126: A Visionary for the Ages - An Inspirational Chat with TLDC Founder Luis Malbas on Shaping the Future of Learning

Holly Owens (00:03):

Hello everyone, and welcome to another amazing episode of Edup Ed Tech. My name is Holly Owens and I'm your host and I am really excited. I have a guest, and I just said this to him. He should have been on the show a really, really long time ago, but we're doing it now. I have Luis Mavis and he is the founder. He's the extraordinaire of the training, learning development Community and Conference AKA. You probably know it. You've probably seen it. TLDC. Welcome to the show, Luis. I'm so glad to here. Thank you, Holly. Wow, that's an amazing intro. Well, we are excited to chat with you and get into all things TLDC, but before we do that, we want to know more about your journey. So tell us about you. How did you get here? You founded TLDC, you do all these wonderful things for the community, L and d especially. So tell us about a journey.

Luis Malbas (00:59):

Sure. I think that even through my early career working at video stores, things like that, my favorite part of that kind of work was always the onboarding and the training and even just helping new employees figure out how to do stuff. That's as simple as checking in video rentals. I definitely, Oh, I miss those days. Organizing them on the shelves and things like that. And then other jobs, I ended up working in manufacturing other places and training was always one of my favorite pastimes, but I never officially worked in that capacity. I was always either a manager or inside sales or even it. And so what ended up happening was I left a manufacturing job. I really felt like I wanted to get into something officially it, and I found a position working at a higher ed institution doing it work. So I started because my love for education, I started working there, but then this classified ad in the newspaper came up. So Talking,

Holly Owens (02:14):

I love this story. We already be kind, rewind, and we're going to the classified A, right, Exactly. And I'm like, wait, whoa, look at this ad in the newspaper for a job that is literally

Luis Malbas (02:28):

A block and a half away from my house and I have to fax in my resume to work at a place called the e-Learning Guild. So this was 2003, and so faxed that old resume in. I had to find a Fax machine. Nice facsimile. Yeah, I think I went to Kinko's or something to

(02:48):

Get faxed, and three months later I heard back from the founder and CEO, David Holcomb, and he told me to come by and we had a nice interview. I told him that if he hired me, it would be the best decision he could possibly make for his business. Definitely. Yeah, so he did. And so I was the first hire that the e-Learning Guild, which is now the Learning Guild, I was their first hire, and so I basically, I didn't even tell him my full background because I had all these IT certifications. I'd done all this stuff in management. I'd actually had an executive position prior to that, but I just told him, yeah, I was a barista at one point and I worked at a video Store,

Holly Owens (03:39):

But he brought me and I, and he was like, let's go, let's go.

Luis Malbas (03:43):

I knew it was a startup and I didn't want to seem like it was too extreme, and I took a huge pay cut, but brought me in and I didn't realize that we would be doing conferences and things like that. I was mostly looking at the technical side. And as soon as that started happening, building these events like dev Learn and Learning Solutions, and there was one called M Learn Con, just all these different things. Early on it was e-learning producer. I loved that part of it. I loved producing live conferences, and so getting experience doing online events and all of this stuff, it was really, it was perfect for me. And so that started 2003, and then I basically worked from being the first guy in the company, basically hired just as an admin to when I left there in 2015, I was the COO, and I'd kind of done almost everything there was to do there, and I really loved the organization, loved the people that I worked with.

(04:47):

My wife and I had our son in 2000 and on 14, and so I really wanted to just take time away and not focus as much on my career and focus on this little boy who was in our life. And so that's why I left the Guild back then. And after about a year or so, I started getting kind of antsy and I had been doing little sort of freelance contract things here and there, and I'm like, I still want to have a foot in L and d, just build something. I had all this experience. And so that was when TLDC was born. And actually back then it was, I had a former colleague, Brent Lanker, and then also another former colleague, Patty Shank, who I was talking to about this. And the three of us kind of brainstormed and put this together. Patty left early on. Brent and I split after a couple years. I've just kept it going. We just, there's a certain focus that I want TLDC to have. A lot of it is really about the inclusivity and making sure that anyone and everyone can be a part of this community. And that's really my vision for, and my inspiration for a lot of it really is just l and d is,

Holly Owens (06:04):

Yeah, it's a great community. It's so big, but you don't realize how small it actually is in all the people. Some of the people mentioned Patty Shank. I think I contacted her a really long time ago about how she started her business, and I was a lot younger back then. I was asking her for advice. So it's like the six degrees of separation or Kevin Bacon, whatever, and l and D situation. I love your story and how you take all your experiences and now you're giving back and just doing the little things.

Luis Malbas (06:37):

I mean, we

Holly Owens (06:38):

So appreciate that and I love people that do that, that want to help others, and that's one of the reasons I love this l and d community so much.

Luis Malbas (06:45):

Same. Yeah, totally agree. And it really is. Early on, I remember producing conferences. I remember having one of the first times that I actually got out there and started to sit down with attendees, I was in Orlando at one of the first Florida conferences that the Guild produced, and I ended up sitting down and I think having lunch with some instructional designers, and they were just so cool. It was just such the easiest conversation, and I started to really truly understand what they were about. And so I tried to take it upon myself to every event, have that same type of thing and just learn more about people and connect and yeah, and that's pretty much why I fell in love with it. And I know that with TLDC, there were things that I saw holes in the way that sort of l and d, I guess events were being produced. There were different things that I wanted to see that I wasn't seeing in sort of mainstream l and d. And so that's where TLDC Now. Yeah, now you have

Holly Owens (07:51):

This. Yeah, I plugged it in there. You have all these different things that you do now. They have the podcast, all the community showcase and all kinds of talks and different subjects and everything. He is really, it really is speaks to taking the small steps lead to bigger things in this situation and how much the community has grown. I didn't know about it until you reached out to me and was like, we want to chat with you or have you do something. I was fairly new to LinkedIn and I was kind of just feeling my way through and I'm like, this person wants to talk to me. I'm like, I don't even know what to do with myself. So I was very grateful for that opportunity to get the chat. Love

Luis Malbas (08:32):

It. Yeah.

Holly Owens (08:34):

So basically you founded this whole big community. So what do you, on a daily basis, when you're thinking about what the community needs, and you're talking about filling different gaps and stuff, what do you see as trending right now if we were to say these are the top things that are trending? I know you have an event going on right now, so any current trends that you can share with the audience of things that you're seeing around the L and D community?

Luis Malbas (09:04):

Yeah, it's funny. I think that TLDC is unique in that I know that it feels like a lot of folks will come to, or the more experienced people will come to TLDC when they have ideas or want to find more about topics that you wouldn't ordinarily get out there and see at any other events or any other types of at a TD or the Guild or anywhere like that.

Holly Owens (09:36):

And so the stuff that I tend to see, I think might be a little more unique than your typical,

Luis Malbas (09:44):

But I'll start with just generally. The way that the TLDC works is I basically, I have a Slack community, you can find it at TLD chat us, and I basically put a call out there and ask everybody What is going on? I need some topics. We're producing events for 2024, what are some things that you would like to learn about? And it's as simple as that. Now, I do have established events that are going to go on every year. For instance, in March, since it's women's history month, we always have a women of L and D event. And that one usually has like 800 to 1500 people attend or register that one. So that one's always going to be there. In the summertime, we always have what we call A IDC, which is the accessibility or the accessible and inclusive design conference. And that one is always giant as well.

(10:38):

And then this month we're having another one of a series for transitioning teachers, and that one is a regular in our schedule too, but for instance, when I made the call out for what we should do for February, the change management topic came up and culture change, and people were really interested in that and we're kind of gravitating towards that topic. So that one is going to happen next month. And then in April, another topic came up was visual design. We're asking visual design for learning. And so we're going to be doing that one in April and then May, I think what was some of the suggestions for that? Maybe facilitate virtual facilitation. So that's how I kind of get my ideas and try to find trends that are hot out there. Now, the obvious one that everyone is talking about that I have a really, really significant interest in is ai.

Holly Owens (11:38):

Yeah, I was going to say I saw that. Yeah. But I think that a lot mean there is a ton of,

Luis Malbas (11:44):

There's a lot out there already on ai, and I'm not quite sure. I feel like I'm on my own individual journey with how AI is affecting my job and not just my job, but even the way that the future of technology is going to reveal itself. I think it's just massively going to impact us in so many ways. And that my son, who was now 10, I actually sit around and think about how do I explain to him or how do I bring him up safely in a world where AI

Holly Owens (12:20):

Might

Luis Malbas (12:20):

Start feeding everybody all of this content that it may be relevant, it may be useful, but how is it going to be different and will he have the ability to distinguish something that is originally and uniquely human versus something that might have been created using machine intelligence? And so it's kind of just heavier things that I'm pondering through The friction that exists there, the push in, the pull between what we know what has happened and what's coming. It's

Holly Owens (12:56):

So unique, and I love that we're at this point though, where it's impacting things and people are actually talking about it and thinking about it. It feels like we're on the cusp of something great. And I'm sad that I'm not 10 years old right now and I'm at midlife, and I might miss out on some of the things. I want to see it,

Luis Malbas (13:21):

But

Holly Owens (13:22):

I love it. You also too, that you're thinking about the impacts that it's going to have as he is growing up. How is this, because you and I, cell phones, those didn't exist in part of our childhood growing up.

Luis Malbas (13:38):

Those weren't a thing, and now they're just, every day mine's sitting right here,

Holly Owens (13:44):

Just think about how AI is going to change the game or already is changing the game, Right?

Luis Malbas (13:51):

And just the specificity of how we are going to proceed through our thought processes because we're going to have this other intelligence that is going to be managing a lot of that. Now, we're not going to have to think as wide anymore. I think for our jobs, we'll be more narrow in the way that we're going to have to do things, which is probably a lot more efficient. But at the same time, what is that going to do to us cognitively going forward? And I wonder about that. I do love being able to share what I know about ai, and I am trying to work on a series where maybe even weekly I'm going to get in there and show, look, here's this really cool tool that I found that's super interesting, using something like midjourney or even one that I was playing around with last week called Mindy, and just different things that I'm like, wow, this actually makes my job easier. I would love to share more information about that, but I'm still trying to figure all of that out because I also don't like to oversaturate people with stuff.

Holly Owens (15:00):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a good way to be too, is it is fairly difficult. And I don't know if you have any advice for people sifting through some of the clutter and the noise that surrounds things like that are so popular, like AI and like you said, you have transitioning teachers and sometimes there's people out there that really do want to help, but sometimes there's people out there who are just trying to not necessarily do that. I don't want to give anybody a bad rap. And I think it is important that people learn how to sort through that clutter and find the original people that have started stuff, the people that are genuine, the authenticity, or they're not just trying to, you say influencer status or you're really just putting their stuff out there for free, seeing what happens. And if people are interested in it, like you're doing with your Slack channel, you're crowdsourcing, what do the people want? You go directly to them and ask them what they want.

Luis Malbas (15:58):

Yeah, yeah. No, I totally agree. In this particular event we're running right now that's going on this week, I see people asking questions about bootcamps and different things like that, and potentially, are they going to spend money on that stuff? Although we know that the journey from here to there to your journey l and d can be just really, really unique. It doesn't necessarily have to involve a bootcamp. You just need to make sure that you're spending your money wisely. And that's when you are seeing folks that might be considered thought leaders or whatever, or are really, really good at LinkedIn if you're considering buying anything from them, just also look at how they make money and what they've done in the past to get 'em to where they are now. Because you have to be smart about, if you want to be an instructional designer, just do your due diligence and make sure that you're putting your resources in the right place.

Holly Owens (17:00):

Right? It's kind of like when you apply for a position or if you apply to go to college, you're not just going to do that blindly. You're going to go visit the campus. You're going to learn about the services and the support that they offer. You're going to get the insider scoop before you even sign up to do something, which I think is also really great about our community. Everybody seems to be mostly transparent about what they offer, what things would kind of support. And then the other thing too that I love about this community is that if we can't help you, we will find somebody that can,

(17:32):

I don't know AI as much, I will point them to you or I will. If we're going to do a Dungeons and Dragons event and related to instructional design, I'm definitely telling them to come to you. I know I was supposed to participate in that, and I had other obligations, and I'm so sad that I missed that. I wanted to totally nerd out. Can you tell us a little bit more How did that go? So tell us about this whole concept of dungeon and dragons and instructional design. I'm totally fangirling out right now on this. Oh, man. I mean, It

Luis Malbas (18:05):

Was everything that I hoped it would be and probably a little bit more. I mean, we could have pushed it even to a whole nother level, and that's the power of community. So this group of people that got together and helped produce this, and there was this connection that was created that is just going to last where all these folks that had this common interest in not just instructional design, but also Dungeons and Dragons, they all connected. We actually had a couple games. We all know IDs are nerds, we're all nerds. That's like a prerequisite to being an instructional designer. And it was so fun. And the thing is, nope, the one thing that makes TLDC unique is that I am down for that. I will like, yeah, you want to do a d and d and ID event, let's do it. Because I think that both do have a connection to each other or can't have a connection to one another. And I was surprised at how many people we actually did attract and the level of passion that people had for both topics and Don Metcalf who was key in helping me build that.

(19:11):

She and I still, she's awesome. Yeah, she still is. She texts me every once in a while and I love having a relationship with her now, and I can't wait to possibly do it again because it really is fun. And that's the thing about, I think with L and D communities in particular, my recommendation is look for as many as you can, join as many as you can and just filter it out. And with the TLDC, you don't have to be there all the time. Just show up whenever you feel like it's useful and you could disappear whenever you need to come back when you feel like it. That's just the way that it goes. More than anything. Just make sure you're getting something out of it. If it's the networking or the collaboration or just a session here and there, just make sure that it's useful to you because that's all I'm trying to build something that might have value to some people. Not all the time, but at least some of the time. Yeah,

Holly Owens (20:03):

Absolutely. And the legacy that you're leaving with this sort of community is something that's going to just last forever. I feel like it's going to last forever. We always talk about sports people leaving a legacy in a certain team, but there's people like you who are in this community who are leaving. You're establishing these foundations of these communities where people can come and go. They can connect with others, they can show, they can come in with their outside nerdy interest and participate in activities and just find out about all kinds of topics. And I think that's really what more of what our world needs as humans. So the legacy, you probably don't realize the impact you have until I'm saying it right now

Luis Malbas (20:44):

That you're

Holly Owens (20:44):

Leaving on the L and D community. It's a great one, and it's very positive. I always feel like when you send emails and when you put out stuff, I'm like, this is on point. This is going to help me so much. And I think that's really what people want.

Luis Malbas (21:01):

Thank you, Holly. It's really great to hear that. I really don't, yeah, I never really think about that. It's just part of my life now.

Holly Owens (21:10):

Well, I'm telling you, it's awesome. So let's celebrate that. I feel like we do a lot for the community, so So in the inside and you just don't see it. It's like teaching. There's no instant gratification. The students come to you 20 years later. Oh, I remember when it's like when you helped me, or I read this article or I saw this video. So that's what I feel with the TLDC.

Luis Malbas (21:33):

Oh, thanks. That's so good to hear Holly. And the big thing, I think it's funny, I went to a big industry conference last fall and I was talking to different people, and one of the questions I got was, especially from people that have established businesses that provide courses or have a product, they're just like, yeah, we've been trying to set up community for so long. It just never works. People just,

Holly Owens (21:56):

Yeah, It's hard. Come

Luis Malbas (21:58):

Back.

(21:59):

And the one thing, the advice that I gave them, and I knew that this was going to be hard for them, was you got to just listen. You got to listen to your community. You can't just throw stuff at 'em and then expect 'em to just to digest it. You have to listen to what they have to say. And I think that is the one thing that I hope that TLDC is doing is just listening, because there is a lot going on out there. And I think that the way that I do it is actually relatively easy to come up with relevant events and content just because I listen. And yeah,

Holly Owens (22:42):

I love that. Just listening to what people want and what they need.

(22:46):

And especially for this, I'm going to ask one more question, then we're going to wrap the episode. I know I could go on forever with you. This is a wonderful conversation, especially the transitioning teachers community. I have so much empathy for that community. I know at a certain point on LinkedIn, I don't know, there was some sort of negativity around transitioning teachers. I don't understand why, or people were posting job roles. And I found this one time, this is, we don't hire transitioning teachers. I'm not sure about what kind of discrimination was happening there. I've seen that a few times, more

Luis Malbas (23:19):

So

Holly Owens (23:19):

Than I like. But this group of people, they have been so ingrained in a institution that makes them feel less than, there's trauma that comes out of those experiences, and all they want to do is they want to be free of that, but they want to use their creativity to help others. What teachers are there is a special type of group. So with that community, I'm so glad you're doing an event surrounding transitioning teachers from a positive standpoint. And yeah, I focus all my job postings on transitioning teachers. That's who motivated me to do that because I know firsthand as a former educator that teachers can pretty much do anything. It's not those who can't teach, those who teach can do anything. We're going to change that quote now. So I am so glad that you're putting on this event and then helping that community. No,

Luis Malbas (24:19):

It's my pleasure. And yeah, we had 17 sessions this week. It's been going great. And just to speak to that point a little bit, Chrissy Flanagan just an hour ago was just talking about how it was so ingrained in her not to be, she did not know how, when she got her ID job, she didn't know how to take a vacation. She just was not accustomed Exactly To being able to take a vacation. It was so strange in that her ability to, when she finally did take a vacation and she didn't even go anywhere. She was telling everybody, you don't have to go anywhere fancy. You could just stay home for a week if you want. And she did that and just did some spring cleaning and just relax and just reset. And that was not something that she understood initially. She had to make a shift to be able to understand that. Back to our last session of the day, we've got Here, it's okay, we can edit it out. Not a big deal. We know you're a hard worker. You're always doing different events and stuff, so that's pretty obvious. Sorry About that. I had this. That's Okay. Session still on. That's okay. Sometimes you hear

Holly Owens (25:30):

The dogs barking in the background, or

Luis Malbas (25:33):

I'll

Holly Owens (25:33):

Do tiktoks at the beginning of the episode. Then they'll replay back and I'm like, oh,

Luis Malbas (25:38):

Technology. What's really strange about that was the conference, they didn't even, that was the backstage that was live. They didn't have any conversation. They just went live. And at least I didn't hear any conversation,

Holly Owens (25:52):

But maybe

Luis Malbas (25:52):

There was a setting. Anyway, apologize for that. They're going right now. All good, all good, all

Holly Owens (25:57):

Good. We're very authentic here. We understand. We love this. So yeah, helping that community and coming back to that. Absolutely. Obviously, you're doing great things, people, they sound excited. The speaker sounded excited.

Luis Malbas (26:09):

Yeah. And Abby, actually, I don't know if you know Abby, I can't remember Abby's last name. She's been hosting this week, but she has been pushing Abby Stewart. She was posting things about you, Holly. Yeah. Okay, good. Oh, she was, she's, thank you, Abby. Yes, I

Holly Owens (26:23):

Know Abby. Yes. I think I've had a coffee chat or too with Abby.

Luis Malbas (26:30):

She's been singing your praises and posting.

Holly Owens (26:36):

I'm just like you. I'm here to help. And anything I can do to, at a certain point, you just mid-career, like I just want to give back. I want to tell you what I've learned. I want to tell you how excited I am that you're coming in this community. I want to train you. I want you to feel like you can sustain this and you want to be a part of this community and you know where to go for support. And especially, like I said, this transitioning teachers, I've huge empathy for. So before we wrap up, I do want to know if there's anything people should know. You have a lot of monthly events coming up, things that I know you have memberships. We're going to include all that information in the show notes, but anything that people should be aware of that are up and coming, the look out for in the next few months with CLDC?

Luis Malbas (27:19):

Sure. Yeah. The website is@www.tdc.com. You can go there and you can find out about past events and future events. I also post banners and stuff that you can see. And then usually Slack is where I do a bulk of my communication to membership. So you could go to tld chat us to find out, to just connect with the community. It's free. And there are a bunch of different channels in there that we discuss things in. And probably the most relevant thing that may happen in 2024, I'm looking right now, is we may have our first live conference that I've done since 2019. Wow. Yeah. I'm flying out to go take a look at a space at the end of the month. Oh,

Holly Owens (28:08):

We don't know where it's at. Hasn't been revealed yet.

Luis Malbas (28:11):

I'm not going to reveal it yet. Yeah. I'm going to be on pins and needles now. I want to go, so

Holly Owens (28:16):

Pick somewhere. Good. Yeah,

Luis Malbas (28:18):

It should be fun. I think they're not big. I don't want to host a 3000 person event. Right.

Holly Owens (28:25):

It's not Walt Disney World or Disneyland. Yeah, right.

Luis Malbas (28:30):

Exactly. And the thing is, I like it when I feel like the events that I produce that are smaller, that the connections that are made there have been, they're longer lasting, I feel like. So it'll probably be a couple hundred people. I am not going to charge $2,000 a ticket. It's going to be way cheaper than that. And it's just fun. It's just people getting together, we'll put together a great program, and it's just fantastic to have. I think it'll be more of a boutique event versus some giant Las Vegas. Big, big.

Holly Owens (29:09):

Yeah, totally get that. And I love those types of conferences too. Like you say, people forming more of the genuine, authentic connection. I love the deeper connection. The more the lengthier we're going to be. Linkedin. I mean, I have so many friends on LinkedIn. I've never met in real life.

Luis Malbas (29:27):

I've

Holly Owens (29:28):

Met Luke Coon, but I've never met my co-host, Nadia. We live in the same state. We got to figure that out.

Luis Malbas (29:35):

Wow.

Holly Owens (29:36):

I know. I mean, you can do it. You can have that general and authentic connection through the virtual space where we're definitely going to meet up. One last question for you, and this is one we like to ask on the show, is we want to know what you think. What's the future of l and d? What's coming down the line for us? What should we be prepared for?

Luis Malbas (29:55):

Oh, wow. It's a loaded question for sure. Yeah, It is a loaded question. I'm excited about the future of l and d. I do think that, well, I just can't help but think about how AI is going to impact everything. But I think that there is this, I think that the proliferation of AI and machine intelligence is going to kind of force us to start really reexamining our humanity again and what makes us uniquely human, I think in the education space that is going to be particularly poignant. And so I'm hoping that the future of l and d is going to have more human connection involved in it, more empathy. We're just going to, I don't know. I'm hoping that we'll just see each, want to connect more via community and having these digital relationships where we know that it's an actual human being on the other side versus talking to somebody that Is, oh

Holly Owens (31:06):

My gosh, every time I go on these customer service sites and it's an AI bot, I'm like, agent, agent, or you call zero zero.

Luis Malbas (31:13):

Right? Right. I do think that, who was it? It was Trish Lechner today who was talking about, I asked her, what is one common trait that you see amongst successful instructional designers? And she said, optimism. I think that that's important. So I'm hoping that the future of l and d is going to be more of that, that trainers are going to be sort of that group of optimists there that are there to kind of water the garden and help everybody blossom that really that's going to be the focus of what our future is going to look like. But there will definitely be some bumps because I think AI is going to force a lot of people to really have to reconsider the way they do a lot of things. So we'll See. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that perspective, and I definitely want more of the human element in it as

Holly Owens (32:13):

Well, because I'm not going to go into it. We'll do that on another episode, but Louis, I really can. I really can. Louis, thank you so much. I so appreciate your time coming and having a conversation with me and being on Ed Uped Tech and just talking about your experiences and all the things that you do for TLDC, the L and d community. We appreciate you so much.

Luis Malbas (32:35):

Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I dunno what to say. I thank you for having me as a guest, and yeah, I look forward to having you on one of our conferences again.

Holly Owens (32:46):

Absolutely.

Luis Malbas (32:47):

Okay, good. Good to hear.