We all should take a lesson from these two vastly underpaid professionals
My partner and I attended a Sunday session at ADTSEA (a major national Driver Education conference) that two amazing teachers from Montana led. I told my partner, “Let’s go for 10 minutes, and after we get bored with the PowerPoint, we’ll head out and get some other stuff done.”
We stayed for the entire 8:30am to noon session
and were sad when it was over!
Steffani Grogan and Susan Carney know how to teach. Amongst the things they helped their class experience:
- Physical manipulatives
- Wall paperwork where teams had to engage
- Having people get up and react to others’ physical work at each table
- Incredible energy and humor in the classroom
- Used timers to keep themselves on track, publicly
- Had us go outside and use pedal carts to test classroom theory that involved physics without telling us it was physics
- Answered all questions with aplomb and patience and kept people on track
- Their projector showed videos and graphics and barely a single PPT for the whole session.
One would wish that these fine instructors would also help other teachers learn how to present without PowerPoint. Whether they know it or not (I think they do!) in addition to being excellent driver education instructors (and also Phys Ed and English teachers) they are presentation pros.
Oh, and I also learned a lot about driving skills!
B2B SaaS isn’t the be-all end-all
Turns out that some of my product marketing and entrepreneur friends have it wrong. Business is not all B2B SaaS!
In the past few years I was worried about joining circular economy (recycling and trash), retail, and transportation industries for product marketing work. Turns out that each of these industries, and by extension I assume many others, have:
- Incredibly passionate and smart people
- Teams that leverage technology in a variety of physical, real-world applications
Even what may seem to the uninitiated are low-tech industries are deeply technical: Mobile front-end engagement, deeply complex back-ends, simulation, all kinds of AI (not just generative AI), all put engineers, PMs, UX, analysts, trainers, product marketers, sellers, and others to the test.
My free lesson to those “tech” job seekers in all phases of their career
Don’t sweat the vertical. You will learn a lot, most anywhere you go. The skills you’ll learn from taking positions at what may seem to be “less sexy” verticals and companies will transfer very well. Your existing skills can also be applied to those verticals.
There are a LOT of industries you may have chosen not to look at. Trust me, some of them are sexier than you may think.
And you will always meet smart, engaging, professionals you’ll learn from wherever you go. Just open your eyes, ears, and heart and what you’ll learn will enhance your career, and your life.
I’d also like you to see my article on 8 Ways to Present without PowerPoint.
- Gary, temporarily from Montana.
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