Design Thinking, AI & Magical Meetings Explained with Erik Skogsberg

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Armando Presceno and welcome to the web talk show. Today with us is Eric Scotsberg from a voltage control. Welcome Eric. Hello. Good to be here. Thank you for being on the show today. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do? Yeah, so I'm the VP of learning experience for Voltage Control. And voltage control is a facilitation academy that um really at the end of the day helps people get better at leading collaboration. So we we uh train folks across a variety of enterprise companies on the B2B end and then on the BTOC end. Um we have uh certifications in in facilitation that that folks uh take uh once a quarter. We we have a cohort uh in those and then we have a a small uh grouping of B2B consulting where folks will come to us when they just have a wicked problem to solve and they need to to to have a a conversation at scale, if you will. And then we will facilitate and deploy our our teams of certified folks to to guide there. So nice. Nice. And I was looking at some of your videos and everything that you show looks so fun and engaging and sometimes we see training companies or just workshops etc. and it's someone just speaking to a crowd and and here it looks like it's they're completely interactive and people are pasting stuff on the wall and they're doing all sort of activities. So could you tell me a little bit about what that experience is like and why you do it so so differently from everyone else? Yeah, I mean first you're making me think uh unfortunately workshops have been given a bad name **[00:02:00]** because of those experiences, right? when people hear workshop, uh, too often they think of of those stand and deliver kinds of things that are so focused on on content over the experience itself. So, a lot of this comes back to our our belief that um, you know, the most uh, impactful um, uh, things that folks will go through when it comes to training are are experiences, deep impactful learning experiences. So that means they need to be interactive, they need to be hands-on, I need to give people an opportunity to actually do the things that they're learning because then that um stands a much better chance of people applying that after things are are all done. So when we're putting together a meeting, workshop, or training others to to do so, we we start with um where do you hope people are going to be by the end of this? How are they different um than than when they entered that space? And then we put together the pieces of the experience from there. And often times that that does involve some some fun hands-on interactive activities. So interesting. So these experiences, they're at a certain level bespoke for the organization or whoever you're giving the training to. Absolutely. So um and I'll dial back a little bit. when we're when we're uh training teams on facilitation itself, we have some core competency areas that ground everything that are are the same across the board. So, we ground our curriculum in in five competency areas for for leaders and facilitators and that's that um they are purposed, they're inclusive, they're clear, crafted and adaptive. So all the curriculum is based there. Uh but then we'll customize uh based on the the metrics or growth that those **[00:04:00]** companies are specifically hoping for. So uh based on a role. So let's say we're working with product managers. They're going to have specific ways that they're going to need to show up in in workshops or meetings. And so we'll tweak some of the the activities and cases to match that even though it's still uh based in what would what would be the same set of of competencies that that all our curriculum is is grounded in. Oh, that makes sense. How did you get into leadership and training and all this? Yeah, good good good question. So I'm actually trained as a as an educator, as a teacher. I started out um my career many years ago now as a high school English teacher. And so um from the beginning I've been interested in my career and in how to create the right conditions for people to have the right conversations in support of going in some direction. Right? So, at first that was about, you know, how do I construct conversations around books and poetry to to help youth ask really important questions about their their lives in the world? And I found as I was in that that I was just as interested in the conversations that that adults were having in those schools and districts as they were going through organizational change. And that led me to to some research and a PhD around um org change and and and how humans uh go through that process and how to best support them there. And it was just uh right place, right time cuz they were uh asking a lot of questions at that university, Michigan State, uh about how to design and redesign learning experiences and even the university itself. Um so a **[00:06:00]** colleague and I co-founded stood up uh the internal innovation center for Michigan State. Um headed up a lot of the the corporate collaborations and partnerships design thinking design sprints were were really hot at that time both in the corporate and in higher ed space. And so one thing led to another as as we stood up that internal innovation center collaborating with corporate partners. Pretty soon companies were asking us to come in and help them redesign their experiences. And uh one thing led to another and I was working with Jake Knap and John Zeratsky on on the the development and designs of of their uh design sprint workshops and active in that community. And that's where I initially connected to Voltage Control and and Douglas and I struck up a conversation at that point and he said, "Hey, would you would you be interested in helping voltage control build out uh uh training programs and and facilitation uh programs and that's when I hopped over into that space. So nice. I really want to get into design thinking as well because I know listeners will get a kick out of that. But before we get into that, what is the difference? And I ask you because of the background that you just explained, adult learning versus childhood learning. What I know there's a big difference. Could you just tell our listeners a little bit about the differences between how we as adults learn versus how children learn? uh just in a general sense because I know there's a lot of research on it and and most of us don't know about it. Absolutely. Well, one one thing I'd say before we get into that is um I think too often uh folks who come in to **[00:08:00]** designing learning experiences only or or have limited training and it's it's mainly on the on the pedagogical side of things versus the androogical side of things. And so they take what they'd use for um classroom experiences and just plop that right down in in working with adult learners. And it's not that there aren't some good analoges there, but I think you miss out um on some important pieces of what it means to motivate adults um in in learning and and important to to be thinking about ways that um uh adults anchored in purpose and having agency will be much more bought into uh what you're putting into into place. Obviously, you know, with where individuals are in terms of brain development and um where they are in in their human experience, they're going to be more or less open to to certain certain things and have different levels of of agency. And so, when it comes to childhood learning or adult learning, there's just different factors that are are at play. So, for example, when I'm thinking about putting together learning experiences for adults, I'm thinking about uh life experiences they've had. I'm thinking about uh uh schema that I can already tap into um that's that's relevant for them. I'm also thinking about their motivations and what would be um motivating for them and getting bought into the to the experience I'm creating, which is going to be different for for kids in in a space. Also, you have different levels of agency, right? When we're talking about um uh adults maybe choosing into certain experiences and and kids being in a in a public school classroom and having to be there, right? So, just the there's different layers of what um what you **[00:10:00]** can can use in in putting together putting together those pieces. So, I mean, we could talk a long time about all the different shades there. I'd say at the end of the day helpful for people to have um perspectives from both spaces because there are some good analoges that you can pull from pull from each in support of where you're hoping to go, but it's not a direct, hey, you can use the exact same techniques you would use for kids as you would use for for adults because they're just at different points in their lives, different points in in their development. and um you're going to tap into to different elements in in order to support them in in growing in the direction that they want to. One thing I would say though when it comes to to uh adults, unfortunately at points, this is why I I so loved um teaching uh the age that I did often times uh sophomores and juniors here in in the US is how open they were to asking really deep questions of identity at that point that unfortunately for some adults, right, they're more fixed fixed in their ways or at least at that point are fixed and are less say open to entertaining some of the things that you would bring in in design thinking experiences, right? And think about all the way back then to elementary school, right? You know, those kindergarteners are much more open to sketching, drawing, coloring, and here we're we're um having to to really scaffold adults back into that space, you know. So, I've heard from a few of our guests in the learning and development space that parallel. Some had experience in teaching kids before, some didn't, but many **[00:12:00]** were just dropped in to a training role. Some cases a leadership role and then a training role. Sometimes just directly into a training role. And all everything you're saying makes a lot of sense. Do you think there's resources, especially with how technology is today, that people can use to learn about that adult learning concept so they can understand the differences and perhaps perform better. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's some great uh just off the cuff here, this is a nice thing about uh having having a computer in the background. uh some of my favorites here. If I pull this up and you could put this in in some show notes for for folks. So, um a couple of favorites for me. Uh Julie Dirkson's work designed for how people learn. It's a great great resource resource there that gets to some key learning and especially um adult learning principles. She has a new one as well. Here, I'll pull pull that up. That's specifically about uh designing learning experiences uh that support folks through through change. So, talk to the elephant is is a recent one there which uh you know taps into some of the frames that that Jonathan height brought to us and thinking about humans and change and the writer writer and the elephant there which which does get to some key pieces around behavior change. um and adults. And then also aptly titled um how people learn uh is a is a great resource that um is from the National Research Council uh in the division of behavioral and social sciences and education. And this is an older resource the first one is and then there's a aptly titled how people learn too. uh and it's a nice compendium of of the key **[00:14:00]** research around uh uh adult learning that is is easily consumable and I would say both anchors approaches that I take um as a a learning designer and then also equip folks as we we help them think about designing workshops and and learning experiences. So couple couple good resources to draw. Thank you. Those are great resources. I'll link them in the show notes as well for people to find because sometimes it's just hard to find this information. Many people don't even know about design thinking at all. They've never heard the term. And I remember when we were in college, finishing college, we heard about IDO and we started learning about that my partner at the time and I and it was so interesting, but it was something we stumbled upon and not everyone was was reading into that. And so what is design thinking? What how can people understand that concept? Yeah. So I mean in a nutshell design thinking is is taking the the the mindsets and and tools of of designers and deploying them in ways that help you know organizations teams um create uh the the best solutions to whatever challenges and opportunities they're facing. So, you know, and and IDO to to your to your point there and and the D school at Stanford really uh did a great job getting this out more more publicly. We're we're finding that hey, you know, designers uh approach problems in some really meaningful meaningful ways. They spend time really understanding uh the the needs of the folks at the core of this problem or opportunity space. spend time defining the contours of of the problem versus just going to solve a problem. I think too often folks jump to let's solve a problem and **[00:16:00]** it may not be the right problem to solve because they haven't spent time problem framing. So let's really understand the needs of the folks at the core of this. Use that to define just what the problem is that we should be tackling. Then ideulate potential solutions. really opening things up, choosing from those solutions to then then prototype some initial some initial steps forward and then testing those out with the the real users of the solution to see if we're going in the right right direction um before we invest a lot of time and and energy. And that mindset and that approach has been the core of of some really cool and key key solutions at many of the top companies, brands, etc. Um, but it's not something that should be limited to to those designers. It's it's something that anybody really is capable of learning learning to do and then bringing it into to to their work. Nice. There's a parallel with what we do, which is software engineering. And if if you're doing things right or at least in the way I like to do them where you go in and you first observe and ask questions you were saying that you build prototypes even before getting into implementing anything. You get real feedback from the actual users before building because like you said you you probably might not even be building the right thing. So doing these prototypes helps a lot in our space. So, how does that translate to other industries outside design and software? What what what would a prototype be in the real world, right? Yeah. Yeah. Know, this is this is a question I often times get, especially when I'm working with with educational and nonprofit audiences. It's like, **[00:18:00]** well, this is, you know, I know you use this with with uh these software or product companies, and I can see how this could go into a design of a new shoe or a new app, but what what does it mean for for me? And this is also something that we we advanced as as um we were doing work at Michigan State cuz we we deployed a lot of this around around learning experiences and even the design of of whole programs. you know, you can you can prototype just about anything because at the end of the day, a prototype is really just um an an early guess, tangible guess at a direction that you should go and and putting it into a into a form that allows you to test out that direction. So, um this could be uh a a process for for a team that might be mapped out in in terms of a of a process map. This could be new marketing copy that you you get out on a on a fake website or a facade of a website that gives you an opportunity as a as an organization or a new in in our case college or department seeing if hey the direction we're we're going to go is that going to resonate um with with folks. This could even be um we used to do this when we were working with folks on the the redesign of spaces. This could be shifting the way that things are set up in your space in some way to test out how do people experience that react um before you put put money into let's completely tear down or put up walls. You know, there are ways that even when we were **[00:20:00]** in the in the hub at Michigan State would uh test out different traffic patterns, right? So, what would it look like if people came in here and then went over here? there are ways to to direct and test that out before we'd invest any more time in that. So, I always tell folks, you know, prototyping is is a culture and is a is a mindset. It's about getting ideas out early and often and seeing if you're going in the right direction. And so, um you know, I'd encourage folks to to try that out even just in their in their meetings. What does it look like to develop an early version of an idea? maybe mock something up that people can work on together on piece of paper or or a digital format. Um or even just getting a few ideas out early on stickies can can can cultivate that prototyping culture and mindset. Getting ideas out early is huge. We absolutely struggle to perfect things even before it's relevant and so we waste a lot of time just just thinking how should we do this will people like it and we're just going round and round and round where some maybe smarter people will decide no let's just do it especially kids you were talking about kids and then preschoolers etc. So especially younger crowds now with all that we have the technology available uh they can prototype something immediately they have an idea they'll go unlovable or whatever just build it and see if people like it and then some of those explode and and there's a lot to be learned from that I think from what you're saying there's if you iterate fast on things that might not be complete but that give **[00:22:00]** you feedback these mockups are very powerful Absolutely. Yeah. I always tell folks, you know, get get the you don't know if you're going the right direction until you you get that out there and you can react to something, your team can react to something. So, better to have multiple things out there that we can then narrow from versus trying to narrow it first. And we may miss something that never gets out there, you know. And I think that's something that it's it's a it's a muscle that can be developed, right? that that um you can get better the more reps you have in just throwing ideas out there. Um and then converging after after you you have a bunch to to choose from. And that that just that can even come down to how you share things in in meetings, right? How do you create a culture where um people are willing to to throw out the the ideas that may seem crazy at first, but it's interesting to see which ones ultimately live on and sometimes at those ones that uh folks would have censored right at at first because they thought, "Oh, you know, this isn't this isn't completely baked uh yet." That we we had a call yesterday. It's like a group call thing for sort of a coaching type thing. And and I came in late to to the call and a guy was explaining an idea he had and when he finished explain it it's a simple idea but the concept the the person who was taking care of the of the call was like you have a brilliant business idea like you you already have everything it's perfect. And then he just went on to explain how he could **[00:24:00]** just blow that up immediately because he already had everything. It was just he had as an idea and was still trying to massage it, but just with the little information he gave on the call was enough to spark. Okay, that's great. True thing. So, it was it was very interesting to see as a spectator that that happened. Mhm. And and it sounds like that that the space was set up that that was that was welcome and then you could you could build from there. And also too when when those spaces are created then you you don't end up wasting a ton of time going in holding things back putting in a lot of work and then finding out oh actually we didn't go in the right direction. We need to spin all that out. And and organizations are are guilty of that. you know, these one, two, and threeear cycles to only find out that, oh, actually, we invest all this time and and money and and it's not going in in the direction that people want versus like let's just mock something up early and see like, yeah, do people want this or what pieces we have a hunch, right? I think prototyping is is a form of of hypothesizing, right? you prototype when you have some questions to answer and um that then guides us to say like, "Yep, let's keep this piece or let's let's um uh uh add to or or remove these pieces and let's try it again." You've mentioned meetings a few times. Can you tell me about magical meetings? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you're you're referring to a a product piece of our curriculum, uh, Magical Meetings, which, uh, is really focused on helping people improve **[00:26:00]** their meeting culture. Um, and I'd say just in a in a thumbnail sketch here, magical meetings are those ones that um, don't feel like the the typical meeting and in what many of us, I'm sure, have experienced that that feel like a waste of time. um feel like they go on forever, feel like you don't or haven't moved the needle on things. Magical meetings are are those experiences that also hopefully some of us have had and want to recapture where um we're really able to to move things meaningfully in terms of our work. We're we're building relationships with with people that that that we work with and um that time just passes. It it almost seems magic. uh to to to us that we were able to to get work done together. It was meaningful. We were in a state of flow that helped us move uh in the directions we're wanting to go and and our magical meeting curriculum and training experiences helped to set people up to design more of those. And and that's anchored in in some key principles again that that the best uh collaborative leaders and and uh facilitators use in anchoring their design in purpose and making sure that the right people are in the room in putting together the right sets of of methods. And um when it comes to meetings especially, we we introduce folks to this core mantra of ours which is do the work in the meeting. Too often uh uh folks end up talking about what they're going to do and then they save the work until afterwards. We work with people on setting up h how do you create an experience where people can actually advance the work right there? This gets to **[00:28:00]** the prototyping culture cuz it's like oh this is a great idea. Let's build something together right now, right? versus let let let's wait and and come back and and a lot of that is based in really being clear on purpose and and what you're wanting to move forward. Another mantra of ours in in anytime we work with with organizations and at the core of this curriculum is no purpose, no meeting. And so um that's where a lot of meetings go off the rails is is folks uh gather people together without a clear sense of why. And so then everything else uh uh goes off because of that. If you're not clear on why you're gathering people, then you're not going to choose the the right methods. You're not going to have the right people in the room. And then we're just going to replicate these these um not magical experiences. We'll say that non-magical. Yes. This brings up a couple of very interesting points. One is cost per meeting, which is now being discussed how much each of these meetings is costing you. And two, if you say you got the right people in the meeting, that means one, okay, you're paying for those people to be in the meeting, which means if they can actually work during the meeting in something, then you're saving money because now the right people are there. So that means everyone can do what they need to do in the meeting. And it's like you're saving some cash at the same time that you're actually building something. Yeah. Yeah. Both you you're you're saving some cash and that you're being most efficient there also too because you have the right people in there, you're you're getting the the the **[00:30:00]** highest value, right? If you have the right mix of folks in the room, then the solutions that'll come out will be that much more valuable. Um, so time is not only wasted, you you you also are hopefully going to be surprised by then the valuable outputs that that come out there. And I think too often because folks don't start with purpose at the core and and again back to our our competency areas here, purposed, inclusive, clear, crafted, adaptive. If you're not clear on your purpose, well, then who you invite or include is not going to be uh the the right folks. And so everything just cascades cascades from there. I think people just don't don't don't think as deliberately as they could um about that and don't meaningfully design meetings in the same way that they would um you know, workshops and these these impactful experiences that they're putting together. And I'd argue that for a lot of folks when they ask where, you know, where could I start with this? It doesn't have to begin with a large multi-day or multimonth uh set of workshops, it could just be in this hour meeting that you have on the calendar. What would it look like to revisit the core purpose? How how might you redesign if that was more at the core? Do you have the right people in that space? You know, those are those are fundamental questions. I think that will resonate with a lot of people especially remote where you have a meeting weekly meeting for example with part of your team and maybe a third party provider and there's many people that never participate in the call. They're just there for listening purposes and maybe they'll have some input. So perhaps **[00:32:00]** they don't really need to be on the call. They could get a transcription automatically sent to them with the key points and and followup steps. But that way that would make the meeting more efficient. You still would have that staff being able to work on whatever they actually need to work on and you'll get further. Right. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's a I I've found that um when they take this seriously, uh it can be really refreshing for companies to to uh free people up, right? All of a sudden it's like, "Oh, I I guess I don't have to be there now. Now I have more time and and then when I am there my time is going to be uh utilized meaningfully. So that's especially um these routine meetings that we have those are the ones that I think are ripest for redesign because often times they they just exist by routine now. We've stopped thinking about why we do them. We've stopped thinking about um why certain people are there. And I I always tell folks, you know, those are the ones to to to go after first, right? Let's ask these fundamental questions, then give yourself and the people their license to redesign and also to take it off their calendars if it's not if it's not going to be meaningful. And there are other ways to to get them uh the information, especially if that if you find out that at the end of the day, this was just about, you know, half of it just about disseminating information. Well, all right. That could go out via email and then let's set up this time for us to actually do work together. That's good. People who are listening, if you **[00:34:00]** didn't know, Zoom and many other tools, but Zoom now does it. It will transcribe your whole meeting. Google Meet does that as well. And it might even give you key points, etc. And if it doesn't, just drop it in chatgpt free version or whatever. It'll give you a summary and key points and next steps and everything. So, you don't even have to have someone taking notes. This could be done for you automatically such that you just enjoy your meeting and learn and grow and build and then whoever needs to receive the information. Absolutely. They can receive it offline. Yep. Yep. And that's also too, you know, that's something that um we we just have that as a a default setting. um it frees me up to to be more present in in facilitating or guiding teams versus need to be taking those notes. you can ask live there the AI companion to fill in some of the blanks and then you know I use those transcripts and summaries to come back to as I'm thinking about next steps and yeah to your point that could be sent to folks who who aren't there maybe don't need to be part of the core conversation but just need to be need to be informed. Um, and then when you do invite folks, then that really means that you've thought deliberately about them being there. And so hopefully they then show up differently because it's like, okay, I'm here for a reason. And so I I'm going to dive in and and show up in a in a much more active uh frame. I have two questions, technical questions regarding meetings. You have vast experience with big enterprise. I know some of your clients are NASA and Meta. **[00:36:00]** So, is there a good number for time or length of a meeting in general? And two, do do people really need to have weekly meetings in their calendar or is it more of a one yes, one no kind of thing or is it completely based on who it is? Yeah, great great question and and I'll have a I'll have a a complex answer here hopefully um helpful for you in the audience. It it depends and I'll and I'll lay out how how it depends here. So, always depends on purpose. What are you hoping to accomplish and where are you hoping uh uh to to go? Why why you're gathering people people together. So, if it's um you know, stand up and and update and decide on where to move things forward, well then that's going to be a a quicker gathering, quicker meeting that um you know, we're talking about 30 to 60 minutes there. And when we're when we're talking about Zoom and those uh virtual spaces, those kinds of meetings should should be kept uh brief or briefer, right? We don't want people sitting on sitting on screens for for so long. If we're thinking about more immersive, we're going to do work, we're going to move things forward, maybe we're introducing new concepts or changes, those might be more half day, full day experiences there that that we're putting into place. Um, that said, you you really need to think deliberately about how you're breaking those up for folks to make sure you're getting the the the maximum um value there. So, uh, I always will tell folks that, you know, when it comes to breaks, you want to a make sure you have them and you're thinking about putting those into **[00:38:00]** place every 60 to 90 minutes in your in your agenda for those longer pieces, uh, depending upon what you're asking folks to do. So, if it's a lot of people just sitting and watching, I'm going to air more toward the 60 minute mark to take that break versus the 90 um in, you know, 90 minutes. If I'm having people get into breakouts and we're talking, we're really active. Well, then that time is going to pass much more quickly and I'm not not demanding so much of of folks. And the same thing for the for the in-person space there. So, again, think back to your purpose. what am I hoping to advance here? And then you think about uh time time accordingly. And to the point of our conversation earlier, if if the point of the meeting is really just to to share out information, do you need a synchronous meeting for that? Or could that be uh a succinct bulletointed email? Could that be a Loom? Could that be a Slack message? So that when you gather people synchronously you are maximizing the value of folks there which the the the maximum value there is is collaboration right so doing something together that's that's and I give give you license to um jettison those uh just updates or maybe have that occupy less of that meeting time so that you can really free up some space for people to to to to do work together. This is really helpful for me personally. We do a lot of calls with clients, for example, updates, that sort of stuff. And you'll find with time that many of those, the vast majority of the call is going to be updates and then a few questions. Those with Loom, **[00:40:00]** for those who don't know, Loom is a fantastic little tool. It's there's a free version. You can also pay for it. But if you've ever tried to record video on your computer uh or or just a message, this just makes it so much easier. You click on it, you start recording, you can see yourself there, you can put yourself on the screen, you can make yourself larger or smaller. The idea I in my opinion is you just click record, talk to the camera, show what you need to show, stop, and it's ready. It's already there in the cloud. It'll give you a link. You can paste it in your email and it's done. You don't have to edit. You don't have to upload it, wait for it to proc. No, it's just it's there immediately accessible and it does a transcription for you. It adds captions for you and the AI the the AI amazing little tool. I didn't use it before, but I started receiving a bunch of them and so I I did away for the most part my screen flow and my Wistia and my other things that had to do many steps and so this makes sense. So doing a loom instead of a longer weekly call if it's updates just send them that they'll be able to just read it if they want. If they want a visual part they can watch it they can watch it in 2x if they want. Yeah. That's I I often times will do that. It's like this, you know, 2x there and that cuz it was really just a hey, pay attention to this thing or I want you to check out this this new piece that we've put in and that's it, **[00:42:00]** you know. Yeah. And you can leave meetings for as you were just saying very succinct. This is what we are talking about. This is what we're working on. We are actually collaborating in the meeting. Yep. Anything else can be done at whatever is convenient for the recipient. Yep. And that's something that you know is the core of of our work with folks. I is really improving collaboration at the end of the day. I think to to your point earlier, so much human capital is wasted in in not providing the right conditions to to collaborate together. And so much of our work um in in companies is hinges on the quality of that collaboration. So um whatever we can do and have done to support folks in improving that that's a that's a key piece of of our work. um because the the the future and and the value of our work as as companies, especially as the landscape is is shifting so rapidly, really comes back to the quality of our collaboration. So, and you can get better at leading that. That's that's based in in our ability to to to facilitate as as leaders. And um that's going to be the difference maker uh for folks moving moving forward whether they're in the office, whether they're outside the office, whether it's hybrid. Um getting better at collaborating is is going to be the key differentiator already is. So nice. Is there a I I want to get into actual logistics of the the physical meetings, but for for those of us who use virtual meetings, is there something like Zoom that people can use that's a little better for collaboration or is Zoom basically the norm? So, um we're a big fan of Zoom, **[00:44:00]** uh but we use it oftentimes in collaboration with with other tools. So often times what we're doing is a is a combination of zoom and muro so that uh you have both the the affordances of zoom to both have plenary conversation and then uh flexible breakout opportunities cuz we're often times uh working with larger groups and it's essential to make those larger groups smaller and and you do that through breakouts and Zoom has has um led over over the years in in that ability and still still does. It's it's our it's our favorite tool to go to both for um designing and and putting people into those breakouts and also giving people the flexibility to move in in and out. And then we use uh Murro, great visual collaboration tool there to to then go hands-on together. Because anything you could you could do on a physical whiteboard, you're going to be able to do that and more in in Murro when we're mocking things up when we're just even doing some basic affinitizing of of sticky notes. Here we all are on Zoom and let's now put into place initial ideas, identifying themes and then talking in relation to to that mirror board. So that's a great tip. We use Mirro with one of our clients in India. They they use it but we we collaborate on it and it's been a great experience because they just have everything there and so you're on the Zoom call and then I can go on the mirror but you you don't even have to share screen. So you can still have your full zoom and then since it has um the the real time aspect of it, you can see what other people are doing in **[00:46:00]** the mirror board in real time. And for those of you who haven't seen it, it's great. It's it's worth taking a little preview into what it can do because like Eric was saying is there's everything you can actually do in a whiteboard. you have this full canvas, but then also you can import other data from other tools and embed task management right there. And it's just yeah, it's a great that's a great tip. Tons tons of helpful templates there, too. So, it's great, you know, for folks who are just starting out or or developing their abilities to facilitate different kinds of meetings or workshops. many times there's a lot of the templates already in the the murverse that folks can can put into place so you don't have to create things there. Um, also the AI sidekicks, a new feature. um they're utilizing AI to make sense of what's emerging on the board is is really really um cool and and and meaningful and and helps advance the conversation to the point that you know you can select a group of stickies and and ask the sidekick to you know identify themes to suggest next steps out of the meeting those kinds of things that um you know would sometimes get rushed through. The other thing I'd say too that's great for for Miro is that it it keeps things documented. I mean, how often have we been in a in an in-person space and and try to think back to what was that thing on the sticky? Did we get a picture of it? Well, it's all right there. So, we we actually end up with our with our clients doing even in the in-person space, we'll have folks in Miro in some way, **[00:48:00]** even face to face because of that value and continuity. Right. Yeah, that's right. What I really liked about that experience because all the project is there months. Yeah, absolutely. Months of data are there and we can always go back and like you said, what did that sticky say? Well, it's stuck there on the board and it's not just the data from that call. It could be all the calls. It could be whatever development you're doing. It could be prototyping, uh, mockups, anything. And it's just there and it's absolutely I didn't know about the AI stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's uh it's newer there within the last few months. So I' I'd check it out. Um I believe I believe it's publicly available now. We've we've worked with MRA over the years, so had early access to some of those things, but I believe it's now it's now out um for for uh uh users. So nice. I'll I'll check that out. Speaking of AI, what should leaders know about the use of AI in their company? Yeah, I mean that's a big that's a big question. That's a big question. Well, um I I mean out of the gate, especially when it comes to to leading collaboration, um that it's a it's a a really useful um tool and teammate in helping to augment your your collaborative uh abilities. So with with our clients, we're working with them on um approaching AI as a collaborator, as a team member that can bring new levels of subject matter expertise that can help to expedite some of these prototyping processes. I mean, it's amazing now what AI can do to help us take an idea from something that's just in our heads to making it more **[00:50:00]** tangible for people to react to andor creating a whole series of different versions that then we can we can end up uh reacting to and make some some decisions about that frees us up to really focus on then strategically making some some choices there. Um, you know, I I think and hope that that leaders will see it uh again dynamically as something that can be embedded with within teams to augment the the great capabilities of what's what's already there. A and then freeing us up to collaborate with teammates in in even more meaningful meaningful ways. And uh you know another thing I'm I'm seeing and encouraging leaders to do is to break ourselves of just seeing AI as the the assistant that goes and gets us things either before or after a meeting. That um AI can be a real time collaborator and and teammate even to the point that we were working with folks out at uh Southby. We had a session on AI teaming and big workshop that we did there and we we had people try on different sort of AI relationships and personas and one of them was AI as co-f facilitator and so we gave them some different prompts that they could do during a meeting to help uh somebody as a leader or somebody guiding a meeting to make a decision real time like hey here's what's happening here's what I'm noticing what what would you suggest in terms of of a shift or approach what might be some good questions or prompts that we could give based on what I'm seeing here. And that helps us to to to really extract the highest value out of out of AI as a tool versus um uh or or in **[00:52:00]** ways beyond just hey go and do this research for me or hey could you do this email which is is helpful right but I think it it keeps us from from uh seeing and experiencing other affordances as well. Very nice. I saw that in action today. We were we had a meeting this particular client in India and we were looking at a code that they had. They had to do an emergency migration for our site and we were looking at a code to figure out what it was doing and we had these two files open and we just and we were examining and we had found three of the items and so I commented on one of them like, "Oh, this is the DPMO source." And then I did tab and the AI automatically went to the other one and told me what it was because it could read both files. I'm like, "Wait, I is that right?" And I asked him, he was, "Yeah, that's the right one." And so we didn't have to then we checked, of course, but it but it just saved us a few minutes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and that I think then that's a good question for for uh leaders to to begin asking themselves. All right, if if this now helps cover those tasks that would have would have kept us um and and occupied our time before, what does that free us up now to do? And how does that help us go even further in and and deeper in in our work? If we can uh more automate and or pass off some of those those tasks, right? All of a sudden that frees and gives you back some time. What does that help you to **[00:54:00]** do in terms of creating something new in terms of thinking more strategically about the work with that client? And if we can we can be purposeful about that, I think we can um get get to deeper uh places together. Nice. This has been fantastic, Eric. You've shared so many good insights and we're going to get some snippets of those to share to the listeners as well on social. What would be a recommendation if you had one for people that are in the leadership area or in training? Yeah. Yeah. As far as next steps and and things that they could do, well, I I mean, I I wouldn't be doing my job if I if I didn't say come to voltagecontrol.com. There's plenty of ways that you can you can level up your your abilities to to to guide collaboration and and and lead teams through um bunch of free resources. We have in terms of templates. Um uh we have free free webinars. uh in in core fundamentals in facilitation, collaborative leadership. We have certification programs in facilitation. And then um for companies that want to help level up their teams, we have uh uh an opportunity for for trainings that um introduce you to the fundamentals of of facilitation and and collaborative leadership. and we've had the great opportunity to work with, you know, as you pointed out, uh, a lot of top companies and organizations all over all over the world. So, voltagecontrol.com, you'll see a uh plenty of resources there. Um, also too, within the last uh 6 months, we launched a uh a free online facilitation lab community. uh so digital space where leaders of all stripes can can skillshare, can crowdsource ideas, can be in these kinds of conversations like **[00:56:00]** we're having here. Um and those are tied to uh regional meetups actually. So last time I was seeing we're were uh over 50 different regions all over the world monthly meetups where folks get together and both have these conversations but also practice different um facilitation methods with each other and get get feedback. So all the details there voltagecontrol.com um and uh can continue that that uh journey. Um and I'd also say too always love to have these conversations with folks. So happy to share uh my email uh with you that you can share with folks to to pick that up too. Perfect. I'll put that in the show notes. I'll put your resources that you shared as well and the link to Voltage Control. Everyone should head over to their site. They've got so many good resources on there that I found myself amazingly interesting. So, thank you so much, Eric, for coming on to the show and I look forward to speaking again. Absolutely. A lot of fun. Thank you.