Community Showcase: Bobbi Losee Vernon

Luis Malbas  
All right. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the training learning and development community. Happy Wednesday to all of you. We're having a another member showcase here today. And our guest is I you know what, I didn't ask you Bobby, how do you pronounce that middle name of yours?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
The middle name is actually my maiden name. It's pronounced Losee and Lucy.

Luis Malbas  
Okay.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Opposite of Heisey.

Luis Malbas  
I like it. Bobby Losee Vernon, thanks so much for for joining the community and being a part of TI LDC and signing up to do one of these members showcases, I think this is probably my favorite thing to do, which is to actually meet members of the community, get to chat with them. Ask them questions about what they do and their lnd journey. And yeah, so and I have tons of questions for you. We've got like 11 in the Ask a Question area right now. We're probably gonna take about 30 minutes or so just to to learn more about you. Yeah, Kim is saying she can sing that, that that that low C picture.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I cannot.

Luis Malbas  
That's that's where I went to Kim with the, with the music. Um, all right. I'm gonna start with one thing real quick here. Global Skills exchange. What is that? It looks so interesting. When I'm like Global Skills exchange. Wow, what do you guys do?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
They're primarily known for working in the credentialing space. So they do a lot of work on the government side with Department of Defense. And they also work with commercial clients to be able to come up with solutions, primarily credentialing solutions, to help their workforce be ready and pivot in response to changes that are happening within their particular industries.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, and you are like a 20 plus year instructional design veteran. Yeah. And our Senior Learning architect, which I'm sure is, is well deserved. Talk about that a little bit like, you know, just your your, you know, being in the industry for that long and and becoming a Senior Learning architect, what? What is that? Like? Can you first tell me what that role exactly encompasses a JSX.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
So it's actually a brand new role for JSX. So primarily, JSX, is comprised of industrial and organizational psychologist in the credentialing world, that is called psychometricians. And some people aren't necessarily familiar with that word, but they're the people who are creating the assessments in the exams to ensure people have the knowledge, skills, capabilities and behaviors to perform a particular function. And then they're developing the assessments and checking people's performance on this assessments to see if they're actually preparing the people for what they need to be able to do in the workforce. When you're working in the certification space. Specifically, there is a fireball between the content meaning like the curriculum, and the assessment component. Basically, what that means is you can't necessarily create a curriculum and then build an assessment from that and say, Okay, this is what you need to read, this is what you're tested on. And here's we're going to validate that you know, what you need to know that firewall means that the content piece has to be completely separated from the assessment piece. And because ESX works on that assessment side, within the world of psychometrics. They wanted to be able to expand their offering of what they could bring to organizations and to credentialing programs from a learning perspective. And so that's where they brought me in based on my 20 plus years of experience. And based on my background in design, thinking and service experience design, and basically strategic design elements.

Luis Malbas  
Wow. So basically, to kind of tear down that wall is that what what kind of your role is or

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
it's not necessarily tearing down that wall, because we can't tear down that wall in a certification program. But what it does mean is you can create certain training programs or assessment based certificate programs. And so in assessment base certificate programs, you don't have that fireball, it means you can have a very deliberate and specific curriculum and learning outcome statements on which you're then testing. One thing that I've found is the credentialing world is quite confusing. And we can see that in the industry, across the globe, in terms of everything seems to be a certification, right? You can take a curriculum, and you can answer some questions and you think, Gosh, these questions are really easy. They're not really testing my ability of whether I know something whether I have some years of experience doing whatever they're testing me on, and it's just causing a lot of confusion. So hopefully with what I'm being what what I'm bringing to JSX is expanding on the desperate need to provide some of that clarification because we can be the leaders and helping organizations understand all of those nuances and the credentialing industry and what it means not only for them as a program provider, but what it means for their workforce. What it means for the their learners resumes, what it means for what they can talk about in terms of truly what are they capable of doing.

Luis Malbas  
Fascinating. Wow. That's actually giving me a lot to think about. That's great. You're missing some here, I can understand how a firewall would be good. But wow, it could lead to assessments totally unconnected with the content and also unconnected with the job itself. And you're right, the credentialing thing, is it? I mean, it's, it's pretty confusing. And it seems it is.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
And if I can just comment to him very quickly. That's why accreditation is so important in the credentialing world. So accreditation is that that gold stamp, that stamp of approval that your program meets these very strict protocols, and follows these very strict and specific policies and procedures to make sure you're following industry best practices. And that's how you're able to tell the strong, qualified programs from the fly by night mom and pop shops, not that I'm necessarily digging a mom and pop shop specifically. But there are differences, but that is the value of accreditation. It's basically your ROI on where you're going to spend your money. So if you think about it, it's you know, that's how certain certification programs are so well known. There's, you know, project management, right, the PMP certification, everybody knows the PMP certification, and it's because they're following these best practices.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Wow, you are, um, you are an interesting instructional designer. I don't think we've ever had anybody that function within that field before, but it's totally totally related.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I get that comment a lot like, a unique skill set, Bobby, we don't know what to do with you. And that is my day to day life.

Luis Malbas  
That's great. No, I'm glad that you're here. Because now everyone's gonna know and everyone's probably gonna start messaging you asking you questions all the time. I love it. Okay, now let's go back to the beginning. 20 plus years in instructional design, how did your journey in l&d begin like, where did that start?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Oh, accidentally like everybody else, right? It's something you just kind of fall into. I went to school to become an English teacher. And at that time, in the state of Virginia, the Standards of Learning were coming out and I realized, I saw the writing on the wall. And I thought this is not going to work for what I thought I was going to be in terms of what I could bring to a classroom. So when I graduated college, I went to work at a law firm quickly worked my way up into being a paralegal while at the same time, my husband got out of the military, and he was doing computer stuff, got a job for Ferguson enterprises at their headquarters. While he was there, he came across this job description for an instructional designer and he brought it home and he goes, this is you. And just like everybody else, I think you're like, what's instructional design? Like, nobody grows up, nobody's a child thing. When I grow up, I'm going to be an instructional designer. You don't even know that that is in the realm of possibilities. I read the job description and my heart just saying and I'm one of those people that if your heart sings, if your heart is responding to something, you have to act on it, you don't know what's going to happen, it's going to be for the better for the worse, but you have to act on it. I acted on it, I got the job. And my life kind of took off from there. I then became an IT trainer working on CRM implementation and supporting the staff and understanding how to you know, do their jobs using new technologies. From there, I actually took a step back, I took a demotion in a way and I became an administrative assistant. Hmm. Now bright, shocking, but again, you have to see the possibilities and things. The administrative position, the administrative assistant position was supporting a brand new high stakes certification program in the investment industry. Knowing that I had an instructional design background, I knew what I could bring to the table. And that is where my career blossomed by taking that step back. And being able to demonstrate the value I could bring as an instructional designer. I then was able to really expand on certification program management. I was responsible for the exam development doing online exam delivery, it was my organization's first foray into online learning I wore probably eight different hats, it took eight people to take my job when I left that position, because they parsed all of the roles and responsibilities out. That by far was the most fascinating job I've ever had. I absolutely loved it. From there, I started doing course development and working on my technical skills, and doing continuing education, programming and content, worked with some fascinating subject matter experts in the investment industry. And then from there, I had the rug pulled out from beneath me where this trajectory that I thought I was on, got canceled overnight, where my company had a massive reorganization, they said, you're no longer doing the job that you're doing, we're going to put you in this other job instead. And that was in strategic design. I have to admit, I went kicking and screaming into that new job, I was just devastated that this career that I thought it was going to have was unraveling. I am eternally grateful for the people that were around me on my team on that strategic design team, because they carried me through, they reminded me how capable I was how smart I was, how valuable I was. And that I can make a difference in this role. Now in that role, I basically became a learning experience designer. And that's where I learned the foundation of everything that I love to do today, I just didn't know what the possibilities were at the time, right. And so that's where I started learning about customer experience, user experience, business process improvement, project management, change management, communication skills. And so I started pulling it pulling all of those things together. That then landed in my my previous job before I joined with ESX. And that was overseeing a training portfolio for about 2000 volunteers around the world that serve in the member societies for that membership organization. In that role, I was responsible for massive problem solving, if you can imagine it's working not only with my team of people in that company, but teams of dynamic people all across the world. And they all have very diverse needs. And in that space, I was able to work on onboarding, some HR elements on leadership development, and then also on the technical side of training. And that Job was fascinating. It pushed me in new ways, and it pushed me really hard. And sometimes you need that to gain perspective on what it is that you want to do. And then I had the serendipitous opportunity to join Global Skills exchange as the Senior Learning architect where they saw the value in my service design experience and my background in learning and instructional design. So I am experiencing this beautiful marriage of 20 plus years of an exciting adventure, it's all culminating into what I have to say is probably a dream job. Wow.

Luis Malbas  
I'm so glad we're getting to talk to you right now a fascinating journey. That's been a lot of ups and downs. And I mean, is there anything you haven't really done in instructional design? It seems like you've just like, average, watching more.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Okay, so there, there are some things I haven't done that I wish I could do. And in looking at job descriptions, I think we can all agree that the realm of instructional design is exploding in terms of what you're responsible for. I cannot do graphic design, to save my life. In fact, I recently took a course on doodling for communication. And this person teaches you the basic shapes and concepts so that you can actually doodle and draw stick figures with emotions and things like that. So there's that element that I that I can't do. I wanted to get more into video recording and editing, and then I switched visits. And so I didn't, I didn't get to quite follow up on that. So there's some of those technical skills where, you know, just the number of tools and apps are exploding that I think even if you're a full time instructional designer, that's really hard to keep up with. Yeah, I have a couple shortcomings.

Luis Malbas  
And there's that side of things to all the folks that have those that specialize really in like elearning and, and media production, you know, all those instructional designers that do that. Yeah, and that is that's almost like a whole different kind of animal, I think but, but I think that the things that you've done and the experiences you have, are to me like we don't tip you're not typical. I did I guess that's what

Unknown Speaker  
so I take that as a compliment. Yeah.

Luis Malbas  
So let's talk about what Your favorite part of being in learning learning in l&d?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Honestly, it's building relationships with people and helping them solve their problems. It's what I live for. I I'd like to start out workshops, saying, Have you ever asked or said to yourself, there's got to be an easier way. And I always believe that there is an easier way, and then working with people to uncover what is in their power to make the change to make it easier. Because oftentimes, so many of the things that are in our way are outside of our control. So let's figure out what's in our control. And let's figure out those small things that can start to make a change. For the better, and I just find building connections with people is something that again, I'm gonna go back to, it just makes my heart sing. And it's what I live for. So anything in that realm fulfills me?

Luis Malbas  
Right? Wow, that's kind of core to, you know, this series. And, and what I'm trying to build with CLDC, in general, it just feels like, you know, I mean, I just felt like, especially in the digital space relationships, it just can get so fractured and sort of anonymous, and oh, and not not great. And I thought, let's just get back to being human beings and actual faces again and

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Exactly, exactly. And, you know, I have to say, it was interesting, because I was with my previous employer for almost 20 years. So I hadn't interviewed for positions, I hadn't connected in that way with people. And I had tons of relationships with people all across the world. So to step into a new role, and have to do the onboarding experience as a remote participant and have to try to build these relationships and build that trust that you need. That's, that's been a challenge. And I've had to, I think, be more creative in terms of how do I create that spontaneous combustion of of energy that I used to seek when I would run into people in the stairwell or at the coffee bar, or in the cafeteria, something like that. And that's actually been a challenge for me. I'm extroverted, and I love connecting with people. But I also realize not everyone is comfortable with that. And yeah, so it's this fear of being, oh, it's the new girl who thinks she can solve the world's problems. And I'm like, No, I am the new girl. But I seriously, I'm here, I want to be able to help you solve your problems. Yeah. But you know, it's being genuine, you know. And hopefully, I'm being received as such.

Luis Malbas  
Wow, fascinating. Um, so we've talked about the journey, a fascinating journey. I love it. What a great story. Yeah. Now that you're a senior learning architect, is there anything that you wish you had known? When you started out your career? Like if you can go back and tell yourself, hey, 20 years ago, person? Sure. This in mind?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I think there's two things here, and one I think all of us can appreciate. I wish I had known how difficult it would be to explain to people what it is that we do. Right? My mom still doesn't know what I do. My husband still stresses himself out trying to understand what it is to say, like, how do we simplify what it is that we do without undermining the value of the work that we do? That's one thing. I think the other thing is to not get distracted by the noise of all of the tools and bells and whistles and things that are just getting thrown at us in terms of solution solution. It's taking the time to really understand and diagnose the problem. are you solving the right problem? For the right people at the right time? And for the right reasons? In May, beginning beginnings, I would say someone would say we need training, we need a course. And I would just jump Yes, I will do that for you. And oftentimes things would miss the mark. And it's because I didn't take the time to really understand and diagnose the root cause of what was going on. And really diving deeper into the people side of things. And so that's honestly where my obsession is, is I don't care about the tangible things and the noise. I care about the value proposition that the work that I'm doing brings to the people.

Luis Malbas  
I love it because I'm going to clip this answer and I'm going to be posting it all over social media. But I am going to ask you though, I do want to follow up. Um, so when people ask you what you do, how do you answer Now,

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I solve problems for people, I help solve problems for people, that that's the only way I can really describe it. And it's interesting because now I'm in a juxtaposition rate of the way in which I solve problems is slightly different now that I'm with a new employer. And so how that I how I frame that, in my mind is something that I'm still trying to work with. Because now I have a new vocabulary and new vernacular to use in terms of what's happening in the credentialing space and how to make people understand that. So I was actually talking to the CEO of my company yesterday, and we were talking about these lofty vision statements, and I just kind of keep coming back to, we help prepare the workforce to do their jobs. And in my role, I think I do that in a variety of different ways that doesn't necessarily focus on just instructional design, it really has to do with the change management aspect and in the communication piece, and the addresses addressing some of the soft skill pieces of someone has a challenge and just acknowledging that that person saying I hear you, right. And so how do you encapsulate that and describe that? Right, and I help people do their jobs and do their jobs better? That's yeah. Oh,

Luis Malbas  
I love it. It's like getting into like instructional design philosophy or something.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
So if anyone has advice on how I should word what it is that I do? Yeah. I'm open to suggestions.

Luis Malbas  
So let's get into a little bit more specific here. What what kinds of projects are you currently working on right now,

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I'm actually working on two very fascinating projects. One is JSX. Global Skills exchange is revamping and evolving how it does its business. And there's an underlying process and a methodology associated with that, I have been tasked with taking the lead on socializing that methodology, and making it consumable by people. Because again, the nature of what we do is sometimes very confusing. And when you start bringing the people side of things into it, it gets a little fluffy. And people sometimes aren't comfortable with fluffy, right, they want data, they want facts. And that's not necessarily how it works with people, you got to start looking at some of the qualitative measures in addition to some of the quantitative measures. So I am working on creating this methodology and working on the skill gap analysis for our staff to understand what capabilities they have, and what capabilities they need to grow. And then creating the training programs and the support mechanisms to help them be able to perform this methodology and their work. The other element is that particular project has a couple of touch points with a couple other things that are happening within the company. And I've stepped into the role of change management lead for those other strategic initiatives that are happening so that I can help connect the dots for the staff in terms of how the work that I'm doing with the methodology connects and ties into these other strategic initiatives that we have to be successful with the methodology in order to be successful with these other initiatives. And in fact, I have a change management meeting this afternoon, and I have my mero board up and just keep adding to it. I try to build virtual collaborative, engaging experiences in my meetings when I can so that's kind of been my dumping ground. Wow. Or for all of my work.

Luis Malbas  
It's fascinating. I love it. Um, well. Now, I mean, time has just flown by I'm like, Oh, my gosh, we've already gone 25 minutes. But tell me, how do you stay on top of your professional development? Like how do you learn new things, make sure that you're that you're continuing to grow now as a senior learning architect.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Mm hmm. I have become infatuated with LinkedIn within probably the last year, two years. And sometimes if you just follow the right people, it opens up a lot of doors of opportunity. And, in fact, I think it was Karen North who had shared CLDC with me, and she was boasting about the accessible Inclusive Design Conference. And that that was my gateway into this particular community hands down the best conference I've ever attended in my entire career. It was so, so good, and so enlightening. And I felt so empowered to be able to, again continue to be a change agent for good in terms of what we do in the learning space. And so it's because of LinkedIn that I find all of these interests Seeing webinars and white papers and articles and just thought provoking questions that people from across the world are asking. And I find that to be extremely engaging. The challenge, though, is not going down the rabbit hole, right? It's how can I consume this? How can I create a parking lot of this information that I've gathered, but not necessarily get distracted? Again, by the noise of, oh, there's a shiny Penny, we should try this new technique, or we should do this or we should do that, you know, everything needs a purpose, and needs to have value. So that's probably where it's at right now. I am looking forward to getting back to in person events. I missed them desperately, but have not yet been comfortable to go to one.

Luis Malbas  
Did you used to go to conferences and things like that?

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I did. Primarily it would be at D or the Learning Conference, things of that sort. You know, try to stay on top of learning guild. Sometimes those West Coast conferences in person are hard to get to. I'm on the east coast. So travels a little more difficult that way.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I kind of I, I missed the conferences, too. But I feel like I'm not quite sure whether or not like when things are really fully going to be back. You know, I know that. Right. You know, the big one DevLearn they're able to pull off. But you know, we'll see what happens in in 2022. It's all kind of just all shifting nowadays. Um, yeah. So I'm gonna get close to wrapping up just a couple more questions, if that's okay. Absolutely. What are the kinds of jobs have you worked? You've been doing this for so long. But is there anything prior that? I mean, what are the things have

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
you done? Sir, my very, very first job was at Arby's, and I absolutely loved it to this day, still one of my favorite jobs ever. And it was because the store had great management. And they had a good onboarding program. And I think honestly, when I think about it, Cheryl, I still remember her name, I was 14, when I got that job. Cheryl was the store manager, and just took such good care of me in terms of getting me comfortable with how to do my job, she trusted me, and it really set the foundation for gosh, this is what a good onboarding experience would be like, No, I didn't know. That's what that was at 14. Looking back, I recognize it. Beyond that. I also worked at a car dealership. So I was responsible for moving cars around on the lot and getting them gassed up and managing the keys and some of the paperwork and things. So and yeah, I think that's primarily it. Well, it's,

Luis Malbas  
it's fun. It's interesting, because I the reason I asked that question is because I feel like a lot of times, that is really kind of it can really impact why you do what you do just especially just sort of your workplace experiences. And I know for myself personally, like ever, you know, my first job was, I think I was working, I work retail at a doing inventory at a clothing retailer. And and as I had gone through that process I just saw kept on seeing things that I would, that I wish that I would have would do better than, you know, sort of the original system that was in there. And I wouldn't start just informally training other people on how to like, get better at certain tasks. And that just always continued throughout my career. And you know, and I would become a manager because of that I would always try to improve processes and systems and try to train people to get better at doing certain things. And so I really have an affinity for this space because of because of that, I think,

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
yeah, I feel that I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, just solving problems, solving problems making things work better for people.

Luis Malbas  
But if you weren't an l&d professional, what would you be? Oh,

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
at my core, I think I would still be a teacher. Hmm, I love it. Beyond that. I'm a volunteer field hockey coach at the high school. They just finished their third season. They're brand new, and I'm just so proud of them. If I could, I would own an athletic complex that has nothing but field hockey fields, and I would teach field hockey to everybody because it's a wonderful sport. And beyond that, I think if I had carpentry skills like a woodworker, B, I am obsessed with furniture. And if I could build furniture, I would have to buy a bigger house.

Luis Malbas  
I should introduce you to my wife, she she grew up in New Jersey. We're in California now but she was uh, she played field hockey when she was you know, in high school and in college and you know, absolutely love that game. We don't really have that here in California. I still don't exactly know what it is, but

Unknown Speaker  
you should check it out.

Luis Malbas  
It's really good. And she's obsessed with furniture too. We just

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
I love her. She's my

Luis Malbas  
We had a garage sale a couple of weeks ago and all the money that she made in the garage sale, she used to just buy it, buy a new lamp. So now we have a new lamp in the house. So yeah, that's me. It's great. Well, Bobby, thank you so much for your time today. Great conversation. I'm so fascinated by you and, and your, your journey and lnd really, really interesting. I'm serious. I do want to clip some of these things and sort of share them out because it's so interesting and honored to have you on the program. Thank you. So I

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
was honored to be here. Thank you for asking, and thank you for creating this community. It has been invaluable to me and I appreciate everyone who is bringing forth their energy and their ideas to help us all get better at what we do.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for mentioning that. All right. Yeah. There you go. Greg, with the plan. Thank you, Bobby, you rock.

Bobbi Losee Vernon  
Greg with a plan is one of my favorite people ever from a previous employer. Thank you for being here, Greg. Oh,

Luis Malbas  
I love that, Greg. We're the plan. All right, Bobby. We'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody for showing up. And yeah, next week. I know we've got a couple broadcast going I can't remember exactly what. But we'll see you next time. Thanks, everyone. Thanks again, Bobby.

Unknown Speaker  
Thank you. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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