This episode was actually a request from many of the listeners! You asked if I could take you behind the scenes and give you an inside look at what the working relationship is like between an instructional designer and their SME. So, we made it happening! Joining us today is Saeide Mirzaei, serving as the instructional designer, and Dr. Eric James Stephens, serving as the subject matter expert. Together, they’ve begun creating courses on how to use LinkedIn effectively.
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Transcript:
Luke Hobson 00:00
Hey, folks, welcome to the podcast.
Eric James Stephens 00:22
Hey, how's it going? I'm here.
Luke Hobson 00:26
This is what happens. This is on me. This is what happens when you have multiple guests on a podcast as now the listeners are figuring this out in real time, though, we're joined today by both Eric and Saudi who are currently both over here. And I realized, of course, as soon as I said that, and you both just stared back at me. I was like, neither one is going to say something first. Are they? Nope, nope. And that is what happens. Well, folks, I will say, welcome. Once again, I am glad that both of you are here, because we are diving into something that I find really interesting. And I'm so glad that Eric, you brought this over into this entire conversation, because the concept about working with subject matter experts has become something that instructional designers obviously really need to know about. And for a lot of the folks aspiring instructional designers coming over into this field, this is definitely the Hot Topic item that a lot of people have questions about. And then you had this brilliant idea of like, hey, what if we open this up, and both an instructional designer and a subject matter expert, come on the show and talk more about it? And I was like, Yeah, let's do that. So I'm really stoked about this entire thing. So before we dive on any further, though, I would love for you both to be able to introduce yourselves to the audience. And now that I just learned from my mistake, I'm just going to call you by name. So Sadie, would you please introduce yourself first to the audience?
Saeide Mirzaei 01:53
Hi, my name is Saeide, I'm an instructional designer. And I'm finishing up a doctoral degree in English at the University of Minnesota. I'm really excited to be here. And thank you, Luke, for having us.
Luke Hobson 02:07
Of course, and now Eric, go.
Eric James Stephens 02:10
Luke, thank you so much for having us here. And I I am grateful for the credit of the idea of having this conversation, but I'm gonna throw all that decided she approached me about this and, and we kind of collaborated together about different places to go. And so I'm gonna throw that back to her as a way to go like, Thank you for so many things that like, honestly, we're going to talk about as we go forward, but it was, I'm so happy to be here and to be able to talk about the cool work that we've been able to do.
Luke Hobson 02:42
Absolutely no, this is gonna be awesome to unpack and a dive on into this entire thing. So let's start this off, take me back to the beginning of this project. And tell me more about how you started working together who connected with whom, how did this really all begin?
Saeide Mirzaei 02:59
So I think I would have to take you back a little, I would have to take you back to fall 2021, which is when I started working as an instructional design graduate fellow for the graduate courier services at the College of Liberal Arts, and my home institution. And as part of the job, I was creating a non academic career workshop for graduate students who wanted to transition out of academia. And as I was doing that, I noticed a gap in available resources. Most of our graduate students don't really know how to use LinkedIn in the job search. And that's something that you need to know if you're not looking for faculty positions. And I'm not saying there are no resources out there about LinkedIn for graduate students. But none of the ones that exist seem to be effective, because we kept getting questions from students about using LinkedIn. And we refer them to these resources to the same videos and websites. But the feedback that we kept getting was that students didn't really feel like they were learning anything actionable or concrete, about how to use LinkedIn, how to make their profiles better how to use your platform to connect with people and find opportunities. So there was this need that wasn't being met. And I thought, what if I filled that gap? So that's when I reached out to Eric. And I think it was around the same time that he had started posting these really cool, short tick tock videos on LinkedIn, where he gave advice to people on how to improve their profiles. And I thought to myself, well, I need a subject matter expert. He seems to need someone to help him or organized, he's really awesome, but scattered teaching something more structured and digestible. And I, I had been following him on LinkedIn since I think it was 2019. And I learned so much from his posts. And also, I went to one of his workshops about LinkedIn, what we hadn't officially met, I needed the subject matter experts. So I reached out to him and I said, Would you be interested in this partnership? And maybe I should let him tell the rest of the story.
Eric James Stephens 05:38
Yeah, and let me I just got to say that I was absolutely floored, and I'm honored and humbled like to to receive this message. That was essentially said, like, like, hey, like, like, we like we kind of exchanged the messages before I remembered, remember excited. And she said that she had reached out to other people before like looking for a subject matter expert. And she hadn't found one yet. And and I just thought, what? How could that be? What an amazing opportunity to be able to work with someone and to be able to help them and they will help me as well. Because like, that's what like, it's, you know, it's all about like, it's this mutual, this mutual thing. And so it is absolutely correct, because I said this so many times, like I am a person that just I love creating things love creating content, I love just being me. We'll probably talk about this later, and how it plays in everything. I have a diagnosed bipolar disorder. And so I can manically create things in a very haphazard way. And I was creating these tic TOCs. Because my theory was if I could go in and strategically help one person really concretely with one thing in a very public way, I can have a lot of people. And inside he came to me and said, Hey, can I can I take all of that and make it better? And what an opportunity for for for the whole thing to happen. And I think it was serendipitous on it. I think it it for me, that experience put into overdrive, everything I'm doing with educators network right now. And it was because of this connection, this this this request from from another human person that was reaching out for help. And me being in a position to say, I need that help. And I want to help you. Like let's let's do something cool and something beautiful. And I think that it's it's happening. It's pretty fun.
Luke Hobson 07:47
That's very cool. And Eric, I didn't allow you to introduce yourself, did I?
Eric James Stephens 07:50
Oh, no, I think sorry, everybody. No, I think I just failed to introduce myself. I think that was the
Luke Hobson 07:59
I got jumped around. So go right ahead. Keep on keep on building off of that.
Eric James Stephens 08:02
No, no, yeah, I'm the founder. No, I just like to here's the here's the quick rundown. Right now, I'm the founder of an organization called educators.network. And it started out when I got laid off in May 2020, from COVID. And I started the hashtag higher higher ed. It worked, I got a job as a data analyst, left that job, translated, then moved into translate academia. And then I started these tech talks in January, because I was just needed to create something I was creating three or four a day. And that's when it just just happened. And if there's, if there's anything that I can recommend to anybody who's listening right now, be ready and willing to pivot onto a good idea and run with it. So that's me. Sorry, buddy. No,
Luke Hobson 08:56
no worries, apologize. No, I absolutely love it. Well, that is really interesting. I'm also completely shocked, by the way about how this didn't exist beforehand. Because when I saw that idea, I was actually thinking about that about how no one taught me how to use LinkedIn. I've been on LinkedIn for forever. And I kind of had to like figure it out myself. But if I had to go and try to show someone a resource about trying to use this platform, and not just use it, but also use it in an effective way, nothing really jumps out at me besides attempting to go to YouTube and then figuring out from there, but there's nothing really there. So I can clearly see the need and how this would actually would certainly fill this gap and try to be able to help out people. So that is really interesting. So for talking about this entire project that you were working on, which I think it's safe to say that became an online course is that what you would classify it as an online course Okay, so what was both of your experiences like for this when it came to actually designing online courses like Saudi was your experience like when working with sneeze before this Project.
Saeide Mirzaei 10:02
When I reached out to Eric, I was a fresh out of the oven brand new instructional designer with a recently issued instructional design for elearning certificate. So I had a lot of theoretical knowledge about working with Smith. But my only hands on experience was limited to interviewing some subject matter experts to create video resources for our students for the non academic career workshop that I was working on. But that was the extent of my experience. I never really worked this closely with this me for such an extended period of time.
Luke Hobson 10:49
Makes sense? And Eric, have you worked with instructional designers before?
Eric James Stephens 10:53
I think it was such an interesting way that you phrase that question versus the ones that you that you prepped us with, because I love I love the distinction, because in this version, you asked about my experience with online learning. And I think that that, that impacts what I'm going to say next. Because as an instructor, like I've been in the online classroom, like when I was in academia, I taught online, and I and it was really fun. Like, I taught a lot of different varieties and a lot of different classes and stuff. And, but then there's this question of instructional design. And I had to come, I had to overcome the problem, that I thought I was also a subject matter expert in online instruction and instructional design, when that wasn't my role at all. And I was I was, it was, I was humbled to be considered a subject matter expert, and something that I became so passionate about, like LinkedIn, and communicating, and using my doctorate degree of rhetoric. It was a humbling experience, and a refreshing experience, to be able to let go of some of those responsibilities that I thought I had to maintain. Like, there's an example. I can't remember who, like I just like, it's like, okay, like, they were gonna start doing this. And I created an outline for every for the course and everything. I was like, Yeah. And she's just inside. He just said, okay, okay. And she is very professional, and very calm. She's like, why are you doing that? That's, that's my job. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, thank you. Okay. And so my previous experience to this was, I thought I had, I thought I thought I could do it. I, you know, I mean, it's a natural transition for teachers to think they can go into instructional design. It's different, it's different. And I had to acknowledge that myself, and I'm very grateful that I was able to have that experience with it.
Luke Hobson 13:00
And not to mention, too, that anyone who works in academia or has that background, you are just used to doing everything yourself. Try. That is the nature of the beast is like, I'm just gonna do it myself. I'll figure it out no matter what it is. And I can easily see how that would then transcend from trying to be online teacher to online, Instructional Designer and all the the inner workings of that. So that makes sense. So Eric, you touched upon it a little bit already. But walk us through the vision of everything you were thinking about for what this was going to become because LinkedIn for a lot of folks, they have never touched it before until trying to get a job. And now all of a sudden, when you google like, you know, how do I get a job in 2022? And it's like number ones, like LinkedIn, and you're like, Okay, now what? So walk us through this vision of what you were thinking about in the first place?
Eric James Stephens 13:50
I think that it it. Saeide had mentioned it before. I think that and you and you just touched upon it to that, that people today know they need to go on LinkedIn. They know they need to do that. They also know that the position that they're in right now is a moment of fear and discouragement. And like, they don't know what they should do. And then you on top of that, you have to put on like, oh, I need to do LinkedIn. Like all the work like especially for the academic teaching crowd. All that work I've done before just doesn't work now. No, that's that's not the case. We just need to talk about it differently. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to create actionable content that was easily digestible, that you could go through within 10 minutes. And you can have something concrete to change on your profile, and then something to talk about and post. Because that's like when when I say like go get on LinkedIn, it's not go update your education. It's go in engage with people, but people don't feel like they can do that until they get they get Some of these other checkboxes out of the way. So let's take care of those. So you can start communicating and engaging with community.
Luke Hobson 15:08
Makes sense. And LinkedIn is kind of designed by that way to to make you try to do like seven steps before using the platform. Which is really interesting when you're when you just talked about that was like, you're right, there would be nothing stopping me from trying to make connections and talking with people if I didn't have a profile picture. Yeah, like, yeah, I should. But if I was so blocked, and I had all these barriers and Miss fret of like, Oh, I gotta do these seven steps before I can do anything else, then that could be a hindrance, and someone may not use the platform.
Eric James Stephens 15:39
Yeah, and it's just, it's a matter of just like, is in this moment of discouragement, the thing that people need the most is to be motivated to act. And that's what like, I feel like I'm a motivating person. And I feel like when I get that attention, I want them to walk away and act on it. And, and the unsaved, like Sid, and I, we were talking about this the other day, we're having a little debate about it, about how much do we want to have, like, a picture that you love? versus one that's professional? Like, how much do you put in your own personality into it? And it was so fun to go back and forth. And just to create something that that encourages people to act because they want to act? Not because they feel compelled. But because they want to. And I am hoping that we were able to do that. I think that societies course. I think that did that, honestly.
Luke Hobson 16:37
Absolutely. Absolutely. The touch on that point. Eric, one of the really interesting things I got for a piece of advice, a long time ago was to actually start looking for your job when you're happy. So don't look for the job. When you're fretting and you're worried and you're like oh my God, everything is ending. Do it when you're actually feeling good. And you're like, wonder something's better. And if not, then no worries, I'm in a good place. And that's a really weird mental model to figure out. Because you're like, do I have to do this? Do I need to? You're like, yeah, you probably should.
Eric James Stephens 17:06
People are attracted to that enthusiasm and that positive?
Luke Hobson 17:10
Yeah, yeah, exactly. When you go into an interview, you don't feel like is the end of the world? Yeah, it's all good. If I get it sweet. And if not, then the world keeps on going on. And life is good. So really interesting things to think about for where we're currently at for 2022. But that is the the way that the world currently is. So Sunday, after Eric just said all those things about that taking us back once again, from the project, you share that vision with you, what were your first steps, did any ideas like immediately jump out at you, but you want to be able to do?
Saeide Mirzaei 17:43
So my first reaction, not step, but reaction was freaking out. I remember, I wrote, I wrote to Eric and said, Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, this is really happening. But once I got over that, I knew that we needed to hash out some details about the core components of the project. So we needed to be on the same page about the scope of the project, who our audience wants, what we wanted them to achieve, what they needed to learn to do that, and so on. We also talked about a tentative timeline. But since this was one frontier work for both of us, and we each have our own day, jobs and other commitments, we agreed to be very flexible with the timeline. And as for the audience, I was leaning toward an academic audience like grad students, adjuncts and faculty who were leaving academia. But Eric wanted a broader reach, he wanted to include all educators, especially transitioning K 12, teachers. And I listened to him talk about his vision. And that made sense to me. And we also needed to decide about the platform. We both wanted an open access course. So people wouldn't have to pass through a firewall to reach out content. And we wanted the module to be fun and easy to interact with. What what platform should we use? Eric already had a platform in mind.
Eric James Stephens 19:40
Here, let me let me preface this, right. I am person that like when I make a decision. I mean, I think it's the best decision I've ever made because it's decision that I made. And I said, Uh, me again thinking that I'm the Pro, right? It's like, Hey, this is the net like this is what we should be using. This is great. But again, just that key about being ready to pivot when you have a better idea presented to you. And so I'll just pass it back over just because like, I mean, I was I was convinced
Saeide Mirzaei 20:07
to their project saying, I want to do these on this platform. And I think that was because of your vision, you wanted to create a community of academics and transitioning teachers. And that made a lot of sense, because that platform would be a great fit for that. But I'm not. And at that time, I wasn't really familiar with the platform. So I had to do my own research. And after my research, I didn't like it because there were limitations that would negatively impact the learner experience. Like I said, it was great for community building, but it wasn't a great LMS. So we talked about the benefits and disadvantages of the platform. And we equate that our needs to perform didn't really meet our needs. And we finally decided to publish it on the educators.Network website.
Eric James Stephens 21:05
And it's it is being very professional. And she like she like I think the joke was like, she always like, she's like, she's like, I was being so sneaky. Now like she, she presented like, I was like, No, this is what we should do. And the as the as the subject matter expert for instructional design. So it was like, No, this is what we should do. And this is why. And she was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Thank you for for, for pushing back. Right. And so it was, it was a lot of fun.
Luke Hobson 21:40
I can already see all the different types of tactics when working with sneeze coming about this makes a lot of sense for trying to do that. Because of course, influencing, by far is like one of the instructional designers secret weapons kind of be able to steer a conversation or a direction one way compared to another. But you need to do that in a gentle way. Especially for someone like yourself, Eric, who says that I have a decision. I know what to do. You're like, fantastic. But But what if we do this other thing? Yeah.
Eric James Stephens 22:09
And it was like thinking back to those conversations. And I'm, I think I'm remembering them correctly. I don't know. But like, it was very much the question. Like Saudi, she said, like, like, okay, like you wanted to why? And then she let me just kind of rant and just get excited about why I was so excited about that thing. And then she was able to say she was a she listened to me. And then she said, okay, but our actual goals are right here. And these are the better tools for those for these different reasons. And so and I think that in if there's a larger message, like if I could, like if, for those who are trying to work with a sneeze is let them feel like they're a subject matter expert. Like, like, just just be able to listen, and but then just be ready to be like, gently guide and be like, Okay, now let's make this this is Rosarian argumentation, right? And then you just like go in is like, okay, and then here it is right over here. And inside these words, she was very, very sneaky. Very, very good at.
Luke Hobson 23:11
It makes sense. So beyond just the learning platform of everything else aside, I mentioned to you, Eric, about trying to take your vision and move it into the next stage. What was your initial reaction to everything?
Eric James Stephens 23:23
I think I mean, honestly, it was, like I said before, just I was in awe. And I would just felt so much relief, and so much excitement. Because I am a visionary thinker. I like to think big. And when I say I want to have a course that's available to the public, right, where it teaches them how to do actionable things on LinkedIn very, very quickly. To me, that's like a thing a man has done, right? But sighs like, okay, no, step one, step two, step three, step four, like and like an asking, like, and all these these questions that frankly, like I had considered in my messy, messy head. But I was not able to articulate in a way that was digestible. And when I saw the amount of work that she put into the amount of like, I mean, she watched all my content. She read everything that I posted for a long time, she probably did way more research than she needed to write. But there was good research that he had done. I was just so grateful to be able to see what she had built, and just be able to see that like, yes, because I could tell that she listened to what I wanted to have accomplished. Now I can see how this course fits into the larger picture what I want to do with Educators Network, part of my educational marketing campaign to provide free quality resources, so we can attract a bigger audience into During these other things, it was I was able to let go of something that I cared deeply about with trust. And that was that was that was a cool feeling to have.
Luke Hobson 25:12
It makes sense makes sense. That's wonderful. By the way, it shows the type of working relationship and partnership that YouTube both had. So that was really awesome to hear. And also, well, we're talking about it, because it really does sound like a great project, great cars and everything else of sorts. So after this moment of time, so now you two are currently in the stages of actually working together. How did you to actually collaborate? Like did you do weekly meetings? Did you have any forms of tools or apps or anything else to make sure that you were both on the same page, just like walk me through from a project management standpoint, what did you do, and Saturday, I'm looking at you. So I'm going to ask you for.
Saeide Mirzaei 25:53
So most of our collaboration hasn't really been synchronous. We only sort of set up zoom meetings, if what we need to discuss doesn't lend itself well to Slack messages or emails. And to be honest, at the very beginning, we were communicating via email, text messages, LinkedIn messages. So it wasn't very, it wasn't in one place. And Eric told me that he needed to keep all communication in one, one place that would help him stay organized. And, but for me, it didn't really matter what tools were used to communicate. Plus, it's really easy for me to stay organized, no matter how chaotic everything around me is. I mean, drop me in the middle of in the middle of an apocalypse and give me a project. And I'll get it done and all stay organized. But Eric needed to put to keep everything in one place. And I was happy to accommodate him. He actually open a Slack channel. And we've been using that ever since for most of our communication. But for collaboration, we've also been using Google Drive and Google Docs, which is where I've done all the storyboarding. And I upload the assets that I create an Eric Eric goes there and reviews the material and gives me feedback. And, of course, you also use the rice review. Eric, do you have anything to add to that?
Eric James Stephens 27:38
No, I think that it was. And when things started, right, we exchanged phone numbers, like we were email and like we said, and, and like I said, I'm a very scattered thinker. And so a lot of it was not the fault of side it was it was it was I needed to like, Okay, this is an idea that now that I have another person involved, I need to focus. And in order to do that I needed to like, okay, let's focus our attention on Slack like so we use that as our mode of communication. The content that we created, was primarily done and exchanged in Google Drive. The there are times when I there I mean, aside, he still is waiting on a video asset for me to create about the backgrounds that I can put in there. But she, she coached me through the, the, the way that I should create my video content and the tools that I should use. And she was very excited for me to use the free tool that it didn't have the editing access, because you said just give me the raw file, don't touch it. And that was that was a hard thing for me to do. Because I'm a content creator. I mean, I create content. And to just give someone a raw file is a scary thing. I mean, I'm getting sweaty, just think about right now. But it was we were able to to find those threads. And to find those moments because we were both working with very busy schedules. And just being able to find those moments of communication was really effective, because we had a structure on the back. And like we also we opened a Trello board that we were using for a little bit that we ended up not using because again, I'm very scattered, and I had big ideas, but then we had a focus. But it was like okay, like here's this asset. It's ready for me to review like, Okay, I reviewed it and I moved it over to the card. So that side he could review it. And then we created the content or site, he created the content for it. And so the collaborative tools was was fun. And it was it was honestly it was exhilarating. is exciting.
Luke Hobson 29:53
Hey, whatever works for you. If that's what you like I said I mentioned I'm a Google person as well. That is pretty much what I've always Is use. It's kind of funny too when it comes to project management tools, because I've used quite a bit from Trello and monday.com, JIRA, to you name it, I've used all of them and like, they're all, they're all fine and well and good. But when it comes to working with subject matter experts, that's what I always find to kind of be the thing that I have a like a barrier around is that there, you're not going to use the tool as much. Or they'll just ping me with an email instead, or something else gets lost in translation. And I'm going back constantly just me editing the thing where I was just like, why am I using it? It was just for me, like, I know what I'm doing. Like, I don't need this other thing. I tried to keep track with stuff. So that is slightly refreshing to hear that another group. That's cool, but said it, were your best practices when collaborating with Eric on this type of project, for instance, did a particular style or an approach did anything like really speak to him that you could tell just like really motivated to keep on him working hard on this?
Saeide Mirzaei 31:03
That's a great question. And I think Eric already mentioned this a little bit. I think one thing that really worked seemed to really work for us is that and, yeah, it's that I coached him through what I needed him to do for me. So the instance that Eric gave, I needed him to Screencast a short video. And they give him detailed instructions on the screen size for optimal resolution, and how to manage visual and auditory cognitive load as he was recording the video. And I gave him other notes on what to include what not to include what not to do or do. And I think that that type of coaching, it really helped both of us stay focused. And I also think it helped cut down on the amount of time that I as the instructional designer had to spend on editing videos, or preparing other assets for publication.
Luke Hobson 32:12
Yeah, it makes sense. So Eric, kind of a similar question to you. But I'm curious, how then did you receive everything? How did you provide feedback? So can you give us like an example of one of the pieces that you gave feedback on whether yay, neutral, anything like that?
Eric James Stephens 32:27
Yeah, there was, there were a couple of points, like when we were at the level of the script, or not even that it was the it was the organization of what we wanted to talk about. And so I was like, Alright, here's, like, 10 things that we should do. Instead, he's like, let's focus on not 10 things, like let's focus on on fewer things. And so like, even in the outlining stage, and the Google Doc, it was, it was like a an exchange of comments on Google on the Google doc exchange, that was repetitive. And then doing doing the same thing with the, with a script. Because I am, I am someone who I like to have, like a colloquial tone when I'm speaking. And I wanted to carry that into the content that we're creating. And the first time I read, I was like, This is great. It was written by an academic, right? Like, let's like, let's add some conversational tone. Like, let's bring that into it. So we were able to, I was able to kind of coach, and it was only a one time coaching aspect where I had to do that. And then from then on out, I mean, she just, she got it. And then there were, to your point of like, what, like what tools we use into the data? I say it I mean, I still don't know the name of the program that she used. I can't remember, which is I'm bad with those kinds of details. I know it's Adobe something. And she's like, okay, like, yeah, like, here's this thing, like, go and I was like, this is again, me. I'm just so excited. I was so excited. I had to, like ask my wife to like, can you look at this, because I'm so excited about this, I can't see if there's any mistakes here. I had to like let it sit for a week. But like, I couldn't figure out how to provide the comments that I wanted to. And so I ended up just like screenshotting on my phone and circling and then like sending in Slack like I don't like like this is a thing that is that I need to like, we need to tweak this or like do this. There was one example that I'll share. Again, this is me being like super convinced that my decisions are the best decisions that we need to like art we need to expand our audience like because there's a lot of I mean, I have a lot of I say like of older job seekers who are worried about ageism. Ongoing on the market, so I wanted to incorporate older faces. And then I was like, yeah, like here's some older faces and then I decided she's again very calmly, very professionally, very sneaky. She's like, these people are entering retirement homes like they are not entering The workforce, they're leaving the workforce. And I was just like, Okay, you're, you're right. So it was just, I think that Saudi did a great job of just like, containing my excitement. But then, but then shaping it into something productive and to a better piece of deliverable than that we can give to our user.
Luke Hobson 35:25
So then that's a fantastic segue. And inside a, how did you shape his feedback? As you were going back and forth, this is basically a game of volleyball, here's handing it back over the net back and forth, and back and forth. So now the ball was back in your court? How did you take Eric's feedback? And how did you work with it?
Saeide Mirzaei 35:44
So honestly, I think there were there were two types of feedback that I I've been receiving from Eric dosa that he agreed with, and those that I didn't. So the first type, the ones that made sense, and I thought they were aligned with our goals and the learning outcomes. I just applied them, the suggested changes. But when he asked when he gives me feedback, and I disagree with it, it's something if it's something really small, I just reached out, reach out to him on Slack, say, Hey, I think this is a great idea. But I don't think we should do it for this and that reason. And usually, he agrees with me. But sometimes, I feel like it's a conversation that can't happen in Slack. It's, it's a bigger conversation and has to happen face to face. So we set up a Zoom meeting, and we discussed the pros and cons of the changes that he's asking for, until one of us is convinced. Sometimes I incorporate his feedback by when we agree on how are we going? How are we going to change the thing, do the edits, sometimes I just incorporate his feedback by simply changing the text or the design. But at other times, I propose alternatives by showing him what, what I think would look better, or what I think would be better. And I think those are the times that I get my way really fast. When he sees what I think would be better. I think he agrees very quickly. And I think in general, it's been really easy working with Eric, giving his feedback and going back and forth. Until we're both happy.
Luke Hobson 37:57
Makes sense. It makes sense. I would love to hear up from both of you actually, what was your favorite part of this project? Like what do you actually most proud of? Eric, we'll start looking at you. Yeah,
Eric James Stephens 38:09
I I think I'm most proud for two reasons. One, I mean, I mean, I started everything, this this whole, whole higher higher ed and the whole concept around people should be making deliverables. And the best way to, to essentially help yourself is by helping other people. I have I have a lot of people who approached me for ideas, or like, they want to help me they they say like, I love what you're doing, I want to help. And I say thank you. I appreciate that. The amount of labor and time it takes for me to understand who you are, and what your needs are. And how I can use those needs, like in a way that's beneficial for both is just is just time that I don't, I don't have but when someone like Saudi comes up to me and says, Hey, I have a need, where I want I need a portfolio and I need a subject matter expert would you will and to me it's like I need learning content. I want this. I am most proud of the fact that like that we just we built something together. And it was such a cool experience and to be able to use it as a deliverable for for society's job search. I mean to me, this project was designed to help One person on her job search. And if we can leverage this to help more people, then that's even better. But I think that's what I'm most proud about is the potential for helping others.
Luke Hobson 40:19
So sorry, can you top that answer?
Saeide Mirzaei 40:27
Okay, maybe instead of talking about what I'm most proud of, because I think part of your question was, what did you enjoy the most? Right? Yeah. Okay. So I'll talk about I think, two things that I really enjoyed. The first one was the collaborative nature of the work, which is something that I don't get often in academia, it's very isolating the type of research that I'm doing. And then the second thing was the design stage. I enjoy all the sort of instructional design, but the part where I get to create visual assets and design the web page, or the slide layout, where I get to decide how to arrange arrange a page, both in terms of usability and aesthetics, which is also when I'm thinking a lot about how the user is interfacing interacting with the actual products and how they're experiencing this space that they're in. And I get to think about colors, placement and other aspects of visual design. That's the part that I enjoyed the most.
Eric James Stephens 41:44
I got it, okay. Like this. I'm, I think I'm hearing I
Luke Hobson 41:49
can't see Eric right now. He's literally dancing, his hands are on his head to explode if whatever he wants to say next,
Eric James Stephens 41:57
I the the reason that people need to go out and create deliverables is so that they can go through this self discovery process. Right? People think that I want to go be an instructor designer, that's great. Go and do it, and discover what you love about doing it. I think that side, he's like kind of downplaying what she's meant, like, the characters that she creates, are beautiful. And they're, they're well designed. And it's something that she is actively posting about now on LinkedIn to the point where she's, she's getting attention, and people are saying, Can you Can we pay you to do this for us? That is amazing. And that the only way that people can go out and have that moment of self discovery. That side, he's so excited about this, she's talking about joy about this whole thing is to go and do things. And if you don't know what to do on your own, go find someone to work with. It's gonna be easier.
Luke Hobson 42:54
Absolutely. You were designing all of us an illustrator, right? Yeah, they look awesome. I'm saying, I echo Eric sentiments, they do look absolutely beautiful. And as someone with a graphic design degree and the fact that I can't do what you're doing anymore, like I saw that, and I was like, that looks awesome. My skill sets now could never do that. So you are definitely you're just like, crushing it out there. clothesline and Elvis too. So that is fantastic to see everything as well. Well, then, folks, the last thing I kind of want to ask you about was lessons learned from this project. If you could go back in time, would you change anything do anything differently? What did you learn from this project overall?
Saeide Mirzaei 43:32
Can I go first this time before? Okay, so I've written a lot doing this work with Eric, mostly from my own mistakes. And the first thing that I want to share is that I learned that I have to be crystal clear from the beginning about my role about what my role as instructional designer is, and what I'm going to bring to the table, because I didn't explain that to Eric. And I just assumed that he knew, I assumed that he knew what my role was and what his role as a Smee was. But because I didn't clarify that for him, he thought he had to create course outlines. And I had to tell him to stop doing that because he was doing my job. So that was all on me. But next time, I won't make the same mistake. Like surely look, I learned something from a workshop that you gave at the Agile flow instructional design program a couple of weeks ago, and I think, no, I hope I'm remembering this correctly. I feel like I'm being tested on my knowledge, there will be I think you said that we should introduce ourselves to the subject matter expert and I wish I had this knowledge before. But you said that we should introduce ourselves to this meme and tell them that we understand how people learn on Fine, and that we can help them create meaningful learning experiences for the learners wasn't a write up. So that's what I'm gonna do next time. That was nice mistake number one that I learned from. And then the second lesson that I learned from working with on this project with Eric is that I overthink, and I obsess over details. I've always been guilty of that. It's just the habits. And I know, I know, it's a cliche, but I'm a perfectionist, and I overthink everything. I think that's because I fear flaws. And that can be exhausting and time consuming, both for me and for this me this desire this need to create something flawless, and nothing is ever flawless. So you end up doing a lot of work. And at the end, you're still not quite happy with it, you still think it could be better, it could be better. But as a friend recently reminded me, there always comes in time in a project that you should let it go and release the product into the world. And then you can always go back and improve it based on user feedback. And that's actually part of being a good instructional designer. So that's the second lesson. And now Eric, I saw all the good ideas
Eric James Stephens 46:28
you did, I just want to repeat, like but for this, I really just want to repeat them. From my perspective, the thing that I learned, was letting go of an idea like that, I think. So, up until somebody had approached me, most of what I was doing was just me in my head, creating content and just doing things. I learned that the vision that I had, was big enough to involve other people to create things, then that just felt amazing. And it was hard to let go of that. And that's what I that's what I learned. And I've been doing it with other aspects of what I'm trying to do as well like with letting letting go of marketing and letting go of like the website building but understanding like I need to be able to under to how these things work together. Society, she, you said it, that academia is a lonely place. Like it can be lonely. The job I had as a data analyst was not I mean, it was me and my director, I was not as very isolated environment, I didn't really enjoy it. But being able to, to really see the beauty of community and the beauty of collaboration. And like the the it is, it's one thing to have an idea. And it's another thing to to convince other people that it's a good idea. But then to have someone come up to you and say I want to help you build this in a specific way. It made me feel like a subject matter expert. And that was cool. And so that's what I learned. And I appreciate that.
Luke Hobson 48:31
Very cool. Very cool. Well, I appreciate both you sharing all of those things, though everything. It sounds like a great project for everything. Where can people actually go to see this, by the way,
Eric James Stephens 48:42
we are revamping the website right now it's going to be educators dot network is the is the URL. Right now it's educators dot network. And then forward slash, I think it's profile dash picture is where you can find the first, the first example. But we're going to be adding the second course here pretty soon as well.
Luke Hobson 49:02
Fantastic. Now go and find it. I'll put in the show notes for you as well too. But I want people to be able to go in search for it right away. But other than that, folks, it has been absolutely wonderful to have both of you on this show has been absolutely a blast to talk with both of you, even though I've been talking with both of you on LinkedIn for quite a while. But to now actually talk with you via podcast and our own version of face to face, whatever it is in 2022 via squad cast is using right now. So very cool for everything. And I appreciate both of your time for coming onto here. For the folks at home. I want to be able to connect with you and learn more about everything that you do. Where can they go to find you and connect with you? So to start with you first where can people find you?
Saeide Mirzaei 49:39
Um, my LinkedIn page? So I did they just need to search me on LinkedIn. It's a public profile.
Luke Hobson 49:47
Excellent. And Eric, where can people go to find you?
Eric James Stephens 49:50
I do most of my living on LinkedIn. But I also if you use the hashtag higher higher ed and hashtag translate Akkad mem I have a whole bunch of stuff on tick tock, and we'll be getting back into some tick tock creation as well, which is exciting. But yeah, hopefully that we're gonna be seeing me next a lot is going to be in a Metaverse like, like, that's what I'm excited about next step. So who knows what that means.
Luke Hobson 50:15
Who knows, we'll see in the future to be determined. It's ending on a cliffhanger. Sounds great. Yeah. Well, folks, once again, thank you both so much for being on the show. Absolutely. Fantastic to have you.
Eric James Stephens 50:26
Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you.