Guide To Teaching Course

Recently taught a workshopand sent out a surveyafterwards and had a lot offeedback from people wantingme to kind of curate thatinto an online course,and I'm kind of tryingto figure out nowwhether to go the route of likea documented PDF style courseor to do a video or acombination of the two,as well as how to plan out anddetermine what materials shouldbe inside that courseor what gets divvied upinto multiple courses ratherthan an information overloadand dump.And then on themarketing side, likehow can I stretchout my future revenueto capitalize on that asbest as possible, so createsomething of value?But then perhaps two courseswould produce more than one.So that's kind of whereI'm going at the moment.Do you have abackground teaching?I do not.My wife is a teacherand I've beenworking with her a little bit,as well as some other friendsthat are educators.So how did this wholething begin for you?From what aspect?Well, why did you startteaching or why are youthinking about this and askingthese kinds of questions?I'm just curious.Yeah, I really lovehelping people.I feel like just kindof the same as you.We've all learnedfrom making mistakes.And if I can help some peoplejump up ahead a little bitby learning from someof those mistakes,figuring out what's workedfor me or what hasn't worked.I love to pass thaton, and while Ido a lot of that atno cost for folks,I do it as well for cost.But I'm also tryingto figure outhow I can monetize the timeand effort and value for meto create these materialsand put that togetherinto something.And I prefer doingworkshops and/or coursesrather than necessarilyjust public speaking.OK, that's good to know.How long do theworkshops tend to be?Generally, about two hours, andI'm working on a four hour oneas well.How much are youcharging for this?The current one I didfor creative self,which I'm also on staff for,so I didn't charge for it.So I would just be givingback the courses I'm picturingdoing it to 50 to 500.So I love teaching.I'm very passionate about it.I've taught at ArtCenter for over 15 years.I've had a lot of coachingexperience and trial and error,and the whole futureplatform is about teaching.So this is a topic I'msuper happy to share.I just don't want to overshareand share things that aren'trelevant to you right now.So let's first form one questionand then I'll go from there.OK, I have enough context now,so just give me one questionand then I'll tryand tackle that.Sure I would say, how doyou plot out your outlinesfor the course in terms of.What to cover and maybethe amount of informationwithin that perfect.What is the workshopcalled right now?What's the general topic runninga profitable design business?What three things.Do you want to teach?As part of this course, whatare the learning objectives,the top three?I would say gettingcomfortable with.Talking to clients in termsof services, value and price,the other would behow to grow in termsof adding to your team, whetherthat be hiring contractorsor hiring in-house and.The third, I eitherneed to look at my listor I don't know well enoughyet, so I'll leave it at that.OK, that's fine.Usually people have too manythings and they can't focus,so this is a great group tohave this conversation with,and there's a lot of overlapwith what you're sayingand the things thatI've been teaching.So this is I'm preparedfor this already.So he wants to teachcreative people howto run a profitable business.So part of beingprofitable to himis learning how totalk to clients.And then there are manysub points to that.So we need to learnhow to talk to clients.And the other thingthat you're saying,you didn't use thesewords, but you're talkingabout how to scale your team.Growing beyond one person.But making profit,I think there hasto be a financial componentin here, doesn't there?Yeah, Yeah.How the big projects,how to manage money,because I can learn how to talkto clients, I can grow my teamand I can be out ofbusiness really fast.Sure so some partof this, so howwould you phrase that thenthat could be your third point?OK what do you think?Um, yeah, I usually try tostay out of some of the like,go talk to your accountant,accountant or CPA aspects,but one of thethings I do cover is,hey, let's figureout your budget.What is your bottom line?Whether it be let's talkyour mortgage, your expenses,whatever those thingsare or whateverit costs to run your business.Let's analyze everyservice we use,whether it beQuickBooks or whatnot.How much?And making sure for more earlybusiness owners or freelancersto make sure that you'reactually covering.It's always shocking to seehow many people don't chargeenough to cover their expenses.Yeah, the rest of that.Like I said, I kind ofoff put to, hey, go talkto the right peopleto figure outshould be an LLCscorp, et cetera.And then from thatmanagement side,I go more intoproject managementof how to smoothlymanage a project,manage a client, communication.The people thatyou're working with,contractors, your in-houseteam and things of that nature.So I know that's a little.Different angle, but I hopethat answers the question.No, it's excellent.It's almost as if you're readingthe business boot camp coursecurriculum.So this is perfect, right?So project managementhas to be part of it.We determine for thebusiness boot campthat it's going to haveto be done in seven partsbecause I couldn't figure outhow else to figure this thing.So project managementhas to be one of them.How to scale theteam, how to bidand what you're talking aboutis not teaching a finance classbecause you're notqualified to do that,nor do you want to do thatand designers don't want that.But you probablyneed to teach themhow to figure out theirbreak, even point.And there's a simple formula,if you look it up the breakeven point so that it'snot costing you any money,you can run forever.You're not going to besuper profitable, obviously,because it's justbreaking even point.But to do high levelaccounting stuffso that their eyes don't rollinto the back of their heads.Plus, teaching thisstuff in two to fourhours is that'snot a lot of time,and you have to covera lot of ground.Ok?of the three or four thingsthat you've mentioned now,what do you think isthe most high valuething for this classor this workshop?I would say the aspectof communicationwith clients thatinitial get in the door,I think that's wherepeople struggle the mostand obviouslythat's the part thatleads to scaling thebusiness and everything.OK, that's perfect.So everybody else that'spaying attention to this.Do you agree or disagree or haveanything you want to add 2 to 3or four things wejust talked about?Agree definitely,lead generationjust went up a notch onmy scale of the thingsthat I want to know more about.OK anybody else?I'll add one morething into that,because I do feel like it'spart of the early conversationprocess is a lot ofpeople always askabout contract writing andgetting that whole process,along with theproposal or master SJW,whoever you send that out,really understanding that, Ithink that's something that'salso very foreign to people,right?OK have you done anykind of developmentwith your potential audience.And floated out sometopics to see whichones that get most excited over?Yeah, Yeah.I sent out a survey afterwards.We collected that information.So I've got all that backat home at the moment.But Yes.OK and basically, I'massuming then the feedbackthat you got backs up what wejust talked about right now.Yeah, yeah, it definitely does.I think.Where to point thisconversation a little bit moreis where where's the cut?Is it a course interms of conversation,like the whole bidding process,conversation, contract, etcetera?And of course, nextcourse kind of next topic,or if it's a larger, nastiercourse that covers a bit more.Right?well, you have tomake a decisionwhat is valuableto your audienceand what you'remost interested in.So to go deep on anyone of these topics,it would take hours.So it's a high level overview.I think you can cover as muchas what you said in two to fourhours, but to gosuper deep, it'sgoing to be verydifficult to do that.So you kind of have tofind that balance, right?It's just one ofthose deep dives.Or is this an overviewto help peopleunderstand general concepts?Totally and I thinkthe time wouldbe much longerfor something thatwas online if it's recordedor if it's a document for us.When I said that thetwo to four hours,that's the lengththat I'll usuallyhave available if giving thisworkshop at a conference.So that's why there'sthat time limitand it is much more high leveloverview in those situations.OK so typically andI encourage everybodythat's interested indoing this, whether you'regiving a public presentation oryou're going to do a workshopor you want to developa course that youcan sell online and getsome recurring revenue.This is fantastic.What you do is youtake a particular topicand you break it down intothe three learning outcomesor what in academia they callrubric if you look up a rubric.Basically, it sets upthe learning expectationsand how you're going to getthere and the judging criteriaof whether or not youwere successful or not.So you guys just lookup that word rubric,and if I'm organized,I will try to finda rubric that I hadto fill out whenI was teaching at Art Center.And I will post thatwithin the group, ok?And if I forget,somebody just hassle me.Hopefully I saved it,but I hated doing it.So I don't.I don't know if I kept it.So usually there'sa grid, there'sa matrix on the top five columnsare the five things that youwant your students to learn.And then each oneof those topics,then on the left column,you kind of have genericallysome other categoriesin terms of howthey're going to be judged.And then in those littleboxes where they cross overas in some kind ofgrid, you tell themwhat it is thatyou're going to doand this forces you to breakdown what it is that, you know,into what myfaculty advisor saidis called a sharedconceptual frameworkthat we both need to know whatthe heck we're talking about.So when you formalize it,everybody now is very clear.This is what I'm going to learn.These are the greatgrading criteria,and this is how we'regoing to determine that.So what Peter isgoing to have to dois to look at either a twohour window, a four hourwindow or whatever,and to determinewhat's realistic for himto teach in that time.And based on the stylethat he wants to do it.So he's talking about howto talk to the client,how to scale the team.We're talking about a little bitof some maybe contracts, scopeof work document.And then he's also addedproject management in there.If all things are equal,you would take the numberof topics divided by the time.And allow for thatmuch information.Now peter, if now we have kindof a general outline, whatare the next steps thatyou're going to have to take?So depending well,no, it doesn't reallydepend on the style of thecourse of it's documentedor video, I'd say writingout an outline for myselfof what specifically pertainingto those topics I wantto cover the priorities of.Outcomes of that andthen start to structurewith, I would think,examples some homeworkthat the viewer or reader can,can kind of study off of that.And if I do video,I think it'd becool to do some like role playor something included in that.So they get to seesome example of it.And yeah, start executing.OK I think I'veshared this before.But in case Ihaven't this, I foundto be the mosteffective way to teach.It's very difficult. Number1 is three parts of this, OK,so if you guys are interested,you have to pay attention.There are three parts.Part number one, tellthem what the big idea is.This is the main concept.You can't innovateunless you can'tinnovate through innovation.You have to be ableto jump the curve.That's the big idea.Then you tell a story.And this is where you, thedetective, the researcher,can either look intoyour own experiencesor you can justread case studiesand find a good storyor several stories thatillustrate that concept.And then lastly, yougive them an exercise.Because when youapply what you learn,that's how you trulyremember the concept.The last part is verydifficult. So actually, they'reall very difficult, but thelast one is especially difficultbecause designing theexercise to make it memorablerequires a differentset of skills.So let's talk aboutthis Guy Kawasaki.He's a well-known publicspeaker and he gives talksall the time.So one of those thingsis he has a top 10 list.And his top 10 list.One of them is aboutinnovation, so he saysyou have to jump the curve.So that's a big idea, it'svery easy to remember.Then he tells the storyabout jumping the curve,and he tells a story aboutthe ice business ice 1.0.You guys have heard metell this story before.He tells a story ofthe printer, and hesays that here's theproblem with businesses.They think they can iteratetheir way to innovation,and it's not possible, he says.If you look at everymajor shift in technology,the companies that are mostprimed to innovate fail to.So somebody else steps in andthen dominates and then sendsthe other went out of business.So let's look at this.He says, if you look atthe Daisy will printer,so when we're getting into thedigital age, there's a balland it has characters onit and it strikes the page.So you can senda document to it.And the I think it's calledthe Daisy wheel printer.It starts to strike the page.Well, the nextemerging technologywas something called thedot matrix printer, whereit was going toprint lines of dotsand the dots connected makeup letter forms on a page.It says the leadingmanufacturer, the Daisy wheelprinter, whateverbrand didn't make it.So the dot matrix,this is now the airof the dot matrix printer.Right, and then it wouldgo into the laser printerand the dot matrix printerdidn't make that jump either.So he tell story after story.And then after a while,you're like, man,you cannot iterate your way tomaking an innovative company.You have to be ableto jump the curve.That's what he means.He has no exercise.So the last part ofthat is if you reallywanted to make surethat lesson was sticky,you would design an exercise,I don't know of one.I can't make up one on the spot.But you woulddesign the exercise.You could work backwards, too,you could think of the exercisefirst and think about what arethe lessons to learn from it.I'll give you an example.Whenever I do aworkshop or talk,sometimes I play a game of 21questions with my audience.And over the yearsafter doing it,I start to realize the profoundlessons that can be learnedfrom such a simple exercise.But I have to be a good teacherand pull those things outand highlight those moments.So here's the framework.I would go into a room, I wouldsay we're going to play a game.You're allowed to meet.You're allowed to askme any kind of questionas long as theanswer's Yes or no.I'm going to thinkof a person livingor dead, real or imaginary.And you have 21 questionsbefore you have to guess,and I'll give you threeguesses at the end.If you're able to guess, youwin, if you're not, you lose.It's a very difficult game.And I warned themahead of time, I say,if you ask me and a questionthat isn't super clear,I'm allowed tointerpret your question.Any which way I want.And I'm not doingthis to sabotage you.So we would go and so ifyou're in a room of 100 people.Chaos ensues.Some people don't even waitfor all the questions to come,and they use one of thequestions, as is it?Harry Potter.And then the audience.Everybody else that'sparticipating in the workshopgets really mad at those people.People will repeat questionsthat have already been asked.The audience gets reallymad at those peoplebecause they're nottaking any notes.Most of the time, peopleare not asking questionsany kind of structured way.So by the end of it, theyhave no clue who it is.Sometimes they're able toguess, and it just pure luckthat they're able to guess.Completely random, not based onany kind of system of whittlingdown the possible options.So what do you learnfrom something like this,will you learn is first ofall, it's very difficult.To have a strategy witha bunch of strangers.One group might have a strategyand another group might not.So those people askrandom questions.So you can see is veryhard to get alignment.And you also realize something.Answers are not worth anything.The value is in the question.So the smartestpeople ask questionsthat eliminate possibilitiesreally quickly.Is this person male?No, that means every optionthat is a man or male and genderis off the board.So such a simple exercise,depending on how you frame itand you pull thingsout, can reallymake that a valuableexercise for people to learn.So when we'retalking to clients,they have an ideaof what they want.They don't know how tocommunicate it to you.Your job as a design personis to try to figure outwhat is it that they want?So you have to askreally good questions.So you can develop a systemof structuring your questionsin such a way that you can getto the answer pretty quickly.So instead of 21questions in real life,you basically have an hourto work with a client,maybe less sometimes.But the danger is to walk awaywith an unclear picture of whatthey want their goals.What they think is good designand to go away and try and makethat.As crazy as that sounds,that's what most of us do.We have no idea ifit's a man or woman.We have no idea ofthis person is realor imaginary living or dead.We have no clue.And that's why we'reso disappointed whenwe come back to them andpresent a piece of design,so here it is.This is what you asked for.And they're like the no.That's not what wetalked about at all.But chances are you even younever even get to that point,because when you submityour proposal, your bid,they walk away thinking,how does this person evenknow what I want?They never even asked.So if you designexercises, you canmake the lesson reallyvaluable, easy to remember,and they're going to walk awaywith something like, wow, thatwas awesome.That's why I introducean element of rule playand a lot of theworkshops that I do,because now they have toapply what they learned.So, Peter.Tell them the big idea,find really great storiesto reinforce that andthen to build an exercise.So you can see ifyou do this properly,you could probably movethrough this pretty quickly,except for the exercisepart that will gobble upa lot of your time.And so you have to kindof just weigh it like,is it more importantthat they masterone concept or maybeit's just big ideastory, big ideas, storyand you can knock out10 of these things.You have questions, Peter.No, I think that helpsrefine some stuff down.It's time to start doing itin test tests all the time.I test new talks onyou guys all the time,you just don't know it.So I see what sticks, Isee where people lean in.I see where peopleare distractedand checking their iPhone.And you keep refining it.So and if you like me, I'llget to you one second, sorry,if you're like me, you kindof fly without a safety net.I'm at this point now whereI feel pretty comfortablein terms of things.I've read the things I'vedone that I just started outwith some loose ideas toget the conversation startedand then I open itup just like today.OK go ahead.So, peter, are you so you'regoing to teach right in a way,right?Yes, he's doing a workshop, ok?I'm also teachingand I have somethingthat I can probably share.I cannot email you this, butI can show it on the screenif you want to see.Can you see?Yeah, we can say, hold it still.Yeah so basically, youhave the introductionabout what theclass is all about.And then the learning outcomes.So when the studentscome to class,this is the outcomesthat they will.Get out of the class.I don't know.Hopefully, I thinkthis helps us so much,this is an Excelsystem from the UK.If the essential content,so for learning to come one,these are the contents of thelessons and so on and so on.And then you have the learningoutcome one what they will getand then you kind of elaboratehere and all that stuff.And hopefully thatwill help you.System your class.Yeah, that's a greatway to structure it out.I can.Probably I'll share thisin a way in a group,although I cannotshare the document,but I'll tell you somethingthen to help you out.Yeah, and when Ifind my rubric, Iwill share it with you becauseit'll make perfect sense.So, yeah, hopefully that helps.OK awesome.OK all right.I'm overtime.But I'm sure Alexander isgoing to say something.Where are you?Any questions on this, guys?There you go.Sorry what do you want to say?Nothing 3M Yeah.Oh, I got three.Soldier OK, all right, guys.I truly mean this.If you guys think about what itis that you're really good atand try to teach it,whether you createa course for a workshop or everyget paid a single dollar for,it doesn't matterbecause when youstart to formalizeyour own process,it's easier to scale yourteam because you're like,this is how I think thisis what we need to do.This is what I consider agood logo or a good projectmanagement Follow the steps.When you have to teachsomebody a concept,it forces you to understandyour process betterand the better youunderstand your process,the more efficient you'll be andthe more confident you'll be.That's why I love doing what itis that I do every time you askme a question, I have tothink about what it isthat I know and formalize it.Share it with you!And then now I knowit even better.It's a difference to me whysome artists have one hit.While some artists canmake hits for a decadeor multiple decades, theyunderstand their process.Right one hit wonder band.They don't know how toeven create that thing,so the rest of the album sucksand every subsequent albumsucks.It was just a perfect confluenceof a lot of different thingshappening at one time and magichappened and then after that,they have no idea.But whether or not you likesome of these pop bands,I'm just shocked athow prolific maroon5 is at turning out hits.Adam Levine knows how to create.I don't know if it'sa harmony or a melody,but he knows how to do a hook.Because the song is OK,it's like bump, bump.It's like pretty generic.And then he doeshis bit and he knowswhere to like, go highand low like, dude.It's such an earworm.He knows his formula,so I'm sure they'resitting in the room.Yeah, OK, but I'lldo this and thenthat's going to be the magic.That'll get it into the top 20.We've also noticedthat I at ImagineDragons as a techniquefor just making a movietheater like soundtrack,epic songs that just seemto fit in commercialsand trailersand just about everything,they have that same knackfor doing that reallyhigh, dramatic thing.So I know what you mean.But the maroon five?Very neat.They know.So if you listen to theirsong, it's like, there he goes.That's what I needed to hear.That's what makesthat song catchy.I'm wiped out, you guys.I'll try to edit this soon.I know there's somevaluable things.Go ahead.So I was just going to sayjust on that last thing there,there was the cliff fromyears and years and years ago.Bill Drummond, who wasone of the big guys there.They put together a thingwhere it was basicallyit was the recipe.And if you usethat recipe, you'reguaranteed a hit andthat's available somewhere.I don't know.But will you find itand share it with us?Exist if I can find it?Yeah yeah, yeah, because why?Because I'm workingon a rap song.You guys, this is it.I'm making progress.It's going to be scary.It's going to be scary.Bad my wife makes a.Because it's notgoing to help you,but I just startreading the book,it's called the creativecurve by Ellen Garnett.You can Google for it or I cansend an iPad in a Facebook.So this guy is he istelling about the law of howpeople perceive things.And then there's like thismatrix of like perfectionand similarity.So like the more you'refamiliar with things like,the more you accept things.And then she guidesthrough the book,he goes like within,like using for lawslike the law of conception,imitation, creative,communicative and iteration.So basically, he saysthat every personcan be taught to be creative.That's the whole pointof the whole book.It's very interesting,insightful.I mean, like you can go atit like, oh, well, it can.So very interesting.So you can feel likeyou start from like howMozart started to learn stuff.And then.And then maybe it canhelp you to make a song.It's a very hot topic fordebate over the psychologicalcommunities, whether ornot creativity can actuallybe taught or whetheror not it's somethingthat can be replicated.Anyone can learn todraw, but can everyonelearn to write a symphony?Anyone can learn to writemusic, but can anyonecan learn to play music?But can they learnto play like a dirge?What's his name?Beatles, Beatles,guitar players.Harrison, thank you very much.You know, like that, McCartney.That McCartney was McCartney.They were phenomenalsongwriters, but actually notall that talented musicians,except for a few select pieces.But what you can teach truecreativity is a hot topic.I'd love to discusswith someone.Mm-hmm It's likeit's everything.It's like influenced.So basically, so youare like a funnel.We all are like a funnel ofall the things that we consume.That's the whole ideaabout looking at.OK, yeah, I need toend this, but I'mgoing to end this in alittle bit of controversy.I don't believe creativity canbe taught because I believewe're all inherently creative.It's the wrong question.It's we're taughtnot to be creative.That's the problem withour culture in our society.So I'd love to have thatdebate with somebody.Because if you lookat all children,they have some form ofimagination and thenthrough a lot of tellingthem what you can't do,that creativity is stripped out.So I believe that the questioncan creativity be taughtor is this somethingyou're born with?Is the wrong question?So we're drop themic on that one.