Week 2, June 26 – July 2, 2006:

It took me a while to write this next entry because my family unexpectedly came to visit me and we were busy seeing the sights and visiting relatives. I’ll write about that in my next posts.

This week I kept improving my Captivate and Lectora skills and started mastering Fireworks (similar to Photoshop, but more Web and Flash oriented). I had an interesting conversation with Kevin Thompson, Vice President for Learning, and attended a more than 3-hour orientation meeting with the other interns in Charlotte – by phone. Lastly, I actually started working on the Client Connections Integrated Desktop course, one of the major projects I’ll help produce over the summer.

The Case for Templates

In my last report I wrote how templates seem to suck the creative life out of everything, unless you are the template creator, that is. However, I do understand the need for them.

The Bank of America is now a multinational company and the largest nationwide bank in terms of customers. One in three people in the US have an account with B of A. Their customers can travel nearly anywhere in the nation and use an ATM at no charge or step into a bank to talk to a teller. It’s important that someone in San Diego, Boston, Charlotte or St. Louis all think they are dealing with the same bank.

The same is true of the learning materials we produce. Until recently different learning production teams were producing materials in different ways. These are trainings with assessments that the employees must pass to obtain certificates that allow them to sell certain financial products. They need to have the certificates to advance in position and pay. If someone fails a test because its look and feel is different it would be a shame.

The creativity of our assignments is expressed in how we work within the constrictions to produce training that’s useful, compelling and achieves its objectives. The famous New England poet, Robert Frost, said he still preferred meter and rhyme because to not use them is like playing tennis without a net. Templates can be the meter and rhyme that gives our educational creations a creative structure. I'm glad I was exposed to using them in a professional manner in some of my EdTech courses, such as 561 and 541.

A Conversation with Kevin Thompson

Kevin Thompson is the Vice-President for Learning of our division, Wealth & Investment Management (WIM). His original goal was to become a president of a company that specialized in Mergers and Acquisitions. He eventually became the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of a company like that, but when he saw what presidents do he decided he would rather work in the area of corporate learning. His current goal is to become a CLO (Chief Learning Officer), an interesting title – and nice goal for EdTec graduates.

When asked about opportunities in the field of corporate training he said they were unlimited, especially for those who understand the importance of showing the value of the training. He explained that every department of a company now comes under close scrutiny. They need to show their value with numbers. That is, every department except learning. It’s always been difficult to come up with ways to measure how learning improves the bottom line. Now learning is starting to come under the same spotlight. Those who embrace this and can show how learning creates real value are the ones who now have unlimited futures.

Wisdom from a conference call

On June 30 I participated in a long conference call. It was a meeting of all summer interns. Apparently there’s 13 of us, 11 in Charlotte, 1 in New York City doing research at home and myself in Boston. They had distributed a Power Point in advance that I could use to follow along with the presentations. Unfortunately, I had a difficult time hearing what they were saying since many of the participants were not close to the microphone. Remembering the Breeze sessions we’ve had at SDSU using video cameras, I felt that was a more engaging way to conduct these kinds of meetings.

They basically went over the corporate structure and talked about the opportunities within B of A. They did emphasize that pay is based on your value to the company and not limited by strict guidelines like we are at city schools. They seemed to suggest there is a high earning potential without any specifics. They also mentioned the tremendous recent growth of the company through aggressive acquisition. Since 1990 there has been a 4490% increase in revenues. Bank of America was the first truly national bank in the US and now has offices in 35 countries and 176,638 employees. Their goal is “To become the most admired company in the world.”

One thing they are concerned about is maintaining their competitive edge. It’s not enough to simply be big. They are striving to be a Universal Bank by growing organically through increasing the business they do with the customers they now have. The era of growth through acquisition is nearly at an end. They are also worried about WalMart’s recent announcement that they plan to offer banking services, too.

The other thing was staying on top of banking regulations. Recently other companies have been assessed multimillion dollar fines and had officers sent to jail. They don’t want that to happen. The strategy is not only to keep up with legislation, but to also do their best to influence it, not just in the U.S., but internationally.

Another concern is that America is losing its edge in the area of education. In low wage countries there were 33 million college graduates last year, but only 7.7 million in the U.S.

A bit of wisdom came from one of the panelists who was discussing about how precious our time in school is. He said this is only moment in our lives where we can spend a lot of time just thinking about things and reading about them. Once we begin our careers it’s more a matter of applying what we learned. Our time to ponder or read at length becomes very limited.

He also mentioned the importance of accumulating knowledge and wisdom by not zoning out at meetings. He said he learned this from one of the top executives at Bank of America who seems to have unlimited knowledge on most any topic. This top executive said no matter how boring a meeting is he stays engaged by note taking. If there was something he didn’t understand he would ask questions during the meeting. After the meeting he would talk to people individually about the things he still didn’t fully grasp. In this manner he not only deepened his understanding he was able to create a network of people he could call upon whenever he had questions about anything. Later many of these people really helped him advance his career.

Feeling Dilbertized

This week I started feeling a bit like a character in Dilbert. This is the first time I've ever worked in cubicles, affectionally called "cubes." Our office is a sea of cubes broken up by glass-enclosed executive suites. The other day I took a wrong turn and was completely disoriented. It was like one of those dreams where you are trapped in an Escher-like maze. It looked just like my office, but it wasn’t my office. Everything looked the same, but the people were different and, horror of horrors, the coffee pot wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

In the cubes there is nearly no privacy. Anyone can look in to see what others are doing. You can hear what anyone says in the nearby cubes. After a while people forget or simply don’t care that they can be overheard. The man kitty-corner from me has phones conversations with relatives where personal problems are discussed. I’ve had a couple personal conversations as well and wonder what those who overheard think.

In my team everyone seems to brown-bag lunch and no one seems gets together after work. This could be because I’ve only been there a short time or because everyone takes public transit. Not having this kind of social interaction naturally leads to a sense of isolation.

This really hit home when I attended the phone conference on Friday with the other 11 interns in Charlotte. There, before the orientation, all the interns were treated to breakfast and in the course of the meeting executives there repeated invited them to stop by their office to talk, or have lunch or meet for drinks after work. Initially I felt a little left out.

Reaching out

However, I do need to make more effort to reach out to others. Whenever I have, people have been more than nice. They want to have a happy workplace and make new friends, too. For those who have trouble reaching out to others there must be a crushing sense of loneliness even when surrounded by others.

In fact, “reach out” is a major buzzword in the B of A culture. Employees are encouraged to reach out to fellow employees constantly, or to whoever can help them with their task. Their slogan is “reaching out passes learning.” I know we are also encouraged to do this at SDSU. There were a few times I wish I had reached out to my fellow students and instructors for help, but instead suffered alone. Nearly every time I made the effort to ask for help I got a more than positive response. In some cases I even made a new friend. It seems we all fight the phantom – fear of rejection. Plus, I'm a bit lonely being away from my family.

I’m not being left out of the actual work, though. I’m starting to be an integral part of our team and feel as if I’m actually contributing. This is a great source of satisfaction. I now have my own name plaque for my cube and an official name badge to wear when I go to meetings. My official employee badge is coming soon.