Embracing Accessibility in L&D w/ Diane Elkins (Artisan E-Learning)

Who deserves the chance to get better at their jobs?

Everyone, of course! And while the answer is obvious, delivering on that promise is more nuanced than you may realize.

Diane Elkins, co-founder of Artisan E-Learning and founding member of Inspire Accessibility, joins JD to share practical insights for improving equity in workplace learning and explains why accessibility is about so much more than checking regulatory boxes. She debunks common accessibility myths, highlights frequent learning design mistakes and provides proven tips for selecting partners that truly prioritize accessibility.

• Watch the full video of this episode on the Axonify YouTube Channel.
• Subscribe for ITK updates and show announcements at axonify.com/itk.
• Donate to support Canine Assistants.
• Grab your copy of Everything you need to know about frontline enablement.

In The Know is brought to you by Axonify, the proven frontline enablement solution that gives employees everything they need to learn, connect and get things done. With an industry-leading 83% engagement rate, Axonify is used by companies to deliver next-level CX, higher sales, improved workplace safety and lower turnover. To learn more about how Axonify enables over 3.5 million frontline workers in 160-plus countries, in over 250 companies including Lowe’s, Kroger, Walmart and Citizens Bank, visit axonify.com.

Transcript

JD Dillon (01:25):

Hello friends. How are you today? Can you tell that my hoodie is pink?

(01:30):

I dunno. Other people told me it looked white, but it's definitely pink. Anyway, it's great to see you. Welcome to the 32nd episode of In The Know, your 25 minute deep dive into the modern employee experience and what we can do to make it better. I'm JD from Axonify and today's show is all about opportunity. Now raise your hand out there if you believe that every employee deserves a chance to get better at their jobs. I know I can't see you right now, but go ahead, raise your hand anyway at your desk at home, in the middle of a crowded Panera Bread. Just raise your hand. 'cause It sounds like an obvious question, right? But we have to remember that just giving people access to the same sets of courses doesn't mean that everyone has a fair and equitable chance to learn. And according to new research from Boston Consulting Group, most organisations say that just four to 6% of people in their workforces have disabilities.

(02:22):

However, a quarter of surveyed employees report having a disability or health condition that limits a major life activity. And in, in addition to that, up to 26% of workers struggle with inaccessible learning content. According to Jonathan Hassel's book, Inclusive Design for Organisations. That's one fourth of the workforce that doesn't have a fair chance to build the skills that they need to foster new professional opportunities. And accessibility has been a topic that's long been shrouded in myth and mired in regulation. And there are too many organisations that think only about the legal risks associated and fail to recognise the very real benefits that from fostering an accessible workplace. And unfortunately, that's why only 36% of companies have a top-down commitment to creating accessible digital experiences according to training industry's 2021 trends report. So what can organisations do to make sure everyone means everyone when it comes to fostering opportunity?

(03:18):

And what can you do to advocate for more accessible experiences in your own workplace? Well, today I'm pleased to welcome Diane Elkins, co-founder of Artisan e-Learning and founding member of Inspire Accessibility to share practical steps we can all take to make accessible design a standard practise within every business. But before we welcome her to ITK, I wanted to let you know about an awesome new resource that my Axonify team just dropped last week. It's called Everything You Need to Know About Frontline Enablement. And it's literally everything you need to know about enabling a frontline workforce. It's 35 pages packed with proven practises that you can use to foster a capable, confident frontline team. We dig into the entire frontline experience, everything from training practises and manager enablement to communication tips and campaign strategy. There's even a quiz to help you figure out how enabled is your frontline today and where should you get started when it comes to improving your strategies.

(04:12):

Because remember, no matter if you're in retail, hospitality, grocery logistics or finance investing in your frontline is more than a nice to have. It's an absolute must for addressing the biggest challenges in today's workplace, including turnover, burnout, safety, and more. So grab your copy of the Ultimate Guide to Frontline Enablement at axonify.com. Now let's welcome our ITK guest, Diane Elkins. Diane is co-founder of Artisan E-Learning, a custom e-learning development company. She's co-author of the popular E-Learning Uncovered book series, as well as E-learning Fundamentals, a practical guide from ATD press. Diane has built a reputation as a national e-learning expert by speaking at frequently at major industry events, which is where we often see one another with Diane having the better luggage options than I potentially have. But her favourite topics include accessibility, instructional design, and articulate storyline. And Diane is also the chair of the Professional Development Advisory Council for the American Society of Association Executives and a founding member of Inspire accessibility. Diane Elkins, you're in the know.

Diane Elkins (05:11):

Oh, thanks for having me.

JD Dillon (05:13):

Thanks so much for playing. I think we said before, this is the first time we've ever talked digitally. Yes. Usually guests I don't see all the time physically in person and then only once in a while digitally. So this is a very different experience.

Diane Elkins (05:25):

Yes, it is.

JD Dillon (05:27):

So let's dive into the topic of the day. So whenever you talk about accessibility in the workplace, a lot of people jump immediately to the regulatory side with conversations around standards like Section 5 0 8 and W-A-C-G, WCAG as it were. But this conversation, as I mentioned, shouldn't just be about legal requirements or checking all of the boxes on a list. It should be about people and making sure everyone has a chance to do great work. So I'm wondering how do you define accessibility from the perspective of the person that we're actually trying to help?

Diane Elkins (05:59):

So JD, the law is the absolute minimum requirement, like the barest possible minimum. And if you think about society as a whole, if we only cared about what was legal and not what was right, we would have a horrible society. We cannot expect the law to dictate every aspect of how we can be kind and fair to each other. So and the laws have not kept up. So section  08 of the Workforce Rehabilitation Act is the only law in the US that's very, very explicit about digital accessibility. But at the same time you've got, we've had ADA and what does ADA say don't discriminate people with to people with a disability? Well, hello, if you can't take training, if you don't have the chance to get better at your job, is that not discrimination? So there's a lot of people who say, well, section 508 is just for the federal government. I'm not the federal government. Yeah, but you have employees and the law says don't discriminate against them. Help them be equally as successful, give them just as much of a chance at success. And so I don't see how you can do that without making sure your training content is accessible as well. So the law, that's the floor, that's the minimum, not the goal. Absolutely.

JD Dillon (07:21):

So as someone who's obviously passionate around this topic and speaks regularly within the industry and applies related principles within their work, how would you assess the current state of accessibility when it comes to these types of employee experiences?

Diane Elkins (07:34):

The good news is that accessibility is having a moment. And it's because of the DEI initiatives. You know, three years ago the world had a wake up call that it desperately needed. And while many DEI efforts focus primarily on race, gender, gender, identity, age, all of those are very good things. Ability needs to be a part of that conversation. Now, some people even say DEIA, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. I have no problem giving that an elevation, but it's not necessary because you can't have diversity if you don't include ability. You don't have equity if you don't include ability. You don't have inclusion if you don't include ability. And so I was just yesterday at ATD’s Core Four conference, speaking on accessibility five years ago, eight years ago, I'd be like, oh, maybe I'll get 10 people.

(08:26):

And the room was packed. People are starting to care. And it's awesome because for so many years, this was the thing that was whispered in the hallways. Like, I went 10 years in my e-learning career without even knowing it was a thing. Which, you know, speaks to my privilege that I, you know, I personally didn't need it. So la la la it didn't exist to me. Fortunately, there's a spotlight on it now. And so I see people starting to care, but they also still need to know how to do it. So you need both. 'cause You're not gonna learn it if you don't care. So I think, I think we're, we're making strides in both directions, but there's a long way to go. The statistics that you cited prove there's a long way to go, but there's more buzz and excitement and interest around it than I've ever seen. And I love that.

JD Dillon (09:16):

That's absolutely great to hear. So I know that when you try to have these types of conversations within your organization, there can be a lot of assumptions out there that often maybe short circuit the conversation about providing more accessible experiences. And one that you might hear a lot is maybe management, jumping to the defense to say, well, you know, a person with a disability couldn't do this type of a job. I'm curious, how should we address these types of assumptions?

Diane Elkins (09:42):

Well, first of all, it's not my job to decide what somebody can and can't accomplish in their life. You, you wanna ask what somebody, you know, well ask Helen Keller, you know, what's possible. And so I shouldn't get to decide what somebody else can and can't do. Now, there are very extreme exceptions. We're working right now with a company and an association in the trades. And the task is welding. Well, if you're a welder, you're going to be able to see it's a requirement for the job. The applicants go through vision screening. So, you know, people have made this decision, not just, well, I can't imagine somebody, I, well, from my perspective, nobody could do this job. Well, unless you're a trained vocational rehabilitation specialist, you don't know. In fact JD, you wanna, you wanna play this game a little bit?

JD Dillon (10:34):

Let's give it a whirl.

Diane Elkins (10:36):

Okay. I've got some, I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions. Okay. And you have you, you wear glasses, but with your glasses you have relatively good vision, correct? Sure. Okay. I'm gonna show you a series of images. Okay. So let's take a look at the first one. Just tell me what it is and anybody playing in let us know in chat. What is that JD? What do you think?

JD Dillon (10:52):

That is bread.

Diane Elkins (10:54):

Yes, that is two loaves of bread with the blur filter in PowerPoint. So nothing special, just blur. Okay. You're doing great. There's four questions total. That was the first one. Second one. Next picture, please. What's that?

JD Dillon (11:05):

Not a fan, but those are bananas.

Diane Elkins (11:07):

How can you not like bananas?

JD Dillon (11:10):

I'm an odd person.

Diane Elkins (11:11):

You…that's so true. Okay, fantastic. So now next question, but not the next slide yet. If this was your level of vision, do you think you would be able to work as a bagger in a grocery store to the extent that you would know not to put those bananas on my bread and squash it?

JD Dillon (11:32):

Yes. It's actually bringing me back to when I first got glasses. 'cause You mentioned the wear. I'm wearing frames. I got glasses in fifth grade. And I remember I was a person who was squinting my way through school because I was embarrassed to tell anybody. So I remember kind of experiencing this version of vision at that point before I got glasses. So I can speak personally to say, I would know to not put that at the bottom of your grocery bag. Yes.

Diane Elkins (11:57):

Yeah. And I would even say, you don't even need this level of vision. You know, even if you had no vision, there are other ways to determine what something is. And with a little bit of vocational rehabilitation, a little bit of support from your coworkers, such as the cashier giving you a heads up when something unusual comes through, you could do this work. Okay. My last and final question is my third image. So you're hired JD, take this course. Can you take this course?

JD Dillon (12:29):

I cannot read the text on screen, so I can tell I'm probably answering yes and no, I think to the questions on screen. So I'm probably gonna guess my way. Yeah. Clicking through the questions.

Diane Elkins (12:39):

Yeah. And you can maybe, if you squint really hard, you might be able to figure out most of it and maybe using some common sense, piece it together. But a, it would take forever, and B, you might be wrong, and the get the questions wrong. And c, you're gonna end up with a migraine. So here's the scenario. You can do the work, but you can't do the job because we have put systems and processes in place that will prevent you from being successful, even though you can do the work. And that goes all the way back to, are your job postings accessible as your application system accessible? Is your onboarding accessible? How about performance management? How about requesting time off? You know, it's an entire ecosystem where people can do the work, but they can't do the job because of the barriers we've put into place. So yeah, I mean, even with the welders, some would argue still make it fully accessible because what about the welder who just had cataract surgery and is out for a couple of weeks? Well, isn't that the best time to cut caught up on your compliance training? You know, what about the person who's a supervisor now who needs to know what the welders are taking in their training? So even that, you know, let's make the content available to everybody and everybody means everybody.

JD Dillon (13:58):

And thinking about not just pieces and parts of the experience, but the entire experience of what it means to do a job. So I think that's an amazing point, amazing demonstration as well. So you mentioned that we're, we're hopefully moving in the right direction. We're starting to have the conversations we should have been having for a long time. And for an organization that maybe hasn't focused on accessibility in the employee experience before, this conversation might feel like a kind of big, maybe overwhelming, maybe expensive type of an effort. So in your experience, what can organizations do to make this feel more achievable, especially in the short term?

Diane Elkins (14:32):

Well, I'm not gonna pretend that it's quick and easy and cheap. It's extra work. One of our fellow speaker friends, Sarah Mercier says, if it's not accessible, it's not done. You know, so it is that philosophy. What I'd recommend doing it's the same if you wanna get organized for email or you've got boxes of baby photos you wanna manage. The backlog can keep you from moving forward because you feel like if you don't deal with everything, you can't deal with this next thing. Mm-Hmm. Just, just draw a line. It is July 26th, 2023, you can decide that starting. You never use bad colour contrast again, ever. There's no reason ever for anybody to put aqua on white, orange on white. It just, it's not necessary. We'll, but those are our, our logo colours fine. Just don't put white text on it. You can still put aqua everywhere you want.

(15:28):

Just don't put white text on it. There's no reason you can't do that. So one of the people I follow on social media is Meryl Evans. She is an advocate for the deaf and hard of hearing. She herself is deaf, and her slogan is progress over perfection. So if you do one thing tomorrow that's better than yesterday, you're making progress. Closed caption is another easy, easy low hanging fruit thing to do. Make your buttons a little bigger, make your text a little bigger. Those are all things that don't require money. Closed captioning might if you choose to outsource it, but it's, it's pennies for the impact you get. So yeah, there's a lot to do, but do something, anything to move you forward.

JD Dillon (16:13):

And I think that the great thing, especially right now, is that we're in a place where there's a convergence between this conversation and technology in a lot of ways to say there are tools out there that will measure the contrast of whatever your materials are for you. Most technology that's gonna allow you to display different types of digital content will also give you the ability to introduce captions in various languages. So we're, we're almost at the point where certain parts of this conversation it's really a question of why aren't you? Yeah. As opposed to the major effort required maybe 15 years ago captioning a video was an entirely different conversation than captioning a video in whatever language someone may require. Right. To a decent level of quality through automation today. So, although a great place for that.

Diane Elkins (16:55):

Although I hate to reign on your parade here. You know what this does mean though, in most tools, I hate to say it, people are gonna have to give up drag and drops.

JD Dillon (17:07):

Pour one out for the drag and drops.

Diane Elkins (17:12):

Like, I don't know how we can function as a society. I mean, when I think back to school, everything I've ever learned in life, how could I have learned all that I've learned without dragging and dropping things?

JD Dillon (17:27):

That's a great t-shirt. Everything I learned in life was from dragging and dropping. Yes. instructional designers would buy that. 

Diane Elkins (17:35):

I have sat across the table from customers who were all in on accessibility until I mention no drag and drops. And they're like, Nope. I'm like, really? That's the hill you're gonna die on.

JD Dillon (17:46):

But Diane, more importantly, can I still click to reveal?

Diane Elkins (17:49):

Yes.

JD Dillon (17:50):

Okay. As long as I can still spin things in order to reveal what the information.

Diane Elkins (17:54):

Should say. You know what, here's a little man behind the curtain moment. Drag and drops are glorified multiple choice questions.

JD Dillon (18:01):

Very true.

Diane Elkins (18:02):

There's nothing you cannot accomplish instructionally in another form. 

JD Dillon (18:07):

I would argue, and I think folks might also support that. Dragging the answer into the correct basket does not help with the learning experience at all. If you just click the answer is B versus, oh no, I gotta drag B into a basket. That's not the definition of engagement.

Diane Elkins (18:26):

No. Now, I, I did, I did work on a grocery bag or course early in my career, and we did have an activity where I did think the dragging helped. We had a conveyor with things and you had three bags and there was bread in one, et cetera, et cetera. And you had to drag the items to the correct bag. And that did fairly closely simulate the actual on the job activity. So there I thought it was valuable, but it wasn't necessary. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing instructionally. So there I do think it added a little bit of value, but not to the point of excluding people.

JD Dillon (18:58):

Great

Diane Elkins (18:58):

Point. Like that's a pretty high cost of, ooh, drag and drop school. Great. And you don't get to get better at your job and you don't get to get better at your job, and you don't get to be, get better at your job.

JD Dillon (19:10):

There is a content developer out there that is agreeing with you right now, but slightly sad about the lack of the drag and drop interaction in terms of accessibility standards. But for those folks who are maybe out there nodding their heads in, in vigorous agreement with the importance of the conversation that we're having today, but maybe they're not the decision maker. So they're not the person who gets to choose where the team's gonna dedicate time, money, and resources when it comes to building accessible experiences, what can these folks do to overcome pushback they may get and really gain buy-in from senior management to make sure the necessary investment is in place to foster an accessible workplace?

Diane Elkins (19:49):

Yeah. I've got two tips. One, don't ask if you can just do it on your own, do it. You know, I mean that you can't do that with everything, but colour contrast again, you know, if you spend a few extra minutes doing closed caption, is that really going to impact, you know, your deadlines, your workload? It's not. So do as if, first of all, try to get support because it is better if everybody's on the same page, if you can't do as much as you can possibly do without the support. But if you do need to get support, my best advice is don't ask a question. You don't want the answer to make it hard for them to say no. Because if I go to my boss and say, Hey, can we make these courses WIC a compliant? I'm giving them all the power, and it's an easy question to say no to.

(20:34):

But if I say, Hey, we're embarking on this new project, I'm operating on the assumption that we'll wanna make sure that everybody, regardless of ability is able to get better at their jobs. I'm assuming that level of equity is something we'll want to bake this project plan are, are you good with that? Like, that's a lot harder to say no to. And then the third piece of advice is hitch your waggon to whatever initiative has momentum in your organization. So you have probably DEI initiatives already. Maybe you have focus groups, maybe you have something. Try and hit your wagon to that and use their momentum to propel you forward.

JD Dillon (21:14):

Great. Practical tips. I, I wonder, do you, would you also suggest, is there an element to this of making sure that people understand the human impact of these decisions? So it's less about, again, checklists and regulations and even the demonstration we went through a little bit earlier that put context and experience around it. I had to imagine what's it like to do this job? Or maybe someone who's making this decision who hasn't experienced the impact may not feel it in the same way if we don't give them a human side to the story.

Diane Elkins (21:43):

Yeah. And it's challenging to give a human side to the story if you don't know about the people in your organization with disabilities. And that's another common piece of pushback. Well, we don't have anybody on our team with a disability. Yeah, you do. You do. Period. You know, full stop. You just don't know it. And no, but, but we don't know, here I have this, I have this list of people who need accommodation. I don't have anybody on my list. Yeah. Because people choose what to disclose about themselves and people shouldn't have to choose between privacy and professional development. So if you can get that human element, fantastic. If you're in a larger organization, consider starting an employee resource group or a similar initiative where you have a group of people where you can talk to them about the impact of your choices.

(22:32):

The other thing you can do is follow people on social media for who would be impacted by the decisions you make. Great. You know, if you can find 'em in your organisation, great. If not, find 'em on social media. If not every university has an accessibility office, go talk to people who use the technologies, who would be impacted by the choices you're making and hear their stories. Some of the most impactful things that I've ever learned have been watching a person, using a screen reader go through my course hearing about my friend Jessica, whose day was completely derailed because she failed a compliance course. E-Learning course, had to go read the policy. The policy wasn't accessible. So she had to chase down the owner of the policy, get the document converted so she could read it with her screen reader so she could go back the course, which by the way, has now timed out, did not save her progress. She has to go through the whole thing again. All because someone didn't take the extra 15 minutes to make that. So is it hard? Some of it's hard, but we can do hard things.

JD Dillon (23:42):

Very true. Very true. Now, the conversation around accessibility isn't just about your organization. The employee experience is also impacted by your partners. So technology providers, content developers, consultants, and plenty of more different types of players. So how do you make sure as an organization that the partners that you're working with align with your expectations when it comes to accessible experiences? Mm-Hmm.

Diane Elkins (24:04):

Great, well, I think having the WIC head guidelines as a standard in any contract proposal RFP is a good starting point. There are some people who will apply yes. And still not know what they're doing. So I think it is helpful to have that as a part of your conversation. You know, show me some of the courses you've made that are accessible. Talk to me about how you determine whether it's accessible. And then you also need to decide where you're going to divide any validation. So at Artisan, we have chosen as of the beginning of last year that it's an opt-out, not an opt-in for accessibility. Before it was, we would ask, you would tell us yes or no. Now it's, it's accessible unless you argue it out. But then what we do need to talk to our clients about is will you be testing as well, or are you gonna, so we test because I'm, I'm not gonna say it works on an iPad without testing it on iPad.

(25:00):

So I'm not gonna say it works on a screen reader without testing it with a screen reader, but I also need to know if they have testing as well, because they need to align. Are they using a different screen reader or whatever. So you wanna make sure that you align and you need to, to clarify who's going to be validating it whether that relies on your vendor to self validate or whether you're gonna be checking as well. And I recommend if it's a new relationship, do a prototype. Because even though the WIC head guidelines spell out a lot of things, how they are interpreted in learning content, sometimes a little bit grey. The guidelines are written more for websites then for learning content. And so if you do a prototype first, then you can make sure you're all on the same page about some of the things that might have a little bit of wiggle room or a little bit of room for interpretation.

JD Dillon (25:48):

Last question before I let you go. You recently dropped an announcement about a new accessibility initiative that you're a part of, and I know it's still early days, but can you give us a bit of information about Inspire Accessibility and what you're hoping to achieve?

Diane Elkins (26:01):

Yeah, so Inspire Accessibility. I got a call one day from Todd Cummings at ELB Learning saying, I've got the bug. Can we do something big? And so Artisan joined forces with ELB Learning and Sweet Rush, and together these three companies put out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of content a year between our three companies, and we're the small ones in this group. So, I mean, that's a big, we're a big chunk of the industry, just these three companies. And we're like, what can we do together? And so our goal is to champion accessibility at an industry level. So we're just, we're still getting started. We did a couple of quick things like you can go on the Inspire accessibility website and you get the e-learning super d duper detailed e-learning checklist that Sweet Rush uses to, to test their own courses, like it's there for you to use.

(26:53):

We also have a roadmap that's more for higher level decision makers to go, like, what kinds of things should I even be thinking about? But we're looking to go even bigger, that needs to change in the industry. We've been talking to conference organizers about just things like, you know, your PowerPoint template is pink on white. You know, can we, can we talk about not doing that in the future? Is it education? Is it advocacy? What can we learn from other industries that are doing it better than we are? What can we do to get decision makers talking? So we're, we're looking at how we can move the industry forward. I'd love to have conversations with the authoring tool companies because yes, many of them make it so that the output is accessible. But if I'm blind, I can't use the tool to create content. I can't be a storyline developer, a captivate developer if I use a screen reader. I don't think I can use either tool solely if I just have to use a keyboard instead of a mouse. So the tools may have accessible output, but the tools themselves aren't, we have that conversation as well. So that's what we're trying to do. I'd encourage you to check out the Inspire accessibility website for those two tools and stay tuned for how we might be able to move forward on a bigger, bigger level.

JD Dillon (28:11):

Diane Elkins, thank you so much for joining us today. And to show our appreciation for your time, we wanna make a donation to a charitable organization that's near and dear to you. So could you tell us a bit about the group that you selected?

Diane Elkins (28:22):

So I selected Canine Assistance. I thought it was apropos to today's topic as they raise and train service dogs for people with disabilities. And dogs can do amazing, amazing things. People think about the Guide Dogs for the Blind. If you have diabetes, a dog can detect your blood sugar drop 20 minutes before a blood test. Like they can be life changing for people with epilepsy, cancer, any number of things. So it's great organization and it's puppies.

JD Dillon (28:52):

And it's the best possible endorsement and its puppies. So be sure to check out the organization. Their website information will be in the show notes as well. And finally, Diane, how can people connect with you and follow the awesome work your team is doing at Artisan E-Learning?

Diane Elkins (29:04):

Okay, well, you can check out artisanelearning.com. Inspireaccessibility.com we mentioned, and then my Social Media drug of choice, LinkedIn. So you can follow me there as well.

JD Dillon (29:15):

Awesome. Again, thank you so much Diane Elkins for sharing her passion and insights into building accessible learning experiences with us today. If you're interested in a deeper dive in today's topic, I recommend checking out the accessibility and Inclusion online conference from the Learning Guild coming up on August 2nd and third. You can find the full details on the Learning Guild website at learningguild.com. If you had a good time today, be sure to subscribe to ITK. Head over to Axonify.com/itk, sign up for show announcements and reminders. You can also check out the entire IK collection on the Axonify YouTube channel, or listen to In the Know on your favourite podcast app. Tune in next time. Same ITK time. Same ITK channel as we celebrate a milestone with one of our all time favourite guests. Cara North is back and she's gonna drop all the deets on her brand new book,

(30:03):

Learning Experience Design Essentials. Cara's gone from an accidental instructional designer to literally writing the book on modern learning design. So she's gonna join us for a rousing game of Agree to Disagree, where we're gonna debate the biggest questions in learning and development, including if AI is gonna replace AI, or AI is gonna replace L&D jobs. So tune in for some spicy discourse with Cara North on Wednesday, August 9th at 11:30 AM Eastern. Until then, I've been JD. Now you're In the Know. And always remember to ask yourself the important questions like, what do you get when you combine a rhetorical question and a joke in the nose? <Awkward silence>

ITK is produced by Sam Trieu. Visual designed by Mark Anderson. Additional production support by Richia McCutcheon, Andrea Miller, Maliyah Bernard, and Meaghan Kay. The show is written and hosted by JD Dillon. ITK is an Axonify production. For more information on how Axonify helps frontline workers learn, connect, and get things done, visit Axonify.com.