Why Learning Effectiveness Is the Real Competitive Advantage with Jeff Cobb

Jeff Cobb_full_length oct 18 Wed, Oct 18, 2023 8:55AM • 28:06 SUMMARY KEYWORDS people, learning, courses, creating, smaller, organizations, work, business, credential, leading, learner, learning experiences, world, experience, ai, coach, contextualization, type, happen, great SPEAKERS Abe Crystal, Jeff Cobb, Ari Iny Ari Iny 00:00 Okay, this is course lab and our guest is Jeff Cobb. Guys. Take it away. All right. Hello, and welcome to course Lab. I'm Eric gagne, the director of growth at Mira see, and I'm here with my co host, a crystal, the co founder of Riza goo. Hey, Ari. Today we welcome Jeff Cobb to the show. Jeff Cobb is the founder of learning revolution, as well as the host of his very own podcast, leading learning. Thanks for joining us today, Jeff. Jeff Cobb 00:28 Hey, thanks so much for having me. Looking forward to it. Awesome. Ari Iny 00:31 So, to kick us off, I would love to get your kind of 30,000 foot view of yourself as well as how you came to the course the building industry? Jeff Cobb 00:42 Sure. I think like a lot of people, I sort of stumbled into this world, I was working on a graduate degree many, many years ago, in a galaxy far away. And just by chance happened to start doing some part time work for an elearning company a start up this was back in the.com days, when people this was the first round of people throwing a lot of money at you know, tech and in an elearning. And started working for a firm that had a contract with the University of North Carolina where I was and one thing led to another and, you know, ended up leaving Graduate Studies and working full time for this startup and moved out to California for a while. And, you know, when when everything finally crashed and burned with the.com days, I sort of came walking out of the dust, with having made enough to start a company of my own. And my wife and I started a company about 20 years ago now that was really focused on being an online course creation company. That's what the company was, we actually ended up creating an online course platform as well, and built that company for a while and eventually sold it, and then started the company that I have right now back in 2007. So I've been involved with either making courses myself, or helping other organizations make courses and sell courses for more than 20 years now, I guess. Yeah. Ari Iny 02:11 Awesome. So tell us a little bit more about kind of what you're up to today. In the course building landscape? Jeff Cobb 02:21 Well, I think, you know, probably like everybody else, trying to figure out where AI is going to fit into all of this going forward. So, you know, definitely experimenting with that. But I think also just, you know, really, both for ourselves and for the people that we try to advise and give guidance to at, at learning revolution. And in the other parts of our business, just really trying to figure out what works the best these days, you know, it's become, it's become very crowded out there in the course, landscape. You know, 10 years ago, doing a course was something special. even five years ago, it was it was somewhat special. But now, it's a lot like the book publishing industry, if you talk to any sort of solo consultant, expert, coach, that sort of thing. You know, it used to be they all wanted to have a book and publish a book in some way, shape, or form, they still do. But now you talk to them. And they all either, you know, want to have a course or already have a course. And you know, so there are a lot of courses out there, what's it now take to actually stand out and make that a significant part of your business? And we're always, always really focused on that. Ari Iny 03:26 Awesome. So, I mean, I'm very curious, what have you found? Yeah, exactly. Like solve all our issues, Jeff. Jeff Cobb 03:37 I would not say that I have a, you know, one size fits all, coach, bracket. But, you know, I think some of the things that we're always focusing on is what are the results or you're trying to achieve? And where does a course fit into actually delivering that value in the end? And I mean, that's kind of, you know, foundational one on one type stuff, but it's what you have to really go back to now and say, okay, you know, first of all, is, of course, the best fit here. And to the extent it is, what role is it playing? And then what we're seeing with course, is and I know Mircea seeing the same sort of thing is the way the market has changed. There's a lot more emphasis on what I would characterize as complementarity and contextualization, so to two big sounding, you know, PhD fancy words, I guess, but complementarity is just kind of what what's going along with your course, to help make it more valuable or what's your course complementing to make more valuable? Coaching is obviously a big one. And there's the one that really stands out. So, you know, of course, in combination with coaching something I know Danny is focused on a lot, but you know, it could be other things like, you know, practice opportunities, connecting it with a play space advantage. We're very big into blended learning opportunities these days. So, you know, What are you complimenting, complimenting or your course with to make it as valuable as possible. And then contextualization, you know, have in mind, you know, what are you kind of in, bedding it in, really in terms of the the community, the people around it to make the experience richer than just the content? What's the context of the course. So, you know, obviously, there's a lot of focus out there around things like membership sites, we like membership sites, but we really like membership sites that have that strong community aspect to them. So whether you're running a cohort on a sort of structured base basis through a course or series of courses, or whether you have just sort of a broader community that's housing your courses and brings people together, that's becoming more and more important and more and more important to do well. And frankly, those aren't, those aren't easy things to do well, and in a much more mature phase of the course business right now. And so really stepping up your game and mastering some of those other areas is becoming increasingly important. Ari Iny 06:06 And so I'm curious, I mean, as you said, like none, none of what you've mentioned, is kind of brand new, and yet, doing it well is very, very hard. Right. And so what is the current, you know, within your own courses within courses with people that you've worked with, and you've seen? What is a big differentiator in, you know, creating that piece, especially around the contextualization, like the complementarity that it depends a lot on everyone's specific, you know, what additional services do you have? What else do you have that can fit in with the court with the course. But on the contextualization side? What have you seen recently, that people have leaned into and worked really, really well and made kind of the biggest difference? Jeff Cobb 06:58 Hmm, it's a good question. And I'm gonna, I'm not sure if I can come up with a, an example right off the top of my head, I think. I mean, what we found is important in that sort of contextualization and community is, you really have to look at the facilitation skills of the people involved and like, how effective are both the the subject matter experts who are involved, but then also the participants in the community, and understanding and then being able to, you know, enact, implement effective learning. Because when it comes down to courses, when it comes down to community, any of these things, the the source of value, the basis for value for what people are ultimately paying for, what's ultimately going to lead to the results, is learning effectiveness. Like, if you're not actually creating an effective learning experience, the value is not going to be there, you're gonna have a hard time attracting people in the first place, and then you're gonna have a hard time getting them to come back. So we have a lot of focus on that, in fact, one of one of our main courses right now that we work with in various ways is called presenting for impact. And it's really about, you know, helping subject matter experts be more effective as teachers in those teaching environments. You know, that's more that's more aimed towards formal kind of presentation, delivery of lecture type content environments, which is important. Something that that I want us to move into that we haven't yet is to focus on kind of less formal circumstances. So if you're in just an informal learning community, where you've kind of maybe you've got the courses embedded, as we've talked about, but you've also just got all of this peer to peer and peer to expert type learning going on. How do you get great at that? What does it look like to be not just a good facilitator, but an excellent facilitator of learning in achieving that learning effectiveness? Abe Crystal 08:56 Anywhere? Where do you think the gaps are there? Like, where are you seeing the differences between, you know, sort of an average facilitator and a great facilitator? Jeff Cobb 09:06 Hmm, I mean, we've, we've kind of broken it down into kind of different components of, of how you engage with people, you know, starting with how you sort of effectively get and earn their attention in the first place. Which to a surprising degree doesn't happen a lot of the times, you can maybe get that initial spark of attention, but then being able to retain that, that attention and actually establish connection with the people that that you're trying to help learn. Just often doesn't happen that just it'll fall off after sort of the, the initial value proposition might be very strong from a marketing standpoint. It might come across strong in the initial, you know, moment or two of whether it's a webinar or presentation or whatever it is, but then, not getting to where you've got the level of empathy and understanding with your audience that you're really making that deeper connection, that often doesn't happen, there's a fall off right there. And then even once you do that, that's something we've also started to focus on a lot lately is the role of practice and application in learning experiences, which again, there's just a surprising lack of when you look at a lot of what's put out in terms of online courses and other types of learning experiences. Because it does tend to be very lecture driven, more or less, I mean, somebody's presenting their ideas. And it might be great stuff, you know, there's a lot of smart people out there creating courses and putting that content out there. But if you're not making those, you know, very conscious places where you're pausing, where you're structuring, what your learner's can do, in order to apply to practice to reflect to make it relevant in their own experience, and then bring that back into whether it's the community or the course, or whatever your delivery method is, you've got to do that. So you have this fall off with initial attention, you have this fall off around establishing connection, you have a fall off around providing practice opportunities. And then what often doesn't happen with course and community type experiences, is setting up the follow on to the whatever learning has occurred. Because, you know, we all know the experience of like, you know, going to a conference and you go to a bunch of sessions, you know, you get on the plane to go home, you're all charged up about all the great things, you know, that you're going to do, you get back to the office, nothing happens. And then within days, you've sort of forgotten about it, you know, so how do you teach, whether it's that kind of situation, or whether it's an on demand course, or whatever it is? Like how do you really equip the learner exiting the course, exiting the experience with what they're going to be able to do during the following days, weeks, months to really make that learning stick and, and be a part of their lives. So, you know, being conscious and really thinking through those different elements of, of engaging with your learners. Abe Crystal 12:02 Just curious if any examples come to mind that might make that concrete for people as like, what that might look like, either examples from your clients or courses you've created? Or could just be a, you know, illustrative example. But if you had a real example, you know, I'm sure that'll be helpful for people? Jeff Cobb 12:21 Well, I depends on which part of that because each of those would have sort of things you could do to support it, but in no case, is it really going to be rocket science, you know, for for what to do. I mean, we're not asking people to go out and create, you know, complex simulations or, or that sort of thing. But, you know, it's simple stuff. Like, if somebody's leaving, of course, a conference, you know, Have you have you developed, you know, checklist? Have you asked him to do simple things, like put time on their calendar to do XY and Z over this period of time? Have you connected them with accountability partners, to help them as they, you know, move along after the course, I mean, those are all things that we would do, as part of our presenting for impact course. It's something we've, you know, we consistently recommend any client do in the context of their their course experiences, you know, backing up to connection, this is obviously going to vary so much from audience to audience, but you know, that the power of storytelling, which we all know about, but you know, how do you start to incorporate stories into what you're teaching that, that relate to whoever your audience is, they're going to be able to see themselves in that story. And, and really actively moving beyond, here's my didactic content that I'm putting into the lecture to, here's the story I'm telling, that really illustrates the need for the content that I'm offering to you, and inviting the learners into the story to see themselves in that story. Abe Crystal 14:00 The other thing that was coming to mind is like, a lot of our guests and listeners are kind of in the world of their independent experts, right? They're leading speakers, coaches, or they might be a practitioner in some field, like an artist or, you know, some type of creative. And they're teaching based on their, you know, slice of of expertise, either as a practitioner or as a coach and advisor. And I know you have a lot of familiarity with this type of, of experts, but you also work with like, much bigger organizations. So just curious, you know, for people who are more in the solopreneur, or independent expert world, are there lessons they can learn from what you've seen in terms of how organizations approach, creating courses, creating learning experiences, you know, what I think a lot of people listening to courses are not as familiar with that world. So just wondering if they're Are there sort of lessons learned there that come to mind or ideas that you've picked up from being immersed in that world that, you know, might translate to people who are independent experts that are looking to improve their courses or improve their businesses? Jeff Cobb 15:14 Right? I'd say, you know, some things that organizations in that world tend to do well, if you know, if they're really being successful in what they're doing. And, you know, as an aside, many of those organizations have the same sort of issues that the solopreneurs have, in terms of, you know, competition, price pressure, delivering learning effectiveness, they all have to work with subject matter experts, you know, you know, often on a volunteer basis, you know, to get them to, to create the courses. So there's a, there's a lot of overlap between the two. But, you know, one of the things that those organizations often have in their favor, as they've got some form of basically credential, you know, that will go along with whatever they're they're offering. But that can be sort of more or less formal, I mean, some of them are big organizations with certifications in their field in industry, and that's just a powerful thing to have, in the average, solopreneurs not gonna be able to do that. But because they're coming out of that sort of culture, they think about things like, you know, just putting a digital badge on this or adding a certificate that's more than a certificate of completion that has, you know, a little bit of teeth to it, you know, that's going to add value to the learning experience, it's going to make it easier to charge and charge well for it, and potentially make it more valuable in the marketplace. And I think a lot of, you know, solopreneurs, small consultants, coaches sort of don't think of themselves as being in the position to create that sort of credential, or that sort of kind of validation of the learning experience to their offering. But I think they can, I think that's, you know, that's open to them, I mean, they're not going to be the Project Management Institute and have that level of authority. But you can, you can add that you can add some authority to, to what you're doing, I think that's very important. The other thing that is really grown a lot in the sort of larger organization world, and for us, this often means like trade and professional associations that we're working with, is they're really thinking much more in terms of business to business selling now, rather than selling, and they all have pretty much odd members, you know, so they're selling to individual members in a lot of instances. But even the ones that might have traditionally sold to just the individual doctor, or nurse or lawyer or whatever, they're now going to the health system, or to the big firm and saying, you know, buy our catalog, or fund us creating this course and buy 1000 seats of it, to put your learner's through. And again, I think your short, average smaller creator, may not be thinking in those terms, but that opportunity is there, you know, to find businesses, and a lot of times this can take a significant amount of the risk out of investing substantially. And of course, I mean, if you're, you know, if you really want to create something of substance, that's going to take some time, it's gonna take some, some some money to do, you might have to have some outside resources, do it. You know, what if you can go to one of your best clients, if you're a consultant and say, you know, what, will you either directly underwrite the course the cost of this? Or will you at least commit to, you know, 50 people going through it, or whatever the number is, so that we have some, some numbers against this. And then, you know, really consistently looking at those business to business sales, because it's much easier to make that one sale of 50 seats, that it is 50 sales of one seat. So I always encourage smaller, smaller organizations, smaller companies to think about that as well. Ari Iny 18:41 So one question I have, based on the certification piece and kind of adding that credential. You know, as you mentioned, it's a lot easier for larger organizations, the Institute of whatever is going to find a lot easier to so can you talk a little bit about what that might look like, for a smaller, you know, solopreneur or a smaller organization? Jeff Cobb 19:06 Sure, I mean, the mechanics are going to be pretty much the same what the larger organization usually has going for them as if they're sort of a known quantity and whatever industry or profession they're serving, they've got some some brand behind that. And, you know, hopefully, they've been good about managing that brand. You know, so for the smaller player brand is incredibly important. I mean, that's something we emphasize a lot that, you know, you need to really think through how you want to be perceived out in the marketplace as a provider of learning experiences, you know, as a core part of what you do, you know, what should people be thinking of in terms of the the validity, the authority that you bring to that situation and actively work to build your brand and that way, so you are seen as somebody who can validate that somebody has the skills, you know, this expertise, I think it's probably you know, even more important for that. That small producer are to be as buttoned up as you can around the learning experience. So have have well designed learning experiences that lead to whatever credential you're going to convey, do you have an assessment associated with it, don't just give something you know, for, for completing, you want to show that learning has actually happened, do be very good about obviously collecting this sort of social proof that goes around that around, really the results that people have been achieving from it. And then to the extent you can, you know, and this kind of goes along with the b2b thing, any credential that you give to somebody, and most it's this doesn't apply in all markets, it can be different safer artists or something like that. But generally speaking, your credential is only valuable if the employment market values it. So you know, thinking about how you can build employer relationships in whatever field you you work in, if you're a consultant or a coach, you've probably got these business clients who respect you. So again, making them aware of that credential, getting their input on what you really need to be validating in terms of the credential, what the learning needs to lead to, that they want to see and people that they might hire, and making sure all that's communicated in your marketing that, you know, this isn't just, hey, my LMS happens to give me the ability to issue a certificate, so I'm tacking a certificate on it. But I really thought this through this is what this is what it looks like to be validated for me, for me. Ari Iny 21:24 And a thank you for that context, because that is exactly the process that I could see a lot of solopreneurs going through, it was like, Okay, I could provide a certificate, so sure me as well, without understanding what really needs to be there for it to be a value and not possibly look odd or like something that okay, why would they be offering this kind of situation? Jeff Cobb 21:52 Yeah, I mean, you have to be careful. Because if you're just sort of, you know, slapping your logo on a certificate and handing it out, when somebody completes your course, you may be damaging your brand more than helping it. So you have to be aware of that. Awesome. Ari Iny 22:05 Aid. Other questions? No, Abe Crystal 22:08 I mean, just Yeah, further things they're coming to mind for you, based on what we've talked about so far, that you think would be good to share with people or anything like other things that we haven't mentioned that, that you think would be useful? Well, I Jeff Cobb 22:21 think I was talking with somebody on my team earlier today, because we've been sort of sharing as a company things that we've seen that are a little different this year that we've been noticing, and she happened to miss the the meeting we had when we were talking about that. So she was kind of just sharing that with me independently. Today, and one of the things she was saying is that people seem to be just experimenting a lot more than than they have in the past. And she's somebody from our team is really dealing more with solopreneurs, you know, small entrepreneurs, people are doing, you know, course creation and selling their consulting and coaching and that sort of thing. And there's just there's a lot of experimentation going on out there right now. And I think some of that is because of what we were talking about earlier that, you know, it's just a much more crowded market, it's a different market than it was a few years ago, people are trying to figure out what works. But that's also combined with the fact that we have had things like aI come along with, with video with with tax without, you know, all the tools that can help you with creating, so you have this need to figure out what's working. And you also have this new set of tools and technologies that are incredibly exciting, that are creating new opportunities. So I think there's a sort of kind of a ferment out there right now that some predict some really interesting things are going to emerge from, you know, in the next year or two that we're not really even thinking about right now. Ari Iny 23:46 Recall and one quick question that may or may not end up being quick. But one quick question that I have is just around, I mean, AI, and I'm sure people are it's top of mind for a lot of people, and kind of just your take on the role of these different AI tools in the course building process, and to what extent people should be relying on them, versus their own kind of expertise and background. Jeff Cobb 24:18 Yeah, I mean, this is obviously an area that Danny's probably gonna know a lot more about than I would He's certainly written so much about it. But I think I know he thinks of it as sort of a kind of a guide on the side, like a support team for you, which I'm very much in line with. I mean, I've found in using myself that it can help initially with just the creative process and sort of throwing things out there trying different ways of asking you about things and in getting at different problems, because it's usually going to end up suggesting perspectives that I hadn't really thought of, you know, to take into account that I've been taken back into, like my own thinking in my own writing. I mean, I'm still not at the point where I've been comfortable or uncomfortable recommending anybody else to really rely on chat GBT or whatever else to, you know, to really create for you. I mean, it can obviously, you can create drafts of different parts of things that you can work with and, and mold over time. But, you know, you still want that that human element there. The the, the toolset that I'm most personally excited about right now is just around what's possible with video, and AI, and creating and editing and scaling video, so that that's something we're really looking at, I won't say, like, drawn any great lessons or conclusions from it yet, but what you can do in terms of taking particularly existing content and transforming that in different ways into video content, I'm finding very, very powerful, but, you know, it's just what it can do to increase your capacity. I mean, we have this first wave years ago when, like the platforms came along the resumes and think effects of the world that just, you know, and all of the membership and community type tools that empowered the solo for newer in particular, in ways that were just inconceivable, just had not happened before, you know, suddenly, like I'm sitting here in this like studio and little Carrboro, you know, North Carolina that just has this amazing set of tools, you know, that when I was in the eLearning, industry 25 years ago, would have cost 10s, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, you know, now that, you know, that came along, and it was possible for the small producer to really reach the world with with great learning experiences. And now this is just another wave, you know, add AI into that. And, you know, you think about that, that solo producer, that consultant that coach armed with that original toolset and AI. And then on top of that just your own good sensibilities about, you know, what makes sense from a business standpoint. And you know, the human networks and connections you've formed, the people you can collaborate with, when you put all that together. You can you can compete with anybody. That's Ari Iny 26:58 awesome. All right. Yeah. Yeah, Abe Crystal 27:03 we're just gonna do a readout for you. Well, first, you're going to confirm yes, preferred guests. Ari Iny 27:07 Yes. So, Jeff, where can our audience go to learn more about you and leading learning? Jeff Cobb 27:14 I'm going to point people to our learning revolution site, because I think that's probably the the best for this set of listeners. So that's it learning revolution.net And lots of great resources there for Ari Iny 27:25 you. Awesome. Okay, so we'll do that Abe is updating that right now. Leading learning. Abe Crystal 27:31 All right. Jeff Cobb is the founder of leading learning and the author of leading the learning revolution. You can learn more about him over at learning revolution. dotnet that's learning revolution. dotnet Ari Iny 27:45 All right. Thank you so much, Jeff. It was a pleasure having you. Jeff Cobb 27:49 Yeah, thanks so much. Enjoy the conversation. Good. See? Ya. Great. Thank you. That was really terrific. Very, very interesting. Thank you so much. For agreeing to stop the recording.