Do you ever feel disillusioned with L&D? Are you passionate about instructional design, but worry that spark you once had is fading? In today's show, Ant Pugh shares how he lost his way, details the changes he made, and reveals why he currently enjoys his work more than ever.
Connect with Ant:
Mentioned Resources on Today's Show:
Check out the new Collaborating and Building Relationships with SMEs Course
Buy the new book on Amazon or buy the ebook version.
To learn more about myself and show:
Need a new learning platform? Check out Eduflow.
Thinking of corporate instructional design? Check out IDOL Courses Academy
Want to take your higher education instructional design skills to the next level? Check out Instructional Design Institute.
Thinking about making your own online courses / creating your own business? Check out Kajabi.
Recording a podcast or conducting interviews online? Check out SquadCast.
SPEAKERS
Ant Pugh, Luke Hobson
Luke Hobson 00:00
The most effective online courses are designed by instructional designers and Smedes, who are on the same page. When these two parties both feel that they have an equal voice in the conversation, and a partnership is established, the best possible learning experience is achieved. It is worth emphasizing the use of the word equal. If you are successfully establishing boundaries and guidelines, then the project is going to run smoothly. Having tension in the project because of the smear the faculty member being disengaged, or not believing that an online course can be an effective teaching method. Well, that's going to lead to chaos. While most instructional design courses will teach about designing curricula, utilizing theories and applying concepts, the topic of collaborating with sneeze doesn't receive as much attention. That's why I've teamed up with Eduflow and we're making a new course called collaborating and building relationships with subject matter experts or as I've been calling them all along, SMEs. Sign up today to get notified when the course launches by going to eduflow.com/academy, or simply click on the link in the show notes below. Now, let's get this podcast episode started. Hey, folks, and welcome on into the nerdiest Podcast Episode You're going to hear today. My name is Dr. Luke Hobson. I'm a senior instructional designer and program manager at MIT. And I'm the author of the book to help you make the transition into the instructional design field called What I wish I knew before becoming an instructional designer. My purpose, my passion is to help you make the online learning experience incredible for you and for your students. And you can find my book courses, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, and more. Over at Drlukehobson.com. It's no secret that I've been talking to many of you about how to transition into an instructional design position. It's honestly the highlight of my week, when I get that email that says look, I got the job. And then I jump up and down in my chair. And I do a fist pump because I'm so excited that you're going to become a part of the instructional design family. While I've been having many of these conversations with you, I have also been talking to veteran and Senior Instructional Designers who've lost their way they don't have the spark they once had, and they're looking to rekindle those flames. So how does someone find the meaning in their work when they just don't feel it anymore? Somehow, while I was thinking about how to address this topic, the stars aligned when amp you and I were recently chatting about what his podcast topic could be. He mentioned during our conversation before the show, but he used to be in the same boat. But now he feels fulfilled again, as an instructional designer, I asked him to share his journey of how he found this meaning in his work. And that is what you're going to hear about today. This information is crucial for you new instructional designers to because as an ID, you need to think about it. It's still a job. I love what I do. Don't get me wrong. At the end of the day, though, it is still work. And if you are starting to get burned out, you need to recognize the warning signs and see the red flags and figure out your next steps on what to do. And ant does a fantastic job in this podcast episode of describing some of his past experiences. And where you could potentially see this happening in your life too. You're also going to hear me fanboy out over the fact that well at Pugh is on the podcast. If you don't know who ant is, he has had a YouTube channel for years and years about instructional design. And the first time I went onto YouTube and I typed in instructional design, his videos popped up. And I instantly felt a connection with him because he to me, he was real. He was authentic. He was genuine. He was telling me the truth about instructional design, and I will forever be grateful for stumbling upon his videos, years and years ago. So it's a bit of a surreal feeling to now have him on the podcast, and I can't encourage you enough to sign up for his daily newsletter. Once we're done with this episode. He's pivoted away for a bit from YouTube. And now he's really focusing on trying to help others with this newsletter for instructional design, the l&d community and is trying to think more about the motivation. Some of his life lessons is tips. I signed up for it a couple of weeks ago. It's awesome. So I would highly encourage you to also sign up for it and and it's gonna definitely tell us all about it later on in this episode. So folks, I'm not gonna take up any more time here is the one and only, Ant Pugh. Ant, welcome to the podcast.
Ant Pugh 04:58
Thanks so much, Luke. Nice to see you.
Luke Hobson 05:00
You too, I cannot wait to talk about this. And I'm gonna do my very best to not fanboy out over here since I have known you literally for years and years on the internet. And now this is our second time actually chatting service is really cool to see this finally come full circle of the very first time I watched one of your YouTube videos. And now it feels like I'm literally interacting with you on this YouTube video. But we're doing it via podcast. So this is really neat. So I am so looking forward to this conversation and going into everything tonight. But for the folks at home, who have never heard of you before, somehow, can you please introduce yourself to the audience? Tell us a little bit more about who you are and what it is that you do.
Ant Pugh 05:39
Yeah, thanks for the introduction, Luke. Yes. So I'm a British 40 something year old, living in a city called Newcastle it's about two hours north of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. I've been in learning development for kind of 20 plus years started off as a trainer moved into a variety of different instructional design, learning design roles. Always with the kind of design focus that was always my kind of bread and butter was the kind of graphic visual UX UI design side of things. That was really my passion kind of growing up.Try to explore going into kind of training, management and managing learning departments, but got quite frustrated in the corporate world. And in 2014, I think it was I kind of threw my toys out the pram quit my job and said, right, I'm going to go do you know change the world and do it all properly by becoming a freelancer, only to kind of find quite quickly that, you know, doing that type of work freelance was exactly the same as doing it in the corporate world, it was still quite frustrating. Lots of companies wanting kind of check the box elearning. Lots of clients, quibbling over, you know, pricing, all that kind of stuff. And then I guess, two, three years ago, it really kind of kind of found my groove, I guess. And you know, I guess pulled up my big boy pants is what I what I kind of say and kind of took a bit more responsibility, really and stop thinking so much about, you know, the solutions that I was creating and being so kind of wrapped up in the outputs of what I was creating, and started really focusing on the needs of the clients that I was working for, and trying to think well, what is it that they're trying to achieve, and not just taking their kind of requests for a 20 minute eLearning module on face value. And just really started to dig into. Yeah, how I could create learning or training, I should probably say, that actually was going to have an impact in people's lives, I felt like up until that point, I'd created a lot of content, a lot of what I thought was very, you know, functional, well, well designed content, but it wasn't really having much of an impact on people's lives. And it was at that point in time where I kind of was, I mean, I've had I've had this thought many times in my career, but I was questioning whether learning development was the path for me, I was thinking about, well, I quite enjoy marketing, my freelance business, maybe I could get into marketing, I quite enjoy teaching, maybe I could become a teacher. And there are all these different ideas bubbling under bubbling under the surface. But it was all caused by the fact that I didn't really fully I didn't really feel truly fulfilled by working in learning development. And that was up until about two or three years ago. And then, as I said, I started focusing on performance. And you know, I think that the trigger for me was reading Mapit by Kathy Moore, and really figuring out that, the realizing that there were people out there who had figured out a way to focus on performance, versus, you know, just creating content. And that was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me and, and now, you know, long, long, long winded way of answering your question, but I'm now you know, a consultant working with clients, trying to create, you know, learning experiences and trying to create learning that actually or I keep saying learning, I should say training, trying to create training that actually is going to have an impact on the world. And so yeah, at the same time is that I've been, you know, been very passionate about sharing my journey, you know, sharing what I'm learning, you know, via YouTube, by my email list, you know, in all these different places as well. So, yeah, that's kind of me.
Luke Hobson 09:30
Awesome, fantastic. And I'm going to unpack that for a lot of different things you said,
Ant Pugh 09:36
more, that was the most long winded intro. You didn't ask me any of that. So I apologize.
Luke Hobson 09:43
I mean, I asked for you to be able to talk about yourself so that people know who you are. And you've had a long career within training and development, instructional design and whatnot. So it makes a lot of sense that you have a lot to say for everything that you've done. So you know what it makes plenty of sense to But what you were talking about, though, and what I wanted to highlight, which is something that we haven't talked on the podcast about. However, behind the scenes, I've been having a lot of conversations more with folks who are veteran IDs. And they are just feeling burned out. And as you mentioned, talking about trying to find that meaning in your work, and that's currently lacking, they're feeling stuck, they're not motivated, they thought it was going to be something else compared to what it really is. So that's what's going to be nice about this episode is that while I feel that our field is awesome, it's booming. There's a lot of different opportunities. At the same time, at the end of the day, it is a job, it's a career. And just like with anything else, you need to be able to look for pitfalls, and what to avoid, and how to adapt and change if things aren't really going your way. So whether you're a veteran listening to this podcast, or for a person who is new, trying to transition over into the field, at least this is a heads up, if you will, about potentially what you might face and how to actually overcome those different things. But before we get into anything as that sorts, I want to know more about your journey. So take me back here, because you've been in instructional design for a while. When was the first time you heard about this field? What was your perspective on it? Like, how did you find instructional design?
Ant Pugh 11:18
I think whenever I hear this question, I always, always hear people sort of almost apologetically saying well, you know, I'm not a typical, typical example, because I came in through the back door, but I feel like most people come in through the back door, I, you know, you don't come out of school at 17, 18 years old, and think I'm going to go to university and learn how to become an instructional designer do do a degree or whatever, and then get a job as a structural designer, I think most of us start as that we build up some expertise in something at our job. And we realize that other people need to learn what we what we know about. So we start teaching them it, teaching it, and then we start realizing that we can't teach everybody so we maybe find some kind of elearning software and start, you know, building courses and start, you know, becoming the structural design through through that path. But for me, I started I great site, my background was design. So I did design degree, I was always very focused on like the visual design, as I said before, like the UX, you know, how things work, how things look, that was really kind of really kind of my bread and butter, I guess. But when I graduated, so this was like the age of kind of 20 years ago now. So I was sort of 2122 years old. I can't I all the jobs that were design related, I actually took one I was designing kind of, you know, when you're in the hospital, and you're sitting in bed, and you've got all those things attached to the wall behind you that connected to your medical equipment. So you've got like the oxygen line coming in, and you've got all the plugs and things that are attached to your bed. So your bed moves, I was designing the layouts for those panels that go in hospital walls, and it was the most boring, soul destroying work, you could imagine it was literally like, right, move the plug three centimeters to the left, or move the oxygen, input three centimeters to the right. And, and I was like, you know, I, I thought I was going to be designing the next Lamborghini when I graduated, you know, I thought, you know, it was gonna be all this beautiful design stuff. But it turned into it, I realized quickly that the bulk of design jobs were not as glamorous as I'd kind of hoped. And I was slumped in a chair, eight hours a day staring at a computer screen, really not no interaction with people. And I got off, I threw a friend actually a friend hooked me up with a company who was doing. They were teaching technology within big electronic stores. So you would go into an electronic store and show people you know how to use a digital camera. So they might have a contract with a digital camera company or a new printer company. And you'd go in and you'd demo the equipment. So I started working for this company just on the weekends actually just doing this kind of demo work. And I started enjoying that kind of teaching elements. And then this company that I worked for, had an opportunity to, to run technology based workshops onboard cruise ships. I was 23 years old, I think I was like wow, go and live on a cruise ship, you know, and I was like that sounds far better than what I was doing in the week. So I did that for a few years. And that was incredible. I got to travel the world but that really ignited a passion for teaching and me so I was standing in front of rooms full of people teaching different subjects things like how to remove redeye from your photos, how to build a photo slideshow with all your holiday photos and how to use eBay safely. You know, stuff that if you think about cruise ships, the the demographic of people on a cruise ship is usually a little bit older, so that the demographic of people I was teaching were a little bit less technically minded than me so I was able to teach these subjects come up with Different ideas of subjects. So that really ignited a passion in me for teaching because I quickly realized that I had to learn how to talk in plain English, you know, I was I was explained to people, you know, open an open Internet Explorer. And let's get started and people wouldn't have a clue. So you'd have to talk them through step by step. And so I did that for a few years, I did a lot of kind of presentation design, started putting the workshops onto DVD in the first place. So I record using Camtasia, I would record the workshop in my cabin on the cruise ship at the time. And I would speak into my microphone and record them so that people could take the workshop away on DVD so that when they got home, they wouldn't forget everything that I taught them. And that was kind of my first foray into e learning. And then when I kind of got got sick of living in a, in a four by four cabin, you know, traveling the world, we sound glamorous, but we actually when you do it for for months, and months on end, it got a bit claustrophobic in the end. And I started looking for a real job I started looking for, you know, elearning jobs. And, and this is where I kind of stumbled into the field. I was like, okay, there is a field called elearning. And it was, it was all based, I think at the time it was articulate. I forgotten the name of the software, it was before storyline came out. So presenter, I think it was called. And there was all these different kinds of tools, really quite basic tools for creating click and really learning. But I kind of got into it that way and took a couple of jobs doing that and kind of, you know, figured it all out myself really. And I didn't I didn't have any real kind of meant mentoring. I didn't I didn't do any kind of qualification or certification. So it was all just figuring out on the job. And so yeah, it did come in through the backdoor in inverted commas. But, you know, I think that's probably how most people entered into the field, really. So yeah, that hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea of how I got into it. Yeah, that's so interesting that you were basically doing both as far as for the backend work as well as you were the person who was in front of the audience, being the one to lead the workshop, do the training, talk to learners essentially, like in real time about things, because there's a lot of instructional design jobs out there that you never do that you're always behind the scenes, you're just the person behind the screen, and you're not out there. And that's actually really fascinating to hear that your first job had you doing public speaking and this type of real life training and then trying to record yourself to on top of that, which I would imagine as a 20 year old would be probably kind of nerve racking. So that is actually really interesting to hear. That was the first thing that you were exposed to. Yeah, well, I mean, I was when I was recording myself. I wasn't actually on the camera. So it was just my voice. So it actually to me, wasn't that nerve wracking. And, you know, my dad's always been in kind of amateur dramatics growing up, so he always used to rope me into doing pantomimes. As you know, I used to do do like the play like the kids in pantomimes and stuff. So I've always had a bit of a kind of theatrical, theatrical kind of thespian streak, I guess. So the whole standing up in front of an audience, I love that I love I love teaching, you know. And once once I started teaching, I realized I kind of found my calling, to an extent, I guess. And I really enjoyed that, that process of understanding a concept deeply. And then being able to articulate it in a way that that people understand. And I remember, I specifically remember, moments when I was teaching where I would see when you when you when you're standing in front of a room, I'm sure you've done this before. But when you stand in front of a room teaching, you can see in people's eyes when they understand something, and when they have those lightbulb moments. And as an instructional designer, you don't get that very often anyway. But that's magical. That moment when you see the penny drop, and people are like, Oh, wow, something that's been kind of alien to me for maybe a decade or, or longer. And now I understand it because you've explained it in a slightly different way. Or you've used an analogy or something, something has helped me understand that. And that feeling I found was absolutely magical. And then through getting, you know, through through going through that journey of being a classroom trainer, and getting to the end of it, and kind of thinking, I still want to do design, you know, that was really my passion. But I love this teaching thing as well. When I stumbled into elearning, I was like, oh my god, this is it. This is design. And it's teaching kind of combined. It's it's like this is what I've been waiting for. But it took me so long to kind of line those two things up. Because when I first got there, I was like, wow, this is it. You know, I'm, I feel confident as a trainer, I feel confident as a designer, I've now I now have everything I need to succeed in this career. But it took me another, you know, 10 years from there to actually figure it out, you know, which is crazy when I look back at it, but I know and that's really my mission now is I'm sure yours is very similar whereby I just want to reduce the amount of time it takes two people to get from okay, I've understand the basics of instructional design now, how to actually build a meaningful career that took me that took me far too long, and I think we can really reach Just the amount of time it takes people to do that. So yeah, if we can we can achieve that with these types of conversations. I'm all for it. I absolutely, that is always the goal too, which is always something that is so we even did a webinar today. And we were talking about how, if you have somebody who is a learner who has extra time who is dedicated to doing something for 20 hours on the weekend, why on earth would you put up a barrier to stop them from progressing, which always drives me nuts for some of these courses like Knowers, like cadence, you must follow this pace. Like we were afraid that you're going to get to last and I'm like, no, they have time as an adult, you know, hardest to capture someone's real time and they want to do something like no, don't stop them. So anyway, minor tangent there. But as what you just said, I was like, Yeah, I talked about that today, actually, in a webinars, this, it just drives me nuts, that we still have that issue, especially higher ed, as, as someone has a higher ed background. It's like, one of the things that drives me insane about our field. But anyway, I digress. So after the honeymoon stage was over, you've you've gone through, you're starting to find yourself, you're realizing that things can actually be so great. But then comes the final point where you're like, huh, some something's not right. There has to be more to this. What What was it that finally got you thinking like beyond that nine to five typical day to day that really made you want to start looking even further ahead to see like, where you could find more meaning in your work itself? Yeah, so I spent a long time, you know, when I first got into elearning, I kind of spent a long time as I think 99% people do, thinking about the solution sighs like, right, I've got to learn all these tools, I've got to, you know, my expectation, when I entered into this field of elearning, was that everyone had it already figured out, right? These these companies who were had these big kind of rapid authoring software, I assumed that they had it all figured out, and you just needed to use this software, and you could create, you could create content that was going to solve real business problems. I never ever for one second questioned that.That wasn't the case. Right? So I spent 234 years playing around with tools, mastering different types of software, experimenting with my my projects, at that point in time, I was working, you know, internally at companies. So I was like an employee, you know, trying these things out, you know, sending out courses, measuring it by, you know, how many people completed the course, all this kind of stuff, which when I looked back on now, you know, it wasn't? You know, I've never learned any, I've never been told anything otherwise. Right. So this was, you know, I was good at designing slides, I was good at designing videos, I understood how to, you know, break down content. So it was easy to digest, all that kind of stuff, I understood the kind of theory of of how to create content. But when I look back, it was more how to create kind of presentations or knowledge sharing, there was never really focused on performance. And I think it was this assumption that the industry in inverted commas had it all figured out. And, and everyone was already doing it the right way. So all I had to do is just learn what everybody else was doing. And I would be able to succeed. That was my expectation for many years. But I always had this nagging doubt that, you know, and I think if I link it back to that conversation we just had about, you know, seeing that light bulb moment, when I was standing in front of a roomful of people. I never felt that, you know, and I think to begin with, as an instructor designer, I thought, oh, that's just because I don't get to sit next to them when they're doing the training. You know, they're, I'm sure they're having those lightbulb moments, and I'm sure that's having, you know, the desired effect on on what I'm trying to create, and, and the business, but I'm just not seeing it. So I thought, you know, well, maybe that's just an unfortunate, you know, aspect of being the structural designer is that you don't get to see those magical moments. But as I kind of progressed on and on through my career, I think I got to a point where I was like, You know what, I'm, I'm not really highly valued in the business I'm working in. I'm not, you know, I'm not getting huge clamor for more and more of these courses. Some of my, you know, requests, you know, I've got all these training requests coming in for new courses, my requests for another instructional designer to support me, for example, were being queried, because that, you know, they're basically saying, well, where's the business case for us hiring another person, you know, you're doing this by yourself that that's enough. And I really started to question Well, where is the value here, like, and I guess, you know, this all came about as well as I got a bit more emotionally mature. And I started to think about business as a whole and started thinking about, you know, what is why are we doing things in the first place? I specifically remember a conversation with the training manager at the company I was working for, and I actually said to him at the time, I said, I think I was going through a bit of a negative phase and I said, what would what would actually happen if this training department didn't exist. And he quite flippantly term and said, absolutely nothing this company would carry on. As it stands, you know, and the thing would be nothing would be any different. What he didn't say, which is was on my mind was, well, actually, the company would be better off because they wouldn't be paying both of our salaries and these other people who do the training, you know, and it's like, well, hang on a minute, I don't want to, you know, I want to spend the rest of my life doing something that it kind of felt like we're getting away with it, you know, it felt like, oh, well done. Well, you know, we're doing a job that actually has no meaning. I was like, This is ridiculous. Like, there's got to be more to life than this. And I thought that that was because this was just what what it's like in the corporate world, I was just like, this just just broken. And that's pretty much about the time I kind of quit my job and said, right, if I go freelance, I can, you know, I can work on projects with clients who, who have kind of better intentions and and want to do things the right way. But you know, looking back at the time, I didn't really know what the right way was, I just thought I was restricted by the, the infrastructure that I was working with. So I've kind of gone off on a tangent there. But going back to your what was what was your original question? Sorry, I've lost track a little bit.
Luke Hobson 26:09
I was basically asking you what made you think beyond the typical nine to five job like, there has to be more like what was it that was like there has to be more out there besides what I'm currently doing?
Ant Pugh 26:18
Yeah, well, I think these types of conversations I was having were, were frustrating me. And I think after the initial excitement of getting into a new field, you know, getting job as an elearning designer, learning these rapid authoring tools, creating my first course, you know, that was a big moment, I was like, wow, my first course that people are actually taking, I was like, that's, that's so cool. But there was that, that kind of that little voice in my head nagging away, saying, you're just creating crap here, there's just you're putting this content out. It's not helping people do anything, it's not actually changing people's lives. It was actually even worse than when I was on the cruise ships teaching, because at least the stuff I was teaching on the cruise ships, people were like, Okay, now I know how to use eBay safely. Now. Now I can go home and I can build my family tree on the internet, because you show me the techniques, like that was more satisfying, because like, that's tangible. Like that's actually changing somebody's life, the stuff, I was creating this kind of compliancy type courses and this stuff, it was just, it was just content that I was putting out there. And I was, you know, I was curating these interactive elearning courses. And I was thinking, this could just be a video, like, somebody is clicking Next and clicking on giant, you know, doing drag and drops? And it's not actually yeah, why don't we just make a little video and they can just watch it, it's exactly the same. And I, for me, like freelancing didn't solve it, you know, had a lot of clients. My first couple years, freelancing were very successful, because a lot of clients asking me for courses, can you build this? Can you build that? And I think, because I was relatively confident at the visual design side, my portfolio looked great. And clients would come along and think, Wow, this looks good. And so I made a lot of money in the first couple years of freelancing, just freelancing, just building courses. But it was the same problem was like, these, these solutions are not actually changing the world. They're not making this client's business any better. And I kind of hoped that the client would realize that, but they, the clients kept coming, you know, and I see so many businesses out there, who are making decent money. They're doing, you know, really great business, they have big teams creating all this content, but that's all they're doing is creating content and not actually creating anything that's going to kind of change the world. I call it Training that matters, right? Training that actually has, has goes beyond just being kind of pretty and you know, functional, it actually does something in the world. So. So yeah, for me, it was a real journey. And it took me a long time to figure it all out. I think I still am figuring it out right now. So I definitely don't feel like I'm the finished product. But I definitely hit upon a point a few years ago, where the questioning disappeared and the constant little voice in my head, stop nattering saying, you know, what are you doing here? You're not You're not contributing to the world. Because I finally felt like, Okay, now I've got processes that I can follow. I can, you know, I know how to create, and how to create solutions that are actually going to impact the world in a positive way. And it took, I think, it took a lot of, for me, it took a lot of courage to kind of shed shed the identity that I was carrying, so it was letting go of my ego, thinking aunties a designer, he creates these beautiful courses of beautiful modules. It was letting go of that. And and that was scary because it's like, well, what else is there if I you know, I am a designer. That's how I saw myself as a designer. And so if I'm not a designer, what am I going to be just facilitating meetings and interviewing, SMEs and, you know, overseeing workshops and guiding clients through processes. To me that all felt quite like well in at first instance, it was like boring, I was like, Oh, God, I don't really want to do that I like sitting in my, in my echo chamber, just doing my doing my design, and it was a big kind of growing up period. But I realized, if I don't do this, I'm never going to be satisfied, I'm never going to feel fulfilled within my career. And so it was a step that I had to take. So I think it was a couple of things, you know, combined, it was discovering tools like action mapping, performance consulting, needs analysis, and, and started starting to try it out with real life projects, because that's, it's all very well discovering these these concepts, but then you've got to try them out. And they're not easy to just get straight away. And then you've also got to find clients or projects where they're open to trying something different, you know, if you, if you ask a typical client, if a client comes to me and says, can you build me a 20 minute eLearning module, it takes a lot of skill to talk them out of that and, and suggest an alternative solution that you know, is going to help their business better than the 20 Minute eLearning module. But you know, a lot of people haven't. And I spoke to a client a couple of weeks ago, who just, they just weren't open to that they wanted a learning module, because that's what they promised their manager. And so unless they delivered that they were not going to be able to, to get a pat on the back. And so, you know, I can't work with those clients anymore, because I just, I just physically can't do it. Just something about it. Yeah.
Luke Hobson 31:23
So I have to ask them from everything, but you were just talking about is that you found a passion in teaching being in front of the classroom, so to speak, and doing all that. But then you went into freelance. Was there ever a question about trying to get into education at all, because for a lot of the folks in the field, it's like you're either corporate, or your higher ed. And then there's also of course, other different entities in there. But it seems like it's always like one of the two, but you went one from corporate to freelance, which I find kind of interesting that there was an educational path for you in there somewhere.
Ant Pugh 31:56
So when you talk about an educational party, what how exactly do you mean, I don't quite follow?
Luke Hobson 32:02
So I mean, either like you go into teaching, as a profession, if you enjoyed the teaching part, or being in front of a classroom, why didn't you try to look into becoming an instructor of instructional design or something related to a higher education path?
Ant Pugh 32:16
Well, I definitely didn't feel qualified to become an Instructure, Instructor of instructional design, because I, you know, I just didn't feel like I had it, I had it, like, nailed down. And I think also, I've always had a very entrepreneurial kind of mindset, the combined with that mentality that I told you about when, you know, when my manager was kind of very dismissive of the value of training within the company I was working out.I was also very frustrated by the restrictive nature of corporate life. So I was working in an environment where people would race into the office, it was this was in, in London, when I was living in London, people would race into the office for sort of 730 in the morning, just to be there before the manager got in there. And then they would hang around until the manager gone home just to say, look, I'm working, I'm working late. And it would drive me nuts. I'd be like, well, what are you actually contributing to the business? That's surely that's more important than how many hours you're sitting at your desk. And this, I just found, I think this is definitely a product of the the environment I was in a company I worked for. But having spoken to people as well, I think I think this, this does happen in corporate world a lot anyway. But there's this expectation, probably less so now, everyone's remote, or there's more remote work, because I think now people are working remotely. You can't get away with just being online, 24/7 you have to start delivering results. And I actually think, you know, in a kind of weird kind of way, COVID will have a positive impact on our field, because I was talking to companies are going to start thinking, Well, you know, what are we actually spending our money on? We're not when COVID Here, a lot of companies canceled their training budgets, you know, siloed they're the training teams. And I think a lot of companies started thinking, well, what are we actually getting for our money here? You know, we're getting all this content, and we're getting all this training, but what's it what's actually doing to the bottom line of our business? And so, yeah, so So I think from a from it, yeah, the question was about how I decided to go freelance. I, I think I just I knew that there was more out there for me, I knew that there was there was more opportunity out there. I knew that I had the determination and the work ethic to to give it a go. And you know what, when you when you start freelancing, worst case scenario, you have to give up and go and get a job again, that was my mentality. I was fed up anyway, I wasn't enjoying my work. I was, you know, working for this company that didn't didn't value what I was doing wasn't getting paid particularly well. And so I decided, You know what, What could I try freelancing for 18 months, it doesn't work, I can always get the job. There's absolutely no problem. And in fact, I actually, I did apply for a couple of jobs and got offered at least one I think before I opted to go freelance. So it was almost like validation that I could get a job if I wanted. So let's give it a go. You know, I'll always it was my wife at the time actually, I'd been talking about freelancing for years, sorry, my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, my girlfriend at the time said, Can you just stop talking about this and give it a go? Because she's she's got to the point where she was frustrated with LIS listening to me talking about, oh, I'm gonna go and freelance and change the world. And she was like, just kind of do that. So yeah, she was she helped me kind of pushed me in the right direction. We knew those support systems. We're gonna talk about that enough. The core systems behind the scenes what you don't see, there are tremendously helpful.
Luke Hobson 35:50
Absolutely. At the end of the day, you mentioned a couple of times already about Cathy Moore's book map it, I feel like beyond just want to think about like for instructional design books, I would say that that book is definitely up there along with like Julia Dirksen, his book design for how people learn, I think are like the top two, I keep I keep seeing constantly on LinkedIn, whenever someone is talking about a book, what was it about there that you learn from that book that taught you that like, hey, I can actually find meaning in my work? What was it that really drove that inspiration from that book?
Ant Pugh 36:24
Um, I think I can sum it up in one sentence. And that was focusing on what people should be doing instead of focusing on what people should know. And that, for me was a huge lightbulb moment. Because I think I I've been talking about this on my, I write a daily email for learning designers. And I've been talking about this on my emails recently. But when you think about like, I'm, I'm kind of, I'm going to do a bit of a workshopping with you. Now, Luke. So I'm thinking about one of my theories into why this is a problem is because when we think about, you know, when we think about training, and we think about why we're why we're creating training, most people can articulate that we're creating training, because we want something in the business to change. We want to improve performance. If you'd have asked me 10 years ago, why are you creating training? I would have been able to articulate that relatively well, it would have been, we want to see an improvement in performance of x y, was it right? However, when I approached that, kind of logically, you know that how are we going to do that? Right? We're going to, they need to know this information. And when they know this information, they'll be able to do this better. So we go down that path of right, what do they need to know? So we put all the information into that elearning course, or slideshows, or whatever, our PowerPoint? And we say, right, this is the information they need to know, how can we best get them to remember that information. And that was the approach I took for a long time. And it's logical, right? Because for me to do something for me to be able to, you know, start up this podcast conversation with you today, Luke, I had to click on the link in the email, and I had to click on a few buttons set up my webcam, or, you know, set up my microphone, all that stuff. I had to do these things. But before I could do them, I had to know how to do them. So I had to go through the process. You know, the knowledge came first, right, I had to know first, and then I started doing it. So I think that's why a lot of training is designed like that, because we think you've got to know the information. And then you can do something with it. But what I learned from Cathy Moore is that you fit by starting on the outcome, starting with the end in mind, focusing on the performance and working backwards from there. Actually, even beyond that you focus on the goal, right? You focus on what you're trying to achieve. And then you work backwards, well, what are the behaviors people need to be performing to achieve that goal? What stopping them from performing those behaviors? Right, let's come up with solutions to overcome that. It flipped the model for me. And I think that the older I get, and the more hopefully wiser I get as I grow up, I'm seeing that in a lot of aspects of life is when you actually invert the problem. And you completely flip things back to front. It, it changes the paradigm, and it gives you a new way of looking at things and what yeah, when I read that line, I think she says, you know, focus on what people do, rather than focus on what people know. I was like, Oh, my God, why didn't somebody tell me that 10 years ago, because if I didn't know that, I would have just kind of had a completely different approach to what I was doing.
Luke Hobson 39:34
And I feel blessed that the first thing I learned about within instructional design was backward design, which is essentially something very similar to what you just said, of starting with the goals, the learning outcomes, then working your way backwards towards talking about the objectives have been talking about the assessments have been talking about the activities and the content. And then that way, you can see the transparency and the alignment of everything that you're designing so that that way you know where to improve. What to actually talk about when, where, how, why, and you know things about nature. So luckily for me, I was introduced to that early on. So I'm always like, Oh, we're talking about goals and outcomes. And then I hear differently where people like, that's not how I was trained, where I was like, Oh, I didn't have that mentality, I wouldn't be the same designer, there's no way they get a literally was the the foundation, the building blocks, as far as for how I design everything within the learning experience. If you remove that for me, then I'm facing an identity crisis here of what am I doing? Yeah, yeah, no, totally failure. So let's jump back in here, because it clearly saw that you had this this passion. Now you have found this new identity, you're talking about different types of tools and ways for you to be able to think about design that you never did before in your career. From that point, what ideas have you noticed that really resonated with those that you were training to make this type of training and development more engaging, and more relevant for people? So you're talking about, with the clients, or sorry, that the learners, the learners themselves, like the employees, like, what did you actually design within the learning experience themselves, to make people like to wow them to impress them to say, like, this isn't like any other training? This is specifically and super fantastic training, that's actually really going to help me in the real world.
Ant Pugh 41:21
Yeah, well, I think this is part of the problem is that I, that was my mentality previous it was like, you know, I've always been a big fan of that kind of big reveal, like, I used to love Steve Jobs, iPhone presentations, who like, you know, he deliver this amazing presentation and dropped this bombshell about what was happening. And it was be like, Wow, this is awesome. You know, I used to love, you know, going to the movies and seeing, like, you know, that that experience of having like that big reveal, I always thought I could carry that into elearning. And I had this dream of, you know, I, when I used to work in corporate, I'd be working away in my office, and I would be building this eLearning course, nobody would know what was in there. And then I send it out, and everybody in the business would be like, Wow, that was the best elearning course I've ever built. And I think that's a really bad way of approaching training. And it took me a long time to kind of let go the idea of that and start realizing that the best way you can design training is designing it with the learner, right, you sit next to them, and you figure out what it is that they're struggling with. And you design a solution, you know, on the fly almost. And you get them to try it out. And they give you feedback and you improve it and you tweak it and you go back to the drawing board, you know, you carry on building. And I think that kind of Agile way of working, iterative way of working where you're kind of side by side, it didn't carry that kind of the the way you just described it of creating this amazing learning experience. It didn't have that association, which I felt a little bit aggrieved out to begin with, but have realized subsequently that, you know, that's not what this is about. Our job is to try and help people do things better and achieve, you know, for them to help the businesses that they work for do better things. And so I think that was again, part of this letting go of my ego and and kind of shifting my identity a little bit from I am the designer who you know, and this comes from a teaching perspective as well, right? We have we grew up with this, this student teacher mindset where we think the teacher knows all the answers, the students just there to listen and to take all the information from the teacher. But it's shifting that paradigm a little bit and thinking more about how can you support them? And you know, you don't have all the answers, actually, they're the ones going to be providing you with the answers, right, you're just going to be kind of back and forth, guiding them, you know, creating the framework for them to improve and to be able to do their job properly. So yes, to be a bit more specific, because your your question was out, you know, what kind of solutions helping learners are recently another book you haven't mentioned, that I really recommend people read is how people learn by Nick Shackleton Jones, really, really good book, Good Book .
Luke Hobson 44:05
Behind me on the bookshelf.
Ant Pugh 44:08
But he talks about push and pull experiences. So if somebody's already really engaged in a topic, and they want to learn, it's quite easy to you know, create experiences, sorry, create resources that they're going to use to help apply to their job to help them do something better. So you know, an example. I've recently been setting up a life operating system. It's a really geeky system that manages all my projects and my to do's it manages my habits and my routines, it manages my personal knowledge management system. So all my highlights from my Kindle, go in there and everything's tagged together. And this is kind of super geeky framework. It's all built in notion. I'm not sure I mean, familiar familiar with notion. Yes. Yeah. Cool. But yeah, it's a really, really cool system that's kind of running my life now and took a lot of work to get set up, but it's now really, really helpful. But, during that process of learning, I was I was very excited about it. So actually took two weeks off work to set it all up, I watched videos, I joined a community, I took a course I did did all these things, because I was passionate about it. So I used all these different learning artifacts, to get me to the place where I needed to be. That was fine, because I was passionate about it, right. But when we're in a situation where we're not necessarily passionate, and I would imagine, I don't know what the breakdown is. But I would imagine in a lot of situations, when we're trying to help people achieve something in their day to day job, they're maybe not passionate about learning it because it's, it feels like something that, you know, I'm working on a project at the moment where with a client where I'm trying to help them, write better reports, so that there's a department in the marketing department, and they should be writing these marketing reports. And they're not doing it to the desired quality, but there's no real motivation from the, the, the learners to do it properly. Because, you know, they don't see the value at the moment. So there's no motivation there. So in those types of types of examples, rather than focusing on the resources, creating, you know, the job aids, and the videos, and the cheat sheets, and the things that, you know, that I was using for to build my life operating system, I'm focusing on creating experiences, so you know, scenarios and practice activities, case studies, and, and things that are actually going to immerse people into the experience, really explained to them and help them understand why this stuff is important, right? It's not just the case of having a slide at the beginning of a presentation saying, this is important, because because we're like, Well, you know, that that's not really helping me. But actually giving them a situation where they're like, they've got to overcome a challenge, for example, and if they can successfully navigate that challenge, there are positive consequences. And those positive consequences align with their, with their job and their work and the benefits that they have from doing a good job. And if they are unsuccessful in in overcoming this challenge, the consequences are actually negative. And they can they can really relate to those negative quants consequences, because maybe they've seen that in their job before. And they're like, Well, yeah, that happens to me that happened last year, I wrote this really bad report. And this consequence was that, you know, I didn't get a pay rise, or the agency I was working with wasn't happy, or the campaign didn't go very well. And if we can create these experiences, where they're actually contextually relevant to that person's job, people are going to kind of connect the dots better, I think. So that's kind of what I've been doing is kind of going down that path and learning about branching scenarios and story, storytelling, and interactive interactive stories and case studies. And, you know, I'm, I'm still early in this journey, right. And I feel like, you know, I've been, you said at the start, you said, You've been in l&d ages, I'm like, Yeah, but I, I feel like a newbie in some respects. Like, I feel like I've been reborn in the last few years, because my eyes are now open to this, these types of approaches, and I'm like, wow, like, I've got to learn this stuff all over again, now, because I've got to try it out on real life client projects, where they're paying me and they're putting my putting their trust in me to do a good job. And, and I'm the one saying, you don't need a 20 minute eLearning module, you need some, you know, experiences and some PDFs, and some job aids and all this kind of stuff. And I'm kind of, you know, you know, it's risky, because what feels risky, because, you know, I've got the weight on my shoulders. But having said that, it's very low risk, because the alternative is that they get the 20 minute module, which is going to be completely ineffective anyway. And nothing's going to change in their business. So it's kind of a catch 22 To really, but yeah, hopefully that answers your question in a roundabout way.
Luke Hobson 48:52
It No, it actually does in a complete roundabout way, because that's what I was expecting you to say. When I asked that question. He did talk more about scenario based learning or project based learning or gamification, simulations, case studies, peer reviewed activities, you know, you name is 1000 different things. We can do team based activities and group work and button, blah, blah, blah. So that's why I was curious about was like, in your new learning experiences and training experience that you are designing like, what are you been really focusing on? Because sometimes for me, I am not the learner, the biggest thing that I've always thought about for my career, whereas is like, no, like I am, I'm Luke, I'm an ID, I think about this over here. But you're a different person, you are an engineer, you are, you know, somebody who I'm designing the scores for the target audience, and I'm not that person. So perhaps, I already know about a subject but to them, it might be something that's eye opening. I remember I talked before about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in a leadership course. And I was taught about that a long time ago, honestly, in college, and for a lot of these folks, they're like, I have never heard of that before. Like, really? So after talking with them, I'm like, okay, so If I build a scenario around, you know Daniel Pink's work with extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and I want you to practice it here, then I want you to go try in the workforce event, I want you to do a reflection and talk about it and share what you've learned, like, what do you say and to see people go through those motions and to find out at first, whether like, growth mindset, like what are we talking like? No, we're not talking about this stuff. And I'm like, listen, listen, like I swear, this can be really helpful. If you try I've been sure enough through the activities, and through feedback and whatnot, we got it, right. But that's what's always so mind blowing, is that you have one assumption, and you never should make assumptions within our our fields. But when you have like one natural assumption, and then you hear what the learners actually go through, and what their main takeaways were, you're like, Oh, I never thought of it like that. And now you have this brand new experience that is cater for them, not for you as the ID before the target audience. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I was talking about. And then we got there. But alright, so we're coming to an end here. And I definitely want to make sure to ask you a few more questions at least. So for the first cuz this entire thing was actually, I thought about our topic from everything with meaningful learning experiences and finding training, but you really do care about and everything else of the sort. What about for somebody who has lost her way, as an instructional designer, they're burned out, they're not feeling it, they're kind of thinking about giving up or changing careers? What would you say to that person for advice on what they can do for real actionable steps.
Ant Pugh 51:34
So I think to begin with, you've got to have the resilience and determination and patience to, to realize that this is a long, you're playing a long game here, right? Learning Development, I think, is a very immature industry in as much as there's some amazing tools and some amazing people and some amazing theories and frameworks, and all this kind of stuff. But I would say 99.9% of businesses out there are not using some of the best practice way of way of doing things. And the mentality I think a lot of companies has have is something is better than nothing. Right? And, therefore their mentality is, yeah, okay, we could probably be doing training a bit more effective and spend a bit more money and time on, you know, needs analysis, and, you know, designing more more kind of complex solutions, and, you know, do more that upfront performance consulting, thinking. But they almost think, well, we've always done it this way, you know, it's not hurting anyone, this kind of training people seem to get, we get some, you know, smile sheets back saying, Yeah, we kind of enjoyed the course. And that was fine. So there's no real motivation to change there. As I said before, I think things like COVID, actually, kind of, in a strange way helped. Because, you know, I think, if we got rid of 90% of training today, and just focused on the 10%, that's left over, and put all of our energy into that 10%, cumulatively, there would be a much bigger impact on the world and on businesses, than if we just carry on spreading ourselves too thin. So, from a practical perspective, you know, this is difficult to hear, because I, there's no, there's no easy answers, but I think the majority of businesses out there, that they're going to be very difficult to change quickly. So as somebody working maybe in a company as a kind of instructional designer or learning designer, you might be freelance you might be working internally might be higher ed, shifting the mentality of a whole business and l&d you know, their thinking around this is very, very difficult. So you have to start off small, take baby steps, you know, if you're applying concepts like action mapping, it's about, you know, just just, you know, two steps forward one step back, it's about testing things out, seeing if you can just make a little bit of difference. Can you adjust your training request form, so that it's no longer called a training request? Form? It's now called the development request for can you start having the conversations or building relationships, maybe with stakeholders and SMEs, to help them see that, you know, the 20 Minute eLearning module that they've asked for? Isn't the right approach. And it's, you know, can you improve your consulting skills to be able to have better conversations with these people and, and try things out, you know, you try it with one person, it doesn't work, they they stomp their feet, and they say we want 20 minutes of elearning fine, I'm gonna have to go go away and build that. But you know, where can you start making some subtle improvements because when you can start making some improvements and when you do create that experience, you talked about Luke, you know, that you know, the scenario or the learning experience that actually does have an impact. I think People will start recognizing that and seeing that within the business and thinking, Oh, I saw what you did over there. And we saw, we saw a measurable change in x, y, and Zed. And, you know, once you actually make a measurable difference to a business, you can start shouting about it, right, you can say, as a learning development team, we achieved X, Y, and Z this year, we know it's not just delivery of X number of courses, or X number of people took our course is it's, you know, we shifted a business metric, you know, we sold more widgets, or we, you know, we achieved something that's actually the business cares about. So I'd say being patient is really key, because this isn't going to going to happen overnight. Being I would say, relentless, is really important as well. So the word I use is resilient, but kind of there is there is a way to create effective training, right? There are, there are ways to create training, effectively, it's just that very, very few people are able to do it. So if the if the truth is out there, right, it's not a case of kind of closing your mind to it and thinking, Well, you know, I'll never be able to do that. Because this is just the way the business do it, does it, it's about, you know, holding on to that glimmer of truth and a glimmer of hope and never letting go and saying, right, I'm gonna get there, it just might take some, you know, determination and resilience together. And the tricky thing is that I found is that, you know, I'm 42 years old now, I spent the last 15 years watching my, my friends and my peers, and, you know, my, my family, getting high paid jobs, you know, flashy cars, nice houses, going on nice holidays, getting all the, you know, promotions, all these these things, obviously, they're all very kind of, you know, I'm not saying that that's what we should be aspiring to in life, right? I'm not saying that they're fulfilled. But it's very easy to look sideways and think how maybe if I got into marketing, or teaching or some other field, I could, I could have all this stuff. And I could achieve, I could be satisfied. But at the end of the day, you're in instructional design for a reason, you've obviously got something you're listening to a podcast with two geeks talking about instructional design, right? You've got 52 minutes of the way through a podcast listening to two geeks talking about strictly design, you've obviously got a glimmer of passion there enough for you to listen to 52 minutes of a podcast, there's something there. So you've got to cling on to that with both hands. And trust that there is a bright future out there because I believe there is an incredible future for learning development. And whilst I believe that the industry is very immature, I see it a bit like a chrysalis, right, you've got your you've got your butterfly that's in the chrysalis waiting to explode. And that's how I see learning development, it's, there's so much opportunity, there's so many things to look forward to. But as an industry, we just haven't come out of our chrysalis yet. Yet. We haven't kind of been able to kind of fully kind of break free and, and I think, you know, if we can hold on tight, that the future is extremely exciting. And it's just a case of constantly learning, constantly testing things out. And also being brave, you know, being courageous in your decision making, if you're in a company, where they're just determined to carry on cranking out 20 minute elearning modules, and there's absolutely no appetite to measure the value of training, quit get another job, you know, you only live once, don't sort of hang around and just do this, because you feel like that, you know, that's the way that's the way things are happening. That's what I did. And to be totally honest with you, I look back I'm like, Man quitting my job to start freelancing, then I didn't really know how to create effective training was a bad idea in hindsight. And I said to you, before, I actually made more money creating kind of clicking recraft than I did, you know, doing it doing things properly. So I guess my point being is don't don't kind of settle. If you're feeling like, you know that there's no light in the tunnel. So I've kind of contradicted myself there. I've said on one hand, be patient, because things take time. And then on the other hand, I'm saying don't settle, you can always quit and you know, find another opportunity. It's about seeing where you can make changes. So if you're in a situation where there are some, you know, opportunities to practice these different kind of concepts, and these different types of ways of thinking, if there are opportunities great, cling on to those and give them a go, you might still have to create the 20 Minute eLearning module as well at the same time, but just use it, treat it as almost like, the way I think about it. Sometimes it's like almost like I'm doing a PhD, I treat the, you know, treat my client projects, like great, I get three months to practice, you know, practice building a scenario, and I'm getting paid for it. It's like, wow, this is this is the best type of university degree I could have could ever imagine. So I'm getting paid. And I'm working on a real life project. And I'm experimenting with all these new techniques that I'm learning about, you know, through different sources. So, yeah, I guess my answer is yeah, patience, resilience. You know, and remember that whilst you're in the business, and every other person that within your business is telling you to do it the way you've always done it, and just just get on with it. haven't stopped, stop trying to rock the boat. There is probably millions, there are probably millions of other people like us out there who are stuck in the same situation, trying to figure it out for ourselves. So it's just a case of Yeah, yeah, yeah, just just hold on tight, because it's not going to be easy. But it is possible. Right? I love it. I love it. And you mentioned it already. But tell us more about your email list. What are you working on what you're doing? Yes. So it's pretty straightforward. Every day, I send out a short email, which talks about something that I'm either learning about or just some musings I have on the state of the industry or my experience of being a learning designer slash performance consultant. It's just a one minute read very short emails, because it takes you know, I don't have time to write big long emails every day. But I've just passed the 100 days of consecutive emails. And it's just just kind of a fun thing I started doing and it's, I actually started doing it because I was struggling to keep up with my consistent posting of YouTube videos. And writing, writing is a lot easier, I can do it on my phone I've got I've got a newborn baby as well at home, which is interrupted my sleep schedule quite quite considerably in the last 12 months. So I haven't been as organized as I usually am. So yeah, just being able to send out a daily email has just been something fun to do. That's, that's gathering some momentum, which is cool. So
Luke Hobson 1:01:29
So you haven't already done the pre written emails, you're still writing them daily in real time?
Ant Pugh 1:01:35
There's about 10 emails when you sign up to the list, which are pre written. So it's like an onboarding sequence where I've written like 10 emails, just kind of going through just the basics of my way of thinking and how I'm approaching l&d. And then after that, yeah, pretty much every day, occasionally, I might write two in a day. If I know that I've got busy day coming up tomorrow, I might might do two today, and then schedule it. But yeah, I'm doing it every day. That's impressive, man. That's crazy. When you it's really that last time, I was just like, really? You know what, Luke, it really not impressive. And I'll tell you why. When people when I when I first thought about I'm on a daily email list, a chap called Jonathan Stark, who does business coaching. I've been on his daily email list for about three years. And he's written an email every day for three years. And I was always like, wow, like, got that guy's a machine? How do you even do that? But then when he explained the, the concept behind it, it became totally, and it became totally understandable why he could do it. Because if you think about habits, you it's very easy to brush your teeth every day. Right? But it's really difficult to, I don't know, mow your lawn once a week or go, I don't know, I'm trying to think of ideas of things that you do, maybe weekly, or monthly habits that you do every day are very easy to implement, I find anyway, because you do it every day. You either do it or you don't do it. Right. So but a weekly thing, like when I was I used to blog as well, it'd be blogging weekly, I'd be like, Oh, God, what am I going to write about this week? I'd suddenly come to like, you know, the, the end of the week, Sunday night, I'll be like, What am I going to blog about this week, and I'd be sitting there tapping my tap in my head thinking about my right when I'm writing daily, because I'm always writing about stuff. I'm always thinking about stuff. Like, it's always on my mind. So this conversation that we've just had, well, I'm sure by the time I sit down to think about it later will have sparked three or four ideas for a new email. And because of the increased volume of volume of content I'm putting out, I get more replies. And those replies, spark more ideas. So I actually have a big long list of emails I haven't written yet that are just sitting there waiting to be written. So you know, how many emails you send a daily for work or for what I actually do?
Luke Hobson 1:03:41
Because I'm sure I do it, too. If I'm being honest, I'm sure I do it too. But the what I keep thinking about is how I have so instead of emails, and I guess this is where it's like, my thought process is kind of like going crazy. But I'm sure if I actually sat down and thought about it, like you were saying, it's not impossible to do. But I know that I post statuses daily, basically, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. But that's how I communicate more isn't as much email it's more about with just being online. But if I took those, and if I flipped it into emails, I'm sure it would be the same thing.
Ant Pugh 1:04:17
Exactly, exactly. My brain is wired being like email so different when I'm like, No, it's not now but you're saying it. Like, yeah, I think as soon as you stop thinking about an email newsletter, it has to be some big convoluted complex thing or like, it has to be a blog post. It's like no, it's it's just, you know, sometimes my emails are like two sentences. And that's it. So and that's I think, why they've they're getting some kind of get get get, I'm getting some pretty good open rates and getting some pretty good feedback. And I think it's because people are saying, just they just sometimes they take a look while they're sitting on the toilet or they're on the train or like two minutes done. They move on to the next thing, but that consistency really helps people kind of learn so yeah, really enjoying it.
Luke Hobson 1:04:58
I am one of those people who have opened up all of them. So since I've signed up for the list, I have read them all, I thought they were really cool. And now knowing that you are actually behind the scenes doing these also in real time is just that is super cool to me. If you want to sign up for your email list, where did they go to find this and to learn more about everything that you were doing on p.com? And the very obvious email list at the top? There we go. Simple enough. Well, I'm gonna put all the links down below as well to answer that way they can find you connect over with you on all the social media sites and everything else under the sun. But once again, and thank you so much for coming on the show.
Ant Pugh 1:05:34
It's been absolutely awesome to connect with you and to talk about all of these different things. Thanks so much, Luke. Really appreciate it.
Luke Hobson 1:05:40
If you hung in there all the way with us. You are a rock star. I didn't realize how long we were talking for on the podcast until ant mentioned that 52 minute mark. And I think this one takes the record for our longest podcast episode ever. Not really sure I haven't gone back and looked through all the records yet but fairly confident saying it's the longest one we have ever done so far. So hey, thank you for nerding with us today, and for sticking all the way through. If you haven't yet already done so sign up for an email list@pew.com And if you liked today's show, give us a five star rating wherever you are listening. Be sure to join our Facebook community to nerd out with us about instructional design, and you can sign up for my mailing list as well over at Dr. Luke hobson.com. That is all I have for you my friends stay nerdy out there. I'll talk to you next time.