Carla Kincaid-Yoshikawa has worked with Fortune 500 and smaller companies and organizations in the public and non-profit sectors for over 20 years. She has conducted team building, leadership development, strategic planning and change management processes. As a result of her experience and education, she designs, develops and facilitates training programs on a wide array of topics—from team building, leadership development and change management to stress management, software navigation, new hire orientation, sexual harassment, and processes and procedures—providing both train-the-trainer and employee training for clients. A deep curiosity about how people learn, change and grow has created a core resource for her ongoing work in Learning and Development.

As a Learning and Development professional, Carla takes pride in projects she has worked on because they simultaneously: increase organizational effectiveness; enhance commitment, satisfaction, personal growth and professional development of organization members; and improve bottom lines. Carla designs and develops:

• • Synchronous (real-time), instructor-led training sessions
• • Asynchronous (self-paced) learning processes
• • Presenter and participant guides
• • Job aids

Early in Carla’s career, as she was completing her degree in Organization Development, she sought opportunities to work with experienced consultants as a way to learn the most effective techniques for Training and Development. In that endeavor, she was fortunate to work with several excellent consulting firms: Stonefield Learning Group (Knowledge Management, Change Management and Organizational Design); and Integration Strategies (Internal Organizational Collaboration and Integration).

In her work with these organizations, she learned to utilize best practices and the highest standards for work with clients—in research and analysis, curriculum design and presentation, interactive meeting design and facilitation, and coaching and follow-up. Later work with another exceptional consulting firm, Collaborative Strategies (an industry analyst and research firm that specializes in collaboration technologies and best practices), gave her a foundation for understanding the technologies that impact so many industries and professions, including Training and Development. Her experience there, researching and using cutting edge collaboration technologies, enabled her to recognize and incorporate best practices for these tools into her work.

Her career includes design and development of both instructor-led and self-paced learning courses for both in-person and remote learning. She has created and facilitated face-to-face courses on a wide range of topics, and first became interested in avatar-based 3D environments as a tool for learning while recuperating from a severe injury. Her son loaned her several of his video games to pass the time and she was amazed at her own reaction to playing these games: she found herself engaged by the drive to solve the puzzles and get to the next level—and realized what an incredible learning tool these games could be. In addition, she realized that 3D environments not only offered opportunities for activity-based learning, but they also provided the sense of being present with others that is so important for engaging attention and connection——the missing ingredients from other forms of virtual learning.

Over the past few years, 3D technology has made huge leaps in capabilities and usability. Carla is excited to be involved in the emergence of this resource for Training and Development. She believes 3D virtual environments present an amazing array of new, powerful techniques and processes for learning and is working to incorporate the extraordinary benefits of 3D learning into the blended learning services of Training in the 21st Century™.

Carla’s undergraduate degree in Cross-Cultural Communications from San Francisco State University gave her a grounding in the communications issues that are often a barrier to effective collaboration. This perspective was a valuable asset when she earned a Masters Degree in Organization Development from the University of San Francisco and began working in that field. These aspects of her educational background continue to inform her work in training, facilitation and change management.

After owning a business in the Beauty industry for a number of years, Bruce Gross moved from Cleveland, Ohio to the San Francisco Bay Area. In his new location, he used his previous experience in two important ways that led to his work today:

• 1. He collaborated on the development of instructional workbooks and videos, using his knowledge of the Beauty industry while developing new skills and abilities.
• 2. He used his experience as a small business owner to enter the HR field, initially as a Recruiter and then as an HR Generalist for a national auto parts distribution company. This role eventually led him back to Training, the work he loved best.

Bruce worked as a Trainer/Senior Trainer with the same company for over 14 years. He provided training to all levels of management, from high-potential employees to upper-level leaders, on leadership, team building, communication, sexual harassment and related topics. For most of that time, he relied on in-person classroom training and webinars for remote sessions.

As a way to reduce costs while increasing training effectiveness, Bruce introduced the idea of using 3D environments to his skeptical company. Initially, the company saw these worlds as nothing more than game sites. But Bruce recognized the value they offered and began using them as the backdrops for webinar sessions, replacing traditional slide presentations with a walk along a 3D path providing course information. This made the presentations much more dynamic and engaging and he immediately noticed an increase in participation by attendees, who told him they felt they were “present” with him inside the 3D world.

With the success of these webinars, the company agreed to conduct a Proof of Concept (POC) training covering information that would normally be presented in week-long, in-person marathon training sessions. For the POC, Bruce scheduled a 6-week course for managers and directors who logged in from across the country on Monday’s and Fridays. The new format enabled him to provide incremental learning in which attendees learned a few new concepts, then had an opportunity to try them out in real life before returning to learn more. This age-old learn/apply method enhanced learning and retention while eliminating the costs and disruptions related to traditional, week-long, in-person training. As a result Bruce was able to continue using the POC curriculum and add new courses for training in 3D. And he was able to include more high-potential employees in leadership training courses for career development.