
Speaker:information. So I can't wait for people to get their hands on it.
Speaker:Yeah, if it's me, I have to wait. I would be like, okay, I'm going
Speaker:to put that aside and I'll come back to it when I can have some
Speaker:space. Yeah. But I'm sure what a great feeling and
Speaker:congratulations to you on the book. Thank you. Beyond the
Speaker:links to pre order again, the promo code was TechSmith for
Speaker:10% off. Tim, if people want to connect with you, learn more from you, you've
Speaker:got obviously lots of great place beyond the book. Where would you point them to?
Speaker:Yeah, you can check me out on LinkedIn, check me out on YouTube, search Tim
Speaker:Slade or the Elearning Designers Academy or my website at
Speaker:elearningacademy IO where we have our free community as well.
Speaker:Awesome. Appreciate it. Well, Tim, we like to wrap up our shows
Speaker:always the same way we give people their final take.
Speaker:So, Tim Slade. I'm awful at the final take.
Speaker:That's okay. No one's good at it, but we make you do it
Speaker:anyway. So, Tim Slade, what
Speaker:is your final take for us today? I can vamp for a little bit, give
Speaker:you a little bit of Time. We like to ask the final take because it's
Speaker:a chance to recap and to rethink and summarize what we've talked about.
Speaker:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker:There are some questions that are too open ended. You do realize that, right?
Speaker:So my final take is. There are some
Speaker:questions that are too open ended.
Speaker:That's my thought. Final take. There you go.
Speaker:That's great. We're gonna wait. Thanks for having me. That's gonna be the
Speaker:opening of the show. People are gonna be like, what?
Speaker:What? No, Tim. Okay, wait. Okay, okay, I'll give. I'll give
Speaker:a. There's gonna be an opening to the show. Yeah. My final take is
Speaker:that in a world where
Speaker:you can generate anything in an instant, what becomes more
Speaker:important is that you're generating the right thing to solve the right problems.
Speaker:Otherwise, it's all just noise.
Speaker:See, that was perfect. There we go. See? Okay. I feel good. Well,
Speaker:Tim, it is always. I mean, I just always enjoy our conversations
Speaker:on the podcast off, so it's always great to be with you guys. Go check
Speaker:out Tim stuff. Thank you for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having
Speaker:me. You bet. All right, everybody, you heard it. Tim's book is coming out.
Speaker:If it's after May 20, check out the stuff before down below. Still,
Speaker:you can go get his book. He's got his other book in the Elearning Designer
Speaker:Guide Handbook as well that you can check out. But, you know, look,
Speaker:we had a great conversation. Look, keep the human inside of what you're doing.
Speaker:Keep focusing on learning and growing and developing your skills because
Speaker:those are still valuable. Your time, your thinking
Speaker:is all really helpful. And part of the process that you need to do is
Speaker:consider, how do you keep getting better? Kim's book's a great way to do that.
Speaker:We hope you check out some of the other resources that are out there. A
Speaker:lot of great people out there that have been guests of the show and some
Speaker:that have not been the guests of the show yet. Always providing great
Speaker:insights. If you want to become a better learning designer, focus in the learning development
Speaker:space. You want to be a better workplace communicator, whatever it might be. But whatever
Speaker:it is, we hope you take some time to level up every single day.
Speaker:Thanks, everyone.