This week Brent and Chris change it up, bringing on two special guests - Gus Prestera and Belen Bilgic-Schneider.

Belen and Gus share stories from the instructional design trenches, where they have been able to transform content design into a search for meaning by leveraging the power of critical incidents, stories, examples, non-exemplars, conversations, artifacts, scenarios, and cases. In other words, by putting context ahead of all other concerns, including content, interactivity, and aesthetics, instructional designers can architect more meaning-FULL learning experiences for their audiences, packing a greater learning punch, reducing time-to-proficiency, and maximizing return on learning investments. Once you buy into the idea that Context should be in charge, next comes the question of how you change the dynamic with your subject matter experts and stakeholders. We’ll talk about simple content gathering techniques you can start using immediately.

Gus Prestera is an organizational effectiveness consultant, educator, and coach. He supports innovative HR and business leaders who are transforming their workforce, making big changes to how they engage, manage and develop their people. He has over 20 years of human capital management experience. Through his consulting firm, Prestera FX, Gus and his team have helped change agents improve employee engagement, capabilities and performance in mid- to large-sized businesses, including AIG, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Main Line Health, Dialight, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Gus holds a PhD in Education, with a minor in Management, and an MBA, frequently speaks at local and national industry events, and regularly facilitates skill-building workshops for HR and business leaders. He is an advisory board member for American University’s Human Resources Analytics and Management MS program and has taught graduate-level courses at Penn State University and American University.

Learn more about Gus on his LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gusprestera/

Belen Schneider is a creative director and consultant, basing her work around communications, instructional design, performance and training projects, RFPs, multimedia production and more. Belen has been a Partner at RnD Interactive since 2009, a creative director and instructional designer at Prestera, and a self-employed consultant for interactive courseware and communications since 2012. Belen has experience from all around the L&D field, giving her a great overall perspective on business efficiency and performance.

Learn more about Belen on her LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/belenbilgicschneider/

Become virtual friends with the IDIODC gang on twitter (and remember you can always stay in the loop with the #IDIODC hashtag):

Brent Schlenker is dominKnow's Community Manager. Chris Van Wingerden is dominKnow's Sr. VP Learning Solutions.

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