Frederic is a Professor teaching in Universities in Germany and the Middle East. He shares two stories in one session with us – how and why he purchased PJ Milani’s course, and then why he continued learning by joining Janis’ Explain Ideas Visually course.
Initially I was unsure whether to treat these as one or two stories, but on further analysis I have split them in two. Listen to the interview and read the analysis below and see whether you agree.
Watch the full interview below:
The Four-Forces Debrief
In this case I have debriefed this twice – once for the PJ Milani purchase, and again for Janis’ course:
Frederic - Four Forces Analysis
Frederic is a researcher and Professor based in Germany, working in German and Middle Eastern Universities. 50% of his work is writing articles and running research, which he then uses as presentations in Conferences (which he needs to design). He also uses slides frequently to teach students - continuously trying to improve the communication with students. Based on his own experience, he knows visual information and tables is easier for people to process, and so he thought it would be fun to learn how to get better at this skill.
The main ambitions behind joining PJ and Janis' course were:
- learning how to get better at visualisations
- taking the opportunity to be more creative
- to learn about the process of creating a visual idea
- to compare his work with others and learn
Frederic is curious to learn new things, and wants to draw more but knows he's not good at it. He was poor at drawing in school, but he thinks drawing would be a fun hobby and it could be useful in his work to create slides with more structure to help students learn the concepts more easily.
- the focus is more on a course to learn visualisation ideas - not to learn how to draw
- he's keen to do this to get better at a skill, using it as a hobby and posting on LinkedIn to see feedback and improve
- it "might lead to something new someday" but the immediate term is more about developing a new skill he doesn't have
He was following PJ Milani for around 6 months on LinkedIn and Instagram, and was on his newsletter since the end of 2024. It provides interesting content and inspiration, giving him ideas about visualisations - typically about the process of going from no idea -> idea -> visual. PJ also shares books he's reading now (Frederic has bought at least one of them) and visuals themselves (to ensure he gets them in his inbox, vs hoping to see one on LinkedIn).
The newsletter contains information about PJ's course, and in Jan 2025 there was a cohort coming that fit into his schedule.
- he thought he would take the opportunity to learn something new
- the course structure pulled him in:
* it was broken into 6 parts, each of which included a live lesson as part of a group
* he liked the idea of a live session, thinking it would be good to talk and ask questions
* the structure was logical- explaining what he would get, the fact there was a live sessions plus pre-recorded videos, and resources like templates and resources aligned with what he would learn in each session was good
* other resources showed how to create a font, how to design a colour palette plus additional online resources to help get started
* it would teach him how to create his own style, from coming up with ideas, through iterating the ideas, and into producing them
He looked for alternative courses, wondering "Is there a cheaper course available?" He found courses from:
- Janis
- Jun Han
- Ash Lamb
* He remembers these being "about $100 cheaper" than PJs course, all $2-300 each, but the lack of live sessions meant he opted to go for PJs offering as the rest of the content "seemed similar"
He joined for $3-400 USD - with a discount - which he thought was a fair price given it has 6 live sessions.
- he ended up taking just 2/6 live sessions - because of the time-zone issue
- this was not a bad thing, as PJ's course lets you rejoin again, so he has the option to join another cohort (and thought about the summer one, when PJ offers this at different times of the day)
- he still felt like he got good value from the course, despite not joining all the live sessions
- during the live sessions he didn't ask any questions anyway
- the idea "just start posting and sharing as you'll never be ready" was a useful insight - and he began posting on LinkedIn to get feedback and share his ideas, as well as joined and attended a local group on visual thinking
In May 2025, he decided to join Janis' course:
- He'd been following Janis and liked his visuals
- the idea was to learn even more new skills and new ideas
- like PJ's course, a big draw was to learn a different/new process to come up with ideas, to get new ideas/a different perspective, to learn how Janis' visual thinking process works, and to learn how to come up with an idea and test it
This time he opted for the cheaper package:
- he remembers the more expensive one being 500 Euro - which was a big jump vs the DIY option of $200 USD - he didn't want to join the more expensive course because he felt that he didn't know what questions he was going to ask, and didn't know what he was going to get from the 1-on-1 sessions that would be different from the group sessions.
- As a result, he didn't know what feedback he was going to get, so didn't value paying extra for it
This is another story about someone learning a skill to draw and create visuals more for fun than for immediate need
He's another that says "I can't draw" but wants a creative outlet - especially one that COULD come in useful for his own work
This is more about learning the process and the thinking behind it than learning the specific skills to draw and create
I will probably make a second interview from this to look at why he chose Janis' course - it's much the same underlying motive, but there's a subtle tweak from "I can join a live class and ask questions" to "I did not join the live classes or ask questions, so why pay more for a 1-1 course?")
And here is the subtle difference in the debrief for joining Janis’ course:
Frederic 2 - Four Forces Analysis
This is the second story about Frederic:
Frederic is a researcher and Professor based in Germany, working in German and Middle Eastern Universities. 50% of his work is writing articles and running research, which he then uses as presentations in Conferences (which he needs to design). He also uses slides frequently to teach students - continuously trying to improve the communication with students. Based on his own experience, he knows visual information and tables is easier for people to process, and so he thought it would be fun to learn how to get better at this skill.
The main ambitions behind joining PJ and Janis' course were:
- learning how to get better at visualisations
- taking the opportunity to be more creative
- to learn about the process of creating a visual idea
- to compare his work with others and learn
Frederic is curious to learn new things, and wants to draw more but knows he's not good at it. He was poor at drawing in school, but he thinks drawing would be a fun hobby and it could be useful in his work to create slides with more structure to help students learn the concepts more easily.
- the focus is more on a course to learn visualisation ideas - not to learn how to draw
- he's keen to do this to get better at a skill, using it as a hobby and posting on LinkedIn to see feedback and improve
- it "might lead to something new someday" but the immediate term is more about developing a new skill he doesn't have
Similar reasons propelled Frederic to buy Janis' course, however this time he opted for the cheaper package:
- he remembers the more expensive one being 500 Euro - which was a big jump vs the DIY option of $200 USD - he didn't want to join the more expensive course because he felt that he didn't know what questions he was going to ask, and didn't know what he was going to get from the 1-on-1 sessions that would be different from the group sessions.
- As a result, he didn't know what feedback he was going to get, so didn't value paying extra for it
There are subtle differences between these two stories:
- When joining PJs class, the draw of live training and the ability to learn from the peers on the course, to network with people, and to engage directly with the instructor makes it "worth" more money
- When joining Janis' class he already has experience in posting visual ideas, and has seen the engagement and value, yet he seems fine to take a course that has no instructor engagement, because there's no urgent hurry to use these visuals.
Let's see if these play out into more than one group or not
What do you think? Two stories, or both the same?
We will find out when we analyse these – which involves lining up the Pushes and Pulls that difference groups share and clustering them accordingly. I thought it better to let our algorithm decide rather than to make the call based on my own feelings.