Dave's journey from creating presentation graphics to developing online training content has put him at the heart of major industry changes. He shares how multimedia elements and web-based training have transformed learning, making it more accessible and engaging.

We also dive into the differences between freelancing and staff augmentation, the power of building strong relationships, and Dave's unique experience at Intel. Plus, we explore the challenges of using AI in training and what the future holds for learning and development.

Whether you're new to the field or a seasoned pro, Dave's insights on staying adaptable, building connections, and loving what you do are sure to inspire.

👉 See the show notes and transcript for this episode here.

Additional Resources

• Webinar – How to Create Better Learning Experiences Using Generative AI Images
• 4 Tips for Driving Learner Engagement, Retention, and Instructional Design Business Growth
• Break the Development Barrier: Unveiling the Top Rapid Development Tools and Their Tradeoffs
• Mastering Instructional Design: 5 Essential Dos and Don’ts for Instructional Designers

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💡 Looking for custom learning experiences without licensing fees? Contact us for a free consultation! https://bit.ly/4aOhPKq

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Welcome back to learning matters. I'm Doug Woldridge, your host. And this week we have on David Wurtz, who is a learning consultant for Intel with over 30 years of experience in the world of learning and development to discuss all things staff augmentation and how he went from freelancer to staff to now working full time as an employee for Intel and the differences between freelancing and focusing on staff augmentation. Let's get to the interview. Thank you so much for joining the podcast today, Dave.

First things first, how did you even get into the world of adult learning? Well, you know, it's kind of a funny story is for a long time I had my own business doing presentation graphics in the eighties and nineties. And then, you know, this little program called PowerPoint comes out and video projector started dropping in costs. So nobody needed 35 millimeter slides. So I went to work for a, no, I went to work for a.

Long distance company, Sprint, and was smiling and dialing for long distance in the 90s. Those are old enough to remember the 90s. You used to be able to get a hundred bucks for changing long distance companies. And so I did that for a year, working nights, and they needed, they put a job rec out for somebody who knew HTML. And that's how I got into training was because I knew HTML.

putzing around and figured out how to, you know, picked up a book or two and, you know, found it on, you know, there's enough of the internet you could go out and look at things and see. And, you know, I just kind of put it together. I remember going into the job interview and having a dot matrix of about 200 pages of you remember the old dot matrix printers that, you know, everything was still connected. I remember coming out with that.

So yeah, it was kind of fun to get into training that way. And then, you know, it was really because I was doing, working in the, they were looking at how to chunk information, how to chunk e -learning. And at that point there wasn't the programs like there are now Storyline or Captivate or anything like that. You did it all on HTML and in Shockwave type of thing. And so.

You know, we were really, we spent about a year studying how to chunk information. And basically it's the same concept as what you use today is, is she go to the smallest piece of, you know, content that works for you and what you're trying to do. What is the difference in the amount of time that you have to spend chunking that data out back in the HTML days, as opposed to.

Storyline all that good stuff today. yeah, it was back then it was you know, I I'm not a big fan of doing storyboards, but I know how important they are, you know, so you have a short constant look and feel You not only do the storyboard but once you kind of got the script written or this, you know storyboard written then you have to figure out okay, what size The header do I want what size this because it would change all you know, you have to hand code all that in there.

Unlike storyline and captivate now where you can do a copy and paste of a slide and basically, okay, I changed the title from, you know, this to that, you know, and, and, you know, kind of like you're doing word processing. So it really changes the way you do business now is you can do things so much faster. Yeah. And were you working as a freelancer at that point? No, I was still working for sprint. And,

was there for a while and actually my career took many turns and within like you do with most large corporations is I ended up working for the network side for a little bit, which was how they would, you know, would process the long distance phone calls. And then went into, at that point it was called Sprint PCS, what we now know as T -Mobile and.

worked with them. And in fact, my last project there before they laid off probably a third of the company in 2002 was working on an education piece that could be put into the individual PCS stores. So a customer could come in and just hit a touch screen and basically learn about the different handsets and everything like that. So it was, that's crazy. Yeah. So it was,

I remember this is right after September 11th and we're going out to do our first beta and we bought this really nice Bose speaker at Best Buy and I hadn't even opened the box and we get to KCI Airport and we're checking our luggage in and they're asking what's in the box and I'm kind of going like...

I'm assuming it's a speaker because I haven't opened it. You gotta remember this is when the National Guard was walking around in the airports and everything like that. You talk about just a weird feeling. But it was really kind of a neat concept that we were able to put that out there and did some real testing with it. And we were getting some pretty positive. We tried it and had a beta store on Beverly Hills.

California and then another one in just north. I think it was north of the Empire State Building. So we really had some great ways of testing this out and testing out the concept of how to deliver content remotely because there wasn't, you know, like what we have now, you know, Netflix wasn't around in a streaming format or anything like that. You worked with content engines and all that kind of stuff and trying to figure out how to

deploy all that. What was the process that led you to jumping into the freelance world? Well, you know, just I got that extended vacation program from Sprint, as I like to call it. And, you know, it came very nice of them. Yes, that was nice of them. And it came right, right before Christmas, which I thought was a nice touch. So, you know, working, you know, working with.

Debbie, you know, she had just taken on or, or just, you know, started up what was then known as technically training and helping her get started. And she needed to be able to do some content development. And so, you know, I helped her get that going and you know, we, I can remember sitting at the table, the dining room table thinking, where, where are we going to call this thing? You know, you know, we had her, she had bought out technically writing. So.

Hey, technically training sounds like a good name. Hey, nobody had that on that website on the internet. So, you know, you know, it's just those, how things come around and, you know, I'm sure she remembers it much different than I do. But you know, did that for, and really freelance for about a year, a little bit over a year. And I'm working for large, I remember the customer is a large financial organization.

And we worked for them for, gosh, a ton of work. I just remember one time working, we were coming up at the end of the project and I was taking the family on our first cruise we'd ever taken, you know, and Richard and Courtney were, gosh, they had to be still in grade school, I guess, or Richie maybe in middle school or junior high at that point. And

I remember trying to upload files via a 3G mobile phone. no. no. Because some last minute changes had been made. And I don't remember the instance, but I remember we drove from Kansas City to Dallas, then down to Galveston and got to Galveston and had, I don't know, like five changes, you know, type of thing. But.

Yeah. Well, that's five changes took all night to upload. And, and so just the difference in how technology has made our lives so much easier is what I've seen in the training industry. Let's talk about that a little bit. You've been in the training industry for a long time. Yeah. Since dinosaurs. Yes. Yes. And what have you seen that has been the biggest changes within the industry?

I think it's the ability to...

incorporate video and audio easier. You know, it used to be that you would, you know, you'd have to hire a camera crew to go out and shoot something, you know, even if it was a conversation like this, you know, you just, you know, would be, you know, you'd have several, several thousand dollars worth of staff and gear and everything to shoot that. Now we can have a conversation just like this.

I'm working on some training programs right now where we want to just say, you know, Hey, this is how you open a file. You're in type of thing. And so instead of having the person go through an e -learning of doing a bunch of clicking here, let's just show it to you in a video. And we recorded it in teams. You know, it's, you know, 30, 40 seconds worth of screen capture and audio with it. And boom, you're done with it. It'll take you longer to edit than it'll be worth it.

So that's the cool thing. That's what I've seen with technology is, is that it has really increased our breadth of ways of doing business. And I want to talk a little bit about the difference between freelancing and staff augmentation. And I want to tie a little of that into the technology that you have access to, proprietary stuff, nonproprietary things.

Can you just tell us to start with, just a little bit of the difference between working as a true free freelancer and then as, an actual staff augmentation. Sure. You know, that first year I learned a lot from being a freelancer. You know, you live from project to project. Yeah. And you know, when some projects take three months, some projects take two weeks.

you know, type of thing. It may be long right now, but you know what I'm talking about. And so, you know, I like a little bit more stability with it. Yeah. That's what I liked about when I started really looking at where I want to go with my career. And after I was with the financial organization for a while, I decided that, you know, staff augmentation, if I'm going to do it, is going to be the way to do it.

is normally you get a six month contract with those on a regular basis. And, you know, I can remember the first one I got was with Capital One. Had the total interview with a phone interview. And the reason I got it was because I knew the system they were going to implement because of the organization I'd been with. So I knew how that worked. And so that ended up, you know, they put me in for six months.

And then it got ruled over. It was, you know, and we did that for a little bit over three years. And my rule changed as we went along, you know, went from crew instructional design that they had a new back office system they needed a simulation for. And so I actually developed a simulation forum that was, nobody had any idea how the system worked because the people that were building it forum that they were buying it from,

and never put one all together. All they had was the business requirements document. So, you know, it's a good start. That's at least a start in a lot of trainings I've worked with since then business requirement documents are loosely given out. Like we're going to we may do this when we're all done type of thing. And those in the training industry know what I'm talking about is, you know.

But I put it together and I put the simulation of how to process checks in the back office for Capital One. And I came up on my three years and they were to roll this over to another person to finish up. And so they brought him on early so that I could train him with what I was doing so he would be there for it. And.

it wasn't more than a couple of weeks, they realized that they just couldn't turn it over because the simulation was so complex and everything. So they went to senior management to get my contract extended beyond the three years that was allowed by company policy, which, hey, you know, I'm all for that, you know? Yeah, of course. Look for another job for a couple more months. And so the cool thing that came out of that whole thing was that they...

I come back and they said, yeah, your simulation went over real well. I'm going, hey, I'm feeling good about this, you know, nothing broke, you know? And they go, yeah, we just got a million dollar increase in our software budget so we could do it based off of the simulation because I followed the business requirements document. I'm glad I did not know that going before I went to the national jamboree because I probably would have been a very nervous Nellie for three weeks.

I believe it. I believe it. So and you know, that's what the cool thing about the way the way technology is gone is yeah, we talk about training, but training can be also be there for the enhancement of business decisions. And that's the stimulation that we're incorporating into the training.

With that in mind, we were able to use that train, that simulation to show them, show senior management what was going to need to be done. And so that's what's a cool thing. That's what I'm seeing in technology is in training, going down the road is it's a lot closer mix between business decisions and training. Hmm. Well, I think that's the wisest decision that corporations can make because a lot of training does come down to.

how is this gonna benefit the business in the bottom line? So, you know, we had Robin Sargent on for the CEO and founder of Idle Courses. And one of the things she spoke to was that when you go in as an instructional designer, whether that's a staff org type of thing, or whether that's a freelance type of thing, your bottom line is the client's bottom line. So they're...

They're looking for solutions to make sure that they can find growth within their own company. And whether that's retention or whether that's compliance related things doesn't really matter at the end of the day. You're all working towards the same goal is a better influx on profits and how can we make this company more efficient? Exactly. Exactly.

You know, and my whole career has been around that. It's, you know, what can I do to help increase the bottom line? And when I come in, when you come in and staff augmentation, you got a little bit more latitude with that because they know you get a little bit more time to build those relationships and you don't come off quite as harsh sometimes as you do if you're a freelancer. You know, I just can't come off that harsh. You know, I'm a

I'm all about relationships, you know, and yeah, you're jumping in directly into their team. So you have to be, you have to connect yourself with these folks. You have to figure out the culture of the entire organization and how to work with these folks because you're going to be working with them day in and day out. It's not a, set it and forget it type of thing where freelance, where they're just like, we need this custom learning piece.

we're going to let your team do it. We're going to let your team build it. And then we'll have, you know, responses from our subject matter experts. once the deliverable start coming through, you are really a part of the team. And how do you, how do you develop those relationships? How do you, go into multiple different corporate, structures and just immerse yourself immediately within the culture as well as within the team.

Part of it starts before you even get there on day one. It's, you know, it's learn a little bit about the organization. you know, coming out of the finance organizations and supporting mostly finance companies as I've over the years, I've been, you know, whether it was Capital One or, H and R Block, you know, those types of things. I can make those. That's pretty easy because you talk the talk, you know,

Because you've learned you already got the lingo down. You've got the lingo down. At Intel, I had no idea what the lingo was. You know, I, I, and you know, the funniest story is, is I'm doing the interviews and I know you got questions for me, but I'm going to jump ahead a little bit because this is relevant. Let's jump ahead. We have no structure here. Is, you know, I, I apply for the job. It was, out there,

just like any other job on Indeed or, you know, monster .com, whatever job board I found it on. And I applied for it and, you know, I'm going like, hey, I felt pretty good about it, you know, I can do just about anything. And I'm interviewing them and interview with the project lead for the project that I was being hired for.

And Jeff and I got along really great. He's one of our statisticians here at Intel. And he was just easy to talk to. If it was supposed to be a 30 minute conversation, I would bet we went a full hour. Easy. I believe it. We really got to learn a little bit about him. So not only are they interviewing me, I'm interviewing them to see if I even won part of this show. Yes. And then the next interview was with a manager. Well, OK.

You assume it's to the manager you're going to work for, right? No. You think so? Yeah. In fact, I didn't even know until after I got the offer letter that it wasn't the manager I was going to be working for. It's a you got to know a whole new name now. You got to get their life story. yeah. Yeah. And so but, you know, I had that same thing. It's you know, I'm interviewing.

interviewing them for, you know, for the job and Patty was great and she's been in training not quite as long as the dinosaur hunter here, but you know, we, you know, had great conversations and everything. And so I get the offer letter. I'm going like, Terry, Terry, who's Terry? And so, you know, it's kind of funny.

because you never know what you're getting into with stiff augmentation. And so I had this idea, I was going to work for Patty and she's got a lot of training background. We've seen a lot of the same train wrecks and software and all those, we have war stories that we can talk about. But it was probably the best thing for me to go work for Terry because,

They had, all they knew was, is that they wanted to convert a bunch of training that's been instructor led forever. And their whole goal was that it was, you know, they wanted to reduce the in classroom time by 30%. That's, that was what started. They had a pretty big drop. It's a big drop, but we were able to drop it in the, after we got all said and done, we dropped it 55%. The classroom.

There's still a classroom portion of it, but we set it up where they also have web -based training now so they can take the web -based whenever they want. If you want to take it at two o 'clock in the morning, power be it to you. Because we have people that work at two o 'clock in the morning, you know? Not me, but there are people that do. Back in the day you might have. In the day, yes. But the really cool thing about it is people really have liked it because...

they can make it because we restructured how the training is given. Instead of having that you have to go through three weeks of training over, you know, so many days each week for training, you only have to commit to one day and then we can, and then you got your training, your web base beforehand. So you can do it when you want and how you want to do it. And it makes it easier for scheduling. What we have found is that we were having these people come in for training. There is one.

I want to say vice president who enrolled in one of the classes three times before he could be in, before he can complete all the sessions because he'd sit there and, you know, get through class one and two all the next week. Can't be there for that one. Cause you know, some emergency can't be in the fab, you know? And so, you know, and it's really, it's changed the way people have looked at training. And we're now looking at it going like, this is really a cool way of doing it.

it's taken a different approach to it but it's much like you would see in a college class you know you do right you know do this before you do that then this then that you know and it really has made it much easier and we're getting more people through classes that way.

And not only being able to get people through the classes, but what is the retention like for the information that they're getting from these kind of self -serve whenever you're able to jump into a training session? I don't have any statistics on it, which is because we haven't had time enough to go back to that. But what I've heard, anecdotally, is that the training has

really helped our employees get their job better. We have a whole process if you're going to change something on it, you know, if you've got a chip and you need to change a tool or something like that, you know, or some chemical mixture. If you're asking me how to make a chip, I have no idea. It has something to do with Legos, is all I can tell, because that's when I look at the presentation, they talk about we build this and we build that, and it kind of reminds me of Legos. But I'm sure that, you know, it's

It's how they build them and stuff. But if you're changing something, there's a whole change process with it. And they're getting better, what they call white papers and getting better remarks, you know, better information around it. So that's what the cool thing is, is we're seeing a change in the culture.

I mean, I would think that just the ability to do it when you can is going to allow you to just jump ahead in your own career, just jumping into it instead of having to do class after class after class. And so you could, like you said, you could take multiple hours. That would have been multiple days of classes within two days. And a lot of that is already delivered to you based on what you need next in the line.

of training. Are you guys using any AI tools for this type of build out? No, we're not. It's a lot of what we're doing now is Intel is going through a real change in the way we do business. We've got two different organizations within the group, within the company now. One is the product side, which is what everybody knows, the Pentium chips.

you know, ultra chips or what, you know, the chips themselves. And then we've got the fab side, which we're building out to be able to help with the supply chain problems that we had coming out of COVID. There was some real supply chain and the chips access helping us with that. And what that has done for us is, is it's, we are using AI in the development of a lot of that information out on the fab floors.

which I just saw a demonstration of that they had a month or so ago that was really pretty cool. I mean, I'm going like, wow. But we have our requirements on the fab side. And that's the side of the business I'm on is the fab side is, or the foundry side is we're very restricted in what we can actually use AI for in their pinnacle. And then part of it is this because we will have.

different companies come in and buy so much of a run and whether it's, I don't know the company names by any means, but it's like the Apples or AMD, they don't have their own chip company, they don't have their own factories or fabs, they go out and buy it from somebody and that's the business we're getting into. While we have the Pineril, what do we call it?

guardrails up to make sure that we don't let any of their information out and then none of our information, you know, goes out to their side. So we're running this, the thing I think most companies are running is we think AI is fantastic, but we don't want to put any of our corporate data out on the intranet. And so that's where we're at at this point is we're building it out. I've been on,

project right now is just getting people staffed up for it and getting their skill sets built for it. And so we're, you know, as soon as we think we've got it figured out for this week, something changes. You know, AI is changing that fast. Yep. And so that would just a, just a sidestep. were you nervous about jumping into this new industry? I mean, you did a lot of work in the financial industry. I'm sure there is some crossover, but.

I would imagine that there's a lot of other things that are quite different about this industry as opposed to anything with the financial side of things. The group I'm supporting originally was just a statistics group. And I took enough statistics in college to realize I was not going to be a statistician. You know, I understand if you give me enough - You and your professors knew. You know, if you can -

You give me enough information, I can ask questions about the data, then I can make judgment calls. But how you came up with how that line goes up or goes down. So, you know, I am the token non -statistician in our group. But what that brings to it is, is I bring a whole different view to it because, you know, the people, Intel is very...

I'm going to say heavy, but I'm not sure that's the right word for it, but very part of the culture is, is very much around college degrees. So I would bet over half the people in the company have a graduate degree of some type, whether it's a master's or a PhD. Probably half of my team is doctors. You never know it by talking to them. I mean, you listen to them and they...

They are doctor, if you listen to them long enough, but they don't get stuck on, I'm doctor so and so, you know. And that's the cool thing about Intel is that.

It doesn't matter where you're coming from. We respect all your opinions. And that is the coolest thing for me coming into it. That seems rare, especially for the tech industry. Yeah, it's really is. It's very exciting to be part of it. We have a weekly video chat, not chat, but a video from the CEO, Pat, and he is just...

I'd go work for him anywhere. I mean, if he was working at McDonald's and he wanted me to go fry French fries, I'm not sure I wouldn't go for a French fries for him because of the way he, the respect that we get out of, you know, somebody at that level. And it's carried all the way down. And so I know, you know, I went from being a contractor to just a couple months ago to what they call a regular employee. And, you know,

they were all concerned. I said, my only concern about this whole thing is that I don't want to mess up my health insurance stuff because I was getting that as a contractor. And so there was people that were calling, making sure I was, you know, that my health insurance didn't get messed up and that I knew what I needed to do and all this kind of, I've never seen it in any other organization like that. It was just, just really, that's going to feel awesome.

I mean, you've been doing this for years and years, and for them to really treat you as a part of the family. yeah. It's gotta feel good. Yeah, and they let the role, my role, expand.

Where I support now, probably just a little bit over 1 ,100 people in just one particular organization. That's what I support from a training perspective. Wow. And so I'm getting involved in helping them come up with how we're doing training, working with other groups. There's no way I can develop all this training, but I can at least point them in the right direction, making sure that we're getting the records kept right and all those little things that...

people normally just go, hey, I got this PowerPoint on whatever this process is, we got to get it out to everybody. Okay, how do you know you've got it out to everybody and how do you track it and those things? And so they're giving me the opportunity to help define some of those roles that we haven't had to find within this group, because it's a relatively new group. They brought, I want to say six or seven groups together about three years ago and said, hey, you guys kind of all do similar type things, we're going to put you in the same group.

So, you know, and they really didn't have a learning person for it. So it's, you know, it's been exciting from that standpoint.

And what do you see the future of this group now that you're all combined into kind of a singular group here? Does it make it easier to develop the training or does it make it more difficult? I think it'll make it easier to make, you know, as you build those relationships, you know, you know, as well as I do is you need to build relationships. And as I build the relationships across the teams, I, you know, I can just about call anybody.

in the organization from the vice president level of our group down to a technician and most of them would take my call, which is unusual in a training training world. You know, it's definitely, you know, I feel like a lot of IDs who are listening to this are going to be like, I wish I could get my subject matter expert to answer my, even my email, much less the CEO.

I'm not saying that I get this, this means they're any different, but the least they'll, but at least they'll, you know, respond to me once in a while, you know? Yeah. so that's what's really cool. You know, as you look at the industry and you look at where it's going and you know, whether you're a project based in freelancing or staff augmentation, it's all about the relationships you build, you know, and, and that's where.

I think it's interesting to watch training because we've put a lot of emphasis in on e -learning in the last four or five, six years. Part of that's because of COVID. Definitely. But what we've missed is the interactions between people. Yeah. And that's the challenging piece of it. And how do you get those interactions? Well, use technology like we are here, you know, using video conferencing.

You know, yeah, I'd be nice. My team, I support most of my teams out in Portland, Oregon. I'm based in Kansas City. I met them once in two, two and a half years. You know, that's fine, you know, in person, but you know, I have a relationship with most of them that, you know, I could call them up and say, I'm going to be in Portland next week. Where do you suggest I go eat at? You know, and they give me the answer for it.

How do you, how do you build that into the training? The, a lot of the personal side of things, which was in classroom training, how do you build that type of connection or at least try to get some of that human interaction or maybe that human touch into the training that you're building that is much more focused on e -learning or, you know, whenever folks have the time to, to jump on and do a training session. I think part of that comes with,

doing what you can to invite interaction. And whether that's, you know, we've got a lot of great tools out there, whether you use actors for voiceover work or, you know, AI programs, you know, it is really incorporating that into the training and realize that when you're doing the training that you're

you're giving a presentation. So if you're doing the D learning, that means it's got to stand on its own. So build some of that fun stuff into the audio pieces of it. Because that's what people, those are the things they relate to, relate stories to it. I can remember one time when we were putting this wafer on, cutting this chip from the wafer and it just exploded, whatever the story is.

You know, those are the things people remember and they can relate to because they can see it happening to them. And it's all about story building when you do e -learning. Some content doesn't lend itself to that. I can remember a project I just finished in the last year, which was just how to fill out this form. And yeah, really not a lot to work with there. You know, it was, I wanted to do a lot more for it, but you know,

I couldn't get the SME to buy off on it and senior management didn't want it. Okay, that's fine. You know, and it's, you know, it'll come around and we'll probably make some changes and you know, it doesn't, you know, experiment as you go through it. And just to kind of piggyback on that, how do you personally get a subject matter expert or share stakeholder?

buy -in to kind of upping certain areas of the training. I asked them, what do you like about training? What do you like about it? And, you know, think of the best class you took in college or the best training class you've taken. And why do you like that? Yeah. And it's, you know, I had this, you know, it was my doctoral dissertation or my math is master's thesis advisor, you know.

I like it because I had those relationships. Okay, so what can we do to do that here? And okay, maybe we don't do it in the learning, but maybe it's in the IELT part of this is we're looking at it. We're working on a project now that we're, there's some basic information we want to make sure they have before they get into the instructor led. And so we're, then we want to keep it till about an hour, hour and a half for it.

and I'm working on the project right now and there's not a lot of storytelling to it or anything like that. I said, that's fine. But remember, what are you doing on the other side of this to help drive home what they just learned? Because you're bringing all the good stuff into the instructor led side and how you mix that sourdough bread and make it all come together.

The web base is the starter. Now how do you mix the flour and everything else to make it the really good bread that we all like?

I love that I can use this as a callback for our last episode of how I spend a lot of my time focusing on sourdough bread as a hobby. I want to go to our community for a question. So it's from your sister, Debbie Moultridge, CEO and founder of TTC Innovations. This could be dangerous.

In in your dream world with no time restrictions no budget Conflicts, how would you ensure system simulations are more engaging and Go beyond that read click move to the next screen type of Structure. I think it's getting there already. I think it's you know, if you look at you know the three -dimensional

Metaglasses or whatever they call them, you know, the Apple vision. I think it's we're just about there. That's the coolest thing that technology is going to allow us to do is be able to incorporate some of those things into tactile movements that have been just this two dimensional on the screen. And, you know, we're seeing that in gaming. You know, if you start looking at some of the gaming stuff, you know, that's just a

entry point for training. Now what it takes with it though is takes a lot of planning and making sure doing it for the right purpose. You know it's, I always use the analogy because everybody wants to jump right into development with training. They always want to do that. That's the fun part. Now I mean you know I go fantastic let's think about this. Go down to Home Depot or Lowe's.

Just tell them to load up a bunch of wood for your house and drop it off out here and just go build it Don't even tell them what fasteners you need or anything like that. Just tell them to put it in the truck. You got it Just you know, do you need the 3 inch nails or you need the 4 inch nails? I don't know, I'll just put some nails in there. We don't care You know, it's all the analysis and design that comes up front and

And we have the tendency, and I'm probably as guilty as anybody of it in the industry, is to shortchange that piece of it. Because we're all working under timelines that are next to impossible to hit anyway. And so it's taking the experience that I have over, gosh, almost 25, 30 years now, or Debbie having 25 years of experience, and looking at it and going, OK, what can we do?

What's worked in the past and I can, okay, I can do this, this and this and make it work. I was talking to another one of our groups here and they're all relatively new instructional designers and here at Intel and they go, well, how did you know that? And I go, you just, it's, I've been around, I've seen it, done it, got that t -shirt type of thing. This is not my first rodeo. That's right. And so, you know, that's what we.

you know, but we're afraid to say that sometimes as instructional designers. And it really does is do you want somebody that just got a bunch of way to go build your house or do you want some, some plans to go with it? I personally knowing my construction skills probably should have some plans to go with it.

I key is a struggle in your household. Is that what you're telling me? Yes. Yes. We don't chop at IKEA. The instructions are too complex. well, hilarious. you kind of mentioned a little bit of this throughout the entire conversation, but I kind of want to nail down what your thoughts are on.

where you see L and D for the future. So where do you see it here in 10 years? Are we sticking with this? No, I'm just, are we sticking with this mostly? What's the word for it? Just in time training, like anything that you need to pull up, you can pull up on whatever app that, you know, the has been custom built for a specific corporation, those types of things. I would.

like to say that's true, but I really don't think that's the best thing for the industry or best thing for the student. Yeah. or the learner is by having that just in time. There are things that, you know, if you're working on a piece of equipment and you need to know how to replace this gizmo in it, then that, that works perfect. Then I can go through, I've got a step action table. okay. I see what they're saying, but here, I click here. I can get a,

video on how it actually works. You know, that's perfect for those situations. But if, as you look at it and you look at the things like where AI is going and it's not so much how to use AI, but how to program an AI, which has really been around for 50 plus years. It's only been in the last three, four years. So we've called it artificial intelligence. We've had machine learning forever. Forever.

Yep. And so, you know, you've got to get back to the basics and with the basics, that's where it takes time to get people up to speed. And I know that we want to rush into things. And, you know, the timeline, we get to do things shorter. You know, we're bringing out, what is it, five generations of computer chips in four years here at Intel. And, you know, that's,

made it, made a, what am I going to call it, a monumental task to happen. And so with that - It's unbelievable. Yeah. I can only - Your industry in particular that you're working for is so quick paced that I would think a lot of it is, you know,

There's a lot of simplicity and there's a lot of great things behind having just -in -time training, but none of that gives you the true confidence as the learner or as someone jumping into this career, knowing that you actually have a true understanding of what you need to do because especially in fabrication, things are going to go wrong. And while it's great to have that just -in -time training style to be like, yeah, this is how I fix this here.

but how do you even know where to pinpoint that problem within this? And how do you feel like you can even confidently look at the training that is just in time to be like, yeah, I can, I can fix this. Well, yeah. And especially in the group that's that I'm part of is there basically the R and D part of Intel. So how do you, you know, the fun side. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun side, but probably the most frustrating because they're coming. I believe it. You know,

They're the ones that are entrusted with Moore's law, which is, you know, how fast computers are growing and everything like that. So how do you keep knowing that you're doing the right decisions? Well, you've got to have that baseline knowledge. And part of that baseline knowledge is knowing the history of where you've been, but also keep your eye on what's coming down the pike. And so that's...

That's the real challenge we have from a training perspective is how do we know that we're making that right change for the future? And so that's where we have to really depend on the people that have been at Intel for 10, 15, 20. You know, I just saw somebody was retiring with 40 years of experience here at Intel. So the company is only 50 years old. So they were here, you know, at year 10.

You know, their, their employee numbers got to be like 83 or something, you know? And so, and so we've got to use that is from an instructional design standpoint is use that to understand where it's been so we can help guide the conversations from, from the new, new stuff coming in that we guided in the right direction, because they're going to know all those mistakes that we made from A to B.

and we're up to Z now, you know, they've got a pretty good idea of all the mistakes we made. So let's try not to make those same mistakes. And that's where training can help. And whether it's through a simulation or just in time training or baseline knowledge, you know, that's the thing that we're, you know, we're looking at artificial intelligence training here. And do you train them on basic statistics knowledge or do you train them on

computer programming, or is it a combination thereof? And I listened to both sides and I think it's a combination thereof and it's almost an equal amount because without the statistics and knowing how data is put together, how can you be able to pull that information? Yeah, exactly. And so that - How can you make use of that data at all? Right. And so that's where -

having people like myself and Debbie and you know those have been around the industry a while. I could sit there and sit back and go yeah I see where it's going. You know we had this problem in the in the 80s and 90s with telephone service. I can see the same type of you know where we're going.

I can, I mean, not a direct correlation, but it's something I can put my hands around. I can understand this piece so I can help guide that conversation and pull that information out of the SME's to be able to create training that we need, whether it's just in time or if it's baseline knowledge or advanced concepts or whatever.

And with all that in mind, before I let you go here, do you have any advice for folks that are just trying to break into the industry that might get into the staff augmentation side of things where they may be like yourself jumping into that deep end and just trying to, trying to find a way to stay afloat in a brand new company, in a, that corporate mindset? Yeah, I would say is going with the mindset that.

you were there to help them. You're that extra set of hands. I always hope that you do staff augmentation long enough that you kind of go, I'd be neat to get a job there. And I really didn't have that opportunity until I got to Intel because most of the jobs were three -year contracts, ended up being three -year contracts. And it is making yourself indispensable.

And that can be as little as I started out doing the staff meetings for our team. We're talking statisticians talking about different formulas or those type of things. I didn't have an idea of what they were talking about, but I helped run the meetings. What I found out is Terry, my boss enjoyed that because I kept them on task. It was, they would get, they're so focused on.

whatever the problem that they're trying to solve is, I go, guys, we got like five minutes and we gotta be out of here, folks. And it was, you know, it's those type of things. So, you know, even from a staff augmentations, look for ways of being important to the client that you can do that. And, you know, look outside the initial job. I mean, the first six months I was here, I felt all I did was just this one course development.

And then they, you know, we got going pretty good on that. And it was a one year contract originally. And we, that started at the end of February, the middle of August. She says, I've extended your contract for a year. You'll be getting some paperwork on it. So I hadn't even been here. What six months, whatever it was. And it's because I was willing to do those things that they, they.

may have had the expertise, but they just didn't feel comfortable doing it. And they didn't feel comfortable having somebody, you know, you know, question them all the time. Let me rephrase it. I questioned some of the things they did to make sure that it was the right decision. Yeah. And so by doing that, my expertise came out into it. And when I talked to them about training, they go, okay, great. We're working on this artificial intelligence. I,

loosely curriculum. I call it a learning pathway more than anything. But it's, you know, looking at stuff and one of the levels was the true novice. I, you know, I know enough to spell AI type of thing. And, you know, and we wanted them to have a little bit of statistics knowledge. And so I go, you know, we have access to the LinkedIn learning. So I spent

I could part of an afternoon looking at different statistics things, knowing enough about the questions I've asked over the last two years, I found, I want to say an hour and a half course that gave the baseline knowledge for somebody going just being brand new would need to know about statistics and data mining and those types of things. So I take that back to the group. There wasn't even a, Dave says it's good. We'll go through it just to make sure he knows what he's talking about. But you know, one person went through it and said it was good, you know.

And it's, you know, those are the things that you get us from staff augmentation is you build the relationships and you build on your expertise from a learning perspective. And having the confidence to go in and ask those tough questions because your goal is the same as theirs. It is to find efficiencies. It is to find areas where you need to grow and to find better ways to, to, to get the learner what they need to know. Yeah.

So it's really exciting to be part of an organization. I almost see Intel, you know, it's, it was the one that put Silicon Valley into Silicon Valley. If you go back and look at the history, I didn't realize this until I went through some other history. But you know, we're almost like we're that startup company again, you know, we're 120 ,000 plus people worldwide. my gosh. Yeah. And we still got that startup feel sometimes.

And that's what's cool, you know, and being able to have it, you know, is being able to have the ability to have the HR people, traditional HR folks come to you and go, Dave, I want to make sure that you're getting onboarded correctly. You know, it's all those little things. And then when you come back to them and say, hey, we need this or this, they go, great, you're the expert on it, you do it.

And so that's what's cool about being staff augmentations. You build the relationships and get new friends. You know, I get asked on a regular basis, how long you could be at Intel? I said, well, first thing is you have to understand my wife likes to travel. So that's not cheap. So I plan on being here for a while. and by the way, she said I can't retire until I can get my full amount from Social Security, which happens to be when I'm 70.

So I'm going to like, that's like eight more years I'm here doing this, you know? boy. You know, but I don't see, see me anywhere else at this point. It is too much fun. It is if you're having fun and you're getting results and people are taking you seriously, then that's what makes it a fun job of staff augmentation. Yeah. Well, I think that's.

You know, that's what folks need to look at, especially with staff augmentation is to make sure that you've found the right place for you, the place that you like the culture, you like the excitement from the new work that you're getting, and ultimately they enjoy your company as well as your expertise. And I think it's, while it sounds scary to just jump into,

a new corporation, a new group of people. I think you can find a lot of joy in that as well as a lot of excitement and a lot of the ability to really stretch your wings as an instructional designer. So Dave, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And yeah, we'll have you back on. I want another snapshot of this in like six months just to see how things are going. Mainly because I want to know what's going on with Intel.

See if I'm still smiling. That's right. That's right. Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us this week. Next week we'll be doing things a little differently. We'll be showcasing an incredible webinar with our CEO, Debbie Woldridge and our VP of Sales, Teresa Chiaputo, talking about the art and science of working with staffing providers. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast and I'll see you next time.