Intersections in Learning with hosts Lisa Crockett & Monique St. Paul and guest Dan Pelegero

Lisa Crockett  
Hello, everyone, welcome to intersections and learning. I'm Lisa Crockett, and I am here with my co host, Monique St. Paul, who will be producing for us today. And we pray that you're going to, you're going to be able to hear us today. You can see we're both airline pilots. After last two weeks ago, that was a lot of fun. Right money. Oh, myself. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. We will be posting a post interview we did with Adrian so that you guys can actually hear the fantastic conversation very shortly that's on me. So that will be coming out later this week. So our guest today though, is Daniel Pella Gatto of retail retail payments global consulting group. Did I say that correctly? Oh, it's Oh, my God. And I've known you for a long time I'm embarrassed that that I couldn't get that out quickly. Danza payments consultant actually in one of the best means literally guys I've worked with in the 1520 years I've been doing this. And that is no lie. He and his partner Rene are amazing. They just intend intrinsically help to tell a story by teaching you about what they do. So we really wanted to talk to Dan, because of the intersection between the instructional designer and the subject matter expert and how vital that relationship is, and how you can really capitalize on that. And with that, I'm going to turn the mic over to Dan tell you a little bit more about himself before I start prodding him with questions. Take it away.

Dan Pelegro  
Okay, cool. I write. So specifically, my background is I came from a I was a film major and ended up working in LA as a local ad crip. You might have heard a little bit about the IRC strikes that were recently averted. And that was a world that I used to be a part of, I joined essentially, what's the family business of payments consulting, to which I went, what is payments? Why are we consulting on it? And you mean the name? You mean this? No, this really long name actually has a standing. And what we basically do is we work with FinTech companies, banks, large enterprise companies on how they move money. And so it's this ultimately really esoteric obfuscated thing that it's incredibly intellectually stimulating, but it's predominantly a business of middlemen. And a lot of how we spend our time is now around managing how people look at that ecosystem and how they can navigate within it.

Lisa Crockett  
Sorry about that. That was distracting, like, dropped off. That's Daniel, I'm so sorry. I lost you for technical difficulties, please stand by Well, my brain resets. Wow. Okay. I think I got it now. So when you talk about that, and then you talk, when you think about the work that we've done together, right, we've worked with, we have one client that Daniel and I share. When you think about your role as a Smee, on the work that we've done both the past work, and then the work that we're currently doing in an autonomous learning project, like, how was that different or similar to what you and Renee have done before? I know you guys have done a lot of live live work. And

Dan Pelegro  
so I think with the live work, because there's like, there's doing like a webinar, and it's just like, I'm gonna tell you information for four hours, there's a wealth of information. This is now the thing, that's the most important thing that you've ever had to worry about. But ultimately, it's an information dump. Right? Yeah. And the idea also now really becomes around the there's a, the things that the companies want from their employees when they're going through training. In that sometimes the resources or the how quickly, can I be ready on day one to do the job stuff? There's the stuff that the employee wants out of it, which is just how do I make sense of what's going on? Or how do I get this specific question that I know I need answered, answered right now. And those are usually very concrete and specific items. But they're so wide ranging. And then there's the stuff that folks like Renee and I are obsessed with, which is no you have to see the world we use the way we see the world because no one's told us the way the world looks in a way that makes better sense than how we've come to it. So it's taking kind of those three different viewpoints and trying to make something that someone can walk away with, I think, coherent, tangible value. And so to do that, in an autonomous fashion really then comes down to, I think, really strict adherence to what is this program actually trying to achieve? As opposed to what's more important in a live session, which is going to be that back and forth conversation, getting someone's question answered and key because the engagement is so totally different than these type of channels.

Lisa Crockett  
It's like the dream wouldn't it be to to do the opposite autonomous learning, have all those pieces in place, and then come together and have that conversation and really plan for that, you know, which, which isn't usually a luxury we get when we're planning autonomous learning. It's usually I want this so that it's an engine and it runs itself. But I mean, do you see? Do you see more value in bringing those conversations together?

Dan Pelegro  
I mean, 100, for what we do 100% We're talking like this, the industry we're doing was I assume we're talking with a more predominantly American audience, right? Oh,

Lisa Crockett  
I mean, we are a mixed audience. I shouldn't say that. But I'd say predominantly us. And Luis, if you're here, and you have any numbers, we'd love to hear those.

Dan Pelegro  
But I guess ultimately, we're all familiar with how with credit cards and debit cards, and that's very much the work that we're doing together. And with that, we're talking about essentially, two forms of technology and how they relate with several different players, based off of these 1000 page rule books that have been curated over the course of now 50 years. So really, it's just how do you navigate these, you know, manmade concepts that now have the decree of enforceability. That's, that's what that's all this is.

Lisa Crockett  
And then the navigation of the ever changing rules. And how does that how does that intersect? I mean, we've talked about that in our work. And let's see if I can get this right. Or Daniel, at least he can correct me on this. But right rules change can change up to twice a year, in the work that you're doing with card payments and things like that, how does that change the things that have been around? You know, for that for that long, long haul.

Dan Pelegro  
So I mean, it because it's they're all subject to economic pressures, is what it comes down to is all these businesses are just trying to make money however, they can make money, or grow their market. And so things will just slowly and slightly change. And it's how well is that communicated? Is that how is that process automated? A lot of the time it's not. And then also how much time and space do other people have to go out and do that learning? Either by with their own, you know, whether it's their own like vendor or whether it's with their own peers. And it's incredibly messy. And there's a lot of noise. So even just in the work we've done, I think it's just been very much a case of like, well, what can we say is absolute and concrete in the amount of gone? Well, we don't want to really throw that much that's absolutely concrete with something that you want absolute and concrete learning objectives to, because you're potentially killing the lifespan of the work that what we you and I create?

Unknown Speaker  
Yeah, and there's that there's no policy that's very

Dan Pelegro  
much like, tied to it. It's hard to justify an ROI to but it's incredibly like one of the top things you really need from anyone within our specific space.

Lisa Crockett  
You're like, it's like creating the foundation so the conversations can be had. And then you and Renee, and folks like the mag are going out there from an education perspective and teaching people how to where to go for information, and then how to learn. So that's I

Dan Pelegro  
think that's I think that's a good framework, too. And that's why I think Renee and I are pretty zealous about, here's how to see the world. And why to see the world in that way.

Lisa Crockett  
Well, that zealousness, I would argue from you know, as, as we talked about bringing, you know, bringing you in because of your, how you perform as a subject matter expert, not just the subject matter expertise, right, but the, the behaviors of the subject matter expert, and how you, partner. So, with you and Renee and guys, it's been like a, you know, sort of a very dream back and forth for an instructional designer to have some bees that are such storytellers. And that can look at the world from different viewpoints. So I think that's, that's where what you you've done, has made a huge difference in the work in terms of positioning that for our learners. So then I have to ask you, you have a ton of skills, Daniel, like crazy, crazy number of skills, if there was any skill that you that you could have that you don't have to do your work, whether that's as a consultant, whether that's in film, whether that's in some passion project that you have, what would it be and why?

Dan Pelegro  
Oh, for work, I wish I was a very good coder that would speed up a lot of the things I do. For what for outside of work. Ultimately, I think it's just a lot more like how can I get my hands on a lot more you know, very dangerous power tools or heavy, heavy machinery so I can just, you know, play with that stuff more in all the different ways and shapes that uh, you know, the outputs gonna end up looking like,

Lisa Crockett  
okay, is that as a builder? Or is that as a player and I guess when I say player, right, because my mind immediately went to a post. I don't know If you saw hit me last week on LinkedIn of this huge machine, my husband bought this RCR that we go trolling around the woods in it's like, insane. So when you say big machine, like my head goes there, but then my head also goes to power tools and things to make and create. Like what when you say that, what do you mean?

Dan Pelegro  
Well, I mean, like, for instance, like, it'd be nice to like, just be able to like weld. And also like, know how to, you know, know how to shop for the appropriate equipment, like there's certain things like I can drive a scissor lift or like, or like a cherry picker. But ultimately, it's, if any of this stuff, it really just comes down to practice, from like, go and taking it back to I guess the work side of things, as far as code is just the ability of just being able to, let's say, run some simple scripts just to automate certain searches, even if that, you know, means I might get booted off the LinkedIn API over abusing it with bots like but that that's the type of stuff that we're all set. I'm trying to qualify these questions and these some of these questions and want to just crunch through a large dataset, quickly. Those are the types of things that it's either How do I optimize my life? Or how do I give myself even more space to play with?

Lisa Crockett  
Oh, you just stepped yourself into a question actually wasn't going to ask you. But I have to ask you this one now. So when you talked about the data, and I know, there's been there's been all sorts of data in the work that we've done both the data that, that you guys have sourced and brought to the table to create the work and the data we're testing people with? And then there's data about the data? How does the data intersect for you, with what you're doing every day?

Dan Pelegro  
With what I specifically do every day,

Lisa Crockett  
like you're talking about these codes and things like what are the data tell you? What are you looking for?

Dan Pelegro  
Well, cuz I mean, there's obviously the concept of like, you know, data being that source of truth. And because now you have essentially, in our world, it's going to be one company, their provider, and then the downstream network, all are going to be, you know, access to essentially the same data set, and they all need to match. And so that's really, it's like, okay, if we're all working from the same homework, now we can have a productive conversation. So that's where the data itself matters. Not say where personally, I sit where it's like, okay, how do you justify like, a business case or drive a narrative home? The cynical view here is lies, lies and damned statistics.

Lisa Crockett  
Well, it also how many sources of truth? I mean, how do you determine the source of truth when you, when you talk about what you're talking about, I think back to like, analysis I've done where, you know, you've taken things from three different systems that are measuring the same thing and have three different numbers that are trying to represent it. So how do you how do you work with things like that? Just that I'd imagine that occurs in your world a lot?

Dan Pelegro  
It does, but that's also in that's like, knowing, okay, like, well, how are you going about generating those numbers, as opposed to what underlying what you've used as an underlying variable that we've supplied you or that you've supplied us? And that's where I think a mocking like some of those little inefficiencies sit in when we're talking about, you know, applying a 10th of a percentage point worth of value on a transaction ticket. It's, it's an industry that's full of death by 1000, paper cuts. And so it's just comes down to like, is there one big bang thing that a company's gonna be able to do that's gonna make their business like much more profitable? Not really. But if you do like the 100, little things, you'll get to that number.

Lisa Crockett  
I just checking, checking. Julia wants to know, since you said you were a coder, she's asking Perl, Python, C, C. Okay, I don't know what that says C pound c plus is that that means b, c, plus C sharp, C. Okay, we're saying now.

Dan Pelegro  
Honestly, Python would be nice and accessible, and at least lend itself to some like, you know, level like visualization. But I think, ultimately, really, what it's really what it comes down to is what's going to be the tool that allows me just to automate, automate little pieces of my day just a lot easier, a lot faster, or just be able, if I'm going to crunch through a large dataset, you know, maybe do something so that I can create like a striking data visualization. So probably even even higher up just like, you know, just like JavaScript and CSS probably would do me a world good.

Lisa Crockett  
That's all good stuff. Where do you if you want to learn that, like, let's say tomorrow, you're like, you know what, I'm going to take two weeks off, I'm going to, like commit to this, where would you go?

Dan Pelegro  
Coding is the one I keep banging my head against the most because I'm the type of person that will be like, I want to watch 10 hours of YouTube videos, I want to read four books, but coding is not really like let me learn conceptually about all the things and then do the coding is. Let me just make projects as much as possible as quickly as possible. And then in In that is my brain doesn't really reconcile with that as much unless I'm in a community where it's like, okay, we're building this thing today. Oh, you don't know how to like, you know, you don't know how to turn wood for whatever reason. This is, I'm going to show you how to do it, you're gonna do 30 of these.

Lisa Crockett  
Yep. No, you really with coding have to go and do it over and over again. We've got some questions, actually, from the from the crowd, you're getting, you're getting some buzz. First one off, Kristin wants to know, what's the biggest shift you had to make when moving from a Smee? Who delivers training? To me who informs and helps great training? That's a great question.

Dan Pelegro  
I really think it comes down to like the project planning on it, right? And it's it because there is usually if I'm getting in any amount of prep work that goes up front, like I, when a client asks, Hey, we want you to deliver this live training. And you say, Okay, well, here's the curriculum, here's the topics we're gonna cover. And I'm just gonna walk through and we're gonna tell you the story of the thing. Okay, fine. But like I said, there's at least that back and forth. Really what I think the clients paying for in that type of a scenario is the exchange, the ability to ask the questions and getting more knowledgeable answer. But in a program like this, where we're not running TAs, we're not doing workshops with peer reviews, peer reviewed sessions, so that like, the people that are you're working, that you're going through the code, of course, with your cohort, are basically saying, Yeah, this person is up to snuff or not, there isn't some dissertation challenge that's occurring here. It becomes, along the lines of okay, like, not just what do we need to tell? But then how do we measurably how do we measure it? And how what are we testing to get there? And I think it gets a lot into the like, the how might we challenges that we've done? Because ultimately, that's going to be eventually what we build into how we go about doing the things? And then it just becomes a constraint of, well, how long is this going to take? And is it in budget? Or do we need to, you know, maybe be a little bit less precious about what we're trying to do here?

Lisa Crockett  
Yep. And we've certainly hit that hit a couple those marks pretty hard, actually. So as an ID who codes and actually this is not me, Christine? Obviously, Christina, not a good coder. I do try. She's an ID who codes and she's she's wondering, for you, what aspects of HTML that you focus on more when you were first learning that as a coding language, assuming, as you started there?

Dan Pelegro  
Oh, so I was playing honestly, with I don't, what's the name of it, um, MIMO app, which is basically it's like a coupon for coding. And so of course, you're going to quickly understand, you know, the difference between DOCTYPE versus having the rest of those pieces. But am I building a full webpage? No, not really, I'm just filling in the blank. But I'm understanding at least a little bit of what's going on the moment I start getting into, let's say, like, for loops, or what it's the Okay, I need to sit down and figure out the difference between like, between the spacing between the element bracket and the actual page bracket for within a forum. That's the stuff where I'm going to spend 20 hours concentrated to like build something, how could I do something? Well, I'm sure I can. But once again, it goes back to what I mined. And it's easier for me is to, I have to go through the journey of spending 30 hours learning about the thing anyways, but I like to consume the content as opposed to creating it. And that's the behavior change that I just happen to be going through myself.

Lisa Crockett  
Interesting, interesting. I'd like to hear more about that as you go on that journey. I know it's, I think I approach learning similarly. So I'd like to hear how that works through for you. Anyway, I'm on that like, most impactful learning that you've ever experienced.

Dan Pelegro  
Oh, I would argue it's, it's the thing that I'm not great with from a self set of self self learning perspective, which is it's it's being there and just doing the job. That's the part where, like, I think about my time as a grip, where the crews I'm working with because that is the lives like you get very good at the things you're supposed to be doing and even who you're doing it with, because there will be jobs where I because it's so the culture within like a film crew, for instance, is going to be there. Once you're established, you're going to work with the same people over and over again, or you're going to be booked on like a television show that I'll run for like six or seven months. And so it's the same day in day out people. But a lot of the time though, especially as you're coming up, you're day playing on different things. You'll be on a music video one day, you're going to be on a feature film The next day for like a couple of days because they happen to be off the stage and they need more hands to do company moves. And so because of that you end up working with a lot of other people. Every one, of course, has their own ways of doing things. And because the clock is always ticking for, got to get 10 hour, 12 hour day because they don't production, of course doesn't want to pay overtime and everyone wants to go home, you end up kind of also seeing who works well, and what types of ways as well as also when the let control go, because there is that, like, Am I really going to spend all this time investing in all these people that I might not see this person again for another two years on the job? And so the it just becomes what does the floor need to be as opposed to the ceiling? And then also, how are we quickly communicating what I need as a boss, versus what I'm delivering as a person that's working for the boss, you know, under very limited communication, and you know, just half sometimes like a never ending tone in your air from the walkie talkie, or silent hand signals.

Lisa Crockett  
I'm just I'm laughing because it's the film business, which I've never been in sounds exactly like the restaurant business, which I worked in all through college. And I'm like, that's, that just sounds exactly the same. That's crazy. But I guess it's all a production. No, one's just a lot more short term. Nobody's waiting for the salad the next day. But hopefully, they're watching your film for years to come. Sounds like so much fun.

Dan Pelegro  
There were parts of it, I really enjoyed.

Lisa Crockett  
Hmm, that sounds like a whole nother cast, the parts you enjoyed in the parts that you're not talking about? I won't push you on that. Hey, Dan, do you have a favorite quote or mantra that you live by?

Dan Pelegro  
Oh. I feel like it'd be remiss not to call out. Key, John Maynard Keynes, I've kind of gotten the background there for like, in the long run, we're all dead.

Unknown Speaker  
Can't see it. But okay.

Dan Pelegro  
Essentially, the, his whole thing is, I think really around just like, it's more of that worldview, right? Like, does the economy work for the people? Or do people work for the economy? Because in the long run, and so just kind of like least I think likes to just inform okay, like, what are we doing here? What is the purpose? Is the is the purpose just to, you know? Are we doing something that ultimately is because one person thought it was a half decent idea, but there isn't any backing to it? Or are we doing it because we're all going to benefit from it. And it's just, it's this nice way of kind of keeping stock of keeping, taking stock and going, how emotionally invested do I want to get into this project? Or how much effort am I going to put in if I don't start, you know, getting really, a workers, workers concerns about the whole thing?

Lisa Crockett  
It's a good gut check. It really is a good gut check. Kristen's actually actually asking a follow up question. She's asking, Are you helping to inform people who are doing day to day work on payment processing, or helping people make informed decisions on managing their own payment processing? And I'll let you answer that. I didn't know this. Okay.

Dan Pelegro  
Yeah. I mean, there's I mean, there's, I mean, there's some folks who are just like, hey, can you look through our box and tell us where the inefficiencies are? Or what, like what we should be doing? And, yeah, that's one part of the job. The other part of the job is, okay, how is your architecture design today? What are the how evolvable is it? Given that, you know, we're also in a place where, you know, think because we're in web 2.0, and you've got, everything's running on some form of a cloud service now that the pieces have never been easier just to wiki Walk is a term for like a Squarespace type or a Wix type website, where it's just like, you're just gonna grab different Yep, WYSIWYG, you know, where you're just gonna piece them all together. And now all we're a lot of websites really are just different configurations, different AWS, or Google Cloud Service. services all just now configured in specific ways, with just different language abstracted on top of it, just to connect it all together. And that's the part I'm almost I would almost kind of go and say, that's the part that is a lot the work that's a lot more enjoyable. And the work that is also in some ways, the some ways a little bit more straightforward. Because it's designing, you're essentially designing what a greenfield should look like. And then it's just filling in all the back end of okay with where you're at today, what has to get sunset or deprecated and migrated. And how's that happened over a period of time, that makes sense.

Lisa Crockett  
So you guys are really, with a lot of your clients, I'd imagine at the at the pinnacle of their tech transformations. Well, hopefully you're in it earlier. Then, then that peak.

Dan Pelegro  
I mean, I mean, because well, that's the thing it's like a payment is it's the, it's the, it's the blood flow of a company, right? If you turn off the spigot, because I'm stopped accepting a payment, then the company has, you basically cut off the source of water. So I get to mix my metaphors.

Lisa Crockett  
No, that makes complete sense. So I think I'm looking at our time, I know that we're getting close to the half hour you promised us so now we're going to go into the ever dreaded speed round. Daniel, are you ready for that? Sure. Okay, what's the last song you listen to? We'll start easy.

Dan Pelegro  
Bertha by the Grateful Dead?

Lisa Crockett  
Okay, and actually, before I before I continue, I don't know if I've lost my co host or not. Monique, are you gonna jump on and do the speed round? Or have you gotten locked out? I think she might have gotten locked out. That is why I'm asking. I don't hear her. I don't see her in the background. Okay, I think she disappeared like I did a couple weeks ago. All right. Back to the questions. What's the last thing you read last book you read?

Dan Pelegro  
last book I read was on public banking. This professor named Thomas Marwan basically, it looks at all these different, like publicly owned banks that whether it's the Spark has in Germany, the Workers Party bank in Costa Rica, the Chinese Development Bank, and it starts talking about okay, like, how can these things be used to start promoting projects that we started using the economic levers for decarbonizing our planet define analyzing and democratize AI?

Lisa Crockett  
That is so far above my head. I'm not gonna say anything else. But it sounds like a great book. So favorite form of entertainment?

Dan Pelegro  
Oh, I mean, hiking because it's that's I spent with that's probably a little too participatory. Otherwise, I mean, it's, I think, like anyone else do marathon television watching?

Lisa Crockett  
Yeah, I like hiking too. But marathon television watching is not bad. If you were if you're a fan of anybody, who are you a fan of?

Dan Pelegro  
Oh, canes 100%. Okay. You, you figure out how to pay for you figure out how to pay for two wars and create like economic prosperity, while also figuring out free health care for an entire country like that. That's hero status.

Lisa Crockett  
That's that's the stuff. So how do we get that? How do we get people to make that a little more viral? As opposed to the Kardashians? Sorry. And that just because I looked at the next question, which is guilty pleasure. And I don't know why that comes up. For me. It's not but What's your guilty pleasure? Oh, what do I feel guilty about? Shame. I love this guy. Oh, my God. See, now you guys know I like working with him. Right? Um, okay. Last PG thing that kept you up late at night.

Dan Pelegro  
Last one that can be played

Lisa Crockett  
PG things that kept you up late at night.

Dan Pelegro  
Oh, um, I've got a friend in town that was um, he, he travels a bunch for work. And so he's only in town for like, a week or two at a time. And it was just one of those nights where I just was like, I'm not I'm staying fully sober that night. Is okay, like, you know, we have a great dinner. I'll come I'll come. I'll come and I'll have I'll have a solitary beer. That's the only beer that was had. Then I look over at the clock at one point. It's 330 I need to go home. Just one more thing. 430 I need to go home. 6am I'm going home now. Stop it. Like I love you. But we're done.

Lisa Crockett  
Oh, that's so great, though. Those are the best conversations. How often do we get to lose time like that? That's the thing. That's the thing. Okay, last question before I let you go. Could your partner or best friend, not your dad accurately describe what you do for a living? Yes. We you are there now? Because that

Dan Pelegro  
best friend also someone who's been very instrumental in teaching me how to clearly synthesize my thoughts into something essentially brief.

Lisa Crockett  
Still, to you and Monique are the only two the only two so far. So we are two for eight guys. This is this is good. We're going I think we have to bring back all the people and their partners and celebrate that and then figure out how to get our partners to know what we do. Okay, let me just check. I have not been watching the chat, folks. I didn't realize we lost our Monique. Um, so let me just see if there any more questions before I let you go down. And, Dan, can you post a link to the mirror website that you mentioned? When you answered my question? Oh, I guess mirror dance turned me on tomorrow. I know have an account by the way, they have a really good account level. Now for consultants, individual, you know folks like me freelancers that they didn't have before. So if it was cost prohibitive, like six months ago, it might not be now. Got I feel like a commercial. Let's see, what else do we have? No, really? It's great.

Dan Pelegro  
Not sure it was a Amuro piece, but um, MIMO was the name of the coding on Kumaun thing I was doing.

Lisa Crockett  
Okay, there we go. And thank you. Okay, so, um, I think I think we lost Monique Monique, both visually and, and her mic so she's thanking you guys for coming. Our next episode is December 7. We're gonna have Alan attitude. And we will have this fantastic episode up on our podcast this week. So everyone have an outstanding day. And thank you so much, Dan, for spending yet more time with me this week. I know you're probably sick to death of me already. But I appreciate you coming in and talking to us. And when awesome rest of your day. See ya. Thanks, bye. I'm thinking Monique must be shutting us down but I have no idea.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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