Scott Schuette (00:00.434)
They are the fabulous learning nerds! Cause if you're tired of the old ways of getting it done, you've got the fabulous learning nerds! Scott, Dan, and Zeta are making it fun! The best ideas that you've ever heard! So everybody spread the word!
Hey everybody, welcome to another fantastic episode of your Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm Scott Schuette, your host, and with me, you love him, Dan Coonrod. Dan the man. yeah. Dan. Scott. What's up Scott, how you doing? You know, I apologize. I was searching for something unique and interesting this week.
instead of fantastic and it just didn't work. I couldn't find anything. So I went with the old standby and I think it did okay. We'll have something better next time. I think it carried its weight. I think it did fine. It did good. I know, but I don't want to bore our audience. Like here we go again, right? Listen, if the audience is, if you guys out there are just hanging to see like what word Scott is going to use at the intro, I feel like you might be missing the point.
Maybe, probably. Although one of my favorite YouTubers, he's one of these guys, Kevin Heimbach, what the heck? I give him a free plug, he doesn't know it's from Adam. He's a lot of fun. He basically goes to Universal Studios and talks about Universal Studios all the time and there's another YouTuber he bumps into and he always asks that same person when he bumps into them, because they're both doing the same thing, walking around Universal, filming content to make money.
Then you always ask him like, what's the word of the day? And nine times out of 10, he's flabbergasted, has no idea what to say and make something up. So that's kind of how I feel. So there it is. How are you, sir? I'm fair to Midland. Fair to Midland. Look at that. I don't need to change. You don't need to come up with a new word of the day. It could just be, you know, the same fair to Midland. It works. Why fight it? Wow, that's great.
Scott Schuette (02:12.098)
That reminds, you know, we could just say this is another fair to middle end episode of your fabulous learning. Or we could totally just do that. I think we should. with one stone. I think we should be always aiming at least for a fair episode. Yeah, I know, I know for sure. Yesterday was my wife's birthday and I've been super busy. then on Facebook, of course, we have a lot of dogs. One of our dogs has, he's kind of grumpy. You know, very particular little Shih Tzu. His name is Teddy.
And I put a picture of Teddy up on her Facebook wall and I said, I hope you have a marginal birthday. Love, Teddy. wow. Scott, you can't just wish somebody a marginal, let alone your wife. Yeah. Scott. Well, it wasn't for me. It was from Teddy. You know, so I feel like that was OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
At least I will say this Facebook has made it easier than ever to wish people birthdays, happy birthdays. So that's nice. You know, it used to be, I would post on January 1st, I would like to wish every one of my friends who's going to have a birthday this year, very happy birthday. Cause it used to be such a drag to, to, you know, post happy birthday. am not, I think I've alluded to this before. I'm not a holiday or a birthday kind of person.
I'm a like when it comes to like gift giving and celebration You should just give a gift any time of the year You should just celebrate any time the year if you're waiting for like specific days Then it's an obligation and I don't want people to show up like on my birthday and be like hey, birthday I got you this like okay. Cool. Like thanks. You got me something. That's awesome. You thought of me awesome. Great Yes, right, but you don't have to like you don't have to wait for a special day or you don't have to period
And so like, man, like I love, I love January 1st sending out a mass blast. Hey, everybody who has a birthday this year, happy birthday. know. Although I'm going to argue with you and then we've got important things to talk about, but like I'm all for the gifts. Like bring it, just bring me a Just bring me a gift. I mean, he's got to buy for so there it is. Zeta is out ill. She had dental work, so she sounds like Elmer Fudd.
Scott Schuette (04:35.351)
right now and so she's she's sounding a little bit better but definitely didn't want to make it. Yeah probably not. You want to talk for an hour? Not so much. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's one of my favorite things dentistry. Yeah for sure. Latest afternoon just for the heck of it I think I might just go see my dentist. Yeah. Is he listening to the show? Probably not.
That my friends is our special guest and we've been keeping him behind the curtain feeding him coffee and he's super excited to be here. We're going to learn all about him and a little segment that we call What's Your Deal? Hey man, what's your deal? Carlos! Hello. What's your deal my friend? Alright.
How are you doing my name is carless story time founder of faster course have been in the learning business since 2007 i first started thinking about e-learning company when i was actually it was my first serious job i was selling oracle software it was back in 2004 and they had or at the university
So I was selling software, so I had to go through videos and tests about Oracle products like databases and ERP systems and stuff like that. And I thought, this is really cool. And we should have this in Latvia. And as you can hear from my accent, I'm not from US. I'm from Latvia, which is Northeast Europe. So three years later, I started together with two more guys, a company called Novitus. And we started doing custom e-learning development courses.
Latvia and Baltics and then the whole economic crisis started of course and then you know within three years we understood that nobody in Latvia actually needs it despite our hypothesis so we started working internationally and then things start to take off you know my friends unfortunately left the company because they had some much more fun things to do
Scott Schuette (06:48.495)
But I slowly gradually, you know built the company from you know, two employees to 11 and We were building courses, you know graphic design instructional design development and while we were doing that Sometime around 2013 2014 We fell in love with this idea about rapid e-learning development that you really build something fast using templates and we
We made a mock-up, not a mock-up, a test landing page for Lektora templates. So we put some images there and just really built a quick website with a contact form. So if you're interested, fill in the contact form. And then a miracle happened, Coca-Cola, the beverage company, they... Very familiar with Coca-Cola. Yeah. Yeah, guess it would be, yeah.
So they filled the contact form the UK branch and that was really amazing because you know UK company filling a contact form of latvian company about lectora templates and then we thought okay there might be some interest globally and we started building another company which is fastercourse.com and that's what i'm doing now that's my deal we are creating e-learning templates and courses that we sell out of the box
And it's not only lector because lector is amazing tool but not so popular anymore as it was 10 years ago. But currently it's mainly storyline and capital. Actually more storyline to be very honest. Dude, that's awesome. So that's basically my deal. We have been developing this over 10 years. I'm super proud about the old way how it developed.
We had some amazing clients over these years. Like I'm very happy that, know, like NASA bought our product at some point and they built a course building using our templates. And so it was really cool. And it was kind of a dream come true, you know, that to build something that, you know, somebody else wants, that's really cool. For me, it was also a completely different journey.
Scott Schuette (09:13.542)
Because when you are a custom development company or custom development agency I was the boss and the salesperson and the janitor and the project manager and and everything, you know I was doing everything that nobody else wanted to do So in in agency business, you know client comes and says hey, can you create this and we said
Of course we ask all those smart questions like do you really need this and is this e-learning really needed and is this the best way? But still, you you get the client from point A to point B and you know that you're gonna be paid some X, right? And sometimes this point B is actually like more like point C because the client adds some more stuff. anyway, you have like roughly the idea of how much you will be paid and how much work you need to do.
With FASTA course, it's completely different. You build something you like, and you have no idea if anybody else likes it, or if anybody else wants to buy it. But it makes it way more interesting in a way. E-learning is a huge part of our business. It's here to stay, folks, if you haven't figured that out. E-learning's here to stay, and that's why I'm super excited to be talking with you. And with that, let's go ahead and dive into our topic of the week.
Scott Schuette (10:40.37)
Okay, this week we're talking about e-learning design. Carlos, before we get started, I got one question for you.
Yeah, so what? why should we be thinking about this? Why should we be thinking about how we put our e-learnings together and why is it so important? This is a topic I wanted to raise because I think it's very, very crucial and important. And of course, it's not my idea, but I just want to reiterate it. It's that if you look at courses, e-learning courses, and some of them have amazing instructional design.
the pedagogy and you know the content is there and it's very good but if they look like they're from 1995 graphical design wise then many people especially the young people when they will look at it they will assume that this is very dated content and maybe not very good one right and it it unfortunately means that many good courses and content are being devalued just because of the way they look right
However, if you don't make this mistake and you really think about not only instructional design, but also graphic design, then you kind of get this problem out of the door because if it looks okay or it looks good and if the pedagogy and instructional design is good, then the result will be better. It's not a magic key. It will not solve everything, but I would argue that it's an important part of the equation.
You know, I have to agree with you so many times, especially in compliance training. I don't know why, but for me, my experience is that I sit down at any learning and it's death by PowerPoint. Like it's a 20 minute thing of here's this slide and this slide and this side and this side. And you're right. We spend a lot of time around the, the instructional design around what are the objectives in the agenda. then, man, it's like watching grass grow.
Scott Schuette (12:48.654)
Very painful and then the worst part about it is because that experience is so painful, you know, my objective is to Have changed behavior have people do things differently when I'm done, but because the experience was so bad That doesn't translate but from the instructional design perspective Hey Scott went through it and it's on our LMS. He got 80 % So I'm good, right? I'm good. I've checked off the box. Let's move on to the next one
If it's compliance, yeah, of course, clients is a whole new, you know, animal. But I would argue that, you know, you could improve the whole a, you know, finishing rates and also the, you know, the level of how much you learn from it. If if it would look modern, because
I'm 40, you know, I'm not a youngster anymore. And, you know, there are people entering workforce for like 21 and 22. And, you know, they, they don't know what's PowerPoint, you know, basically, they like TikTok and stuff like that. And if you give them like 60 page PDF presentation, I mean, like, no, it's not serious. So I think that's that's what to acknowledge that, you know,
we need to reach all audiences and I would argue that modern graphic design will help you. would maybe not even let's say in this, I'm not sure it will really help in the point of pedagogy, but it will at least avoid you being disqualified as a bad content provider, which will happen if you will have a shitty PowerPoint presentation, excuse my friend.
I love that. I 100 % agree. feel like so much of the design, look and feel of e-learning is old. And I'm in my 40s too. So 100 % if I think it's old, it's probably pretty old. So often I'll be looking through material, I'll be looking through decks, I'll be looking through these e-learning experiences and I'll just...
Scott Schuette (15:11.952)
be like, like as soon as I see like the look and the blocks and the layout, I'll be like, I'm instantly turned off. Not because, and that's, don't even know if the content's good. I just know that the barrier to entry because of that initial graphic design, that initial like layout that feel feels dated and because it feels dated, I begin making assumptions. And if me, a guy with years of experience doing like e-learning and taking courses and stuff like that feels that
I know that people to your point, younger people entering into the workspace who have these expectations of polished dialed in video based content because of YouTube, because of TikTok, because of all of these other platforms. If I feel that, how are they supposed to get over that hurdle?
100 % You make a really good point, Dan. Our Gen Z and the alphas are really good at this, right? So they're way better than I could ever be at creating short form learning like TikTok and Instagram, because they kind of cut their teeth on it, right? So here's this platform that allows me to go ahead and express myself. And all I got to do is learn the tools and then
get better at it over time. And so it behooves us as designers to begin to kind of think that way, right? So how do we, and this is a really great question, how do we enhance what we're doing to create content that not only is impactful, but engaging as well? I will add one more thing also, I think which is important to acknowledge is that, you know, I have been around knee landing for 17 years.
and I would say like last maybe seven, five years hasn't been much of a breakthrough, but overall the tools have gotten easier to use, they are more available and the whole entry ticket to having a decent looking design for your course is going down because you have different options like
Scott Schuette (17:26.45)
for example, Articulate Rise is a very simple tool. You can learn it in one hour or two hours maximum, right? They're all going to look the same. I mean, all the RISE courses, but it looks good. It looks decent and it does its job, right? And it's very easy. It's not a high ticket entry cost, right, to make something like that. And my point is that if the cost of design is going down, it's easier also
You can contract designers through Upwork or any other freelance options. It kind of makes sense that if you haven't done it, if you haven't done that homework of making a design good, it kind of starts already look a bit bad on you, I think, because it's relatively easy to do that. It's one of those things I remember I was new in my career. I had been doing instructional design for a few years.
And I was very focused on like, you know, the what to do as an instructional designer and like the value of knowledge transfer and knew my P's and Q's. I was set. was, I knew it was up and my content was always stale. Like I would always get feedback like, I don't know. I just, it's tough. It's tough. It's tough to get engaged. And I remember I hit this point where I was getting this feedback again.
I was young, I was young in my career, I was really frustrated. I'm really like, I'm just following all the rules of instructional design. I can't help it if they don't get it. I'm not a graphic designer. Like, you know, I can't do that. And I would stamp my foot and get really upset.
Building visually appealing material is a vital part of good instructional design. And I know there's a lot of instructional designers out there who don't like that, who are like, you know, cause they so often get lumped in. We've talked about this one of our very first episodes, the do it all ID instructional designers all the time are getting roped into like design based projects because they have the term, they have the title designer in their, in their title. And it's tough.
Scott Schuette (19:38.902)
and it's easy to get frustrated with it, but it really is. It really is part of it, of building a complete package. Because if you make something that is theoretically good, theoretically like does the knowledge transfer, builds the material, like does this stuff, but it doesn't hold your viewer's interest. It doesn't hold the learner in the material. You just wasted time. And that's tough to say, but I 100 % agree.
If it doesn't look good, it's not done.
I have a funny story actually to tell about this because there's always like, you know, like balance, you know, like design and pedagogy, right? So we were doing a custom development work for a German company and you know, all the German stereotypes really came through because we were making an amazing design. And at some point they said, no, no, functionality, over design, you know, set us back.
I said, okay, it may not look as good, but you know, it has to have these these these features. And it was really I remember that I was like, okay, so Germans, they they know about functionality, you know, their cars work. So you better listen to them. You know, it's something. Good point. Listen, listen to the Germans, they understand functionality till we get it. I have worked I've worked both just in my career for companies.
where I'll be like, I've got this cool idea for a design and I'll build the mockup and I'll show it and they'll be like, okay. That seems really flashy. Can we maybe tone it down a little bit? And I'll just be like, well, you know, like we should build like visually appealing stuff, you know, like obviously as I had gotten later in my career and wanted to like flex those design shops, like check this out. And I can't tell you how many times like I would build something and I'd be really proud of its look.
Scott Schuette (21:39.188)
And somebody like, yeah, but remember, this is just like a learning module. Like don't go crazy. Just like, just get it, get it done and move on. And it's like, okay, yes, but it should look good. Like people should be like, I'm really happy I took this. And they'd be like, okay, yeah, if you have time for it, but that's bottom of the barrel. Yeah. It wouldn't be until I would be helping produce sales content where somebody would be like, Hey, is there any way for us to make this look sharper? Like, Hey, can we like spend a little bit more time on the design? And I remember having spent.
now years like fighting and wrestling and being like, hey, let's just amp up the design level. Let's get this like really sharp. Let's get this really crisp. Let's make this pop. And having people go like, no, no, no, just get it out the door. No, no, no, just get it out the door. And so finally, when somebody was like, hey, can we take an extra day and just maybe dial up like our look, our feel here being like, what? Like just completely flabbergasted because I had spent so long being told don't.
that like when I was finally kind of like let off the chain, so to speak, I was like, yes, yes, we can. Finally. Yeah, I know. So let me ask you this. I feel like we're talking about content like we talk about instructional design content, instructional content, but in a world where everybody's a content producer, like how do we get learning content?
To feel like the content that like we're seeing on like YouTube or tik-tok like how do we get? That like learning content to be a priority Okay, well, I think that's a very good very good question because you know, we see it all the time because you know learning content is competing with you know, tik-tok and stuff like that And the Instagram and you know Facebook
But to be very honest, I have thought about this a bit. I can't see that we would do something that people at 10 p.m. sitting on their bed, they would choose to go through anti-money laundering compliance course instead of opening Facebook or Twitter or whatever, right? I don't see that happening, but- It's a tough sell. Yeah, it's a tough sell. But it's a compliance course.
Scott Schuette (24:09.302)
still, I mean, you have to do it. So maybe it's, you know, like a matter of restrictive measures by the management. I don't know. If it's not, if it's a set, if it's a skill building content, then we have to and we have to fight with with other, you know, entertainment possibilities. And it's a hard fight because the budgets are not the same.
So I don't have a really good answer, but I would say it really depends on the motivation of people. when I was a kid, I remember I was like 12. We first got our cable TV and I could watch MTV music clips. And that was like amazing. I spent like summer watching clips every day. And it was very interesting. Now I'm 40.
I can't watch those. I mean, it's just waste of time. So now I'm looking for something out to develop my business myself or learn how to be a better dad or whatever. But the motivation is different. So maybe it really depends on how well we manage to appeal to motivators of people for the skill building course. Like if we can sell benefits. So you're saying that like, I mean, obviously we're talking about
e-learning design and stuff like that. But you're saying it's not just building like stuff that looks good, but like we also have to like address motivation. Like we're coming in, we need to tell people, this is why this is important. I 100 % agree. You're preaching to the choir. Yep. Well, providing a WIFM has always been a, you know, table stakes part of what we do in ID, right? So if you don't have a WIFM, what's in it for me at the beginning, you're, I'm out. I'm out. Yeah. But doesn't make sense to me.
You know, one of the things that I think is really important is, you know, we got people listening like, how do I do this? How do I do this? How do I do this? And, you know, my experience twofold today, the two tricks that I would suggest to people. Number one is just like Carlos has, go find a template, right? Go find a good looking template that's gonna kind of meet your needs. And they're all over the place. Like you could, you can go to Envato or you can go, you know, somewhere and get
Scott Schuette (26:35.894)
a decent template to start from and then so you're not starting from a blank, you know, screen where you're gonna fill it up. Like someone's gonna help you. Like I would totally do that and steal it and own it and own it. Like, hey, you know, I did this. That's number one. Number two, I'm gonna bang this drum until I can't. But the technology advancements that we are seeing in our field astonish me. And what was cool,
yesterday has been replaced today by something even more cool. And AI tech allows me to do things that I couldn't do a couple years ago. Now I'm playing around in video and I'm pretty decent at it, but I got to tell you what, just the other day somebody wanted me to put a presentation together and that's cool. And I only had a week and a half to put it together. And I know it would be more engaging if I had some kind of multimedia, but how do you put that together? And there are plenty of
ways to do that, but in a matter of 90 minutes, I created a minute and 15 second multimedia clip using AI tech that was pretty good, right? So go ahead and deliver the message in a way that was different and apply all the adult learning things to it, like adding subtitles, which you can do with a push of a button, boom, subtitles, and they're good. They're not crappy. They're really good. And so these tools are out there, like Start.
playing with those tools. So it'd be the two things that I would recommend. Find a template that works for you. Number two, go explore other ways to make your content or embellish your content, because there's so much out there. And just like I said, what was really cool and interesting yesterday has been replaced or enhanced today. Thoughts? Scott, want to circle in on one of the points you made about just finding a template. that's how, Carlos, that's how you and I started talking, because you reached out after I had like.
bought a subscription to your guys's service, faster course. like, it was literally, I was like, a client was like, Hey, can we do this? Can we get this? And I know it's real tight turnaround, but like, you know, can we get this in a week? And I'm like, I was sitting there I was like, maybe that's pretty big lift. Let me see what I can do. Give me, give me a few hours. Let me check my resources. I will get right back to you. And they're like, okay, great. And so I got off the call and I was just like, man.
Scott Schuette (28:59.094)
like thinking through like, okay, cool. Who do I have who can work on that? Who can we do this? What does this look like? And I was like, I was like, man, I'll need a template. And started looking around at like, at like, storyline templates, because I said, Oh, it's got to be in storyline. And your guys a site came up and I can't tell you like, how awesome it was for me to like, look through and be like, Oh, yeah, okay, that's the one right there. I need that. I need that. What do need to do? Okay, cool. Great.
and then being able to hand it off to a designer and be like, Hey, here's a template. Use it, use it and abuse it as you need. But like, do we think we can get this done by the end, by the end of this week and have them be like, with this? can. Scott, to your point, like the tools are getting better. They're getting faster. You know, just a couple of years ago, somebody's like, Hey, can you get this turned around in a week? I've been like, no, have a great day. I'm so sorry that you've got that deadline. I really wish you the best of luck. That's really tough.
you know, good luck thumbs up. But now with the tools the way they are, like when somebody's like, Hey, I've got a real tight deadline. Can you get this done in a week? The answer is probably, you know, whereas just a few years ago, the answer would have been nope. Good luck.
I have another addition maybe also, which is a little bit different topic, I went well preparing for this show, I thought about this, and it kind of nicely adds to the what you just said. I think one tools are changing and second also way people work are changing. So I had the I was running this agency, which was typical agency, like we had 11 people at the max, and you know, usually around nine or 10.
And it was, you know, like full-time employment, office work, you know, all the benefits, Christmas party, you know, all that stuff. And then the COVID came and then after a while, I also sold that part of business to client. And what I want to say is that right now I have also some ex-employees approaching me and then there are some, you know, people who are just, who are just hired for part-time jobs. And the thing is, it's
Scott Schuette (31:07.622)
way people are more flexible regarding their working hours, meaning that, you know, people prefer to work from home, a lot of people work in our industry, I believe. And, and also like working part time or freelance or all kinds of those arrangements, I believe has gotten way more popular than they were, you know, 1015 years ago. So it means the answer to your question, like, can you do it in one week? A, the technology has changed B,
there might be a bigger pool of people available for a week work rather than full time employment now versus 10 years ago. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. I've talked about it before, but I really do feel like our industry is for better or for worse moving towards this kind of like, I don't use the word gig because that's pretty charged. But it really moving to more of a an on demand service and
it's if you're if you're willing to get out there and you're willing to like, you know, embrace that culture that shift, I think there's some really fun and exciting things that can happen in space. I know for me, it works out great. But yeah, I 100 % I do feel that that that push that change in the industry. I'm not only talking about, you know, like doing, you know, let's say work and upward or, you know, a small project. I'm talking about like,
We have a very good designer and she's she has now two kids and she's working from her home in countryside and she doesn't want to go to Riga, which is our capital, you know, live here. She likes her small town life and she might be interested in halftime work because she likes to spend time with her husband, kids and so on. And I think that's great. You know, if it can work out. I like that too. No, 100 percent. Yeah.
I like that. I like that idea a lot. don't know if I could only work part time, but I love that idea. Well, if you could work part time and get paid full time, that's awesome. That'd be great. That would be nice. Yeah. Just a reminder for everybody, just a word or a phrase that I used to always tell my team. And you got to case everything. Do you guys know what case means? Like the old like.
Scott Schuette (33:31.87)
like a crime movie term. You got to case the joint. You got to look around and very good attempt at guessing what case stands for. Case stands for copy and steal everything. copy and steal everything. seriously. You see something that looks good. Copy it. Steal it. No one's going to know. No one is going to care. So long as at the end of the day you create something that delivers results and the people have a good time doing it.
and you're the hero, case it, case it all the way. As we begin to think about wrapping up, Carlos, is there anything that you had to talk about today or maybe it's an opportunity to kind of bring all these thoughts together and kind of wrap some things up with our audience? Graphic design is an important part of the course and content development and it's getting easier and easier to take the stick in the box that the design is good and it looks good.
it's easier to fulfill this requirement. So I really don't see reason why not. As Scott mentioned, copy with pride, take something you like, and steal and use it, or use an AI tool, or use a template from Envato, Fastercourse, eLearning Heroes, wherever. But it's getting easier and easier to deliver on.
Scott Schuette (35:02.557)
I'm glad we talked about this. is important. This is one of those elephant in the room conversations that the people that I know Kind of avoid so let's talk about it, right? How do we make our stuff look better and Carla? She did a really great job Can you do me a favor because you let our audience know how they could get in touch with you? Yes So the website is called faster course calm. I'm not sure about my pronunciation, but you might be okay and You can just write to
Probably easiest would be email, which is service at fostercourse.com. That's fantastic. So go check out the website. Lots of really good stuff there. I know Dan's using it. I'm going to go there and steal some stuff when we're done. So it's going to be really great. Again, thank you so much for your time. Really great stuff. Daniel-san. Yes, Scott. Do me a favor. Could you let everybody know how they could connect with us? Absolutely. All right, party people. You guys know.
email nerds at TheLearningNerds.com. This week we want to know, what are you copying? What are you stealing? Tell us, we'd love to know. We'd love to maybe share it if it's not a secret. If you're on Facebook, you can find us at Learning Nerds for all of our Instagram peeps, fab learning nerds. And lastly, for more information about us, what we do and updates, www.thelearningnerds.com. Scott, right back at you.
Thanks Dan. Hey everybody, do me a favor. Could you hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, share this episode, share this episode with your friends. Good stuff, good context. They're really important to help your work look better. Do me a favor, go ahead and leave us a review either on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. That does two things for us. Number one, we want to get better. Let us know how we can get better. Number two, you know what? This is how the algorithm works, folks. You leave a review.
More people get to hear this groovy stuff, so do that for us, it would really help us out. With that, I'm Scott. I'm Dan. I'm Godless. And we're your Fabulous Learning Nerds, and we are out.