Community Showcase: Tristia Hennessey

Luis Malbas  
Hello everybody, thank you for joining us today. We have a few people in the live audience already. Let's see, who do we got we got on, on Iris Perez, a DTS here. Thanks so much for being here today. So we've got another member showcase. Thank you so much. We've got Chrystia Hennessy here to join us. And we're going to be talking about Chrystia for the entire time. That's what we're going to be discussing, asking your questions about her background and l&d and her adventures with technology. And I think that you have a particularly interesting story, just yeah, I'm really glad that you're participating in this today, because I'd like definitely want to learn more about what you do. So you're an instructional designer, l&d consultant, multimedia creator, you do simulations, videos, learning games, 360 tours, AR VR learning experiences. You won? What was the one the deblurring demo you want demo Fest at DevLearn? And did I see something you're also learning solutions? And did you win something there?

Tristia Hennessey  
I was speaking at learning solutions. We

Luis Malbas  
were speaking learning solutions. That's right. That's right. I didn't find that. And yeah, and that was I grabbed the session description. I was like, wow, this is really, really good. How did it go?

Tristia Hennessey  
I think it went really well. I got some good feedback afterward. And so my session was on UX for XR learning experiences. And yeah, I think it went really well. I do a lot of dabbling in in that space. Mostly for fun. But yeah, I think the session went really well. And learning solutions was great, great event, a lot of a lot of really good sessions there. So the I had to bring my A game, you know, to, to fit in

Luis Malbas  
Learning Solutions is a good one. I used to work for the guild. And that was always my that was my favorite, even more than DevLearn. I loved learning solutions, especially, let's say I think it's the Rosen center now, but it used to be at the Hilton in downtown Orlando. And that was the spot. I loved it. So yeah, that's very cool. So let's get into it a little bit. You tell us a bit about yourself and your journey into the field of instructional design and, and ELearning Development, you've do a variety of things, it seems like very much media related. How did you get started in all that?

Tristia Hennessey  
Yeah, um, so I guess I was at a at a point, before I got into instructional design where I was kind of stuck in a job, I didn't feel it was right. For me. I was an executive assistant at an insurance company. And there wasn't really any room to grow in areas that I was interested in, or really, really much at all. So I did a lot of research into different possible careers. And I kind of decided that the instructional design kind of made good use of some of the skills that I had built up from the 20 or so jobs I had had between, you know, from 16 to 30,

Luis Malbas  
what were some of those jobs.

Tristia Hennessey  
Um, you know, I did a lot of retail work, I did some website work. And mostly admin stuff, though, I worked for a company that was doing curriculum development for financial consulting, education, and was very niche. And somehow they had contracted with another company to create this simulation for risk management training. And it was just the coolest thing I had ever seen. And so that had always kind of stayed in the back of my mind. And I didn't go right into training after that. But a couple of years into my job as an executive assistant, and I just felt like, like, my creative side was not really getting utilized. I was using all this technology and like, we were very, I guess, like tech savvy, like we used a lot of tools and, and I, you know, had computer skills and I just felt like the creative side was really missing and I wanted to work on projects and not you know, manage calendars. So after I kind of you know, did some research and I stumbled across instructional design and I was like, Oh, this is this is what everything has been leading me to like all of my different weird odd jobs and experiences kind of have culminated in this like background that kind of set me up for, for I was hoping at the time success in that field. I'm and so I enrolled in a graduate certificate program, I studied full time for a year at Portland State instructional design and building online learning. Eventually, I'd quit my full time job because I couldn't really do both. So kind of dedicated myself to study and bought Camtasia signed up for trials for everything, I couldn't really start getting myself familiar with rapid dev tools. And then, you know, after some contracting jobs, and it just all kind of fell into place, you know, and then, and I realized, like, Well, I really like this, this, this fun stuff. And it's always changing, like working on different projects. And I think, you know, I eventually became a salaried employee with my other consulting company I work for now we've all solutions group. And, and now I do that full time, and it's great.

Luis Malbas  
I would love to hear what's, what's the timeline for that, because I know a lot we have a lot of, in our audience anyway, there are a lot of newer instructional designers or people that shifted careers. But how long ago was that when you completed your certificate and just dedicated yourself to an ID.

Tristia Hennessey  
So I finished the certificate in 2015. Okay, end of 2015. And I was pretty much hired right away, I had been working on my portfolio the entire time I was in the program. And, you know, being able to study full time and not work at the same time gonna gave me that time to be able to, you know, do both work on my portfolio and sample pieces. And I was hired by the City of Portland for a contract job, wow. And it just kind of was one contract job after the other, and they kept me busy, which was, which was really great. I went on to do a contract for Nike, and then a couple of other businesses, and then eventually, I ended up on contract with evolve. And, and it was just, it was great. They're awesome to work for, I get to work on all different kinds of projects with different kinds of clients, different industries, different content. And so I would say I did, contracting for about four years. Before I went, before I went full time at Evolve. Wow, it would take some time. You know, it's it's like, it's, sometimes I look back, I'm like, Oh, my God, it's been how long? You don't realize that that much time has passed? And then I'm like, and I kind of realized one day like, Oh, I do know what I'm talking about.

Luis Malbas  
Looking at conferences and stuff.

Tristia Hennessey  
Yeah. And, you know, people invite me to things like this. And then I'm like, Oh, wow, I have been doing this for a while. So it goes quick. And, and, you know, you but you got to work at it. Like anything else. Right? And yeah, I definitely spend more than just my working hours, like, you know, reading up on things and researching new tools and just figuring out what's going on out there. Because,

Luis Malbas  
you know, right away that you wanted to be more on the kind of the ELearning Development side or media side of things.

Tristia Hennessey  
Um, you know, I think it was just a matter of like, I had, I had the skills, you know, I had played around with video editing and presentation design, I did a lot of various different jobs and, and so I just had worked with a lot of documents and presentations and video and, and that kind of stuff. So I've, I've always played around with those kinds of tools. So it just kind of came naturally, I guess.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. Alright, so like nowadays, your toolbox, what are what are some of the more common things that you use, like on a regular basis,

Tristia Hennessey  
um, a lot of storyline, a lot of we do summarize courses, here and there. And, you know, sometimes it's, it's even just PowerPoints in Word. I do some video stuff we do at evolve, have a dedicated video editor who is much much better at that stuff that I am. So I have the luxury of coming up with the ideas and the instrument and the direction and then handing that off to somebody who makes things much, much more beautiful than than I do. Stacy is our video editor. She's fantastic. And, and so I get to do a little bit more of the planning and strategy and design. So that's that's really cool.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. How about measurement do do any measurement at all, like how do you measure the effectiveness of,

Tristia Hennessey  
of the thing? Yeah, so that's, that's a tough one. Because, as a consulting company, you know, we don't usually get to stick around and see the fruits of our labor, unfortunately. And but we do have a couple of, you know, repeat clients, clients who come back and ask us for edits to some of these things. We're doing some edits, to updates to some of our simulations right now. And there's been really good feedback, we hear that people are, you know, definitely more engaged when they have more than just like a paper manual to look at, or, you know, some kind of click through, continue, continue continue that type courses. So, and that's really what I tried to do is, you know, build in that engagement and that interaction and create some kind of emotional connection between, you know, people and the content. And really, I guess, when I'm going through a course, my measurement really, you know, being that I don't always have access to, you know, how are we How is this actually doing with our audience? Are we meeting the objectives? I try to go through it with the sense of, you know, is this engaging for me, you know, and I don't want to, I don't want to bore myself to death, right? So, you know, I try to see how can I make those connections? How can that that emotional connection and that engagement, if I'm not feeling it, they're not feeling it? Right, right?

Luis Malbas  
Is there do you pull your inspiration from anywhere in particular,

Tristia Hennessey  
um, you know, a lot of my inspiration does come from kind of immersive learning. So I know this is kind of a roundabout, but I did, I studied Japanese in school in my undergrad. And I did study abroad, and I was one of the very, very few students who did, homestay stayed with the host family. And so the experience was very immersive for me. And, and I knew from then that, like, immersion is how you really learn and learn quickly, right? And, and change like, kind of behavioral, where you see more behavioral change, and, and more, I guess, more holistic learning. And so when, when VR started coming around, and actually, I was interested in VR from from the get go, when I was still in that program, at Portland State, the graduate certificate, and there was just so much, you know, emphasis on, you know, VR is too new, and nobody really knows how it works or what it you know, where it's gonna go, and you know, the tools, they didn't, you know, we didn't have Oculus, everywhere for, you know, 300 bucks, so, so people were still pretty scared of it. But I just felt like this is the this is the future, this is where it's gonna go. And admittedly, the timeline is quite a bit longer than I anticipated back, you know, eight, 910 years ago. I think part of me, like many other people thought we would all be running around with headsets. And that's not really quite the case. And, you know, in retrospect, not very realistic either. But, but the interest was always there. And it kind of always sat with me that like, people learn by doing people learn by experiencing more than just like reading bullets off a page and clicking Continue. So that's what I really try to build in to, you know, even if it is arised course, like, how can, how can I make this more about what it is about, you know, even if it's like using the right images, or figuring out how can I really get them to pay attention and show that they're paying attention? And, you know, ask them get them actively involved, you know, instead of just telling them so

Luis Malbas  
I love the fact that you mentioned you know about that your immersive experience in Japan, I think that's not something that that I've heard before from anybody. So kind of knowing that and then your fascination with with VR and I guess XR altogether. And just, you know, though, that type of experience, it makes sense. So that is really, really cool. And you know, definitely have you know, I probably have too many questions about VR and AR for you. But I would like to know why don't we talk a little bit about your your taco builder's simulation. I'm fascinated by that when you won demo fest. I was I guess that would have been 2022 at in Las Vegas at DevLearn. Last year. was

Tristia Hennessey  
uh, it was 2021. Yeah, it was couple years ago. We we did win a couple of other awards, I think. Right? He's an award, the Hermes Award and the Devi award for a variety of different projects. Not all of them are for Taco builder. But we've we've been racking up the awards lately, which is really awesome for something some of these simulations that we've done. And so taco builder was the second of three restaurants simulations that we built for a suite of brands. We started with sandwich builder, which I was involved a bit more involved with the development on that one and more design on in general. But yeah, restaurant scenes are really fun. They're there. You know, when you're working with pictures of food and stuff, it's it's hard not to be hungry all the time.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, I mean, I remember it. Like in kind of the early days of when VR was was was sort of coming around in like, 2017 2018, one of the top games was like a restaurant simulation. I can't remember what it was called. But I remember I used to play it regularly, where you had to just do all these different things. You were just like, multitasking constantly. And it was really fascinating. There is

Tristia Hennessey  
a Job Simulator that you can you can find on the on the quest store. I think it's a free app, actually. And if you have a quest to definitely go check that out. It's it's really fun. You would think that, like, Oh, why would I want to simulate, you know, being at a desk job or working in a cash register. But actually, it's a pretty it's pretty fun app, just to get at least familiar with, like the different types of interactions and stuff that you can do in VR right now. Right?

Luis Malbas  
But you're talking builder, one was in a VR one, right? Or was it?

Tristia Hennessey  
No, no, that was desktop based. And they're all, you know, mobile friendly. But all built in Storyline. So we did sandwich builder, taco builder, and burger builder. And those were all built in storyline, using, you know, hotspots and drag and drop interactions and a lot of photography. So they all kind of work a little differently under the hood. But the the premise is similar, that we wanted people to feel like they were looking down at the make line, the actual environment that they would be in at their job. And see the same elements get that connection between the ingredient types, and what they look like what portions shirt sizes should be correct placement of ingredients, and like the order that they go in, and so on. And so we worked with those brands to kind of detail those physical interactions, like, involved in making those recipes, like the order of operations, how to visually simulate things like shaking herbs, or squirting dressing onto something. And then we worked with them to get you know, photos of all of these ingredients separately, we had our stellar graphic designer, Kristen cut them out. And, you know, just make them all transparent. And then everything went into storyline. And it's a Yeah, the lot of complex trigger work, which is mostly done by our amazing elearning developer Mike Roy. So yeah, it's quite process. But it's it's a really fun, creative kind of process that you really work out. Like, how do I how do I show shaking herbs onto something without someone like grabbing a shaker and shaking herbs on says,

Luis Malbas  
wow, it was all in Storyline? That's great.

Tristia Hennessey  
Yeah, yeah. Very, very complex and a lot a lot of crazy triggers. But yeah, they're, they're a lot of fun. And, you know, as immersive I think as you can get, without, you know, being there putting a headset on, which you know, right now might not really be, you know, that functional or that convenient in a restaurant environment. Like there's, I don't know, if you've been in the back of a restaurant before, but there's not really a whole lot of spaces, right. Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
very cool. You know, and so, I do have like VR AR questions. And I know we spoke earlier that you know, your, your experience is probably a little bit more on the, your personal side of things. But what had happened was was I went to your, your VR and Alex D community and I just started watching some of your YouTube videos. And I was like, just fascinated because you're on a different platform. And, you know, you're actually with, you know, in a simulated environment, and I would suspect, you know, that that environment was in virtual reality and you are Having conversations and sharing things in different areas and, and all of that, and it looked really, really cool. But and I want to talk about that more. But I do want to know, have you done any VR AR for, for learning experiences at all is that anything that you've, you've attempted or tried.

Tristia Hennessey  
So most of most of what I do for VR stuff is kind of more personal fun projects. And because personal fund projects don't have deadlines, a lot of them are started and rarely finished. I do have a couple of projects I'm working on, that are a little slow going, but But learning unity is is a pretty big curve. And that's why typically on on VR projects for enterprise, whether it's training or marketing or otherwise, you know, it's it's, it's a pretty big team that will work on something like that, it's it's a, you don't have the same person designing is the same as developing like that might be more common in in a typical instructional design where we use rapid development tools like storyline arise or Camtasia. But for VR, the, the tool is very complex, at least unity, there are several other game development tools are out there. But it's, I think, what the workflow, the process that we're seeing now is really designers working with a team of developers who specialize in that tool, because it's, it's a little harder to just kind of pick it up and start going with it. But there are some overlaps. And definitely, you know, if you can work with some of the more complex features of storyline, like you're already ahead of the game, and you you'll see some of those kind of transferable, at least ideas, is not skills. But yeah, I am working right now on and I put up on my website, Ed Tech trust.com/blog, you can find a design document that I made, which sorely needs to be updated. But just to get a starting point, if you're curious about how, you know, to kind of start thinking about designing a VR project for learning, that might be a good starting point to check out the design document and see like what types of things to be thinking about? I think you can also get the slides to my presentation from learning solutions on there. And what are those one of those blog posts? And yeah, that that'll kind of give you a good sense of, you know, where to start? And what things to be thinking about as far as like designing interactions and stuff in VR for learning.

Luis Malbas  
Right? I mean, I have I've met people that, you know, have done like, say, have created experiences in VR. And it just seems like the the work is really, really intense. It's in there kind of have to almost, like, rethink everything in a completely different way. Like, yeah, like, and I have a friend who does, VR filmmaking, and the technology uses in the things that he does is absolutely incredible. And so I'm wondering, like, what are you thinking as far as the future of of VR when it comes to lnd? I mean, you were talking about it a little bit earlier, but do you think it's going to is just going to be slow going?

Tristia Hennessey  
Yeah, I, I think for a little bit. You know, we we've we've definitely got some growing pains to get through with this technology, and the hardware and the headsets. But there, I think it's a really good sign that we're seeing other companies that are not Mehta, inquests that are putting out headsets, you know, and there have been for a long time, but, you know, I know there's a lot of excitement and buzz about the Apple headset coming out soon. And I think that's a good sign like that the XR market is still healthy. I think a lot of we see a lot of those doom and gloom, like, oh, VR is dead kind of articles. And they honestly, VR and mixed reality and augmented reality and pass through like these things all have, their, their place, right, they all have different, they're different modalities that you know, will work with different kinds of content for different audiences and different ways. Much like the different modalities that we use now, right, we have different we have different tools in our toolbox, right? We, we we use storyline for some things we use PowerPoint, for others, we use video for some things we use, you know, simulations for others, but you know, I think people shouldn't think like, oh, everything is going to be VR everything is going to be you know, mixed reality when the heads So let's get there. Probably not I, you know, I really think of it very much like another tool in the toolbox. Right? The The problem is, is if you only have a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. Right. So I think the the key is to really know, what are the capabilities of all these different tools and modalities? And then really, you know, figuring out what, what's the appropriate modality for that tool? I think, but to kind of get back kind of segwayed off your question. But to get back to that, I think we're seeing some really interesting things coming out of AI. I know, that's a lot a lot that is was going on right now is all all about AI. But I think we'll see more of that using us to support treating like, with company specific AI models, so not just you know, the the public models that are out there, but you know, companies training their own models to kind of support training efforts, and really help personalize that learning journey. But I think that in combination with XR once some of that hardware gets a little bit more comfortable. I think we're gonna see some pretty incredible things, and I think it's gonna be world changing. But I think there's, there's a lot to work out. And we're probably gonna see some kind of weird devices and cross, you know, cross platform stuff that, you know, it's maybe it's gonna be your phone and your headset or glasses or watch or, you know, like, we're gonna see some some interesting stuff come out while we kind of work out this awkward phase,

Luis Malbas  
right? Yeah, no, I mean, because I recall going to conferences, you know, in expos, and just sort of seeing virtual reality, augmented reality just kind of is like the buzz words that, you know, vendors would try to pull you in, like, take a look at our, you know, at would we have here, it's the latest and greatest kind of thing. And you'd experience it, it was it was cool, but you know, application, that's a whole different deal. I think AI though, AI is coming whether or not, you know, whether we will like it or not, it's, I think it's a different animal. And, and I totally agree, like the combination of both is going to be extremely powerful. But yeah, I'm, I'm actually really intimidated by AI, myself. And I use chat GPT pretty much every day. But I'm still like, terrified of it. And but that's a whole other conversation. All right, so how about this, let's, let's kind of wrap it up a little bit. Talk about your XR and Alex D community. I'm so fascinated by that. Because it looks like you've had, you know, regular meetups and, you know, what platform Do you meet in? What what are you seeing there? Because there definitely has to be, you know, a group of participants to be able to sustain that and you have videos to show for it.

Tristia Hennessey  
Yeah, yeah. Um, so we do put up recordings of all the past meetups. Say the few that were lost for some technical difficulties. But yeah, we put those up on YouTube, if you should be able to find it if you search XR, and Alex D on YouTube, and we meet monthly and spacial the last Wednesday of every month at 5pm, Pacific 8pm. Eastern, we talk about all different things related to xr and learning. You know, we'll kind of have a different focus at each meetup and sometimes we'll demo some apps. Sometimes we have guest speakers come in and and, you know, share their experience and their you know, what they're working on. So it's usually pretty small group. But we're slowly growing and you know, there's there's more and more interest in definitely would love to see any of you there if you if you want to come by and say hi, we were meeting next week on Wednesday. So on the 31st. That'll be our next meetup. And, you know, I'll put out some stuff on LinkedIn about that. I think this next one, we're going to be talking about meta versus, and and learning environments. So we meet in spatial that's a Metaverse environment.

Luis Malbas  
Yes, it's special about IO. Yep,

Tristia Hennessey  
that's that's the one go ahead and make your character and advanced because that can be that can suck you in. Character creation is always fun. But yeah, it's pretty cool. I think they've picked up a lot of speed since some of the other Metaverse environments kind of petered out and discontinued like all space kind of isn't around anymore. And I think a lot of a lot of people that were using old spaces started picking up spatial and the they've, they've added legs, which is really exciting. So dance moves.

Luis Malbas  
Wow. Yeah. So, I mean, because I even remember back well, you know, just way back when, you know, second life was going and there was definitely like, there was a group of l&d professionals that were very much excited about about Second Life and would participate regularly. And, you know, and try to get others to join. But basically, the same idea is still exists, you know, and yeah, looks like it's just still happening there in in spatial. That's very, very cool.

Tristia Hennessey  
Yeah. And a couple others, too. That's just the one we use for the meetups. But, yeah, I think on Wednesday, we'll talk about some of the other platforms that are out there. And what some some companies are doing in that kind of Metaverse for learning learning environments. I know there are a lot of universities that are starting to kind of, you know, do their their online curriculum or their online courses in in in the metaverse, which is pretty cool. I think I think there's a lot of potential for that. I think right now, especially since a lot of those environments, you can access desktop or headset. So Wednesdays meet up, you don't need to have a headset to join, you can do that just on your browser. And I think that you know that flexibility right now is kind of what we need. One?

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, I have, I forgot to ask you this question. But your first VR experience, what was it?

Tristia Hennessey  
My first VR experience Oh, so my, I was actually playing around with Unity a few years before I had first put on a headset, but about about three and a half years ago, I was able to try Google Earth at one of the local universities, their game lab, and and it was totally hooked. I think it was less than a year later that I bought my, my headset and and just started consuming all the apps I could find and afford.

Luis Malbas  
But I mean, and that's a part of your bio two is your thing for travel.

Tristia Hennessey  
Yeah, yeah, I do. I do love travel. And I have been fortunate enough to be able to do that a bit. And yeah, I think, you know, things like Google Earth or wander for VR, to kind of share places with people who might not be able to otherwise visit them is just such an amazing thing. And, you know, I've talked to some people are doing some really awesome stuff in that space. Like, even storytelling in VR, and, you know, taking people back to there's one lady, I had a conversation with, that is working on a project where she's putting people in headsets and then taking them to specific places from their past and having them tell stories, and recording that. And that, to me, it was just really exciting. You know, letting people kind of live relive the moment, you know, and, and even other applications, like, you know, for people physically or unable to travel to be able to go and experience parts of the world I think is, is really monumental. And the better that technology gets, you know, I think is just going to, I don't know, I think is it will make the world a better place. Really. Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
definitely. Yeah. My mom who is at seven, I had her hair, I guess it was last year, and I have an HTC Vive, like an old school one. And I had her, we just sort of guided her on Google Earth to different places that, you know, that she's lived like in the Philippines and things like that. And it was, you know, for her was just like, oh, you know, she wouldn't have been able to experience that otherwise, you know, so it is it is an incredibly just amazing experience being able to do that. I like, like in Google Earth, I tend to just go out to the desert and then I don't know play around with the sun setting. And rising. I just like to look at that. But it is it's very meditative and peaceful to to be able to do that. Okay, my last question for you. Chrystia is, if you weren't an l&d Pro, what do you think you'd be doing?

Tristia Hennessey  
Um, I like to joke sometimes that if I didn't have mounds of student debt, that I would be a florist. And arrange flowers. Yeah. For some reason, I've always found that really cathartic. I did a flower arranging competition when I was like, eight, and I will never forget that it was I want a blue ribbon. And I don't think I'd ever want anything before other than like the spelling bee. So that that was that was my moment and that I knew I loved arrange big flowers. But I also have terrible allergies. So it's probably not the right career. For me, I think I dodged a bullet on that one. Oh, that is

Luis Malbas  
great. That's wonderful. All right. Well, Trisha, thank you so much for sharing with us today. I really appreciated hearing more about you and learning more what you do, and of course, being support to DC it's that's huge for us just to keep things going over here. But yeah, and you know, at some point, I am hoping to because I've done, we've done like, sort of xr events in the past just sort of online. If I throw another one together, I'd love to have you on to just to talk about your experiences.

Tristia Hennessey  
Absolutely. Yeah. I'd love to make it so. Cool. I'll be there.

Luis Malbas  
All right. All right. Thanks, Trisha. Thanks, everyone, for showing up today. And let's see, we'll have a new event announcement happening next week for our next big event, which is going to be taking place in June, I am thinking that I sort of want to do a, an AI event sooner rather than later. So if anybody out there knows anyone that I've been sort of listing speakers that I think would be really interesting for an AI event, people that are really active in in in ID and AI, so I might be putting that together soon. So message me if you have any ideas. And with that, we'll wrap it up and Chrystia thanks again, and we'll see everybody next time. Thanks for being here today everyone. I think

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