Community Showcase: Parker Grant & Andrea Dottling

Luis Malbas  
All right. Hello, everybody.

Welcome to the training, learning and development community. Thanks for joining us. Let's see, I see Darcy there in the audience. And there are few other people that are in and I know we had a big notification that just went out. Oops, there, I heard my little notification show up. And so we should have a few people popping in. Welcome, everybody. Thanks, again, for coming to the training learning and development community. We're here talking to the founders of ID Lance, we've got Parker grant, and Andrea dartlang. We've had both of you on to LDC in the past. And we actually even had an event that featured the two of you it was a freelancing event. And today, we're going to be just talking mostly about ID Lance. And I'm really curious about ID lands, because I know that when we first talking, it's been a couple of years, maybe when you first came onto the broadcast. It was sort of I think Id Lance was

relatively I don't know, new, but

just sort of like evolving and, and and had recently just been started. But now I'm I was looking at the website, I was coming up with some questions for you. And I'm like, wow, this is like fully formed. This is amazing. You guys have obviously been really, really busy for a while. So I've got a set of questions in the q&a area. And if anybody Joe, if you have any questions at all for for Parker, and Andrea, drop them in, we're going to talk about freelance instructional design. And mostly let's see, let's start with inspiration behind it. labs.com. What, what happened there?

Andrea McEneaney  
Hmm. So it was it was definitely it was Parker's idea. But I like to think maybe my sharing of my struggles freelancing with Parker inspired his idea. But I still remember the phone call that like, when you when you called me to be like, Hey, I have this idea of you know, of what we can do to help people transition from being full time instructional designers to freelance whether it's cycling or going full time. And we met on a I was, he gave me my first ID freelance job ever writing text message courses. And I feel like ever since we started working together, we just kind of wrote like, it just clicked. And I think that that project specifically, was kind of inspiring, because it was all down to earth, like all the tone of all the text messages, we were learning these complex concepts, and breaking them down into text messages, it got to be conversational, and kind of funny. And so that writing style of going up doing that has informed you know, like the scent, it lands since the beginning of just breaking down all of this, you know, sometimes gated information sometimes like stuffy LinkedIn expert type stuff, when it comes to either in the field of instructional design or running a freelance business in the field. We were just like, hey, it's really it can be really hard to break into and really overwhelming and intimidating. And I was going through that at the time because I was a new freelancer. And I was like, I don't know who to trust. I'm trying to set up informational calls. But I feel like if I'm not acting or saying the exact right things, people are gonna write me off, or it was just overwhelming. And so yeah, we just have this idea to make it as just down to earth approachable and empathetic as possible.

Luis Malbas  
Awesome. Yes. So how long ago was that?

Andrea McEneaney  
Was it 2019? Yeah, it

Luis Malbas  
was 2019 is when we started working together. Right? So that was, what, four years ago? Four years. But we officially started the business in 2020.

Why why Andrea? Why did you choose Andrea to to fit for that particular job?

Well, at the time, the contract required several writers. So she was one of five writers at the time. And his writing style stood out, way above the rest. And at the same time, I was looking to figure out how to tap into a market that I was noticing where people were starting to appreciate the work from home kind of role. This is before the pandemic remember that? Yeah, there was that movement of people wanting to do more remote work as full time designers that oh, oh, you're

Andrea McEneaney  
sorry. You can add a little bit.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, you cut out a little bit there. It's just repeat that last bit that just

when you're working from home, a lot of things happen. And that is you start to reflect. Is this the kind of career I want to keep doing for the rest of my life as a full time employees If you aren't working from home, they start questioning like, what can I really do this myself? Like, could I work for other businesses and do this and have more flexibility? So I felt like there was this kind of movement going on. And what I saw in Andreas talent is oh, man, let's talk. So because I was thinking maybe we could co create a curriculum. And we did that we, you know, created a lot of lessons. And we established an account with LearnDash, WordPress, and started offering membership type of subscription base offerings, where people can come in and take these lessons. Now, we've changed the business model since then. But that's how we started. And we just sort of organically grew from that type of community. So we were focused on people first. And then the clients came later, we're focused on the freelancers. So those who are looking to jump into freelancing just sort of grew into a pool of talent. And companies were saying, Hey, you got all the freelancers? Could you do this for us? But that's sort of how it evolved.

So what, what qualifies you to be able to help freelancers, instructional designers, specifically? Well,

Andrea McEneaney  
I saw that it's actually a really good question. Because what I was going to say even if you didn't ask that is when I was starting out as a freelancer, I kind of went like, all in so I had a full time job for a while and I side gig for a really long time. And I actually have realized since then, since doing official instructional design freelancing, that even before that I was freelancing, doing other things, I've kind of always had multiple jobs or gigs at the same time, but I didn't even realize that that's what I was doing. I didn't realize I was running a business, like, I had a job in New York. And when I moved to Florida, I convinced them to let me keep that job as a contractor. I had to I didn't even know that that was a thing, or that. That was a possibility until it happened. And then I kind of I was freelancing for a learning, learning center, just doing social media. And so when I started doing instructional design and realizing, Hey, that's a field I, you know, was able to, like work in higher ed, but then freelance corporate. So basically, I've had, I've been doing this for like, for longer than I even realized. And then what I what was in what I really wanted to work with Parker on is, I was kind of I was the only earner in my family. And I had a kid who was home full time with me, and I was trying to go to grad school. And I just realized, like, I need to control my time, and I need to control my life. And when I like, I've seen how that's changed my life, having that full time job, even inside dating, and then transitioning to having my own business. And I just felt like I wanted to, like, you know, go to people and be like, you can check. Like, if you're not happy with what you're doing, like, you can change it, you can change it, like you can take more control of your career, your income and all of that. And it sounds like, you know, it sounds too good to be true. But what I'm, I'm just excited about it, because I made it happen. Because I need it was out of necessity. But also I was like, I want to be able to spend time with my child. And I want to do what I like. And to be honest, I was getting like, I was hitting my cap at like two to four years and a job. I'm like, I'm done. Like, I'm kind of bored. I want to do something else. And that's just my personality. And so when I would meet people like that, it'd be like, hey, just do these things. And so when Parker came to me, it was like, Hey, let's make this idea official. Here's my idea. I was like, I'm kind of already trying to help other people do this. So it was cool that we got to come together and make it official and have that official curriculum. And then now to see where people that were in our community from the beginning and what they're doing now, and how they've grown their business. Just been. It's been awesome.

Luis Malbas  
That's great. Yeah, like and Joe saying that she loves the variety of multiple gigs. So if especially if you're one of those types of people that that like doing sort of gig work. Just you get that freedom as a freelance instructional designer. And so I'm just curious, like, so did the pandemic sort of accelerate how you ended up evolving? ID landstar. Calm?

Yeah, they, they sort of? Well, the actual pandemic itself is obviously created a situation where people working from home, and again, people go through a reflection of their lives, or they're going through a reset, are they really liking what they do? And a lot of the people are, say, teachers, hey, I could go into it, and make that move into work from home kind of a job. So there was obviously a mass exodus of teachers becoming ideas. And so the other thing is the Companies, as we were growing companies, were increasingly reaching out to us to ask for support. And basically the support we give to clients are like managed services. So we would provide a team. And we would have QA specialists will have instructional designers or graphic artists. We have developers, and sometimes we have video producers of videographers. You know, it depends on the job, and the client. So I think our specialty was being able to create a community, find out who has certain talents, and worked with those people, and bring them through to the clients that we serve. And that was a great way to help them start their own businesses become more competent in freelancing. And the clients were appreciating the talents that they got. So so the pandemic has certainly helped accelerate that.

Yeah, it all. It all totally makes sense. I do want to add, Andrew, you you'd mentioned in chat, you said Parker has been running his own business for a long time after successful corporate career. So more than qualified, especially compared to you. So talk a little bit about that. Parker, your background and and running your own business? Yeah.

So I started, I started my career right out of undergrad school as a mechanical engineer. And never did I imagine that I'd be here today as an owner of agency led development agency. But you know, you you start early in life, you pick a career that you think you're gonna love. And I actually did like it. I worked for a company that manufactures jet engines, right here in Connecticut. And I did that for about five years as an engineer. And I felt that there was a time when I wanted to get out of the engineering playground, and move into something that more people people oriented. So in mechanical engineering, and what you're doing is solving problems around parts or products. But in l&d, you're solving problems without people. So it's a different kind of a ship. But I fell in love with the training industry, because I happen to be volunteering with a friend of mine. Back in 1992, was a while ago, 31 years ago, that's when I started l&d. And so we were just doing some classes in the evenings to teach high school students about engineering principles. And that's when I fell in love with training, I made a lateral move and accompany the same company, I was working for it for engineering, into the training department. And I learned how to become an instructional designer, a in class trainer, no IoT kind of thing. And I also learned how to, you know, develop CBT back then it was computer based training. You know, that was interesting. So then I became a training manager, and I got to become an l&d Manager overseeing 7000 people for their learning initiative. So overall, the career that I had was 21 years in corporate 16 out of 21 was in lnd. And then I started my own business 2008 ish, maybe 2007. But so I learned a lot of what not to do, what to do in the freelance business. And finally, you just culminates into something like a shear back. Yeah.

That's fantastic. And I know we do have a broadcast where we talk specifically with you about your background and, and your history. And I do find it fascinating that you went from engineering to l&d. I don't see that that that switchover at all you know, so that's very, very cool. So Id Lance, how do you support freelance instructional designers?

Andrea McEneaney  
Good question. So we we have a the heart of everything probably is our community is a Slack community. And we are we post gigs there that we have other people post gigs that they have, or that they've seen, but it says, probably as down to earth as it possibly can be, because we'll talk about everything from like, Hey, I've got this tricky client situation, what would you do? Are you gonna look at my portfolio, or, Hey, it's my kids first day of school like it. We're all kind of bonding and all these different levels. But what is good about that is Yes, it's nice to have people that you can talk to when you feel lonely as a freelancer during the day. But there's kind of this sort of really great thing that happens when even though you're just interacting through slack or through community events. We're getting to know people as individuals, which is helping us get to know them when we have gigs to offer so when we are staffing and running projects, Next, we get to know people's experience their personalities, because honestly, personality is a huge thing for us. It's just that kind of positive energy that we can put on prod on projects, you know, because someone can always, you know, learn there's learn to be better at some of the skills. But we, while we have somebody on a gig, we're also sort of mentoring them on the business side. So we're helping them figure out how to get different, you know, get other clients or Hey, change their resume, we had someone we have a new certification program that we just graduated our first group of people, and what I love about it, which seems not real and seems like, hey, there must be strings attached is that no, it's free for the people who join it. Because it behooves us to have the best freelancers, because then we can do more projects and do bigger projects and, and keep scaling the way we've been scaling. But one of my favorite things that that is a great example of how we've helped is like one of our cohort, people from this first group went from maybe one contract or not much to basically they're like, I need a bookkeeper now, but in the in the time that we've been working with them, and that's from like, helping them with their resume confidence, LinkedIn strategy. And what we're really trying to do is cut out all of the kind of stuffiness of talking about running a business, and the kind of like, kissing butts to like, get certain information or advice and just say, hey, like, we're all people, there's plenty of work for everyone. Let's just talk about the actual practical things that you can do to run your business and keep it going and being successful. And also, just being an empathetic kind of ear for people to like, talk about whatever they need to when it comes to running a freelance business or even instructional design stuff, because we in the cohort, we talked about ID skills, we talked about client relations skills, which I think is that's my favorite topic. And then also the actual mechanics of a business. So like, do you you know, get an LLC? What do you do? We're, of course not like, you know, experts on like taxes and things like that. But we can say, hey, here's what's worked for us find a tax professional, how to set yourself up for success. And that's kind of where we aim as we start with the community and like growing those people, and then the business and sort of working with new clients. It's just kind of like, Matt, you know, we draw it and when Steve magnetize we, I don't know, like, right, I don't know how to say that.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, that community, as you said, Andrew is so critical to the success because, you know, is think of it this way, have you typically hired people, but you put posting out there, people send you their resumes, you might end up doing an interview on Zoom. And then you bring him in, after weeks of, you know, job searching and applying and all of that stuff, you finally get in to wherever your client is. But what I love about the community is that, as Andrew said, we get to know them. So this is like another level, that's way past the interview stage. This is getting to know their energies, their, their how positive they are, how quickly they respond. You know, that's an important element. So when you're working with clients, you want to be able to respond quickly. And in a very nice way too. So we're able to really get to see and get to know the people well ahead of time before we start selecting candidates. Nice.

Let me ask you Joe's question here. What do you find is people's biggest issue, Flash confidence, challenge, etc, and trying to build their ID workup?

Andrea McEneaney  
Yeah. And of course I was typing is as you're getting, but what I'll say and then add some detail. But what I said there, I would say even if it's not explicitly talked about, I think mentally just being like, Okay, I've been doing this salaried work, even either as an ad or something adjacent to it, or maybe they're new to the field, and they have a degree or they're just getting into it, but but wondering, what is it that I'm actually going to be doing in these gigs, right? Am I making storyboards and making a video? Am I am I doing, you know, a rise course or storyline? Because even in like the gig descriptions, sometimes that can just change, right? Or just be vague, and you don't really know until you get into the gig. So part of it is probably that, that feeling and I hate using the cliche term imposter syndrome, but like, Am I really going to be able to do this when I've been doing just the certain type of work at my job because instructional design can mean anything at any company, honestly. And just realizing and getting over that hump of like, you know what, it sounds like something I can do so I'm just gonna go for it and whatever happens happens, but making that push to actually start going for stuff and contacting potential clients and applying for things. And also, I think one of the one of the confidence issues is like, Oh, am I gonna make money? Am I what about you know, there's a month I don't get a gig and what if I take on too much? What if I take on too little and all of that. So we kind of coach people and help them realize like, Hey, you take on too much work, you can always subcontract or just say yes to something until you have to say no, like, say yes, like, oh, yeah, I'm available, I'm available, I can do that. Because you never really know what the details are going to be or what the actual start date is going to be until you are in it, or until you're in those deeper conversations with the client, and probably just finding clients in the first place, like, how do i Where do we even start. And to that we just, we talked about, you know, finding indirect clients, where maybe there's a freelancer who has taken on too much work, and you can subcontract for them, or you find a business like us or an agency and things like that. So we try to think of all those little pesky things that are kind of getting in the way of people starting to own their careers and try and jumpstart them.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, I think another challenge that freelancers faces is under estimating their time. They don't, quote a high enough quote to the client, and they will use up their hours quicker than they know it. So it's having the competence to say yes, this is what it's going to cost and live with that. So talking to us, maybe through some people that have been in industry for a while, ask them about how they do fixed pricing, versus hourly rates, things like that. And also just being able to quote accurately, so that you can have a little bit of Kitty in case something extra happens during that project, because you don't want to be shortchanging yourself.

Andrea McEneaney  
Yeah, and I would say we talk a lot about graduating your rate as you get more experience as a freelancer. So like, you get some gigs under your belt, maybe at like an introductory rate, let them know, like, hey, like I really want to work with you, I can offer you this rate. And then, you know, in the future, you kind of give yourself a raise, but just getting your foot in the door, getting some things under your belt to say like, Hey, I'm freelancing, I'm doing it. And then as time goes on, and you build more clients, and you get things rolling, and things are flowing, that you can give yourself a raise, we talk about that a lot, instead of just going straight in and saying I'm an expert already pay me lots of money.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, it well, you know, I have seen several freelances go out there right away to start charging. I didn't put in $20 an hour, or whatever it might be actually talked to one recently a few months ago, was charging 140 an hour. And reality is is that I mean, if you can get all the business at that rate, great go for it, the reality is that clients will often turn it down, because they can find somebody who's just as good or weightless. So that's just something to think about is pricing your rates. I mean, we use a typical graduating scale that you mentioned was, if you're just starting out, you could do like, say 35 to 45 an hour. And you know, you might have some other work on the side, just kind of keep the money coming in. But if you offer that rate, and you show yourself that you have this great talent, it's hard for others to compete with you, but you're getting the experience, start to build that portfolio. And then as you get more clients over time, go up to 45 to 55 an hour look like that experience rate or growth rate rather. And then finally, just get up into that 60s 70s $75 An hour range or higher if you feel that you can get that. So you just kind of build up over time. And you'll find that that works quite well as far as getting that initial base of clients. Right? Um,

yeah. And Bernadette has a comment on in here that I sort of it was going through my head because I know that I'm going to have you know, we've we had a huge influx of like the teachers turning to to instructional design over the last couple of years but just the levels of experience that you know that Id Lance's is is is experiencing or having to having to assess like Bernadette's asking what constitutes an expert. And I'm just wondering, you know, for those folks that might be listening or watching that might be new to instructional design, but definitely like the idea of freelancing because of the freedom and the gig variety and things like that, like how do you assess that whole

Andrea McEneaney  
thing? Yeah, we can probably a good example of how we assess which is how we've run our last our first cohort. So we actually have sort of a list of competencies in client relations running, you know, owning and running your business and Id skills. And so, for those cohort members, we actually had, you know, either proof with something you've already done, right? Because it's competency based, or do this exercise and we'll evaluate it to see that you're, you're you know, checking those things off. So, an expert also by kind of them of the field, I wrote that comment that I kind of hate that term because we're all individuals. And we're all going to have our own way of doing whatever the the tasks are. But I would say like, having competence dealing with clients and knowing how to navigate tricky situations, but also make them feel comfortable, and want to work with you again, and even be like fun to work with. That is something that we that we look for. In terms of ID skills. Writing is huge, because that is kind of the basis of everything. Even though even though you might just, you know, be a storyline developer, you need to be able to have an eye and say, like, how should these How should this text flow? What's the tone, like and all of that? Visuals I know, Parker, Parker, and I talked about this all the time, that visuals like, yeah, we're not all going to be the best graphic designers. But the truth is, if you can, you know, get if you are good enough to sort of get buy in and even be able to art direct and be able to tell people what you want or use Canva or something. Yeah, I'm trying to what else? Am I missing poker?

Luis Malbas  
Oh, well, I mean, expert is a tough thing to to define, obviously. But I find people who have multifaceted experiences, those that tend to be able to solve better. Yeah, those have been in the l&d field in different aspects of that world. You know, being able to know what it's like to work in a classroom as a teacher or in a corporate classroom as a trainer, or just being able to know how to write with different tones, and writing, copy for, say, advertising, versus writing copy for a scenario branch in Storyline. So being able to change your tone, and being able to change your style, and also just able to identify what the goals are, that the client has, that's not an easy thing. But there are ways to really accurately identify what that client's goal or goals are, and being able to identify what solutions will help close that gap. You know, it's a performance gap to get to that goal. So I would say an expert, or those that are probably well read in many types of models out there for instructional design learning theory, and also have a lot of practical experiences in various types of clients.

Andrea McEneaney  
Yeah, and what I just put in the chat is what I I'm so uh, well, I don't like the term expert. What I found that the people that even though I don't want to use that term that I feel are experts is they are able to sort of read a room, assess the situation, and meet the client where they are in like a positive way. And that might mean maybe doing things a little bit differently than they might in an ideal world, be able, you know, in an ideal world what to do, but still be able to sort of guide the client in like the in a, you know, as a consultant, but also as like a fellow teammate where you're working alongside and not being like, Hey, I'm the expert do it this way. But the real experts are the people who are like, it's almost like, remember Columbo, remember the show Columbo, you're like kind of gently where you're like, Oh, yeah. What about this, and you're just like, everything is like, so exciting. And you're kind of like, leading them to what is really going to help them. But also knowing when to it's like knowing when to give direction and when to take direction from a client and having that nice balance. Too much one way or the other. It's, it's it. Yes.

Luis Malbas  
Problems. Well,

um, Bernadette has a follow up comment here. I've heard a lot of ideas specialize in a particular industry. And do think that's important. And I do think like, when you're when you're talking about defining an expert, there's, there's a distinction to that. Or are you an expert freelancer, right? Versus because there could be somebody that's been sitting in the same desk for, you know, 25 years might know, every single authoring tool out there and all there is to know about instructional design, but then if you threw them into the freelance world, they just completely, you know, deteriorate. And so would you consider that person an expert versus somebody that can actually go out there and navigate what working as a freelancer

requires?

Andrea McEneaney  
Yeah, it depends on what you're asking. Are they an expert in Right,

Luis Malbas  
right, right, exactly. So Bernadette's asking, you know, do you think it's important that that if you are an instructional designer should you have your an industry that you specialize in?

Andrea McEneaney  
That's a That's a good question. I I'm interested to hear what Parker has to say my personal feeling is I even in my even before it Lance and I have not been like oh, I only you know, I'm looking at only these specific gigs has it organically happened sometimes, like I have accidentally fallen into, you know, like a manufacturing and like sales enablement product type thing where you're selling things to people who are, you know, working on construction sites or factories and things like that. But did I but did I have that like idea that I'm just gonna seek that out? No, it's for me. Sometimes it organically happens. But I've I mean, I've kind of done everything from like dental hygiene for stuff like dental hygienist training to legal compliance to the manufacturing to newborn hearing screening. So I don't think it's totally necessary. But if there's something you're passionate about, and you know about, and that and you have connections, and you feel like you want to go for it, I think that's it that can be effective.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, I, I'll piggyback on that, because there's, there is a niche that you can find, you can specialize in a particular industry, and just target your market, your audience, you know, in that industry, and do very well. So Bernadette has a question about IDs and healthcare. Absolutely. Healthcare ID is a whole different game than traditional corporate kind of stuff. Because you might need medical writers brains from time to time, or you might need medical illustrators animators to help support your work. And so if you have a website that shows different kinds of medical courses that you put together, then of course, you can target hospitals and clinics and things like that, where they say, oh, yeah, she's specializes in this. Let me give her a cough. The answer is yes. Now, your question about Purdue designing healthcare with no healthcare experience? Yes, she can, because everybody starts somewhere, right. So if you partner up with people who who have been in that will go a little bit, and your overtime, you'll be able to get that experience. But it's all you know, key, the key thing is connecting with people who are in that field. And if you need support, you just find another medical writer to work with. Right, it seems

like as a freelancer, you kind of have to be able to, to be flexible, and have and be dynamic, and be able to accommodate all these different types of subject matter. subject matters that are industries that might come come into play. But I can tell you having interviewed like hundreds of people through TMTC, if you are if you do have a background in healthcare, and you get a health care gig, you're going to be a lot more satisfied. You know, like Parker working as an engineer. Previously, if doing instructional design work in engineering, that probably that probably is going to be a lot more comfortable for you than jumping into. I don't know, dental or something completely different. And I know like a lot of the folks that I talked to that, that had previous experience in a particular topic, and then got to work as an instructional designer in that area. have just, there's so much more satisfied they love it. Yeah,

I mean, prototypes question is really timely, because like right now it but yes, Andrea and I are working with a physician in Georgia. And we are looking to get into the healthcare industry. And so we're working with a doctor directly. And figuring out how we can partner up to get into that industry and finding the right people who help us with the ID work and development work. So it's just about connecting with people and working together. That's all.

Yeah. Oh, fantastic. You know, we've got I've got a few more questions here. And I'm just want to be conscious of time. So I'm going to ask you this one. Matching you guys like help with matching instructional designers are freelancers with with particular projects, right.

Yeah, how do you what what,

what do you look for? Like, how do you how do you go about doing that?

Yeah, um,

Andrea McEneaney  
that's a really good question. Of course, it depends on what the actual you know, what the what the need is, are there we need more of a development person or writer or developer who's kind of doing it all. We think about who the client is, and kind of what their vibe is, you know, like a, I don't know, Parker, am I allowed to say company names? or No, probably not. I'm not gonna do it. But like, say you have like a very, very corporate corporate corporate client. Yeah, no, we'll think about like, Okay, who will be really good on a call. You know, with these people, we look for, we kind of think about people Like, okay, are they client facing or not client facing and if they're not yet we try and mentor them and help them. But we kind of we have like a lot like almost like a log, like a library that we've recently created of like all the people that we've worked with and what their skills are and all that. But then also, when we're putting gigs in our Slack community, we're meeting with new people who have just joined about those gigs. And you know, we get to know them, and we get to know their personality. But I would say, communication, like be like people who are good communicators, people who have like a positive energy, not a fake positive energy, because we complain about like, it's fine to complain, we all complain together. It's cathartic. I don't mean like this, like always has to be happy type thing. I just mean like a down to earth. Person who has a mindset more of yes than no. And this doesn't mean that we let clients walk all over us. But in terms of like, hey, you know, how can we make this work? Or what's something that we can offer? Or, Hey, we've hit a roadblock? Like, how can we work together to make this happen, because we're not setting and forgetting freelancers, we're not setting and forgetting projects, we know what's happening in any project in any given time, we have project management team, we have, you know, QA people, so there's more than one set of eyes, you're not just set off on your own. So we really look for people who are collaborating and have the unique set of skills for either that client, like maybe it is a niche industry. And hey, we need someone who is has a chemistry background for this veterinary company that's doing stuff with chemistry. I don't know anything about chemistry, or we look for that those kinds of connections and the skills but honestly, most important is the communication. And sort of the can can can do it notice, but in a normal way, because if we were working with someone who is just seems like they're like a robot, happiness, they would probably freak us out. Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
yeah. Okay. All right. And, um, and so now, just a couple more questions. So Parker, I mean, we talked about this a little bit before we went live, but future of instructional design and the role of freelance instructional designers. Now I know, a while I've just been hearing and I've been seeing it just feels like the job market has gotten tougher for a lot of folks. And even in just in instructional design in general. I mean, what are you seeing out there? Can you give us some insight into that?

Yeah, I see a lot of fear today. You know, people are fearful of AI taking over because of what it can do you create storyboards, and scripts, and all that. But I also see opportunities, because it still requires human beings to work with AI, no matter what. But those who can adapt and use AI in a creative way, I think have a really bright future, as it starts to exciting. So think of it like, like, if you're creating a movie, you need to, you need to be a producer, right? So you need to figure out the story. You know, the characters, what the plot is, and you know, the good guys and the bad guys, all of this stuff in a movie. So we know also from learning that stories are powerful, that helping people learn. Analogies are powerful to help people learn. But just imagine if we have these AI tools as they develop that you become a cinematic ID. So think of it that way just instead of a traditional, Hey, buddy, write a storyboard and put it into an authoring tool like storyline and whatnot, exhibit like, how do I create an actual scene? So I think the movement, as you will see is happening today, just like with a little bit of movement to new scenes using maturity, right? A lot of stuff could be done with the journey right away. But wait, it takes years still graphics turned into motion. But just imagine what the tools would be like five years from now 10 years from now, and people are gonna start using scenes to help people wearing around a particular topic. Just say going back to Bernadette's question about healthcare. Can you imagine just creating an AI scene in an operating room with the right tools create a surgery, you can be there. Now VR might catch on, it's sort of a hard thing to get into right now. Because VR is just a heavy, clunky kind of headset. Not everybody can use VR because it doesn't sync with the eye very well and they can kind of feel nauseous at that time. So it's going to be desktop based for a while until maybe they figure out something with the classes or the goggles. But what I do see is opportunities for IDs to really get to know the AI tool. All started thinking like movie producer, thinking about situations scenes. And that's the future ID.

Right, right. Okay. Very interesting. So last question. Id Lance, how do you see it growing in the future? You mentioned that you had your, your certification that you released recently. But what else you guys have gone on?

Andrea McEneaney  
Yeah, we're hoping to scale the certification program are hoping to keep the really awesome growth that we've seen in terms of our client projects going because the more projects we have going, the more people we can be, you know, be helping them grow their careers. And what I love about what we're doing right now is like we've given so many people sort of like their start where, because we've gotten to know them, and because we have experienced with them personally, we are, you know, we're more likely to say like, Oh, I've never, you know, done an official corporate instructional design gig before. But when you get to know someone, and you meet with them, and you see other things that they've done, and you know about the courier, like we can get be those, you know, take that chance, which isn't really a chance, because we know what, what it's going to be like to work with them. So I'm excited to keep doing more and more of that. The how we can scale. Like I said, the certification program, what do you what else Parker?

Luis Malbas  
Oh, yeah, we we can't announce anything just yet. But there's something big coming my way, way. Yeah, so we are looking to grow the ecosystem. Okay, that's where we're excited about and expanding the community. So we look forward to announcing that later this fall. But that's where we're at.

It's such a human endeavor that you guys have going, you know, it seems like it's all about people, you know, that you guys are this thing you're trying to build. And, and it really is, like helping a lot of folks out there. And I totally admire that. And, and, you know, glad that you're a part of the l&d community and definitely love pushing people in your direction. Whenever I see anyone having questions about freelancing. It's like, yeah, go to IDX lands, and I do see it come around regularly in the community that, that you were the Go twos. So, so congrats on that.

Andrea McEneaney  
Thanks. So and we appreciate that. And it's so hard to, like, you know, we're like people, we really do art, we really are just people who want to do this. No, like, a lot of times you get out there and like, oh, yeah, we want to help people. And then you get into the thing. And they're like, they just want my money. Or like they just want to, you know, fluff their ego and all that. But like, I just don't know how to like, I'm just not good at that kind of thing. And I've realized that I get I'm so glad that we have it lands because even working from home if I was in like a salary job, like I'm just so lonely all the time. I don't speak to anyone other than like, my family. And so I don't I honestly don't know what I would do if we didn't have this community because a lot of the people that you know, we're helping have become friends or they just become part of a network. And it's just for me, it's it's just what my life isn't round now. Because that's where all my friends are. And it's been really great to just see it helping actually helping people and not just, you know, it not just being like a fluffy thing that we say like, it's just so cool. When someone comes back and goes, Hey, remember when we were talking about that thing? Well, I did it. And now I've got all these clients are now I know how to do this type of projects. And that's kind of the best that we can hope for.

Luis Malbas  
Really, yeah, yeah, it's fun to have a community to wake up to every day. And you know, it's full of life. And it's vibrant. And we always learn from people in our community. Every day we learn something new. I look into Slack. And I find new stuff out there people posting, I'm like, wow, I never knew that you could do that. So it's, it's really kind of cool. So it's a great way to informally share updates, you know, interesting news, or links to new software, whatever it might be. It's really cool. And what I love about what we do is because we put people first we don't think about like, oh, let's charge, you know, a couple $1,000 Make a bootcamp out of this or, you know, expensive academy or anything like that. But just think about just the community itself. And just let let thing go at a natural pace or organically. So that's kind of our philosophy. Just have fun and just be people.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. It's interesting hearing that from, you know, since I'm a community founder, too, you know, it's like, yeah, the same experience. I don't look for cloud At anywhere because I just yeah, not not into that, like, I'm not posting on LinkedIn, hardly ever, in fact, it's probably to a fault that I'll go out there. And

when you don't have to, I mean, you're growing this or,

you know, it's just, you know, I think it's just more. Yeah. Because it's about people to me, and I just haven't, you know, I'm not trying to sell a bunch of stuff. I'm just, I'm just trying to help support folks. So I feel like we have very, very similar sort of goals with with working with instructional designers. And so it's wonderful to have you on the broadcast. I can't wait to get this out there and, and we'll just continue to support it, Lance whenever we can. Maybe we can do another freelance event soon. Yeah.

Thank you for having us. Yeah,

absolutely. And, and with that, I'm gonna go ahead and wrap it up. I have one more showcase this week. We're going to be talking to Lisa Sparco. On Friday, she is a 20 plus year veteran in instructional design, really interested in and talking to her. She's, she's she's in our Slack channel on a regular basis and be fun to be able to actually speak with her face to face. And with that, I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and close out the broadcast. Thanks again, everybody, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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