How Do YOU Learn?

SHAUN BRYANT: Welcome to Autodesk University 2023. And welcome to my class, EDU601347. It's called How Do YOU Learn? And you'll notice a little hashtag there, #alwaysbelearning. That's a bit of a mantra of mine. I'm Shaun 'CADjedi' Bryant. And let's jump into How Do YOU Learn?

Before we get started, a quick Safe Harbor statement from Autodesk. Sometimes you do get those forward looking statements regarding software development and so on. This is a Safe Harbor statement just saying don't base your purchasing decisions on what you might see in this presentation.

So as I said, I'm Shaun 'CADjedi' Bryant. So who is this guy? Well, I own a company in the UK called CADFMconsultants. And I'm the lead consultant for that particular company.

I also write a blog. And a LinkedIn newsletter. And I've written for various publications on the planet at various times.

My main day-to-day work is as a LinkedIn learning instructor, teaching both AutoCAD and Revit. I'm also an Expert Elite, an Autodesk certified instructor, and an Autodesk certified professional. I'm also a subject matter expert for the likes of Autodesk, Dell, AMD, Certiport, and 3D Connection.

I've been speaking at AU since AU 2006. And I'm also an AU speaker mentor, helping those first time speakers get their presentations the way they want them. I've been working with AutoCAD now for 35 plus years and Revit for 14 plus years.

And I've been known to dabble in a little bit of singing and songwriting. My music is actually out there on iTunes and other outlets, if you want to check it out. And weirdly enough I'm known to sound like the Geico gecko to those of you in the USA. And there's a bit of a running joke between me and some members of the Autodesk staff that I could potentially be Ricky Gervais' stunt double.

So a little bit of background info for you here as well. You may have heard of the Autodesk Report, the 2023 State of Design and Make. And it's a report with insights from industry leaders all about how digital transformation is making a lot of changes within our environment where we're utilizing the Autodesk software.

So there's some key takeaways there. 52% of companies change their day-to-day workflows to offset the impact of COVID. 79% say that future growth depends on digital tools and adopting those tools as well. And more digitally mature companies are more prepared to handle change as we go forward from the pandemic.

72% of the workforce has evolved in the last three years. Primarily, I think personally because of the pandemic. But that's compared to the last 25 years. So it's a massive paradigm shift.

And 56% of companies are employing workers who lack the necessary skills and are training them with on the job training and getting them into accredited training courses. The other thing that's happening is 70% of the architecture, engineering, and construction industry companies are struggling to find skilled staff.

So this is where How Do YOU Learn comes in. Because the biggest key takeaway is that 79% of respondents in that State of Design and Make Report said that training was important. So we need to look at how do you learn and get that training.

So let's take a look at some key words here. We need to know the how, we need to know the you, and we need to know how you learn. And we're doing that around the Autodesk ecosystem.

So we're designing. We're making. We're generating output. And to do that, we need that knowledge. So we need to learn to develop that knowledge and make ourselves working smarter, not harder.

We all learn differently and implement that learning in different ways. So for example, we all learn to ride a bicycle at one point. And those little stabilizers that stop you falling off, it's when those stabilizers come off that you actually learn to ride the bike independently.

We all learn using different mediums as well. The world has changed dramatically. We learn from people. We learn from books. We learn from videos.

We use things like LinkedIn Learning, for example. We jump onto YouTube to look something up. And we even use the good old pen and paper, like I still do, along with many, many more mediums for learning.

So I'm going to introduce you to the interface of learning. So your starter for 10, before we kick off is, do you know what an interface actually is? So this is the word "interface," courtesy of that well-known little website called Wikipedia.

So in computing, an interface is basically a shared boundary where you're exchanging information. So that could be software, computer hardware, peripheral devices. So you might be using a computer to print a Word document on a printer. That's where that interface kicks in and allows you to perform that task.

There's a human factor there which combines with the mouse and the keyboard. And we've got other things like the headset I'm wearing, for example, to record as well. Some computer hardware devices, such as a touch screen, can send and receive data through the interface. While others, such as a mouse or a microphone, only provide an interface to send data. So the microphone is collecting sound, sending the data through a device, perhaps into a computer, for example.

Now we've also got the user interface. So this is where you come in. The user interface is all about you and how you connect.

So your user interface could be lots of different things. It could be a mouse. It could be a keyboard. It could be a touch screen. The user interface could also be the ribbon in AutoCAD or Revit or Inventor. So what you've got there is that user interface defines how you use something to get to an end point whilst performing a task.

There's a lot of big words in there as well, which I won't bore you with. But it might be worth jumping back to this slide later on and just getting a bit of a kind of head space there where you understand how you're interacting and being the interface between you, the computer, and perhaps your Autodesk software. So interface, you are the interface of all of your learning. You're the interface between you, your brain, and how you learn.

So let's take a look at our objectives for this particular Autodesk University class. Now our objectives are, in essence, your learning plan. How you're going to develop your learning to utilize it the most effectively and empower yourself to get better as you move forward.

So objective number one, your learning path. You need direction. You need to follow that path. What do you want to learn? And more to the point, how are you going to manage that learning path to make sure you stay on that path as well?

Our second objective is recording and reusing that information that we're gaining as we go along our path. We need to record our learning. What mediums are we going to record our learning with?

What's this thing called the cloud? Can I use it? And more importantly, how do I reuse what I've learned as well?

We're then moving on to applying our learning. We've already got the knowledge. We've recorded it. And we're going to reuse it now and apply it to what we do as a function.

So hopefully with that knowledge we're learning how to work smarter, not harder. We're developing our efficiency, our productivity, and the bottom line. We're enhancing our profitability by doing things quicker, by being more lean and more agile with extensive knowledge for a particular task or function.

And then last but not least, our fourth objective will be our professional objective. We're developing a skill set. Can we use that to gain a certification, a benchmark of our skills so that we're empowered to move forward and perhaps put that certification on our resume so that a new employer would understand that we're at a certain level and we're going to hit the ground running on a certain project?

So let's jump into objective one. Let's consider our learning path and how to manage it. Maybe not quite like this, though. This guy obviously has followed a learning path. He's not quite implementing the skills that he needs effectively for that particular task.

And you'll all remember this one, the knowledge imparted there didn't go quite as well as it could have. So we need a learning path that's effective, but also goes in the right direction.

Let's take some thoughts now about finding our path and applying that interface. You are the interface. So there's you in the center of the screen. So let's take a look at all of these factors where you're the interface.

So we've got our real world factors. We can learn from instructor-led training in the classroom. We can read our books.

We can learn peer-to-peer with our colleagues at work. You can attend a conference, such as Autodesk University, and learn from the classes there. You can also become a member of user groups, such as the Autodesk community.

People, people are really important to learn from. I've learned so much in all my years of working with Autodesk software from the ground up when I was about 18 years old. You learn from your colleagues.

You learn using a whiteboard or a smart board, perhaps a screen, or a projector, or the written word. And then virtually as well, we've got the internet now. We've got the technology where we can attend online learning classes, such as the LinkedIn Learning. We've got the virtual classroom where we can use things like Microsoft Teams and Zoom to run a class virtually where people can attend from all over the world.

And, again, virtually, we can use the screen, the projector, and the written word as well. You can write things virtually if you want to. The technology is there.

And then, as I mentioned, we've got the internet. You can browse. You can jump on a tablet.

You've got the interface there with your smartphone. You've got audio. You can pop some headphones on and listen to iBooks or iTunes or Kindle. You can jump onto the internet and go to something like Vimeo or YouTube and watch a video about something that you need to learn about.

So we've got these four key areas that basically apply to us as the interface with our learning. Let's jump into them in a little bit more depth. Let's take a look at real world learning.

Now what we're doing here is we're looking at each of the key points and just breaking them down a little bit. So instructor-led training, or ILT as it's known, you're in a classroom with other people and an instructor. So that might be someone like me, an Autodesk-certified instructor. And I might be teaching you how to use AutoCAD.

So not only am I teaching you in the classroom, but you'll find as well that you talk to others in the classroom. So you've got people learning from other people, not just the instructor in the classroom. And that's often something that I allow to happen when I'm teaching in the classroom.

You'll get one person that catches on to a concept really quickly. Another person might not catch on to it so quickly. And they discuss it with each other. And they talk to each other. And they learn from each other. That's the people learning from people.

Now obviously, you can learn from books. You've got your hard copy books. There's always a hard copybook in my office somewhere about AutoCAD, about Revit.

But you've also got the e-book functionality now, where you can work with your tablet. Perhaps you've got a nice iPad. And you download the e-book onto your iPad and work with it that way.

Now I mentioned peer-to-peer learning. Now obviously that is part of the instructor-led training in the classroom. But also, when you attend a conference such as Autodesk University, you can get peer-to-peer interactions.

And they're really, really important. Learning from other people, your colleagues, and on-the-job training is how I've got to where I am today. I've learned from others and moved up the ladder, the career ladder, and developed myself around that knowledge that I've gained from my colleagues, from my peers.

Conferences, I mentioned Autodesk University. And jokingly, you think? Yeah, we are at Autodesk University. And we are learning right now.

So there's plenty of conferences out there. And, again, those conferences, you're not just attending the classes, you're meeting others. So that relates back to peer-to-peer. It relates back to the instructor-led training.

And also, user groups, I can't stress how important user groups are. Communities are built around the software that we use daily. We have the Autodesk community. You'll notice there that there's a little screen grab of the Autodesk community voices blog.

That blog is full of articles written by subject matter experts such as myself where we are helping others to learn. We are putting information out there for people to learn from. So that's what I call the real world environment.

So I mentioned people. Now there's a lot of stuff going on here. And colleagues, you've got on the job training, and the people learning from people.

Your colleagues are going to be a very diverse group of people. You're going to have the newbies who don't know much. You're going to have the people that have been there a little while.

And you're also going to have the seasoned veterans. They're the ones that you want to talk to for that on-the-job training, the people learning from people. They're the ones that have been using AutoCAD for 20 years. And they know all those little tips and tricks, those sneaky little things that you can use in AutoCAD to just become that little bit quicker and work that little bit smarter, not harder, when you're trying to work on a drawing and get that drawing out of the door by 5 PM on a Friday.

The whiteboard and the smartboard, I'm going to give you one comment here. There's one of those in every office in the world. You can extol your knowledge on that whiteboard or smartboard to others.

So if you've got knowledge to give to somebody, use the whiteboard or the smartboard. But also, more importantly, if there's a concept you need to learn, talk to the person that knows it really well. Ask them to present on the whiteboard or the smartboard so that you get your head around that concept.

The screen, sitting around the computer screen at work, that peer-to-peer learning. We've all done it. I've done it for many, many years when I was a CAD drafter, when I was a CAD manager.

And you sit around the screen. And you sit and learn. It might only be one thing. But that one thing, for the rest of the week, makes you that little bit more productive, that little bit more efficient.

And I mentioned projectors. Project those ideas. Brainstorm. Sit down with your colleagues. Learn.

And learning is so important. If you've got a projector and a whiteboard and a smartboard, start maybe creating some lunch and learn sessions. Get one of your seasoned CAD guys to present some ideas about how things could be improved. Everybody's then learning.

And then last but not least, you've got the written word, pen and paper, journaling, muscle memory. One of the things I've always done is written things down. And I find that when I write things down, I remember them.

Hence the term, muscle memory. I'm always remembering what I write down. And it is my personal favorite.

I've actually got AutoCAD journals going all the way back to the late '80s when I first started using AutoCAD. I first started using AutoCAD in 1988 when I was 18 years old. I turned 54 this year.

So I've got a lot of AutoCAD journals going on. Some obviously hard copy, written pen and paper. Nowadays, they tend to be more electronic.

So let's take a look at how we manage our learning path virtually. We've got online learning, things like LinkedIn. The link is right there if you want to jump to that URL.

We've got the virtual classroom, Microsoft Teams, Zoom. We've got a screen where we've got an Autodesk-authorized Training Center, an ATC. They might offer online training as well.

So if you've got a projector in a training room in an ATC, and you use the internet, webcams, and an instructor, you've not just got people learning in the classroom, but you've got people learning elsewhere, remotely to the classroom. So it can be virtual as well. It doesn't have to be that instructor-led training physically in the classroom.

And I mentioned written virtually as well. Now there's a lot of tools out there that allow you to write things virtually. There's things such as Microsoft OneNote, which I use religiously on a daily basis. That's where all my notes go now.

There's another tool very similar to OneNote called Evernote, which I've used in the past. And that links into other tools, such as Scannable. So you'll notice the little butterfly symbols there on the slide. That's Scannable scanning a document and then dropping it into Evernote.

The one with all the handwriting there is Penultimate, which is a fantastic tool on a tablet. You can use something like your Apple Pencil or your Adonit or Lenovo stylus to write everything down on your tablet. And the tablet then recognizes your handwriting and converts it to documents, like you can see on the slide there. So you've got a way of writing things down virtually as well.

And I mentioned the internet. The internet, there are so many ways you can connect to learn. And these are things that you perhaps need to adopt and think about when you're thinking about how you learn. Use your browser, such as Google, Firefox, et cetera. Use your tablet and in turn link to Google and Firefox. Smartphones connect to the internet as well.

You've got your audio, where you've got iTunes, iBooks, Kindle, where you're listening and learning. You've got the video out there, the Vimeo, the YouTube, where you're watching and learning as well.

Let's jump into objective two. Now we need to record all of that learning we've mentioned effectively. Now I mentioned some of that already with writing down things virtually and so on.

But let's take a look at how we record it effectively in a sensible fashion. We're going to look at a word which is "syntax." And it's a bit of a weird word. But Wikipedia defines syntax as a set of rules or principles and processes that govern the structure of sentences and language, including word order.

So I'll give you an example of this, an example of syntax and how you are ordering something. I might create a text style in AutoCAD. And the text style name has to include the name of the text style, the space it is used in, such as model or layout, and the height of the text in the text style.

So I've got a text style. And I've called it notes for all my notes on my drawings. It's used in the layout tabs only. And it's got a height of 3.5. So that means that I'm using that text style for any notes in the layout tabs, the space, which is at a preset height of 3.5-- in my case-- millimeters. But that syntax then defines exactly what that text style is doing.

Now you need to apply that to all of your learning knowledge for that later reuse. So I'm talking about filing your knowledge, writing it down, dating it, adding the time even. So be organized. And then, if you're organized and you get into that syntax habit, the repetition of using the syntax aids the retention of the knowledge that you're learning.

So date and time, you might need to make a note of what you learned and when you learned it. So here's one that I learned recently. There are two different Insert commands in AutoCAD. Both perform the same function, but the interface is totally different.

So that gray one on the left where it says Insert is the classic Insert command, where you're inserting that little bold block. The regular Insert command now in AutoCAD goes to the blocks palette that you see on the right there. And it's a very, very different interface.

So you need to make a note of date and time of when you learned both. Make a note of the content as well and how they work. But you make notes of what you've learned, when you learned it, and even where. You might even break that down into versions of AutoCAD. Because you never know when you might need to refer back and explain to somebody how classic Insert works as compared to Insert in AutoCAD.

I mentioned software version a moment ago as well. I was once a CAD journeyman. I was a contract CAD drafter working through agencies, working independently, working freelance. And I always got the question, can you start Monday morning.

Now that's great. I've got work. So I'm a contract CAD drafter. And I've got work.

But there are older and newer versions of perhaps AutoCAD in the office. I need to know the differences in the interface. So we're going back to the previous slide, the Insert and the classic Insert. So it's really important that you record what you've learned per version.

So you record that in a syntax that is obviously personal to you. You record it how you want to record it. But that's when you start journaling. Now that might be handwritten. I tend to use ring-bound notebooks if I'm handwriting anything.

But you've got the likes of Evernote and OneNote. There's a little Evernote screengrab there showing how I organize myself for my LinkedIn Learning courses. So I've got some dates there. You can see year, date, and what I'm updating each time.

So that's how you're starting to journal with your syntax, to make sure that that syntax reflects information and knowledge so that you can always refer back and go, oh, it's that version. It's that date. It's that time. And also, more importantly, what you've learned as well.

Now here's the interesting one. How do I store all of this information? Well, people often ask me this. And it's really simple.

It doesn't matter what you're doing, what you're recording, what knowledge you're retaining, there will just never be enough storage. And I'm not joking, either. There will never be enough storage.

So this is where we need to start thinking about how do I store the information. Where do I put it? What mediums am I using?

Now we've got hard copy, journals on the bookshelves. I have many, as I mentioned earlier. I've been journaling about AutoCAD since 1988. So I've got some IKEA bookshelves that look like that one on the slide. And they're just full of ring-bound notebooks of all my journaling of how I learned AutoCAD when I was younger, and so on.

Moving along from there, you can potentially use tools such as portable hard drives or perhaps even memory sticks now. Memory sticks have a fantastic storage capacity. Those memory sticks could be stored safely somewhere. And you've got a backup of everything that way as well.

Now you've got this amazing thing out there now called the cloud, too. Now I utilize Microsoft OneDrive on a business level all the time, on a daily basis. There's other similar cloud storage tools.

You've got Box. You've got Google Drive. You've got Dropbox. You've even got Autodesk drive, if you want to keep with the Autodesk sort of ecosystem as well.

So there's all these different cloud-based tools where you can store that information. And that goes back to your syntax. Remember, when you're storing in these cloud-based environments that you need the syntax to reflect what you've learned, how you've learned it, when you learned it, and so on. So you break it all down and build up a structure so that you can record all of your learning information.

Now we've got the information. We've stored the information. Objective 3 is going to cover how we apply our learned knowledge. We've learned everything we need to learn. We now need to apply that to what we do in our day-to-day work.

So we need to think about the perception of that knowledge first of all. Now when you come into a company, you obviously are, in essence, a container of knowledge. You do things a certain way. And sometimes when you're doing things a certain way, others might perceive that as wrong, right, efficient, inefficient, and so on. So perception is incredibly important when you look at the knowledge you have in your own little silo.

Now you'll notice the first bullet point mentions a Peter Skidmore. He was my first ever boss in my first AutoCAD job. I was 18 years old. I was very, very new to everything. And basically because I was young, and I could drive computers, they sent me off on a three day AutoCAD essentials training course.

And I came back to the office after my AutoCAD training and my task as the office junior was converting paper, standard detail drawings to CAD. So that all the CAD details were there, things like foundation details and so on in a petrochemical company that built lots of big structures that sat on concrete foundations on big chemical plants. That's what I was doing.

And after my AutoCAD training, Peter came and sat next to me one day and just watched me working on AutoCAD for about 10 minutes. And he then piped up and he said, so you still have to draw when you're using AutoCAD then. It's not like you hit Enter and the drawing comes out.

And I explained to Peter what couldn't be done with the learning I'd gained from my course. So his perception was that you just hit a button and the drawing came out on the plotter. That wasn't the case. You're still drafting in AutoCAD, but you're doing it in a much, much more efficient, productive way.

So I explained to him how you were working smarter and not harder. You were using things like Copy and Erase and Move and Rotate. And I explained to him how it was much, much more productive. It was a better use of my operational time.

And more importantly, he was getting a return on investment of what he'd invested in me for my AutoCAD training. So basically, I was better at my job. I was working smarter, not harder. I was better value for money.

And then, I was then asked to basically develop the training for the whole department to get everybody trained up on AutoCAD. Nine years later in that organization, I was the CAD manager for the company. And I was managing about 25 CAD drafters.

So that's that perception of knowledge from the start to the end. So you've got to make sure that you get that knowledge across to others as well and the benefits of that knowledge, that learning that you've gained.

Now that perception leads to other things as well. Because we've got to think about how we learn. The whole idea of this class is how do you learn.

You're learning to develop efficiency. So you're increasing your learning and your knowledge. Also, you're learning tips and tricks.

That's why I have the tips and tricks over on LinkedIn Learning. It's a weekly trick on AutoCAD. You can see my mugshot there at the bottom of the slide. And I'm imparting that learning and knowledge that I've gained to help you gain more efficiencies with those tips and tricks in AutoCAD.

Now the other thing that you need to learn in the perception of your learning is that you're developing your accuracy. So your accuracy might be using AutoCAD in a more accurate way, using the tools in AutoCAD. And as you use those over and over again, you get used to it. And you develop muscle memory.

So to give you an idea here, an Olympian marksman, for example, he sits and shoots at targets over and over and over again. Because that repetition aids the retention. And then he builds up the muscle memory so it becomes second nature.

I'm a singer and a songwriter. One of my favorite guitarists and singers is a guy called Joe Bonamassa. He sits there every day learning to play his guitar. And he develops that muscle memory so the chords he's playing on the guitar becomes second nature. He doesn't have to think about where his fingers need to go on the fretboard.

So these are the perceptions of your knowledge. These are the perceptions that you need to look at and you need to gain more knowledge from. But the whole idea of all of this with perception is you need to be developing value on the bottom line. You need to be becoming more efficient within your organization and returning that investment that they're making in you. That's the perception that you've got to maintain. So you need to get across to people that the learning that you're going to do is going to basically give them a return on investment for what they've invested in that training and learning.

Applying your learned knowledge. So we need to apply what we've learned. How do we do that? Well, normally, there's a statistic out there, if you've spent 10,000 hours doing something, you then know how to utilize it effectively.

So you're implementing your learning, your training. And that hour spent learning versus doing it right start to basically tally up. So you do your 10,000 hours. You then know, after 10,000 hours, you're doing it right every time, not making mistakes.

Then when you're doing it right every time, your standards improve. Now I'm not just saying company standards, either. You're improving yourself. You're empowering yourself. You're maintaining your own standards to improve other people's standards as well. And I hope that makes sense.

And, again, let's go back to that ROI, you're enhancing any return on investment with any training that you may go and take and then come back and do it right first time. So you're looking at standards there. There's a list of standards there on Wikipedia, AEC standards. There's loads of different standards out there.

But you're improving by learning about those standards. And you're basically enhancing the return on investment because you're working to the standards every time first time. Those four lads from Liverpool, they spent hours and hours learning how to play, sing, working their way through all the small clubs, like the Cavern in Liverpool to become a worldwide sensation. That's the sort of hours spent learning that I'm talking about, where you then get it right first time, and it becomes second nature when you apply it every time.

Last but not least, we're going to take a little look at objective 4, which is professional qualifications. And I just want to say that I absolutely love the backdrop on this particular slide. Because it sums up what I'm trying to get across.

You can see the people installing the solar panels there. So there's a big solar panel array going in. And they've all learned how to put those solar panels into place, connect them up, and save the planet, save energy, et cetera. That's where those professional qualifications will take you to, to working on jobs like this, designing solar arrays like that, and so on.

So how do we take it to a professional level? Well, you've gained all your new knowledge. So you've got your learning path. You've gained the new knowledge. You've stored the new knowledge. And you've applied the new knowledge.

So now you're, perhaps, in a job within a company. And all that knowledge needs to be benchmarked. So you've got all this newly gained knowledge. And you want to put it to good use to obtain a professional qualification.

Now the good thing is Autodesk offer Autodesk certification in certain Autodesk software applications. For example, I have my AutoCAD Autodesk-certified professional qualification. I have to have the ACP to be an Autodesk-certified instructor. I have to renew it every three years.

But I'm still gaining knowledge over time that I put into that so that I'm getting that certification every three years. And the way that I do that is I learn exam technique. Practice, practice, practice. It makes perfect every time.

It goes back to, obviously, that 10,000 hours. Repetition aids retention. It's really, really important.

Now it may be that you need some help with that practice. It's all well and good being able to replicate a workflow in AutoCAD, but you need to also learn exam technique. I cannot stress that enough. I've seen many, many highly intelligent Autodesk users go and take a certification exam and come out with, say, a score of only 30, 35%.

And yet you know that they can pass that exam. And it wasn't their knowledge that was the problem. They were highly knowledgeable. They knew their stuff, It was practicing the actual exam workflow, the exam technique.

Now there's a company out there called Geometrics. There are other companies out there as well. They offer practice exams for exam technique. And you can normally talk to your Autodesk ATC, your local authorized training center, and they will be able to organize some training on exam technique.

Not the actual taking the exam and answering the questions, so to speak, but how the software works within the exam. How does it work. And a lot of these exams now are online as well. That's really, really important. So you need to know how to get online, get into the portal where the exam is, and all of this can really, really aid your confidence when you're taking that certification exam.

Now what's really important when you're taking that exam also is your time management. Now I'm not saying time management during the exam. Obviously, you've got to get all the questions answered in the time the exam allows. That's kind of a given.

But I'm saying time management to allow you to get up to speed, ready to take the exam. So for example, LinkedIn Learning offer certification preparation courses known as cert prep courses. In fact, I've just released my recent AutoCAD cert prep course for Autodesk certification.

But the benefit of something like LinkedIn Learning is it's all online. You're learning at your own speed. You're not having to leave the office and go and sit in a training room for three days. So you can jump online, perhaps during your lunch breaks, and prep for your exam that way as well.

So time management is really important, especially if you've got a really busy day-to-day job. You want to learn more. But you're feeling, oh, I've got to be in the office today and tomorrow. I haven't got time to learn something.

That's where you start thinking about your time management and think about slots where you can put extracurricular learning in to prepare for, perhaps, your AutoCAD certified professional exam.

I'd just like to say a quick thank you for listening. And what I'd also like to say is use that hashtag there as your mantra. Always be learning. Always try and find something new to learn.

I set myself a goal every week to find one thing that I didn't know before the end of that week. And it's always stood me in good stead, not just as a trainer, as an Autodesk University speaker, as an instructor. It's also stood me in good stead as a person. It keeps the gray matter ticking over.

And building up that knowledge all the time is really empowering. It really helps you as well. So always be learning.

Now I have got some contact details here. So just very briefly, there's my email address. There's the website. You can find me on LinkedIn.

And I'm on all the various social media channels, such as Instagram, Threads, Twitter, or X, as it's now known. I'm also on Blue Sky. And you'll find me using the notjustcad name on those social media channels.

And one last quick takeaway, one last thing that you're going to learn from this particular class is you can use the LinkedIn phone app to show your LinkedIn QR code with other people. So at AU, you can just bump into somebody, go into your LinkedIn app, and share QR codes.

You can see my QR code there. You can scan it from the screen using your phone's camera. And that will take you automatically to my LinkedIn profile.

Did you want to be featured by AutoCAD? This is something that I put in every Autodesk University class. We want to hear your story if it's a success story with AutoCAD.

So there's a little link there that you can jump onto. And if you've got a good AutoCAD story for Autodesk to use, the best way to tell those stories is using a medium such as Autodesk. And if you've got a really cool project, it could be featured by the AutoCAD team.