A recorded conversation (YouTube) exploring a hybrid approach to AEC technical learning that pairs short, interview-driven on-demand content with longer live sessions. Speakers discuss experimenting with single-topic expert interviews, modular short videos or checklists, and keeping longer formats for in-depth storytelling and complex discussions; a concrete example (door hardware) illustrates practical, detail-oriented topics that benefit from both formats.
Chapters
I have a meeting scheduled with somebody, an expert, next week, where I'm just going to sit down for an hour. This person has very rich and robust history and stories to share. And I set this up saying, I just want to understand how you approach this one specific topic. All of the mental processing that you do, let's try to suss that out, let's tease it out, let's document this for the sake of somebody else. The things that you would tell them if they came to you and asked you questions. I'm just going to sit and interview you on Zoom. I don't know if we're going to wind up with short videos. That's one topic. It's self contained. If it's going to be a series of things, maybe the result is some sort of checklist or something. So it's not a video at all. It's something that we can just say, hey, at this point, or if you're having this type of meeting, cover these five things, ask these five questions. I'm not quite sure yet what the result will be, but I think we're open to both. It could be freestanding or little chunks that you can string together. So, like, this is part one, part two, part three, et cetera.
It seems like what I think you're hinting at is kind of a platform shift in that when you went from having live courses that were recorded to like zoom courses recorded, like, the format didn't really change that much. It was more the technology and the ability to reach more people. Where in this moment it sounds like instead of an incremental upgrade, this is like kind of a rethink of the way that you're delivering the technical learning to folks in my assessing that correctly?
I think so, yeah.
And I mean, for the time being, is it a combination of the two? And are we producing shorts and putting them on our Beehive site? But we're also doing the live sessions for the longer, more complicated, deeper dives into things. So time will tell, I guess. But one of the things that I've always tried to keep in mind is we have to be nimble, not only to the people who are coming into the program, but the better ways of doing things to what we're teaching type of thing. Nobody wants to hear the same 16 things every year. No. So making sure that we are always staying out on the edge of what they need and making sure that the style of learning is fitting the group that we're trying to teach.
And I think there's always going to be a place for the longer format stuff, because that's where you can have the discussion. That's where Dan or others with a lot of experience can share some real stories that I think are super impactful. If we go back to that door hardware, because we just. I sent us down this rabbit hole the other day. I was like, this seems like a problem that can be solved. Why are we still having an issue with this? And he showed a picture that was from a presentation where he shows this at the end of the presentation. And it's the most complicated door I've ever seen. There's conduits running to it. There's buttons all over the place. It looks like it's going to send you to outer space. And he's talking about all of the questions that you have to ask. Like, what happens when you open it? Does it notify someone when you swipe a key card, does it also turn on the lights? Does it, like, notify somebody in security? Like all of these things that somebody may or may not think about when they're just throwing in a door. It's got the swing direction they're going based off of a code. It needs to have these things. But they haven't asked these other additional.
