thanks, captain

I had this great idea  this week, as I was designing and developing some learning that would be trained virtually.  It was around having an Icon for the idea of “self assessments” instead of the words – that would later need to be translated.  And so, I googled the term “self assessment icon” and got this:

Amused, I sent an email to my team telling them about what had transpired and what their thoughts were on this icon.  I received an email suggesting that I use this:

to which another co-worker suggested we do this:

and when I showed them I was actually going to use something more like this:

I received this:

And this, my friends, is what being on a team is really about.  Collaboration, fun, and a continual reminder to not take oneself so seriously.

et tu, brute?

I just had one of those light bulb moments for an instructional designer.

I’m working on a project that I was involved with 2 years ago.  I know the material, vaguely, but the details are lost on me.  The easiest way to explain it is that I’m creating leader content for general content that I did a few years ago – so to do this I need to reacquaint myself with some of the finer details and “how to” information.

My “come to Jesus” moment looked like this:

Me:  hey, when and how does <this role> do <this action>?

SME:  that’s covered in <this training>

Me:  (inside my head) I don’t have TIME to take a 20 minute WBT,  I just need the freaking answer

Oh crap.

I wrote that 20 minute WBT a few years ago.  It’s good stuff.  It’s informative.  I recommend it.  But when push comes to shove I didn’t want to take it because I didn’t want 18 minutes of context to get the simple answers I was looking for fast to get another task finished.

This is good, as it reaffirms things that I believe about learning.  But every time you affirm or learn, you have to act.  My question is, “now what?”