Speaker 1: All right, Megan, you're on the main stage with me with one minute to spare. There you are. Hey. Hey. Welcome to the stage.

Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we're going to be taught. You know, I saw a little of the backstage conversation and I saw you're going to kind of touch on the AI thing. So it's going to make a nice transition, but your topic is how to create micro learning that keeps the audience hooked. And you're the director of course development at Home Care Plus, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: Home Care Pulse. Pulse, yes.

Speaker 1: Pulse, all right, that's my brain. Very close. A for effort, right? Absolutely. So with that, I will leave you to this and I will hang out just off camera. And as you get close to the end of yours, I will jump back on. But if you need me for anything, all you got to do is shout. Actually don't shout because I have earbuds in. It will actually really hurt my ears. Just speak up and I will be there.

Speaker 2: Got it. All right. Let me find my screen here and get this set up. Tell me if you see my screen. Let's see.

Speaker 1: It always takes a second.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think. Sorry guys.

Speaker 1: No worries. We're a patient group. We just had a conversation about how with all the advances of AI, we just need to consider like, hey, slow down a little bit. There's no rush. There you go.

Speaker 3: Yay, here we are.

Speaker 1: Okay. Here you go. You are good. Everybody good. All right, I will let you get to it.

Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I am Megan Tice, creative director of an amazing team of instructional designers at Home Care Pulse. We provide training solutions to post-acute care organizations, mostly to help drive engagement, improve retention. And it's our mission to be part of solving the caregiver crisis that is really affecting our healthcare system right now. But to get to the exciting stuff, I am excited to talk about how to keep the creativity flowing within your microlearning projects, a key skill to keeping your audience hooked. There's a little foreshadowing here on this screen. Okay. So, does being grown up equal boring? We all grow up. We get older, right? We get wiser. Some of us. Cynical, maybe resistant to change. What do you guys think? We get set in our ways. We get comfortable. We disconnect. Does this sound familiar to you guys? At what point do we stop asking questions? And how can we keep the thrill for learning and growing alive? It's kind of the question we ask ourselves every day, right? So, I wanna thank all of you here on this call today. So, everyone give yourselves a round of applause for making time to learn and grow. That said, most grownups find it difficult to devote time to learning something new because they're too busy being an adult, right? So, the learning and development world attempts to solve this problem with microlearning. Short or snackable, I'm using Samantha's term there, learning bites are often better than drawn out, long training modules. But, just because your content is short does not mean it'll keep your learners hooked. To truly grab the attention of disconnected adults, you must create something magical because boring training, who wants it, right? So, here's how. This is my method. We're gonna walk through three steps. No pixie dust required. We are going to bait the hook, create a shared connection, and third, get to the action. So, step one, everybody, bait the hook. This is just where you introduce the problem. So, most of you are in the L&D field. You've maybe done a needs analysis before. You know the problem, in and out. You understand the need for the training. But, does your audience, are they aware of the problem? They have not done a needs analysis. Maybe they've experienced frustration, but that's about it. So, go ahead, be the bad guy, share the problem, far and wide, and then you get to swoop in. You've got their attention. Swoop in with your proposed solution and save the day. The green Peter Pan tights are optional. As many of you already know, when adult learners are given the opportunity to see how they will benefit from your training, they are more likely to remain invested. But, it doesn't stop there. You can't let them off the hook, right? Without further connection, you will likely lose their attention. So, we've made it to step two, and arguably, this is the most important step. You need to create that connection. There are two ways that I wanna talk to you guys about, humor and empathy. Let's start with humor. So, the secret to adding effective humor in your micro-learning course is to keep it simple. So, what does that mean? Simple humor relies on puns, word play, you can see I like both, physical comedy. It's often easy to understand and appreciate making it accessible to a wide audience. So, here's an example. You know how in animated kids' movies, there are always a few jokes just for mom and dad. They're simple, they're subtle, they're maybe a little inappropriate. Do that. Be subtle, not inappropriate. It might go over a few heads. You won't connect with everyone, but it will work for some. So, add just enough humor to keep your learners waiting for more. So, how can you add humor? First, memes. Who doesn't love a good meme? For anyone here who has used the 7TAPS platform, you know that they're fully on board with the meme train. But now I have a question for you, and I'd like you to answer in the chat. Using a meme, that's the challenge. Does humor come naturally to you? So, respond via gif in the chat to answer that question. I'm looking at my other screen here, looking at your responses flowing in. If anything, if nothing else, a gif can just make you smile, right? It's not full-out belly laughs, but it's enough to connect. It's enough to giggle. So, thank you for sharing, everybody. You've got great gif game. The good news for those of you who find humor difficult is that using memes is an easy way to add a splash of humor without having to write it yourself. So, you can see the little pun that I've got going there, or, you know, wordplay, splash of humor with my gif. So, a few tips. Pick a theme and stick with it. Memes and gifs have the power to distract if not used intentionally. So, ask yourself when you're adding a gif, is this adding something to my interaction? Is it helping to tell my story? Because if the answer is no, then leave it out. It's distracting. Another tip, if you are really not funny or you're just not feeling inspired, then consider using Chat GPT or Canva Magic, right? Which I have found some help in. I don't know, maybe React if you've used either one. But using these tools, you can provide the prompt and ask for a humorous summary or outcome because robots have a sense of humor now. So, here's an example of a prompt and response from Canva's chat bot, Magic, right? Here, I asked the bot a humorous response to how can a learning and development professional hook their audience? I came up with the analogy here, but the bot helped me round out my Peter Pan story. So, while I am fully on board with utilizing my own creativity and my own brain power, it's hard to argue with the fact that these tools will become more popular, just as our fellow hosts here talked about. So, okay, moving from humor to empathy. Not every topic is funny, nor could it be made funny, and if you try, it'll fall flat. So, for serious subjects, create a powerful connection with your audience through empathy and shared experience. Start with perspective. Before you develop your course, ask yourself, how would I feel if I were facing the same problem? Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. This can be helpful for setting the tone of your project, ensuring you're adequately teaching the right points and focusing on the right solutions. And next, scenarios. We've all heard about using storytelling. The key is to use descriptive stories to pull on heartstrings. So, again, the key word is descriptive. Use thoughtful adjectives to immerse your learners in the scene. Here's an example. Peter Pan was afraid to grow up. It's a lot less effective than Peter Pan's fear of growing up was suffocating, like a heavy weight on his chest that he could never escape. So, using scenarios in your microlearning projects, make sure you thread pieces of that story throughout so the learner's continually brought back to that feeling that you're trying to evoke. Finally, third step of empathy, wonder. Be a kid again. Don't be afraid to ask questions. These could be questions built as polls meant to get your audience thinking, like in 7TAPS. They could also be innovative ideas as an L&D professional, ask yourself, what can I do differently to engage my audience? Okay, a few more tips. Keep your scenarios short. If your story is meaningful and genuine, it will still bring the point home. So, keep it like to a three to five minute scenario video. Follow it up by a survey. Ask your audience to contribute a story of their own. Get them thinking about it and how it relates to them. And again, utilize AI tools to give you a jumpstart. AI can help you write compelling stories, character interactions, dialogue, list goes on. So, I asked the chatbot the same question, but I asked for a powerful response using empathy. The first thing the chatbot suggests is to think like Peter Pan. To put yourselves in Peter Pan's shoes, to utilize stories, create a sense of wonder, excitement, and to build relatable examples. Okay, a shared connection through empathy, just to reiterate, it has the power to enact change. And the change happens because your learners are connected to and invested in your story. So, you've kept their attention and they're more likely to retain the knowledge that you're sharing because that's our job. That's the point of learning and development. Okay, last step guys, almost done. We'll review the action. We're at the climax. Can you feel it? The peak, the highest point where all the action happens. This would be the worst place to let my story fall flat. So, to help your audience fly, you need to provide them with actionable steps. These could be job aids, like the one that will be attached at the end of this presentation, online resources with links to websites, tutorials on YouTube, and even mentors. Hook your audience up with the right people who can help answer their questions. By providing these actionable items at the end of the training, it encourages your grownup audience to have the opportunity for autonomous learning. So, that's learning that they can do independently when they feel motivated and inspired. According to Peter Pan, once you're a grownup, you can never go back, right? But that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun. So, here's your challenge, if you're willing to accept it. When you sit down to build your next course, develop it wearing green tights. Now, you can take it literally if you want, if it'll help. Honestly, I'd be a little impressed if you have green tights laying around, but what I'm suggesting is to give yourself the freedom to have a little more fun with your courses. Somewhere along the line, a lot of us lost our ability to be creative, lost the ability to think about things outside of our very structured boxes. So, everyone, picture yourself in those tights, for real. Close your eyes. Picture yourself in tight green spandex. Okay. Now, open your eyes. Give yourself permission to tell a joke. Ask questions to pique learners' interests. Connect with your audience through humor and empathy, because being an adult does not have to be boring. And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. A takeaway resource will be included in the chat, if you'd like to review it. I'll give you a hint, it's a seven taps course. And I'd also like to connect with all of you, see how you work through the three-step formula, and feel free to send me a LinkedIn connection. So, I will send it back to Chris.

Speaker 1: No, you get to hang out with me for a few minutes, because your timing was impeccable. Honestly, that was fantastic. Which, by the way, so two things that really stood out to me that I absolutely love. The first one is, as we've been talking about the AI space and how can you use it well, I love the fact you bring up, if you're not funny, that's okay. Have AI help you be funny. And I think owning the things that we're not very good at and be like, nobody ever laughs at my jokes. Okay, don't feel bad about it. Just ask AI to help you. Like, how would I say this in a funny way type of a thing? Because there's no fault in that. And I think that's one way AI can be really helpful. Cause you don't, it's a safe place to be like, yeah, I'm not funny at all. So can you help me, can you help me work through this type of thing? And I think that's such a great way to think about looking at where your vulnerabilities and weaknesses are and then say, help kind of augment me with that type of a thing. The other one- Yeah, it's funny. Oh, go for it.

Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, I actually wrote a rap from chat GPT yesterday. I wrote a rap and sent it internally to our team linking to a Seven Taps course. So it was kind of, you know, I'm not going to rap right now. You guys don't want me to, but just like-

Speaker 1: Actually, they probably do want you to Megan, just so you know. I would guess based on the emojis right now, I actually would guess this audience does want you to rap right now.

Speaker 2: Sorry, I can't, I can't. I didn't prepare guys. And I don't have chat GPT open, so.

Speaker 1: Okay, okay. No, but I think that that point is really great. And the other thing that, you know, some of the questions and comments came in and I'd love your thoughts on this. And I've got a point of view on it, is there is something, so I got, I cut my teeth in middle school teaching and did my pre-education in elementary. And there was something fun and exciting and enjoyable about working with kids. And for whatever reason, you go into adult learning and I even put that in air quotes. And we act like, yeah, they don't, you know, their sense of humor died on their 18th birthday type of a thing. And you go, what? Are you kidding? That has not been my experience at all. We're still dealing with human beings. And for whatever reason, we've trained each other that, no, no, don't have fun with this. Learning's not fun. It's got to suck. And it's like, says who?

Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think it all starts in high school. But no, really, I mean, it's so true. Like why does corporate learning have to be boring? Why do we have to speak at a higher level to adults? It doesn't make sense to me. Like I try to, you know, obviously there are certain types of training that are higher level. I'm not saying that. But just using simple words, you know, why use 12 words when you could use six?

Speaker 1: Yep, yeah. Well, and I think the thing is, is sometimes we assume too much in terms of, you know, people, so two examples that just come to mind for me was, I remember I was leading regulatory training for a pharma company. Like not probably what many would think would be the most exciting group of folks. Bunch of regulatory scientists digging into SOPs. And one of my team members had the creative idea to write an onion-esque satirical campaign driving the importance of onboarding. Going back to something you brought up earlier about do they even know this is really a problem? And I didn't ask permission. I just said, we're just gonna do this and I'll take the bullets for this kind of a thing. It was an absolute hit. I mean, people just, they went, this is fantastic. It drove them to the resources. It really engaged them in a way. And it was one that, I mean, I got in big trouble for it, but then they all said, sorry, you were right. You know, type of a thing. But it was one of those things where it was like, there you go. Like people have a sense of humor. They're human beings. They enjoy funny things as long as it's, and you highlighted some of these risks. You're careful. You're not reckless. You're not doing things that are gonna get you sent to HR, type of a thing. But you're being intelligent about, you know, what is an appropriate level of humor that we can bring to this that's going to make people engage with it?

Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I think there's such a thing as humor fatigue or empathy fatigue, where if you draw on these things over and over again in your training, it will get old. It won't have the impact anymore. So I think, you know, to be subtle again is really key so that it's not really obvious. It's not an onion article, but I do believe it was really entertaining. But just little subtle things that you can do in every project to grab people's attention.

Speaker 1: Yep. And I think that's where going back to something that was brought up earlier on this of experimentation and try things. Did we end up writing an entire column on the onion type thing for everything? No, we didn't. But we kind of came in with shock and awe going, okay, this is the most boring stuff that has ever been done in the history of eternity. We need to shake things up. And it shook the trees and suddenly we could then migrate to more of the subtle humor where people started looking it out. We would hide Easter eggs and things, you know, that people were like, yeah, that's that kind of fun creative group. They're always doing these little things. And it drove them to engage with what we were trying to do. So I think just brilliant the way you pulled those things together.

Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah. And I just, to reiterate, just feel free to have fun, you know? Yeah. So keep it interesting, right? It doesn't always have to be the same thing or the same humor. So yeah, keep everyone else on their toes and you'll have more fun along the way too.

Speaker 1: And what I will say is to any of the designers, because here's the other thing I know is real. I was a designer for a long time. I know that there were plenty of times when I would try and do creative things and just get kicked in the teeth by my leadership or somebody is like, no, we're never going to let that happen type of thing. So I empathize with the fact that not everyone's in an environment where you can do that, but feel free to send your leaders my way. And I will have a conversation with them about it and say, listen, there is a level of risk that you can push back on and go against the mold. And in many ways, it's refreshing to the organization because corporate learning doesn't have to suck.

Speaker 2: That's right. Even if it's an AB trial, you know, like suggest to leadership, hey, let's do an AB trial. Let's have a dry training and a really fun light humor training and see how they resonate, you know?

Speaker 1: Right. Let's do an experiment. We don't need to go gangbusters with an enterprise-wide initiative, but like, hey, let's try this over here and see how it lands. And if it works, then maybe we incorporate some of that. So fantastic. Everyone, can we get one final round of emojis?