Welcome! Below you'll find a few samples of my video and design work as well as a sample job aid and some more information about me. More formal or academic writing samples are available upon request; if you're interested, you can read my dissertation here.
My professional career began in academia, where for 10 years I was a research, writing, and literature instructor while I completed my PhD in English (Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies) at UW-Milwaukee. In this time, I served as a mentor to my students, collaborator to/with my colleagues, and as a committee member in service of our chair(s).
For the last seven years, I've worked in the private sector, primarily in the mobile tech and insurtech spaces. As a Senior Instructional Designer and Learning Strategy & Design Manager, I have experience scripting, doing VO work, and producing high-quality audio files (for various purposes and audiences); creating engaging training and educational videos; building asynchronous and often complex e-learning courses and paths (e.g., Storyline, Rise); building and implementing large programs (e.g., specialized new hire onboarding); and leading complex legal/compliance initiatives (e.g., CCPA).
In addition to my training and project management expertise, I also have experience as a Business Systems Analyst and Product Owner, so I understand the relationship between business requirements/needs and the dev side of a business and am comfortable leading projects through to completion (and one of my biggest strengths is analyzing and refining workflows).
Finally, I'm also an accomplished mentor and leader; I simply love helping others grow and develop, and I thrive when I'm communicating and collaborating across teams and levels.
You can find a link to my LinkedIn profile at the bottom of this page. I hope to hear from you soon!
-Ron
Experience
Manager, Learning Strategy & Design | Equity Lifestyle Properties, 2022 - Present
First point-of-contact for all learning design requests; project manage work of other IDs as needed
Develop e-learning courses, training guides, job aids, videos, print, and multi-media materials
Lead company's safety & compliance program; collaborate with senior leaders and legal team
Coordinate with HRIS analyst for course/program assignment launch
Manage vendor relationships and expectations
Lead Instructional Designer | Kin Insurance, 2021 - 2022
Develop and lead strategic planning and process improvement initiatives
Manage projects for and mentor other designers
Develop and implement onboarding programs for multiple departments
Responsible for creating videos, graphics, and text-based training content
Manage multiple portfolios with varying levels of priority and complexity
Establish training team's brand and style guidelines
Sr. Instructional Designer (& BSA) | CCC Intelligent Solutions, 2016 - 2021
Analyze software functionality and business workflows to create training and compliance deliverables in various forms — e.g., complex e-learning, videos, podcasts, job aids, etc. — for internal and external audiences
Responsible for entire training program and customer communications around our mobile software products
Helped lead redesign of our technical support new-hire program
Supervised and guided others’ work and managed simultaneous projects
Collaborated across all levels of the company
Participate in GTMs and other stakeholder checkpoints
English Instructor | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee & Carroll University, 2007 - 2016
Developed and taught composition and literature courses for undergraduates as instructor of record
Mentored students, evaluated performance, and served on evaluative and curriculum committees
Carried minimum load of 4:4 per year
Education
PhD, English (Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies) | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2017
Dissertation: “Just Say No: Authority, Disobedience, and Individuation in Some of Sam Peckinpah’s Minor Films“
Chancellor’s Award
MA, English (Creative Writing) | University of Illinois at Springfield, 2006
UIS Journal
BA, English | Northern Illinois University, 2003
Undergraduate Special Opportunities in Artistry and Research Award
WKDI Radio
The Northern Star
Student Film and Video Association
A small selection of samples:
A short video I created to introduce Sales agents to a new process they might be called on to execute in the case of a catastrophic weather event, i.e., a "cat". (I performed the research, wrote the script, recorded the VO, and did all the video production work.)
Another short video I made to contextualize some text-based training content that I also built out and is shown in the video. (I performed the research, wrote the script, recorded the VO, and did all the video production work.)
A video demo I wrote and produced to help train our trainers, implementation specialists, and customers on our photo capture mobile application. I also designed and built the set used here to capture the "damage images" of the model vehicle. Additionally, I researched and produced all the text-based training and support documentation around this and all of our other mobile apps.
A brochure I designed for distribution at an internal conference to advertise some of our professional development courses (two images).
Some branding work I did for our New Hire program. The entire program was redesigned to make it cleaner and easier to navigate and understand (all huge UX improvements); the new minimalistic graphics and other design elements I incorporated help with this (multiple images).
A few screen shots from a resource I built out in Rise that was used to communicate details around CCPA to our employees and satisfied our legal/compliance requirements. This project required me to work closely with program managers, developers, attorneys, HR executives, and more (just a few static images are included here).
A resource I built out in Storyline that contains all of our Mobile-related training resources, e.g., videos/demos, job aids, dev road maps, etc. (just a few static images are included here).
Quick_Estimate_Application.pdfA standard job aid. At CCC, I was responsible for creating and maintaining all of the training content (for both internal and external users) around our mobile apps; these documents and artifacts would often be used by our sales people and were frequently leveraged by insurance company users providing customer support to their end users. Artifacts include: job aids, e-learning modules, slide decks, videos, and podcast episodes.
Additional work samples are available upon request.
© 2023 by Ron Felten