Hey, Meg, let's do a podcast. In fact, let's do it live on LinkedIn this time.

That sounds great.

Actually.

That's a great idea because I believe we're already live on LinkedIn, so. What a coincidence.

So what should we talk about? Do something wild and crazy. Wild and crazy for LinkedIn. Talk about artificial intelligence.

So.

Hi, everybody. This is Megan Torrance, and

And I'm Meg Fairchild, and we're both from TorranceLearning.

And we're figuring out the LinkedIn Live thing.

Yeah, this is a little, a little awkward as our first LinkedIn Live, but we're gonna make it work. So, Megan, I know you're writing a book and it's all about AI implementation and lnd you've had some like, weeks blocked off on your calendar where you're like, okay, I gotta be in head writing mode. How's everything going with that?

It's going. Actually, it's going really well. And those, those heads down weeks have been incredibly productive and super fun. And I'm having a good time. I'm working as hard as ever on this, which is, is, is pretty fascinating. And it's been a really cool opportunity, Meg, to talk to a lot of people about work that they're doing in ways that I wouldn't otherwise, you know, because I get to say, hey, I'm, I'm interviewing folks like, can I interview you and pick your brain? So that's been a really cool opportunity.

So are you seeing any, like, patterns as you're interviewing people? Like some threads that you're pulling together? I, I'm imagining that you're like, getting this holistic view of how AI is impacting the L and D industry on this day to day basis and what, what that looks like for those L and D teams to like, implement AI.

Yeah. And there are several threads that I'm pulling through, which has been really interesting to see because a lot of times we think about AI and we talk about it as one thing and there's. It's more than one thing. It's more than one thing technically.

Right.

So we have gen AI and we have analytically, and even within that there's lots and lots of different shapes.

Right.

And we're all talking about AI like it's new and it's been around for decades. But what is, I think another slice on the patterns that I'm seeing is there's three separate zones where L and D is getting traction. And they're obvious when I tell them to you, you're gonna be like, oh, well, yeah, but when we, we break it down that way, it seems to be making a lot of sense for folks. And the zones aren't silos, the zones aren't.

Phases.

It's not maturity or whatever, it's just different. I call them impact zones.

Right.

And so like, I'll just get specific.

Right.

So AI impact zone one is around the personal productivity of the L and D professional.

Right.

So it's going out and using AI tools either directly, I call them direct to consumer tools.

Right.

Or the tools that are embedded in our learning and development tools. So this is all around AI and content development. It's writing, it's summarization, it's creating images, it's voiceover, it's translation, it's even video segments. It's AI in analysis and evaluation. And really how do we speed up, improve, level up our own work?

Yeah, yeah, I can see some of that in our own team and the work that we're doing and how we're trying to use more of those tools. So what's the next impact zone?

So the next one then is where we're using AI in that learner experience, either as part of the learning experience or some sort of performance enablement.

Right.

So AI powered personalization, adaptive learning.

Right.

And that's. Those two are more on the analytical side, not the generative side. We have roleplay simulations. The roleplay tools are getting so cool and so powerful. There's AI in the experience management for facilitator support and content maintenance and program management. And then there's AI in performance support, where after training mode, in performance mode, the human is still doing the performance, supported by AI just in time. Learning information, coaching, next steps, those kinds of things.

Yeah, that really reminds me of that. The project that we, we submitted for Demo Fest this year with our performance dashboard that that was showing and had some AI components in it to help supervisors and managers see at a deeper level, you know, what people were doing and using AI to assist them in kind of evaluating that data. So, yeah, that's a, that's a really cool thing. Okay, so number three, what's our impact zone three?

Okay, so impact zone three works a little. This is where the work of the organization, not the learning team, but the work of the organization itself changes and it has an impact on L and D and how we interact.

Right.

So this is AI in the workflow, in doing the work. So an insurance application in which AI is using, being used to detect fraud or evaluate claims or things like that. Or for managers.

Right.

It's Support their coaching and evaluating their team performance. I was talking to folks from unbox training a while ago, right. And they're. They're manager coaching tools help employees perform better, right? Measurably so. It's super cool.

Wow. Okay, so it sounds like in impact zone 1 and 2, L and D is really like the driver. They're going out there finding these tools and finding ways to, like, implement them in. In their organizations. In number three, we're more of like a participant in that. Does that sound right?

A participant. And I think we have an opportunity to be an active driver.

Right.

Or an active participant. Not just along for the ride. But these business changes affect learning, they affect skill development, they affect who we're hiring for roles, how we have to skill up people so we can play an active role, but we're generally not the ones who are leading that charge.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. This all sounds like a lot of work. I mean, I know in the early stages of AI implementation, people were just scrambling. They're grabbing up all these different tools and using it in every tool that they already have. You described it actually as like Hungry Hungry Hippos, like, gobbling up all those marbles. And, you know, are we at a point where things are a little more orderly and mature?

There are. There are still. I think things are still moving fast enough that the Hungry Hungry Hippos analogy still applies a little bit. But organizations are taking a much more measured approach. And there's things that we're learning, and there's things that we're learning from prior technology innovations too.

Right.

So it's not all brand new. So I'm pulling all this together into what I'm calling, at least a working title for now is an AI Implementation Canvas. And it really helps look across what are currently 14 different dimensions of planning. And how do you roll out tools in a considered and measured way while still sparking innovation and excitement, but doing it at organizational scale rather than individual scale? Hungry Hungry Hippo style.

Right.

And it gives us both considerations to keep in mind, as well as ways for L and D to engage with the larger, larger organization that way.

Right.

There are 14 interdependent dimensions on this. I started with nine and then kept realizing I had holes. So I filled in a lot of holes. But they're 14 critical areas of focus. They're not. It doesn't go in any particular order. There are few hard lines between them. They kind of fuzz.

And I'm much more concerned that we answer the questions that we put than we Put the answers in a particular box. And so the, the thinking is that there's a canvas for every implementation. And some of them we focus harder or lighter in different spaces.

I like this. I really, I love a good canvas. So what, what are these 14 dimensions? Or can you give me a few examples?

Yeah, just a, A couple of them. Right. I'm calling them planning dimensions. So, right, there's, there's business alignment. They're things you, they're things you would expect, I hope.

Right.

They're. They're business alignment, governance, um, and there's one around experimentation.

Right.

So there's the. How do we make sure we're orderly and thoughtful about this? And then how do we make sure we get new ideas and we percolate them through? There's thoughts around data strategy for, you know, the source and the currency and the maintenance of the underlying data. There's UX and workflows and what's it like to work with these tools? Ethics and human protection and scaling and upskilling. So there's, there's a lot of different pieces, maybe, maybe too many pieces, I don't know. So right now I actually am just now opening a survey to try to get input on the 14. Maybe there's 15 or 16, maybe there's 10 or 11. So I'm actually validating that with some research right now.

That's awesome. I hope to see the results of that soon. So you're kind of avoiding a maturity model or having like a single roadmap. I love this because it feels more doable and modular and reusable and really values driven.

Yes, yes. And I think what also goes on here is some of the planning dimensions support multiple implementations.

Right.

And so it's not a heavy lift of, oh my gosh, every time I want to, you know, look at a new tool, I've got 14 things to work on.

Right.

It's, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. So for example, one of those planning dimensions we've been spending a lot of time on that is that, that, that AI skilling and, and, and what it takes to build AI literacy and, and proficiency and, and fluency and like Marcus Bernhardt and Brandon Carson are talking a lot about, they have a fantastic ATD article right. On, on AI literacy and AI fl, and we're putting in the middle a proficiency layer. So here's how it's worked with some of the teams that we've worked with.

Right.

So AI literacy. Meg, you've done this one.

Right.

It's our AI driver's permit.

Right.

So it's. What is, what is AI? What can I do with it? What is it good for? What should I not do? This one we're seeing taken up both by the innovation teams and organizations, but also by the compliance teams in organizations. And I love the idea of AI literacy as compliance. AI literacy is cybersecurity. It's something that both Marcus has said to me, plus some of my cyber, you know, military cybersecurity experts are telling me this, so I'm getting it from two sources. But it doesn't have to be heavy handed. Thou shalt not. I think it's, it's a how, how shalt thou.

My, my old English is horrible. So anyways, but anyways, that's our like, so, so that's like our AI driver's permit. Right. And actually I see Haitham got some on the, the live feed and LinkedIn, he's our facilitator for that. And so we have that human connection there. It's a super fun. Of course, AI proficiency then becomes around like, how do I use that? And at Torrance Learning we've done that more organically with some of our clients. We're running workshops around how do I use it? What are the workflows, what are the use cases? Who on my team knows how to do this? What can I build quickly as a prototype? Get comfortable with this.

Right. So it's that next layer and I kind of layer that, that after the literacy and it's, it's, then it's like, oh, what, what, what can I do here?

Right.

So that's kind of, that's a fun workshop. And we've had people walk away from that workshop like, wow, I've had these tools but never really pushed them, never really played with them. It's super fun. And then fluency, right. Gets to where and I love what, what, what Brandon and Marcus are talking about here. It gets to organizational capability. It's how do we think about it? It's in everything we do think about language fluency.

Right.

When you're fluent in a language, you start dreaming in it.

Right, Right.

And so that's what we're thinking around with that fluency piece.

Awesome, awesome. So I'm gonna go through a couple takeaways I have from this conversation. First of all, you've got these AI impact zones for L and D. I think that's going to be super helpful because then we're not seeing AI as one big huge monolithic implementation that we have to tackle but rather, it's like these more manageable, implementable domains that we're working with here. Second takeaway. The L and D is going to be kind of leading and driving in our businesses in zones one and two, where we're improving our own performance and we're really, really aiming to improve the performance of everyone in the organization. So I'm guessing, you know, the same type of thing works in every other department in the organization, too. And then three is building AI proficiency skills.

So we've got literacy, proficiency, fluency, and it's going to be a department, bi department thing where, you know, some department might need this level and it's going to look different depending on where you are in the organization.

I think, Meg, that point about department by department is key at that proficiency layer.

Right?

So. And we've seen that.

Right.

So our AI drivers permit is for everybody. It was designed for everybody. It works for everybody. And we designed it in ways that you can come and you can personalize it, like, hey, I want to. I want to explore this dimension. But it's much more, much broader. But that proficiency, then that proficiency workshop ends up being very departmental specific. So we've got an L&D1, and it is super fun.

Like, it's like six mini hackathons over two days. It's a riot. Awesome.

Awesome. I know you, Megan. You always have, like, one more thought to leave me with in every conversation. What's your one more thing here?

I think my one more thing is an ask. This time. I would love some help validating the canvas. I think that's my big thing, and I want to get input from a lot of people. So I've got a. We'll paste this in the comments, too. We've got a survey. You have to think a little bit, but it shouldn't take too long.

But I'm really trying to validate that and make sure I've got that solid.

Awesome.

You can do it, too.

Yeah. All right. Thank you.

This has been awesome. We should do this more often.

Yeah, for sure.

All right. All right. See you later. Bye.

This is Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance, and this has been a podcast from Torrance Learning. Tangents is the official podcast of Torrance Learning, as though we have an unofficial one. Tangents is hosted by Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance. It's produced by Dean Castile and Meg Fairchild, engineered and edited by Dean Casteel, with original music also by Dean Castile. This episode was fact checked by Meg Fairchild.