Community Showcase: Monique St Paul

Luis Malbas  
Hello, everybody, welcome to The Training, Learning, and Development Community. Thanks for joining us today. It's Thursday and we have another member showcase. We're going to be talking to Monique St. Paul today.

Monique is somebody that we've actually had on TLDC in the past. Talking about VR do's and don'ts, I believe it was, it was.

Anyway, we've got 10 questions so far in the Ask a Question area. And we've got about 30 minutes to do this, really, these member showcases are a great way for us in the community to meet one another, learn more about each other. I actually love it as a tool for like, entry level instructional designers to get to know what folks are like in this space. There is just, it's just a great way to talk to humans. And I know that I feel like sometimes in this digital world, I'm so isolated from everyone. And so having actual faces to speak to is always is always a big positive for me. So I'm glad we can get this going and give me let me give a shout out first.  Actually this is a really great audience that we have in here. We've got Ray Jimenez in here and I saw Kassy had popped up. Kim is here of course great. Kathy Laura Lisa Crockett. Yay Darcy is here. Katrina TLC with Val. Oh jack is here. And Diane, Liz Kristin Jarrow, Vanessa, James, gosh, look at this crowd. Monique, what the heck is going on? You must be like, you must be one of those LinkedIn, you know, popular people or something because we've got a bunch of people in here. Okay. All right. So I'm just gonna go for it. I'm going to start asking you some questions. You're ready. I think I'm ready. I feel like I'm gonna okay. Yeah, yeah, you're in the hot seat. Monique, you have a marketing background, your marketer turned instructional designer, one of those one of many actually one of those broadcast. Yeah, one of those, I'm actually a marketer too. So don't feel you don't have to feel bad or anything right now. Um, can you tell? Like, what was that transition like? And, you know, does having a marketing background help with with being an instructional designer?

Monique St Paul  
Yes, most definitely helps with being an instructional designer, when it comes to the design part of instructional design, I'm certainly not up to the level of a graphic designer, but I have an understanding of what looks good and what looks crowded, you know, having whitespace on a screen, things like that. And knowing that you can have 45 slides, but if someone can read them quickly, that's okay. That's not going to mess anything up in terms of learning for you. And I think it's just the creative part of it. And that process is important to me, I think has both a marketer and a designer and combining what it looks like and the content is a lot of fun. For me. Transitioning was, I went to school, I went to grad school for communication, management, and learning and development specifically. And so in doing that, it married the two, I ended up having a mentor who really spent a significant amount of time with me, I joined ATD, I joined TL DC, and became part of the community and I was able to land my first job I purposely scheduled it for today. It's my today is my one year anniversary.

Luis Malbas  
Really? Yeah. And that and that job is that continuity, how do you actually I always continue, I'm xR which was great when it was Oh, that was a great conversation we had before I'm gonna if anybody has a link to that original conversation, otherwise, I'll search for it. But, you know, we talked about do's and don'ts of virtual reality, which I thought was really, really interesting. And also the fact that you don't really have that technical of a background. And yet here you are in the virtual reality world building instructional design in that space. And that I think is you know, that in itself is Oh, there you go. Thanks, Monique is accomplishment. Alright, so, um, but Okay, so did it feel natural to go from marketing to instructional design? I mean, was it bumpy at all? Or was it like, Okay, I get this I, as a marketer, I can see a lot of similarities in certain things,

Monique St Paul  
I think very bumpy. I would not say it was a smooth transition at all. And I think that's more so on the instruction part of the instructional design. Design part made a little bit more sense to me it was more comfortable with it, but because I was working in a completely different medium that was difficult for me and I was the I'm the only person on my team.

Him who works in learning. So that is also very interesting. I work with developers, game developers and game designers. And that is a very technical crowd, which is not me. So it's a little bit different. And I think I spend a lot of my time advocating for our clients about what they want, and why this has to be more than just cool. And that that's been really important to me. So it wasn't exactly smooth, because I'm not an expert, obviously in l&d, but it was transitioning not only to the industry, but then also working with people I've working with people, any technology that I don't understand, or I didn't understand the time. Yeah. So that advocating part, probably, it helps having a little bit of a marketing background, because you could

I think a lawyer would be better. Yeah, it's definitely, it's I think I spent a lot of time during discovery, talking to my clients and getting to know them really well, and understanding their product and feeling like in many of the cases that I'm part of their organizations, just because I've been blessed with really good sneeze, I think I don't have any bad stories just yet. And it's not that they don't change their mind. It's just that they're very good to talk to you, I think. And so I'm always looking out for them when I'm talking to the rest of my team.

Luis Malbas  
Oh, that's great. I'm sure some of the credit has to go to you as well, being able to, you know, to talk to people in the right way that that's, that's a skill unto itself. It's major, yeah. Along those lines, so what do you like about being an instructional designer?

Monique St Paul  
I do like the creative part of it. I think what's interesting is I communication is my background. So that's how I ended up marketing. And I think that's a general connection to lnt, as well. And so I like talking to people, I like figuring out their problems. So one of my favorite parts of being an instructional designer is actually doing the discovery portion, or doing the needs analysis, whatever you choose to call it. I think figuring out like, What's wrong, it's sort of like gossip, spill the tea, what's going on, and they don't realize they're doing it. And I start to ask, Well, why is that a problem and tell me more in what did that person do. And it's really just a way to figure out what's broken, and how we can fix it. And whether or not training is actually the solution. Sometimes it isn't. And sometimes it's just a matter of people understanding that the information is out there. So I do elearning, as well as virtual reality. So it's a situation where we've had, you know, an LMS. And the information is all there and someone saying, but they keep asking me questions, and I'm like, because they don't want to look for it, the information is there, I could tell you where it is without thinking about it. So it's really trying to understand what your users are, or your learner's are willing to do, and how you can reach out to them because I said I wouldn't answer those emails, I would say, Have you like send a form of back of like, have you checked lesson like, have you looked at this place? Yeah. And if you haven't, then, you know, do that first before you ask me the question. And smqs have to set boundaries for themselves about what they're willing to answer and what they can say go to the LMS to take a look at this. Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
yeah. Oh, yeah. Like Ray's saying right now. I love needs analysis is listening to gossip, it is actually true. That's great. Gosh, there's you. We could probably talk about that for like hours. And maybe that's something you and Lisa Crockett, can you guys ever do a broadcast? So that's wonderful. So nowadays, what kind of projects you're working on something? Is there anything that you're doing? That's particularly interesting right now,

Monique St Paul  
it's all secret, unfortunately. But it is, it is fun. I will say this, I have a now I'm the projects that I'm working on, I'm actually doing from the beginning. So previously, when you met me, I was walking in the middle of something that already existed. And I think we've been shifting a lot of our simulations to be more game like and and not necessarily gamification, just really trying to make people look at the content a little bit more abstractly. And then at the end, saying, well, this is what we meant by that, if you you know, this is what this monster represented. And this is what this represented, and then making them really understand it having fun with it at first and then getting the real facts in at the end. So it's been really fun learning about the gaming industry in general, I have friends who are gamers, obviously, the developers on my team are always suggesting things, but it's nice to get it in different platforms. So not just do it in VR. I've seen PC games, I've seen games on you know, switches or you know, other gaming consoles and things like that. So that's been really fun to learn about how all of these things intersect. And that's really storytelling at its finest, I think, and making sure that all of those are all connected is the way to go about it.

Luis Malbas  
Wow. So you must be learning a lot right now.

Monique St Paul  
If I tried to. I was better before I think I was at a Morissette capital but I this year has been a doozy for me personally, but it's it's been good and I've been trying to get back into podcasts and webcasts and things like that, but I don't want to listen to

Luis Malbas  
So what are some things you wish you had known about l&d before you started your journey? Like as an instructional design?

Monique St Paul  
How long things take? The the project management side of this is very different. And where in the cycle, how often you talk about them with SMI. So we start off usually with, oh, we'll talk to you once a week sort of things like, no, we're not talking to you once a week, we need to set up like four hours where we're going to talk and like hash this out. Because if you don't, people start to forget what's connected. And then also, in terms of working on something like your storyboard. Why did you do this? Again, you may have done it three weeks ago, and I don't remember why I connected this to this. And it's sort of like trying to understand the pacing of a project. And when and where you should do things is one of the biggest challenges I think I have found, because you're also working on multiple projects. So it's remembering where you are with each one and why you made a decision. And if you've made a decision that you canceled something out, write that down. And who approved that, because that is like a big thing is chasing approvals. Who said that was okay, who said take that out? It's and I've done it with proposals as well, when I was a proposal writer, so I get it. I understand some of it. But there's a lot to it. So knowing where things mesh, I think is is one of the harder parts of that. Yes, save all emails, indeed. pdf those and put them in a file is what?

Luis Malbas  
It's great. Yeah. Kim saying save all emails for two years. Yeah. Wow. So I mean, how would you compare it like that? As far as that the time expectation? How would you compare it to like, say your marketing projects from the past? marketing actually seems like it has that it's there is kind of like a set schedule that

Monique St Paul  
it is I worked in publishing, and publishing is no joke. So they, I would know where things were for next July. You know, when I worked in publishing, we had something called the master publishing schedule. So we we knew everything, and we had specific printer dates. And that is very different than working with clients, they might push stuff back, we might push stuff back because things aren't working. And that is a little bit more difficult. I'm definitely a deadline driven person. So when I worked with proposals, there was a drop dead date and had to be done by this time. And that does not exist in this world. So it's a little bit weird for me, because I'm like, I got it done. Let's go and just like, Oh, this person's on vacation, so we're not gonna do anything about it for another week or two. And I'm like, what, like, that's just not okay. But it happens.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, Lisa saying Welcome to the world of l&d jello. Yeah, it's a bit. This is great. I love I love hearing this stuff. So so far, do you have a favorite project that you can tell us about that you've done that some that would help us understand a little bit more about your role and what you do?

Monique St Paul  
Probably not in the VR, but I can talk I did a train the trainer elearning that I really had fun with. And that was interesting, because they really, they know how to teach clinically, they don't know what to watch out for in terms of how someone learns what they might learn or how they interpret. So I had a lot of fun creating that, I think, was one that I really enjoyed, they happen to use lessonly. And that was fun to use. But I was pulling in gifts or gifts depending on who you are, or little quotes from movies and other things. So I was really having a little bit more from it than I have more control over it. Whereas in VR, there are a little there are things where I come up with a game designer. And we design something together. And then we talk to our head engineer. And then he knows us until we get to a point where we can actually do it based on the timeline for the client. And then things more from there things that we thought were going to work don't or they don't look as good as we expect. And so there's a lot of going back and forth with that. So once I released that server to the team, it's really what they're able to build, and what I'm willing to compromise on to some degree.

Luis Malbas  
Nice. So this was just strictly an E learning project. That was just strictly an E learning project. Yeah, yeah. Cuz I noticed also that you were you have like a you've done Toastmasters.

Monique St Paul  
I have. Yeah, I'm a total nerd like that. I totally love it. I'm part of Norwalk, Toastmasters. So you know if there's any people in Norwalk, Connecticut, that are there. I love it. I, I think as a communications major, it's always good to continue practicing your public speaking skills, I've generally felt very comfortable doing it, but it doesn't mean that I'm not nervous. So being able to practice that on a weekly basis in front of people was really good. And I think it also makes it easier for me to connect with clients, both big and small, I mean, biggest like the actual decision makers of the group because that that can always be a little bit concerning. Like these are the people who decide whether our contract is renewed. So feeling comfortable with that has always been really important to me. So I've been part of that group for four or five years at this point, and it's been really good

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, that was prior to your your, your your choice to get into instructional design. Oh,

Monique St Paul  
yeah, yeah, that was definitely prior to and I think some of the things I was for a while I forget what the role is called now but essentially they're learning person for for Toastmasters. And so I did little segments for them. And I enjoyed that. I think when I worked at the publishing place, I liked working on sort of the event committee and helping people do learning things like that we did a whole healthy eating sort of thing walking, and how do you gauge if you're doing well or not? So I think I've always enjoyed learning in volunteer roles, and I've just made it now my profession.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Very interesting. Anything else you do to maintain your professional development? I know you're saying you're talking earlier about podcasts and webcasts, but anything else?

Monique St Paul  
Those are the two big ones, I would go to conferences, I think as things open up, I have the only virtual conference I went to is actually community day, which I think was awesome. But I haven't gone to any others as of right now. But it seems like that's the way at least for the next couple of months that we're going to be doing things so I think I probably will join it. It's just it's a lot. It's a lot to do. I think in general, I'm I'm 100% an introvert so the big crowds and things like that. I don't say make me nervous, but it takes a lot out of me. And so to do that virtually also is just exhausting sometimes. So

Luis Malbas  
totally agree. Totally agree. I mean, yeah, just even for myself as a producer, I get exhausted. I mean, the last event, we did have over 1000 people I pretty much crap days afterwards. Yeah, I was Yeah, I was so tired. And I'm still kind of exhausted from it. Because there's so much to think about still. But I've seen your

Monique St Paul  
setup, which is crazy if something like four or five computers going at that time. Yeah, I've

Luis Malbas  
definitely sort of trim stuff down. But But yeah, the first one for sure. I was like I had I think like five computers going but I'm not that crazy anymore. That that skilled anyway. Now I feel like it's like a learning DJ. It's great. I think your DJ, that's what I need to change my title. Are you gonna keep that one in mind? I'm going to keep that in mind. So anything that like in your career right now, what keeps you inspired?

Monique St Paul  
I think mentors that don't know their mentors. So Lisa is actually on the cast right now. But I met her at your community day. And I think people that you are to stay connected with I think, as you said earlier in the broadcast that it's an isolating group, I think a lot of the people that I know who are in l&d are usually just a team of one or two people or they're freelancers. And so they don't get to connect with people all that often. I think one of my superpowers if I were to have one is to stay connected to people. So you know, my best friend I've known since high school, and they're just people, I pick people up from everywhere that I go, any organization or things like that. So I think I stay inspired by talking to those people, I stay inspired when people tell me they really enjoy my elearning where they really liked this idea. And then we end up using it. I think the biggest sort of I think it's actually one of the questions. So I apologize, I'm jumping ahead, the biggest compliments that I got is that people like my energy, and part of the reason that they keep coming is because they know how dedicated I am to that. And that pushes me to do better. And that pushes me to keep showing up.

Luis Malbas  
No, it's true. I love it. And, you know, it's, I know that for myself, Well, the whole reasons why I like building this community is because really, really early on, I felt like you know, as a as a event producer, that just those one on one connections that you randomly make, like in the hallways or you know, at lunch or anything like that were the ones that were the most meaningful for events. And I really wanted to kind of duplicate that in, in sort of virtual spaces. And that's kind of what community today is about is not so much like I want to have great topics, and I want people to speak but I also want there to be a lot of opportunity for people to connect. Because when I hear like, you know, you and Lisa have a relationship now and are, you know, rarely inspiring each other and communicating that is what makes me feel like TL DC is successful. And I get messages from people like that all the time. And it's basically what keeps keeps me going is that like I'm helping facilitate other people meeting and ultimately just kind of growing. So yeah, now I think I'm glad that you find some value in that. And so speaking of that best friend from high school, what does that person how would they describe what you do for a living?

Monique St Paul  
I think she actually knows pretty well. So she she's in QA. So her world is not that different from mine to be interested. Interestingly enough, he would probably say that I teach people to do things that they should already know she would argue as I make sure But they are aware of it in a fun and entertaining way. So make it so that it's not completely boring and just click Next.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, no, that's good. That's actually most everybody else, like, their best friends have no clue like, you know, they might, I think the most frequent response is something like, yeah, they, they say I make PowerPoints for living or something.

Monique St Paul  
So I force people to know what I do, unfortunately. Like, I forced them to learn the acronyms of things that I'm part of. So TL DC, and, you know, Toastmasters, I usually shortened just a tm. But yeah, if you talk to me, you probably know all about sort of the nerdy background just because I can't help but share it. It's just who I am. And I think I'm always interested in hearing about what other people are passionate about, even if I don't particularly care. It's just nice to hear and understand, like, why is that interesting to you? Because even just, you know, user design or user experience it, I noticed so much more on sites and other things now about like, Well, I haven't even entered my password, and you're yelling at me, but you didn't give me a list of the things that I'm supposed to include in the password. It's just like, Well, why didn't you? So it's those things that I sort of pick up on now. So it's always good to share. I think that's how you learn. And I think that's how you grow. And it's also just a different way to get a different perspective on things.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, yeah. And you know, and you, you actually, it seems like you have a really interesting sort of varied background proposal writer, you know, you've got that Mara, that degree in communications, became a marketer, you got into instructional design, and not just instructional design, like doing elearning, or something else, you're doing something and like, you know, leading edge technology in virtual reality. But what other jobs have you worked like, even prior to being a proposal writer, and you know, anything else that kind of influenced your, your path to move in this direction,

Monique St Paul  
I was a Resident Assistant when I was in college, so no surprise there. I quite enjoyed that. And that's, again, creating many programs for the people that were residents to you. So that was that I worked in the alumni office as well. So just that was part of sort of keeping in touch with the university and reminding them about why they thought it wasn't important and contributing and continuing to share as an alumni, what you learned to people who are just joining that community. And then if you want to go super old school, I worked in fast food. So I think anyone who's ever worked a service job, gets people and understands that things are going to be frustrating sometimes, and you kind of have to let that go. You have to take it with a grain of salt. It also means that when I picked something up, and I decide I don't want it anymore, I bring it back to where it was just been like crew before, so I get what that's like. Okay,

Luis Malbas  
so you've kind of been like in education. Like for a while, like even prior to your this stuff.

Monique St Paul  
I've always liked it. I think I always flirted with it. And I didn't really know what it was. I didn't know that it was in industry. And then I figured it out. I liked it. I jumped into it. And I think our community in general is just very welcoming. Yeah, I think you hear other communities were just a little bit more competitive. And I think for the l&d community, everyone's welcome. And just like, please join us. And if they don't have the time, they can connect you to someone who can. And I mean, you even hosting this community is a big deal. For particularly for me, I've now done this twice with you. And that's been really fun. I've been able to meet Lisa, I've been able to meet other groups and go to other things that people are having. And it's been really great for me, I think, and I think it's important that people stay connected.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, no, I completely agree. It's, it is a little crazy on the l&d side, because it feels like people get inspired and they might build a community, but then, you know, they sort of drop off, then people have to move to something else, there's, there just seems to be a lot of movement. But at the same time, it just is a great way, like for me personally to, to witness how things sort of evolve amongst the social aspect of it, I I definitely watch that. And I really don't participate that much on social media or anything I just sort of watch, but I think that's probably the most important thing I can do is somebody who's trying to kick in, you know, maintain a community is just listen. So that's kind of what I do and sort of, you know, and then of course, produce an event and whenever I can. So if you weren't an l&d professional, what do you think you'd be?

Monique St Paul  
I'd probably be working in publishing, but I mean, I've already done it technically, but I, I really liked it. I like reading. I like helping people come up with stories. That's just one of those things. I don't think I'd stay in the marketing field in terms of publishing by want to be more involved in sort of the slush pile and looking at that and helping new authors sort of come to be, that would definitely be it. I think that's a lot of fun. Are you?

Luis Malbas  
Are you a reader? I do read a lot of Yeah,

Monique St Paul  
I am a reader. I would say before grad school, I was probably averaging 25 books or so a year according to Goodreads, which I don't think is that great, because of course, I Well, I worked in a publishing realm. So I hung out with people who read 100 books a year. So my 25 seems like nothing. But it's, it's fun. I think it's always been something that's been a part of my life as a kid, my mom read, you know, my sister read, we all did that a library card is the best. I won't say weapon that you could have. But it's the easiest way to learn. And it's the you don't have to it doesn't have to be about money. You don't have to go to grad school, you can pick up a book, you could go online, you can do LinkedIn learning, depending on where you are in what town. I think education is just the greatest way to go about it. So

Luis Malbas  
totally true. totally true. That's great to hear. Kim's asking favorite genres of books.

Monique St Paul  
I don't really have one that sounds like a cop out. But realistically, I let my feelings kind of go with what I want that time. Sometimes it's a beach read, sometimes you read Jodi picoult. And you need something that really hits you in the fields. That makes you think a little bit so I, I stay away from true crime, because that's just too much for me. But I romance and I read I tried for a while to read diverse authors. And by that I meant I realized that most of the authors I read were women. So looking at men looking at people of different nationalities and different different cultures, I found the immigrant story across the board actually very much related to my own background. And so whatever happens to strike the mood is really what what works for me.

Luis Malbas  
That's great. That's great. I think Emily wants to be a good reads friend. So I'm not sure if you could share your profile or anything.

Monique St Paul  
I am friends with them. I so I will share that to you. I don't know what it is. Because it's not my name. I almost never use my name on things that are not professional. Or even if I do take out I use one of my friends names or another thing because I'm a weirdo like that. But I.

Luis Malbas  
That's great. That's great. All right. It looks like Ray left. But he did have a question in the queue area. And he wanted to know what you thought similarities between instructional and design and marketing, where I think we kind of talked about a little bit and but what do you think? Is there anything that you

Monique St Paul  
did, I think your your focus is still very much on your learner and attracting them. So in instructional design it I think many people focus on just the content, and you have to focus on the delivery of the content as well. And marketing is all about delivering and convincing them that they need something or they want something I think being an idea is very similar to that is you watch this content, you want to learn this, you want to be better at your job, I think what they're focusing on is different, but sort of the appeal to the audience is really what you need to do, and making sure that it's easy for them. It's something that they can come back to it's something that is digestible. Certainly, I look at things that are willing to share in different ways like social media platforms that require me to do it publicly drive me nuts, I want to be able to send that to just the least because I think he thinks it's interesting and add a little note as to why and I don't need everybody else to know about it. So it's to me, I think there's definitely an intersection there. And that's actually a good opening. And in terms of what me and Lisa are thinking about doing in terms of the cast we call to serve breaking up planning and looking at just different intersections at all, as as we talked as to people in the profession, one who's very seasoned, and one who's very new, how we approach things. And what difference does that make? Like? Does she approach it the same way? And are there things that I should be thinking of that? I haven't because she's she knows what clients really want you look at some of that I'm part of other slack groups as well, as I listened to what they say about clients and their expectations and being able to have that. So we're, we're thinking about potentially launching in September. So we're still working on exactly what we want to do in the format for that, but hopefully you'll hear from that soon. I know she's she's jumping on this soon, too, as well.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. So, you know, and just to kind of reiterate that everybody in on the podcast is Monique and Lisa Crockett are considering doing a series on TL DC talking about just specifically those intersections. And I, it was funny because I had a conversation with Lisa about this a few weeks ago. And right after we had conversations, I swear it's like everything that was coming up. And any the subject matter for TL DC was like an intersection. All of these different intersections just started like making themselves like, obvious to me. So it was it was hilarious. So I really am excited if you guys you know, I know we don't have any formal plans for it yet. But if you guys can pull that off. I would love to have you as regulars on the broadcast. Yeah, and

Monique St Paul  
if you have ideas, please message me Or at least, I'll actually drop by LinkedIn info in the chat.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Yeah, and just along those lines for anybody, if you're interested at all in like presenting topics on TL DC, I'm always looking. I mean, for me, the ideal is is TVC is just a platform for other instruction, janitor designers to come up and just talk about things that they're focused on and would like to explore for myself, you know, TL DC really is kind of more of a, It functions as a sandbox for me in a lot of different ways. And just being able to throw ideas out there. And, and right now, I am really sort of, I'm struggling a little bit because I have I got the whole AI DC thing really got me and, and it feels like, I'm just putting a lot of focus on that and thinking a lot about inclusion and accessibility. So I feel like I'm kind of sluggish right now, because I'm considering so many other things. So you know, I guess I'm the reason I'm saying that is if anybody else is also having a, you know, has ideas, and they want to reach out to other people feel free to just present it to the community. I'm happy to help facilitate that. And with that, Monique, I think we're done. Excellent. That's right. So I want to say thank you for helping support TL DC for being a member. You know, you are already contributing a ton to to our broadcast just by talking about VR, and, and your you know, and having potentially the series with Lisa, and spending time with us today. Thank you so much. And everybody. Thanks for joining us next week. We have more stuff. I'm not exactly sure what's on the agenda. We have a couple member showcases and some other really, really interesting things coming up. I have been like non stop in my email and LinkedIn messaging. There's just so much going on right now. So hopefully we'll see you on the broadcast next week, everybody. And with that,

Monique St Paul  
thank you for joining and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Have a good one.

Luis Malbas  
Bye, everyone. Bye

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