How Might We Convert Our Knowledge Into Online Learning

My Guest this episode in Marie-Louise O'neil and she discussed how she used her experience and knowledge to create online learning and build a community.

Marie-Louise is equipped with a breadth of design knowledge and more than 16 years’ industry experience. I studiedpackaging and branding at university. Since then I've created everything from logo design, social mediatemplates and website design in the digital space, to printed brochures, adverts, banners and packaging.

 

Marie-Louise LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/marielouiseoneill/

Marie-Louise Website - lovelyevolution.co.uk

 

Transcript

Scott: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the latest edition of how might we on this episode, my guest is. Marie Louise. And we're going to be talking today about how might we convert our knowledge into online learning. So welcome hello and welcome to the latest edition of how might we would you like to Marie Louis? . Would you like to introduce yourself?

Marie-Louise: Yeah.

Hi, thank you. So yeah, I'm Marie-Louise from lovely Evolution and I specialize in branding, design and CANVA so a little bit about my business. I do design one to one's branding, so creating logos in layman's terms, and also I train people on how to learn, how to [00:01:00] design and create within Canva.

And I have a sort of working strap line that I sometimes use from crap creations to competent in CANVA so that that's me in a nutshell,

Scott: I quite liked that strap line and it's also, I spent hours working and then just got nowhere very fast. So so it's interesting to say, so you start helping people to do it.

So it'd be interesting to talk about your journey from obviously working one-to-one with people to realizing that or identifying that you can actually generate some learning content to help people become better at it themselves rather than you being doing it.

Marie-Louise: Yeah, well, it was a bit of a happy accident because I discovered CAMBA back in 2017 another client of mine said, have you heard about this thing?

And I had to look at it and thought it would work really well as part of my workflow, how I worked with my clients because it's all very well good [00:02:00] creating a fancy pants logo, and then what do they do with it? And I work with a lot of small businesses and I want to rather than be like, oh, well you have to come to me for every single little tiny change.

Where possible. I like to enable my clients to be able to either do it themselves or work with the VA. You know, certainly in the context of say social media where things are very fast paced. So I don't have the time to sort of do it in Photoshop and change it every time they want. And you and you post and certainly Photoshop and you know, whether this, or.

Yeah, professional design programs can be a bit clunky and a bit difficult and overwhelming to learn for, you know, the average person. So I was using it as part of working with my clients. And I was having more and more people going, well, I want to learn how to do it, you know, can you, can you teach me?

So I did a couple of free CANVA workshops for my local library in north Hampton. As part of being a [00:03:00] guest expert at the business and IP center North Hampton share. And and I was like, oh, well, there's something in there. So then I ran my first paid for workshop two years ago, it came up on Timehop quite nicely Facebook, yesterday, or the day before I was like, oh wow.

I hired a buffet as well. You know, it was like real people. And I thought that was great, but running an in-person event, you know, and one-off workshops are their own special beast. And I thought, well, you know, we're, we're already living in this sort of more global, international way. I was already doing a few bits and bobs on zoom.

And I really wanted to move my training online. So in January of 2020, I set up an online monthly membership where reserving training you know, like a 13, 30 to 40 minute training on a particular canvas tool or [00:04:00] like template and really breaking it down in my own kind of unique way of just telling you as it is, there was no kind of like trying to be perfect.

I wanted that audience participation, so they were kind of live events, but they. So I've got this fun curve, like a year and a half worth of training that I then went on to repurpose and I'm kind of relaunched as a group membership so that I could have a bit more flow to how people were being trained.

And so yeah, so it's, it's been a bit of an evolution for me because I rebranded myself planning to, you know, specialize in logo, rebrands and all of that. But in the meantime, I was getting really known for Canva. Hashtag CANVA girl and stuff like that. I didn't coin that way. And and I was like, well, there's something in it.

You know, not very many people. Certainly at the designers that I know locally that I was networking with really had [00:05:00] embraced CANVA like I did. So it was a really nice and fairly unique at the time combination of my years and years of design experience. You know, I'm a trained designer combining that with a really easy to use tool like CANVA.

And so it's been a really great combination. And for me, it's not, I feel that my training is not just about here's, how to use CANVA, you know, like it's, there's loads of there's loads of stuff on YouTube and stuff out there. You know, free resources for me, it's about trying to impart what I've learned. I'm really helping my clients to really develop that design eye.

So when I'm showing them something, I'm not just going well, you know, there is the tool aspect and features of it. That's part of it, but it's also about, you know, well, you need to consider lining things up and making sure there's a bit of negative space here, you know, is there balance to visit the, the design [00:06:00] and you know, is there a focus?

So I'm really trying to help them to hopefully understand what comes well, to me is second nature because I've been doing it so long, but it's not something that as a non-designer you would know automatically, and even using these great Canva templates, you know, necessarily understanding once you change things, if you change them too much, that you can't.

Water down the impact of the design or, you know, it's so it's no longer looking so great.

Scott: Okay. So you found this interesting, the journey you've gone through. So, so you went online before COVID

Marie-Louise: I was ahead of the game. Yes. And it was, it was part of my strategy even before then. I kind of come full circle really because I had been the summer.

So I guess, what was it about August time of 2019? I'd gone on a three-day workshop about [00:07:00] how to create an online course. And it was, it was also about the kind of marketing of it, landing pages, what kind of things you're training on. And so I sort of started working on that, but I just didn't like sitting in front of a camera, prerecording, all this training.

I didn't have that magic though. I have. When I even like one-to-one, you know, having a chat like this, but also, you know, working in a design context or training someone going, here's how you do this, whether it's one or a group. And so I kind of put down the idea of being an online course and that's where the membership kind of came into play.

And then I came sort of, as I said, full circle of going well, I've got this bank of prerecorded stuff, you know, it's, it was recorded live, but this is great content. How can I repurpose it and repackage it? So I've then kind of ended up with this hybrid model where there is stuff that people can watch on B play and, you know, [00:08:00] prerecorded, but also there's that group support so that I could get my fix of seeing people and helping them, you know, helping them have that aha moment.

So it works really well.

Scott: So do you think because of the stuff you were talking about it, it's not just about understanding how to use Canva. That's important to you, but it's about people gaining now, what do you call it? More of a designer eye, so to speak. So do you find that being with people and letting them play around with it and giving them feedback and working with them directly helps develop that.

Marie-Louise: Yes, because the way I give feedback, like, because you, what I discovered was that, you know, people will go away and try and do something. And when, you know, people have different levels of experience and confidence in using some form of new tech, you know, some people thought it work where they're like afraid to do anything, you know, trying to do something on [00:09:00] zoom, you know, like, how do I share my screen is, is really challenging for them because they're not used to it once they've done it a few times, then it's a bit easier and they can work out and it's fine.

And the same is a tool with canvas. Some people really take to it like a duck to water and others really struggled to do really simple things. So there's an element of, they've got so kind of practice with it and it's, you know, watching some training, whether it's mine or someone else's and break it down into composite.

But then once they got used to the kind of functionality of that program and doing from, you know, going from a, to B, is it where it's then elevating that of going well, how do we then make it look good? How do we make it appeal to our target market? So that's the kind of the upleveling that I bring is that I'm going well.

Okay. Well, so you've done this design. You're not sure about it. So yes, from a technical design point of view, I can explain how [00:10:00] you can improve it, but also don't forget, you need to appeal to your target market, you know, is it on brand, I using your brand colors? So it's all these things that are really important that people may not realize they need to be using within, you know, anything that they're creating.

Scott: From a training or a training. Cause obviously we've had some discussions before and I come from a learning and development or training backgrounds and you don't, and we had this discussion about how you've come along this journey. And one of the things you've talked about there is that the, the sort of the journey that you want people to take and breaking things into composite parts and saying, okay, to get to where we want them to be at the end, they need to be able to do a, B, C, D E.

And what is the best order in those to be scheduled, to have the most impact. And I don't think sometimes people don't take time to think about that sort of the learner journeys they call it or that, [00:11:00] that sort of, so if you want somebody at the end to produce something in Canva, that's going to be for their organization or for that, for their business, whatever, as you say, what's the important aspects that we need to do first.

So the foundations, and then what can we do? And then I just say every step is an announcement and built on the previous.

Marie-Louise: Yeah, because people aren't going to come into canvas for the first time and suddenly create an amazing piece of design. And even those people that feel really comfortable or love Canva, and they're like, it's amazing, you know, again, from my, you know, design point of view, there's things that could be improved.

You know, I'm not talking about being rude about that. You know, they just don't know what they don't know, but there are certain things that once they learn how to do that, Then they're like, oh, okay. You know, like theory, well, not even theory, but sort of rules on, you know, what to do with your text and things like that.

But you know, when someone is first starting out, there's no point bombarding them with, well, you need to do this, this, [00:12:00] this to meet your design look good. It's about, okay. Here's how, here's where to find this shape and adding this shape and changing the color. So there's, there's different stages of where people are.

For me, like a gap in my offering is creating something that is very focused at like someone who knows like nothing about camper. They know they want to do it. They've kind of tried, but they felt really overwhelmed. So it's, it's that kind of gap there that I want to, but I haven't. I'm focusing on my group program at the moment at getting that really going, which is for those people who are, you know, they can be quite new to CAMBA, but the type of stuff that I'm doing is not geared up to someone necessarily not knowing anything about Canva, but, you know, they can go on it.

But for me, knowing the kind of the specific Challenges that people who are very new to something and maybe are a bit afraid of how to use it. It there's sort of [00:13:00] some challenges there. So I will be, I've parked that idea. It's something that I want to do, but I, I want to sort of work out how best to deliver that.

You know, whether that's in a series of workshops or whether it's like its own like mini program or something that kind of plugs on to my existing group program. I don't know. I haven't sort of figured it out yet. It's

Scott: still going there. Just a quick question is that we've obviously we've talked offline a few times and one of the things that's quite interesting to say, so if you say you've been doing this for quite some time now, so how you deliver your face-to-face workshops or the online versions of what you do, how has that evolved for.

Was it January, January, February, last year to now, or has you've been doing it for just about 18 months now?

Marie-Louise: So of January of this year, I introduced an additional sort of segment two or a sort of plugin to my, my offering. So [00:14:00] I sort of, I had a fair bit of trialing different that the frequency of the trainings.

So for initially I think I was doing it fortnightly. Then at one point I was doing for quite some time, I was doing them three times. They were kind of weekly, but there were three trainings plus a Canva Q and A, which was open to everyone. So people could in theory, attend weekly. And that was useful for me to sort of get all that information out there.

But long-term, I felt that we've now reached a point where to have like the frequency of that kind of amount of trainings, not viable, not only for me, but also for those kind of in the moment. So in January of this year, I decided to make it a monthly training. But after the training, we have a bit of a comfort break and those that want to stay on can have like this classroom sort of scenario.

So it's a virtual classroom, but people can stay and I, and they can then [00:15:00] put into practice themselves. So the training portion is me talking through in my kind of you know, very kind of matter of fact, sort of, kind of sometimes bit of a plancha. I'll make some great crap jokes and you know, talk them through, you know, I'm delivering that information.

And so if they're watching a replay, they can, of course, pause it, implement it, and then, you know, press play and continue and work along. But the classroom side of it was to be able to get, cause the thing that I know from my own self of doing anything new or creating something, actually it's that getting started.

So by introducing that classroom element, it meant that I could help them to, you know, set up that, that first off, you know, they, they no longer have that blank screen. So that they can go, right. Okay. I click here, so I would take it, you know, take it in terms of those that wanted to take part and to say, okay, right now, [00:16:00] click on this and click on that.

And that was particularly helpful for some of them or kind of less confident members. And I think it was very, very useful and it taught me a lot about teaching as well. So that was really good. I think it is, it's important to have that chance to be able to implement what you've learned.

And if I can do that in a kind of classroom type scenario, I can then see them do that and help them where maybe they'd be too afraid to ask that question. Cause it's, you know, when they're doing it. So where is that? That fit there? You know, where's that tool so I can talk them through it and they're all learning from each other.

Scott: Okay. So I can do some, I can give you some. Learning theory now what was actually happening in what you're doing. So having the instructional aspect of it is cool. And that, that's fine. I think, and one of my, my, my areas of is when we do stuff for people, the instructional aspect is [00:17:00] sometimes the easiest to do, because it's our knowledge.

We can dump it into it. We can dump it on to a content that makes sense that we can look at making it engaging, and we can look at making it fun. As you say, breaking it down into parts that people can understand in a way that we're not doing sort of overloading them. But there's three things that you've really built into that at the end in those classroom things.

And one is experiential learning or experiential learning is helping people learn through experiences. So you're saying to somebody I'm going to support you. You're going to do something so play around with it, have a go once you've had to go, come back, talk to me, or if you want to help as you're doing it, because that's how most of us learn.

If you think back when we're, when we're at work and we're learning, we tend to play around with stuff and learn as we go.

Marie-Louise: That's certainly what I found when you know, getting to grips with you know, my design programs in the past, you know there was sort of certain tools of beaches within it that I don't use very often.

So I know that they're there, but until I need them, I'm not necessarily going to go away and learn everything [00:18:00] about a you know, this mammoth of a design program, but it's knowing that, oh, I want to do this and can I do it? And how do I do it? Go away and Google it. Work at find the kind of the blog resource that explains it or a video, put it into practice and do it.

And then if I do it a few times in a reasonable amount of time, it's more likely to stick in my head. So that's what I've experienced. So that's why it was important to me to integrate it. Otherwise it's all very well, someone sitting there watching a series of me training, but until they do it themselves, it's not going to have that same impact.

Scott: Okay. So there's another thing in there called just in time. So you'll work out. So you say you've got these there's learning material that you do this, this, this it resources that people can now access. So so there's a bit like, as you say, Google or YouTube where [00:19:00] people say, how do I do? And they ask them when they need to do something.

I don't ask that question always six months time. I might have to do something to help. How do I do it? They'll ask when they, when they come across that. So they might be thinking, I know there was something we did about the session. I know it's in there, but I haven't used it for a few months, so they can just Google it.

So it's say having your content searchable and accessible afterwards enables what we call just-in-time training. So people can access stuff at the point of need.

Marie-Louise: Yeah. And that was something that I did implement within my monthly membership of trying to collate the the links to all the re the, the training videos in a As possible way.

I mean the, the future plan is to be using something, you know, some sort of online course provider or platform, but for now I'm just utilizing Facebook and having private Facebook groups and you know, it's, it's doing what I can right now. I'm kind of, but [00:20:00] it is, you know, there's still stuff that you can do.

So it was pretty basic, but I created a Google spreadsheet that, you know, people could search within it to a degree, you know, it had its pitfalls, but it was trying to, to do what I could with the resources at the time. But that's something I'm conscious of, of making sure that people can easily find what they, what they need.

But often people just like, how do I do that? Just go tag them in the relevant video, because that's where the, I guess customer service bit comes in. People can search it just within the Facebook group. There is that search ability to a degree, you know, there's obviously have you picked the right search term and stuff like that, but yeah, that was something that I was also conscious of.

Scott: Okay. The other aspect you've built into it is what we call social learning. So giving people, the app, the opportunity to learn together in groups, which is really powerful. So it's not all [00:21:00] about I'm the trainer, you're the student and I'm going to teach you everything is about encouraging people to.

Ask each other questions as well. I learned together. So somebody say, how'd you do this? And I think we've all done it in class where somebody said understood a concept quicker and they'll help the person sat next. Again,

Marie-Louise: that's something I've experienced, you know, in more recent times, as well as the whole night at school.

And I need the best and stuff like that. But I've invested in group coaching over time and some of that's included one-to-one as well. But I found the most powerful bit was actually the group coaching portion where, you know, sometimes you'd have the issue and you would share that and, you know, we'd get the opportunity to add that out and get some advice and suggestions.

But also being able to give advice to others, you know, or hear other people's problems and pain points and be like, oh, okay. I can relate. I was there a couple of months ago or, you know, and this is how I got through it or just you know, so yeah, that, that shared experience [00:22:00] or, or learning from each other's mistakes or experiences for me is really powerful.

Scott: So it sounds like when you're setting up. Changed in some, some of the delivery you've done, but what you're using is your experience of being of learning, which we all have done our entire lives at some point or other and taking the bits that worked for me. So I want to make sure that's in there. Yeah. I learned this way.

This is how I learned this. I found this related to the group coaching. I found that really powerful the ability to get hold of content as, and when I need it and to break things down into manageable chunks. So I think there's a, there's something called cognitive load, which is the amount of information we can actually process.

And there is a risk if you're an expert at something or, you know, a lot for you, it's not a lot of information and you can just information dump onto people. I think you've used the word overwhelmed. And it's really easy to do if you're an expert or been into a field for a long time, because it's stuff you [00:23:00] just know because you've, as you say, you've been dealing with this or bits and pieces and you do it intuitively.

Marie-Louise: Yeah, well, that was something that I've been looking at how I can help the the, the members of my group programs that I recently launched that there's it's quite small, but it's looking at, you know, where they're at, where the, when and where they are with regards to like learning. And as far as I'm aware, they haven't started yet.

And it's like, okay, well, that's fine. Some of them, like, one of them I know has experienced some personal staff. Another one I made sure to have some one-to-one to them to get to know them a bit as well, whilst the group is quite small, but for me, I'm like, okay, well, There'll be ready when they're ready to sort of access it.

But in the meantime, what about I break down these training videos that I've already started uploading into the group as guide and the Facebook group, but how about if I sent them an [00:24:00] email fortnightly with each one? So I'm not sending the whole program in one go, but it's a kind of keeping in touch exercise.

It's another way that they can store that information. Cause it can be quite nice to be able to have a designated folder on the, you know, email provider that they can put stuff there. They may not necessarily be like, okay, well I'm going to start doing the program, but they. I guess they can feel supported knowing that I'm thinking of them and I'm delivering that, but it may also encourage them to actually do it because rather than seeing it in the context of the Facebook guides and feeling overwhelmed, I'm delivering it and drip feeding it in a bite sized way.

It's still the same content it's still there. But it's just giving them a different way of accessing it a different delivery method.

Scott: Okay. So several things that we've talked about as we've talked about, like bite-size, which is another concepts, which I won't go into now, then we've talked [00:25:00] about a social learning experiential just in time.

And then I quite liked the way you said, cause I I've, I've noticed it a few times. People say my content is up there, people buy it and they just say, that's it for now? They say you've bought it, then it's your responsibility to do it. But I do think as a provider of learning, it's our responsibility. We have responsibility as well to try to encourage people to consume the content and to do what they've actually paid to do.

So it's not just about people saying I'm on the program and then I'll say right, there you go. There's all the content get on with it.

Marie-Louise: I mean, it was don't pop my values you know maybe for some people. They don't care. I mean, it's, you know, ultimately I can't force people to go and watch what I created and put what I've tried to teach them into practice.

And I will say I get that. Sometimes things get in the way and, you know, you know, there were other things that are maybe [00:26:00] more important in that moment, but I guess it's making sure that I can do everything I can as this learning provider to make sure that I. Being that to help them to learn and looking at different ways to engage them in, in the content and keeping in touch and, and all of that, you know, ultimately, you know, as the program grows, you know, I don't know how, how much level of being able to keep in touch I can do to the same degree.

And maybe that will evolve over time, but certainly, you know, I do want people. To get what they've paid for, but ultimately it is also their responsibility to watch it and do it. But it's, it's trying to get that balance. Isn't it of doing everything you can to make it as easy as possible that there's different learning methods or in terms of by that for [00:27:00] me, I mean that, there's a video.

I'm now sort of working on creating handouts to go alongside it so that there's like a written summary and maybe additional information. For example, I've got a, a unit which is all about creating your own logo using Canva. And that handout is massive. That's one of the ones that I have managed to do, and there was so much more than just.

Here's the logo. Here's how to create it. There was a lot of other stuff that I really wanted people to know about if they were to ever want to create it themselves, that at least I've delivered that information. They may choose not to read it or implement any of that. But again, it's being able to provide information in different formats.

I run it early enough. I don't really like watching videos that much like it, if someone you know, on social media, for example, someone has a video come up. There's that? Oh, how long is it? Have I got time to watch it? I [00:28:00] prefer to read my content. And I think the same is true. If you're just wanting to have a summary of what you've learned, you know, going back to remind yourself of how to do it.

Sometimes you don't want to watch it a full 30, 40 minute video. You just want to be like what the highlights again, you know, and sometimes being able to skim read is better. So. You know, we all have different learning kind of approaches or preferences to absorbing that information. I'm not something that I've learned.

In fact, I learned it on that three day online course that those, you know, people like to absorb that information. Some people like to listen, some are very, there's all the different sensors or something. Some are very light speeding based. So yeah, so I took that into consideration as well until now more recently most of my stuff has been very video based.

Whereas now I'm looking to sort of back that up with those handouts that can be helpful. So those that just want to read it or they want [00:29:00] to download it and have this collation of this information. Maybe even printed out some people like to print out and have a physical copy. So that's what I've taken into consideration too.

Scott: Okay. So it sounds like when that you did this three-day course, they talked about what we call learning. It was about how people learn. Yeah. The science behind that is unfounded. So well the unfounded is, yeah, there are ways we prefer, but there's no guarantee that if you consume data or information, the way you prefer that you are going to learn any better.

Marie-Louise: I think it was in the context more with the marketing side of it though. Not so much in terms of the delivery of the the course material itself. If I remember correctly that bit, but it's that thing of sort of, when you're putting stuff out, you hitting the different ways to, to get that content out there.

Scott: I say some people just prefer, so if I see a video I haven't got along or I'll just say, can I [00:30:00] just put it on, in this, on, in the background, like in the ear? So, or do I read something? And I like reading, I like touchy feely stuff. Cause then I can hold it. I can highlight what bits. Having the opportunity for people to say, to learn in different ways that suits their lifestyle and the way they are as an individual is good.

And I do think there there's, I think people sometimes just go for one medium, whether it's all written or video, whatever. And if you have a combination of both, then it's much more likely that people will actually do it. And to me, and I really agree with what you say is about, yeah, I can't make somebody do what they're paid to do.

I can't make somebody sort of make sure they do the camera and do all this that w that they've been paid to do. Cause they there's a need for them. They just haven't and they, they so they've paid for that. But what I can do is make them using it as easy as possible for them, so that the barriers to them actually taking part and participating in delivering the impact [00:31:00] is, is there is a few as possible.

Therefore they're much more likely to. Yeah, I think thinking about that, what can I do to make this as easy as possible for the people who've paid for it, rather than I've just put it up. There is self directed, which basically means we've taken the responsibility. We're going to give it to somebody else which happens in learning and training.

And I think that's an error. We have a responsibility as well. How can we prepare the people to learn? We make that as easy as possible for them.

And then bit for me is then how can we support them in actually applying what they've learned in a way that's easy for them to do they're motivated to do and give them the opportunities to do. And that's the, that's the last bit of the journey. So I was thinking of the journeys three, what are we doing before?

What are we doing during and what are we doing after

Marie-Louise: a rinse and repeat,

Scott: but to be, yeah, to a degree, and then you can add, you can add things into. [00:32:00] What you're doing with people much more sort of dynamic as well. So you could add, so you could add challenges into, into the course say right, this week's challenge is, and just, and then people might respond to that.

Cause it's a challenge rather than just giving people content, because if they like the channel, that sounds interesting. I'll do that. You could, that you could do things like spot the differences so you can give them two different things and say, spot to spot the differences. What's there. Assuming this.

Marie-Louise: Yeah, I've done that more, not so much in terms of the context of my, any of my paid membership or programs, but certainly in my free Facebook group did a, a spot, the Eastern. Can I game and my son made one for this year. We made one together last year. And so people could, it was like a virtual Easter egg hunt.

Cause we're looking at, in this picture. And then in March for mother's day, I sort of did a sort of create a sort of flowery like design, you know, I kept it quite open, but it didn't [00:33:00] have to be about mother's day. It just had to be very floral and like go for it. Just really have fun with it. And I'd pick a name out of the winner, you know, out of a hat as it were, and they would win a bit of design time with me.

So that was a bit of fun just to see about getting some engagement. So maybe I need to come up with a few more of those.

Scott: Move from the concept of training is that formal giving people, handouts, giving them information. So the objective is them to be able to do what we want them to do, and that the opportunities to encourage people to engage in that and to learn is limitless. And each one of those is a valid learning opportunities.

So if you think about what do I want somebody to be able to do? How can I create something that will help them do that in a way that's fun, engaging easy for them to do and give them a motivation to do it. If you can drop lots of those in, especially if it's around certain. So you might have a, a a [00:34:00] specific tool within canvas that you would like to help people learn to do, maybe do a competition about how many different ways can you do.

I don't know. Cause I don't know Campbell well enough, but there's lots of different things that you could do as part of that, that will get people learning, having fun, but doing it in such a cool. Yeah.

Marie-Louise: Well, I experienced that for con because Canva has got their own Facebook group. And I happened to see that they were doing a hashtag meet with CAMBA challenge and it was creating a video.

I suspect that I ended up not meeting the deadline because there was confusion over the, the deadline time and, and the international. There was a bit of it. I wasn't the only one, but there was me thinking, all right, I've got time. I've managed to make it. And then, and then some were saying, oh, it was closed.

I don't know. But I, it, it still meant that I had two hours putting together this like two minute video, which I'd recorded and put together using [00:35:00] all these different elements to really bring together what camp means to me. And you know, how it's changed, you know, what the impact of it has been and that she, that okay.

Well, whether I've managed to. Please submit it or not. It was something that I used as my sort of intro or pinned video on my YouTube channel. And I shared every, you know, a few places and I was like, well, actually, I'm really proud of that. Because I have a purpose to creating something. I had a reason and a reason to do it and had a lot of fun of it.

So it did push my like video creation skills a bit further. That's

Scott: good. And then you've, you've introduced another word that's important for learning with adults as well as purpose, purpose, and related. Can I relate to it and is there a reason for doing it? So can I relate to that reason as well? Does it make sense to me?

Because as you say, if you've got something, you know, life happens, isn't it. We do other things. [00:36:00] So it's thinking about how can I encourage people to do it and say, give it, create a purpose around it, create a reason for it. Those types of things, if that makes sense.

Marie-Louise: Yeah, it comes back to that thing of, you know, why you doing something, you know?

It's sometimes I need to remind myself of the why even on simple task or, or things that I'm kind of no way should be doing, but I don't enjoy so much if I, if I take in to like, why is this important? It may not be fun, but if I don't do it, what happens? So, you know, it's looking at it from the different aspects, whether it's something that you want to do and it's quite fun or it's, you know, you enjoy it versus something that, you know, it's important, but it comes down to why and kind of links to the purpose aspect.

Scott: Oh, never underestimate the power of purpose. It drives so much human behavior so much understand why we're doing something. I mean children [00:37:00] is their favorite word.

And I, and that requirement for understanding, doesn't go away. As we grow older, we just get told to stop asking. So we still need, or that's still an important driver for us to do stuff. So say, this is what we're doing. This is why, if it isn't, you can make it a competition. You can make it a learner.

You can say, you can ask people to buddy up share something you've done with Canva. You think the rest of the community would find useful.

Marie-Louise: Yeah, I guess it's having a curiosity as well. Maintaining that that's something that children naturally have is that curiosity. And as adults, we can still enjoy that play.

I think there it's, as you said, it's been drummed a bit out of us, but it's something as a creative person, myself, It's really important to be able to recharge and find other methods of way from my laptop to be able to be creative. I [00:38:00] don't do it as much as I'd like, because it's sort of, again, it's that you get kind of hung up with or in that busy mode of day-to-day life, you know I'm a mum, so I've got mum life and all of that.

I run my own business, so there's lots of things going on. But what I noticed is when I take time to do something just, just for fun or just because you can have you can really discover new things or, you know, you're not, you know, really kind of like, oh, I've, I've got to create this and you've got this set idea of what you want.

There's that kind of discovery of an unexpected outcome. And that's just part of learning as well. You know, if you're not kind of, if you're open to possibilities that that kind of word limitless and I think the same is true. You know, whether it's in the context of CAMBA, if you're creating something, you know, yes, you might have a goal of what you want to produce, but you know, it's about being a bit [00:39:00] more open-ended with it and making it the best you can with the abilities you have in that moment at time.

And it kind of comes back to my ethos and, you know, the, everything is a work in progress. I don't know who coined that quote, but it's something that I use a lot in my marketing and it ties in with that, that evolution. Because know we are ordered evolving. It doesn't have to be all perfect first time.

And in the context of learning, you know, that you, you sort of learn a bit and you get a bit better and then, you know, learn a bit more. And it's, it's those sort of almost like the bricks you're laying the bricks one on top of the other you're building on it. You're not just going from, you know, one thing like ground zero to like a, a massive high story building.

It takes time. There's those steps between, and I think the people who were frustrated with what they're creating or doing have, [00:40:00] have maybe forgotten that actually it takes time to learn and implement it, or they've maybe not thought of it in terms of how many hours they've actually used Canva. Cause there's that I read somewhere a couple of years ago.

I think that there's an app. It takes like 10,000 hours or something to become an expert in something. I mean, it varies on like professional stuff like that, but, and I actually hit, at that point, worked out how many hours I'd actually been learning and doing design. I think at that point it was sort of around 25 plus 25,000 plus.

So that, that makes me a super expert. I would definitely, but yeah, and people don't think of that. You know, they forget how many, you know, hours and years of experience of their area of expertise. You know, they didn't become that overnight. They weren't born that way. They might have a [00:41:00] natural affinity for what they're doing, but they've developed that skillset.

And so sometimes they forget with when it comes to Canva that they're like, oh, is this, you know, it's built as this easy to use tool, but not everyone's going to get it first time and not everyone's going to have, you know, the outcome that they, they want, you know, depending on where they're at with their kind of skill set and have they got a natural design eye for it and all of that.

Scott: And there's lots of that. And I that's it. So to me, it's the iterative development of stuff. So if we believe that we'd developed iteratively I one step at a time, can we deliver content to help people on that journey rather than delivering that much content, which nobody can see because I've got a hand gesture, but

Marie-Louise: so the big box.

Scott: A huge amount of stuff to help people get there. What are we doing to make the journey [00:42:00] iterative? Is that generally how we do so we occasionally have an aha moment which creates a leap, get those at anything we do. All of a sudden things just sort of click into place and yourself, you just sort of go up a couple of levels quite quickly, but most of the time, we're just, as you say, taking those one step at a time, developing as we get better, slightly better at something.

And then something three or four things may click and we can do three or four things a lot better quickly. And we have those occasional leaps, but most of the time, it's not most of the time it's iterative steps. So if we think that's how people develop skills, how can we create what we're doing in a way to help people on that iterative journey rather than the big block journey that you tend to see people.

Marie-Louise: Yeah, well, I guess that's the thing is, is being aware of that. I think it's useful to be able to give people the option and that's where sort of allowing people to access the information so that if they want to, they can just go directly to what they want to know about and not [00:43:00]follow that learning path that maybe as a, you know, you know, the delivery you put out there, you know, I've got there is a, in my mind, a logical sequence to what I've, you know, creates the order of training.

But someone else might be like, well, that's all very well good, but I haven't gone through that as yet, but I just want to skip and watch the video to learn how to make a a really good social media post, or I need to create a banner for my Facebook page. How do I do that? What do I put on it? So they can go straight to that video.

So it's, it's getting that balance, isn't it?

Scott: Yeah. I think if we yes, if we predetermined the journey somebody takes on and what we've probably got is we're trying to like a sheep dip, basically. Everyone's got the same. So you go, but that's the cheek dip solution for everybody. And we're not all the same.

So as you say, right, people, people will get aspects of Canva really quickly. Some people have a [00:44:00] few more things to overcome. Other people who've got more of a design idea than others. Other people just say, I'm coming on new course. Cause I like what you do. It gives me access to this material, but I only want to get what I want when I want it.

I don't really want to learn everything. I'm not interested in doing that because it D I just want to know, as you say, I just want to do a band next. I'm going to do a band next week. So I need to, I need to learn how to do that. And then I need to do a post-it and I need to do this, and then they'll learn as they do in it, but they're seeing the practical applications of it.

Cause it makes sense to them at that time. So enabling people to sort of say, right, I've got all this stuff, what's the best way for me to get the best out of it for me, I think that's the questions. I think if we have an audit, there's a risk of people as they put their content in, in a way, and it's predetermined, you've got to do this, you've got to do that.

You've got to do this. And it's a lot of Ellen Lotte training is like that as well. And I think it's online gives us the ability that you've demonstrated of creating that [00:45:00] opportunity for people to just take what they need when they need it in. However they need it. That's ultimately what we're providing, we're providing something for your clients to make because they don't pay for your training.

Marie-Louise: Yeah. I know. They, the, the real power is the the live sessions in the group, setting

Scott: the ability, again, as this go by that experiential testing them questions or feeling safe to do so, but they pay for the impact they pay for what they can do after whatever is they want to do. So if somebody goes to watch a video about a social media posts or a banner Facebook banner, they're not paying to learn, they're paying to have a decent banner.

That's the painful they're paying for the outcome of the impacts. You're just you're training

Marie-Louise: before and after thing, isn't it, you know, before the training or buffer before they've learned how to do it better, that's where they're at. And so it's taking them from a [00:46:00] to B.

Scott: Absolutely.

As somebody who's been through this journey and has created a way of doing it, that's very similar to how you've enjoyed learning in your past, which I think is a really good way of looking at it and saying, what did I, when I learned, how did I learn? And what did I enjoy doing is okay, how can I create the same for my clients rather than having this I've got training course, this is how we're meant to do it.

And this is how it's meant to be done, which goes about looking at it from a supplier's point of view, rather than the consumer's point of view, what would be your tips for somebody who's either just about thinking or has something and they want to make it better. They want to enhance what they've currently got.

What would be your tips for them?

Marie-Louise: Well I think it's, it's about making more don't over complicate things in terms of what you're delivering. Because I'm, there's a part of me, that's all stressing out about uploading further modules within, within my group program. And I'm [00:47:00] like, I haven't delivered that.

I had a kind of schedule in mind, but that she probably the people in the group where they're at and what they're doing, it's not actually that important. They have got some, you know, the first module to be looking through if they want to start accessing it in sequence. But I guess it's that thing of going well, what can I do to make sure that they can start?

And you know, you can always develop an add things in later. So what can you do right now to deliver that information? You know, I've had some, you know, been to some great online workshops where someone has just sat there and impart that information. They not even necessarily had a slideshow. So obviously if you've got a slideshow, which is.

No, the training then obviously making it look nice without putting everything, you know, and the kitchen sink on it. But it it's, I guess it's just about getting [00:48:00] started, you know, because you will learn as you develop. I think people get, so heads-up about how they get perfect and they spend, you know, maybe even years doing.

And then they, you know, they've missed the boat, you know you know, yes, we've got our own ideals of like how we want it to be, you know, there are, you know, maybe there were certainly better ways for me to hold this information. I certainly want to do a bit of editing of these pre-recorded trainings in time.

I'm going to have to rerecord them because they're going to meet your point where canvas moved on enough that it's our date. But it's, it's looking at, okay, well, it, for me, it's an ongoing cycle of improving what I'm doing. So rather than waiting till it's all perfect. It's okay. Well, what can I do to really impart my knowledge in an easy to way, understand, not trying to be perfect with you know, how I turn up, I'm making sure that I do turn [00:49:00] up and that people can get that information.

Scott: So the MVP, the minimum viable products, what is, what is enough for me to, I quite like the said the iterative it's, don't be afraid to experiment, try something. And if it doesn't, if it doesn't bounce with your, with your thing and find out why it doesn't bounce and make that change.

Marie-Louise: Yeah. Because I think you can also spend a long time creating this say online course, and then no one wants to buy it because you haven't done the research.

Maybe if, is there a need or you've not really done the research into your target market, but you know, what problems that you need to solve. So if you've done a bit of testing first or done it on a sort of. You know, a smaller scale, you can then work out well, actually, is this idea worth developing further?

[00:50:00] You can get feedback from those first people. That's what I done all along. You know, everything that I've been creating, I've asked for feedback to, so that I can be okay. Sometimes I've had my own feedback for myself where I'm like, okay, I deleted this. Like I did an introduction to CAMBA workshop last summer.

So we were in lockdown and I had about five people come on and I had an idea of how I wanted it to be what it was priced at, how long it would be. And I didn't quite deliver, cause I did my little talk about the foundations of kind of branding and they didn't want to know that. So there was like 20, 30 minutes of what I think is really important, but actually.

They really wanted to just know about camper. So all the branding stuff was just like, well, that's great, but it's not interesting. So what, excuse me, what I did was arrange another date to do some more time with them so [00:51:00] that they felt that they got that chunk of learning that they really wanted. So I learned from that experience, so what I thought in my mind, what was important and actually what they booked on and what they wanted to deliver to them, there was a slight mismatch.

So I did have that chunk where I was delivered, but there wasn't enough because of the time taken out waffling about funding, which is important, but not in the context. So that's sort of, I guess for me, because I've learned that has maybe in a way made me hold back from creating this product or course, or whatever, it will be aimed at introduction to Canva because I've kind of had.

In part negative experience where I'm like, oh, but it's looking at how I can learn from that mistake or experience, you know, and make sure that I can deliver the best that I can at that point.

Scott: I quite like that the I [00:52:00] doubt it was waffling, but yes, it was, it was not what they wanted to learn at that precise moment in time.

Remember that just in time. So they think, again, this isn't why I'm here and we'd make that predetermined choice. So one, a tip for you is talk to people who have been through the journey of learning Canva and say to them, if there's 10 things you want it to, you would have wished you'd known at the beginning, what would they be?

And then that helps you say the people, what that does is using that information. You're then trying to make sure that what you're delivering is what people actually needed. So as the concept of lean into learning,

what is it? So if 80% of your time at Canva in the first three months you used Canva, what did you, what did, what was the 10 tasks you spent 80% of your time doing? And then what you're doing, you're delivering the skills that people need 80% of the time, [00:53:00] which is what they're going to be spending the majority of their time.

So that's, that's bringing in that sort of lean concepts into what we deliver is content, give people what they need to know to be able to move on. And then as they go along and get more sophisticated and learn more, then maybe it, right. I now need to look at my branding and now need to look at this.

It might be something that's further down the line as important. Once they've learned what they want to do with Cameron, then the design stuff and the branding and everything like.

Marie-Louise: Yeah. And again, it comes back to what I know about branding and design and Canberra, et cetera. I'm coming at it from a different place of expertise and knowledge.

So I I'm talking about branding, so I know it's important, but in the moment where someone is just very new to camper, all of that other stuff is just not so important. So it's it's, I guess it comes back to isn't it about focusing on what the needs of that, that user, what did [00:54:00] they need to learn in that moment?

Being clear about what you're delivering to them and making sure that they get that.

Scott: Okay. So that's what we've been waffling for an hour. Did you know that it's an hour already? So thank you very, very, very much. It's been really informative and I love hearing, I mean, I love learning anyway, but hearing somebody's journey and how you've approached it.

So it shows you, you don't have to be an expert in learning to develop stuff that works because training and learning is common sense.

Marie-Louise: Yeah. And I didn't, I didn't get any, I didn't. Well, aside from, you know, the three-day online course, I was like, so don't, but aside from that, I haven't gone to, I haven't got any formal training to be a teacher or anything like that.

I've just gone. What did I find work for me? Try to do it as best as I can got feedback and improved it.

Scott: That's it that's the only way. Cause [00:55:00] I've been in training for years. I still get feedback off. I do is still develop, develop new things, come in new ways of doing stuff. And it's about engaging that all the time.

As we, as we move on, as you say, what you do for Canva now is okay today. But if they'd bring out something tomorrow, then that aspect is out of date and we have to improve and we have to continue to.

Marie-Louise: Yep. They keep bringing me these speeches.

Scott: This is good in a way it's frustrating because I've got to give up date and stuff, but then if you keep on top of it, then you are the person with the most up-to-date content, which is important as well.

I think people think this is evergreen. I can produce something once and it can resell, resell, resell, resell but just think is how valid is that going to be after a while?

Marie-Louise: It's something that I have to keep in mind. Cause I'm writing a book about Canva. I was asked to do it by some print on demand publishers who specialize in manuals for like specific programs and things like that.

And I didn't want the book to be just about. Here's how to use camper. There is a lot of that aspect, but there's also a lot of what I've [00:56:00] talked about. What what's important to me. And I think is important for the users is learning about design and branding. It's not heavy and lots of, you know, folk down with design theory, but it, there is a bit of that it's kind of design theory light because it's, it's that where there you know, and hopefully that, that side of it, that approach to how I'm sort of trying to deliver that information means that it will have a bit more longevity even beyond when, you know, they update this and new features of that because that's always the case with any kind of program there will be updates.

And I think they will do like new additions every so often, but certainly it's about getting that balance between something that is valuable. And Paul evergreen or totally evergreen, but also having the ability to update it and stay current.

Scott: Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to when that book comes out.

I might actually read it, [00:57:00] although it T I pay people to do my brand name because it's somebody I'm not very good at. I don't have a design as I, and I'm, I'm a great believer in working with strengths. So if I'm not very good at something, I bring people on board to a much better at it than I am, cause it's quicker.

Marie-Louise: And I

Scott: think we probably will do for a while yet. So thank you very much for your time. It's absolute a pleasure talking to you. And obviously any links that you want just click on the links at the bottom to go to your website, et cetera. Okay. Thank you very much.