Career Skills & Transitions with Nathan Moore, Co-Founder at Frameless Interactive

👋 Meet Nathan Moore

Co-Founder of Frameless Interactive and General Manager for Learnsuite Health.

Nathan has an extensive nursing, education and informatics background and has recently left the public health system to co-found Frameless Interactive commercialising his PHD research. Frameless Interactive are on a mission to revolutionise educational delivery. Leveraging streamlined development processes and cutting edge technologies including VR, AI and digital simulations they are able to rapidly deploy truly scalable and engaging education. Their lead product Learnsuite Health is a suite of healthcare focused training applications designed to support areas of clearly identified educational need including interpersonal communication, advanced life support, deteriorating patients, violence and aggression minimisation and more. If you would like to learn more reach out to Nathan at nathanmoore@framelessinteractive.com.au

What’s your career story so far?

Lucy Wark: Yay! Okay, so I am here with Nathan from Frameless Interactive. Nathan, we'd love if you could introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your career journey so far. 

Nathan Moore: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me, Lucy. So yeah, my name's Nathan. I'm the co-founder of Frameless Interactive and I'm the general manager for our Learnsuite Health product that we've just gone to market with.

My career journey - I'm a registered nurse by trade. I've been a nurse for about 20 years. Started off in critical care, intensive care, moved my way up through the ranks in that, then took a real interest in education. So I became an after hours educator, which is kind of a generalist role, looking at supporting everybody across the hospital in the after hours settings.

Then my boss at the time was approached by the Chief Medical Officer who said do you know anyone who's good at computers and knows advanced life support? And then went you know you should talk to Nathan and that was kind of the start of my journey in the technology piece so I became a simulation nurse educator; spent nearly a decade doing that.

So where we bring together clinicians to do systems testing, mandatory training, device integration, those sorts of things. But using simulation mannequins, live actors, those sorts of things. And then, about four years ago, I start exploring the use of virtual reality and virtual simulation.

And then prior to this current role, I took up a job as the Chief Nursing Information Officer for the district. So looking at working with the IP department to be a bridge and a translator from IP to the clinicians to try and streamline and help them with electronic medical records and all those sorts of things. So the technology implementations, but from a clinician's lens. So that's, that's kind of me.

Lucy Wark: Awesome. And I've had a chance to look at the frameless interactive product, which is super cool as well. Like I think I was watching you demo a resuscitation and dealing with a patient who is having some trouble which is super awesome. So I'd love to hear more about that.

But just to zoom in on your quite interesting career journey,

were there any like ingredients, attitudes or skills that have been particularly important early in your career?

Nathan Moore: I think one of the things has been a genuine curiosity.

I've always been curious about how things come together and not I've never been one to believe in silos. You know, we always we work as teams. I mean, in healthcare in particular, we have multiple specialties and there's so much to know about the human and the human condition and physiology and disease processes that no single person is going to know it all.

So you have to work together with others and then added into that, I've always had a passion for technology. And actually having that curiosity lens of where this could fit in, but not just looking for solutions to jam into problems, but actually going, well, what are the problems we're facing and what are the things that we have?

What are the emerging techs? What are the processes that we can use to possibly address them? And just thinking how we can join things together in different ways and make the most of it is probably the biggest one.

And I think as well, for my career, was just trying to get on with people in some way as well. You know, there's so much to be said for networks and working alongside people and trying to solve people's problems. That sort of mindset has tended to give me some really interesting opportunities over my time.

Lucy Wark: I can see how both of those would be really important predictors of you leaping from nursing into like teaching nursing and simulation into tech quite naturally.

I think I may know the answer, but just to ask it

what has been the biggest career transition you've had to do, and how did you do it?

Nathan Moore: look, I know the one that we think we're gonna discuss. To some extent, I will say the Chief Nursing Information Officer role, that did have some real challenges to it because of the required rigour.

When you have like mission critical systems, the amount of oversight and scrutiny and levels of approvals and things to make changes can make that a really challenging space to work in. Because out of necessity, you can't... if the EMR goes down, no one can function. And yes, there's redundancies, but you know, the level of scrutiny and things that was, that was a bit of a shock to the system, but the one I would say that was the biggest challenge has been this move into entrepreneurship and going from a safe, secure public sector job where I think I did a really good job of it.

But, you know, you had the predictors of what you needed to achieve. You had that the structures and all the things around you and all of a sudden, moving into a very, very small, nimble, agile team where, you know, if we don't make sales, people don't get paid. If we don't stay on top of what's emerging, you can get left behind working out the difference between the people who I was, you know, finalizing a PhD. I'm very used to presenting and publishing and talking to people. I've done adult education, got my masters for over a decade of talking to people. I'm fine with that. But all of a sudden they're needing to go. Okay, well, actually, who's going to buy the product? And how do you change those different conversations?

Depending on, you know, is it the end user audience that you're trying to encourage to adopt? Is it the CFO or CEO who's going to be purchasing it? Is in the manager in between where you're talking about the ROI side of things and the research base and adapting that and I think the thing that's helped me with that is that kind of curiosity and always being a bit of a jack of all trades.

I'm not scared to jump in and do the different things that need to happen, but

it's definitely been a big transition and the thing that's helped me take this step I've got to say is the network of people around me;

the likes of you, the good conversations I just have with good people; through linkedin, other entrepreneurs, it's just such a welcoming community.

I did the offset program. That was really great the The training, the advice, the learnings we got from that, but even more so just the network of people you know, found my tribe for want of a better word and, yeah, it's a really supportive space and, you know, just gave me that confidence that, you know, you can actually do this, you know, it's, it's people, people can do it and some people are really successful doing it.

So give it a crack.

Lucy Wark: Amazing. Clearly network's important. Clearly you've also done some formal education.

Are there other things that have been helpful in like building that toolkit over time and expanding your skills?

Nathan Moore: I think part of it is taking the opportunities that present themselves, but also actively pursuing them.

So, you know, in the public sector, I had academic ties, I had academic affiliations, which got me opportunities to be in front of people. I did like completing a formal PhD, which has given me opportunities to present in London and LA. And so, you know, presenting those research findings.

I think that's been really great. Not so much because of the specific learning that it's brought in like a structured perspective, but from having to have the rigour and structure that needs to be placed around me for that. That was important for learning the ability for me to clearly and concisely articulate my message, whether it be for a 20 minute panel discussion or a 40 minute presentation on the paper or a three minute pitch through our set like changing that message and being really clear and articulate and meeting those objectives has been really, really powerful and

viewing those formal and informal learning opportunities through that lens of 'how I can take this as a learning opportunity.'

But yeah, I have done a number of formal things. Some of them have been really valuable. Some of them are more credibility indicators, benchmarking exercises, absolutely. But yeah, I'd say I've equally learned as much from just being in those situations, you know, the old adage, try to make yourself the dumbest person in the room.

I've had the absolute blessing of just having some great people around me that I look up to and I can watch and absorb from as well. But, you know, absorbing those skills is one thing. It's when you actually have to apply them yourselves when it really cements in and moving from that educational process, you know, remembering, understanding, applying and actually finding ways to go through those cycles to just really apply what you're learning as well.

Lucy Wark: I actually I want to go deep on that because, of course, you have an education background. I feel like you'd be a great person to ask about mental models for learning new skills. But I just really love that phrase. I think I've heard the sentiment, but never heard it expressed that way of actually making yourself the dumbest person in the room.

I think it really helps to ground the idea of great leadership often. Being comfortable hiring people who know much more than you about a lot of things.

Lucy Wark: Thinking from mental models for learning skills like teaching within nursing and a healthcare context. You mentioned a few steps there. I was just wondering if you could expand on that.

Nathan Moore: These are all educational learning theories, there's people that argue them back and forth, but two that have often stuck well for me; one is referred to as Bloom's taxonomy.

So this idea of how a person progresses from a novice to advanced level of knowledge in any particular area. So the earliest stages are sort of remembering, understanding, application, analysis, and you sort of move up through that. And the idea is when you first learn a skill, you know, you have to remember the basic information around it.

Then if you're lucky, you'll move to that point of understanding their significance. And then the really challenging component is when you apply it. And

so I've leant heavily into that for the bulk of my career, because simulation and the virtual training we do is all about the application of knowledge.

Because if you go through a tradition (approach), you read a book about something or even you listen to a podcast or whatever it is, you're getting to that. Maybe you remember it, hopefully you understand it, but you're not doing it. You know, constructive learning theories, adults learn by doing stuff.

And so when you find yourselves in these rooms and you see people pitching or you see how people adapt to their conversation styles or whatever they need to do, depending on the environment, it's getting to that next level is when you actually start to do it yourself. And, you know, the number of times I've stood here just rambling to myself, I'll set record on the webcam and I'll just pitch my screen for an hour.

Like I'll just sit there and talk to myself and refine it over and over and over and over again to get those words out of my mouth in real time. That's the application of these skills. And I mean, if we dive deeper in educational theory, then there's also elements. You need feedback on that as well, because if you just practice the same thing without ever receiving some feedback.

You know, bad practices can start to come in. So again, that's where that tribe comes in. You know, have people you're confident and comfortable talking with. And not just the people that go, Oh, you're doing a really great job. But the ones who are willing to actually say thats suck. Or actually for this audience, that's not okay.

You know, so there's those sorts of things. The other one I'd say is the one that's always rung true to me is Kolb's experiential learning cycle. If people want to look it up. But basically, what that's about is the idea that if, when an adult learns something they'll have an experience, they'll think about that experience, and you know, they, reflect upon it, then they go, okay, how would I do that differently?

Or how would I do that better? And then they go, okay, I'm going to try it again. In this new way, and then that gives you a new concrete experience and that cycle continues on and so actually thinking about when it comes to that point of applying these things actually not just going, I tried it. I did it.

Yeah, that's great. I tried. I did it. Now we're thinking about how did that go? How could I do it different? Let's try it again differently and actually continuing in that cycle. And that's lifelong learning and just accepting the fact that everything changes.

But what else can I take from this? What can I learn? How can I adapt? How is the environment changed? You know, maybe I was the expert in this then, but something else comes along, I'm not anymore. There's always something else to learn.

So I guess that's the other part too, it's just that lifelong learning and just accepting that really early and just go along with it.

Lucy Wark: So much of that resonates. One thing you reminded me of is I used to be a very serious debater, which is like, obviously lame and nerdy, but cool. And I remember, like, the difference between, reading about how to do public speaking versus what's actually required where you put your nervous system under the stress of being in front of people and your brain running out of words over and over and over again until your comfort zone expands over time, which, I'm actually just so glad to have had that experience really early on in life. I think it's definitely shaped, you know, an approach to learning since then, particularly when it's anything that's interpersonal, like presenting or how to have conversations or even how to react under pressure. Like you need to have that ability to not just learn from a book, but like train under race conditions and get feedback and debrief and try again.

Nathan Moore: Thats the idea, the principles of emotional learning, so you want someone to learn a skill or a process or whatever under similar emotional conditions as they'll be required to apply them. And so, like you say, you know, even this idea of me reciting it, like that was good prep for me to get my pitch down pat, but I'll tell you why it's a very different experience when you have someone who starts to question that pitch and then you need to think on your feet of your responses, because yes, I have the story down pat and I get the bulk of the message out in a quick, concise manner. But then when someone's countering and like to that debate thing, actually being able to respond in a respectful but meaningful way adapting to that conversation when you see someone's not following at all, being willing to change tact, like all of those skills. That is an element of that's just practice.

Lucy Wark: Absolutely. So cool. Always nice to meet another debater. So I'm going to speed through the rest of these, but

what's the best career advice you've received?

Nathan Moore: Look, it may be, it may not resonate with everybody, but it genuinely worked for me, it was

work for the job you want, not the job you've got.

Literally every job I've gotten over the last decade, bar one, I've written the job description for, because I've gone, I see this gap and I guess this is particularly for people in the public sector where it's easy to kind of fall into your little box. I never fitted well into a box and I would see challenges, you know, we grew the SIM service from a 0.4, like two day a week, as a clinical educator to multiple nurse educators who've managed to find the gaps.

Find how you're uniquely equipped to fulfil those gaps and how you're going to bring the things together to make it happen and then just start doing it. Show the value and yeah, and I know that can lead itself to people possibly doing more than they should in roles and things. I know it doesn't fit everybody, but it is something that has resonated for me and has worked through my career cause it's given me new opportunities that just otherwise wouldn't have come up.

Lucy Wark: I know what you mean. I think there's also like a really interesting, like emerging practice. And you see this a lot in the startup community of knowledge workers sort of having those portfolio careers where they're testing and learning across a few different things. They're not just sitting in a single job anymore. So I can definitely see that as well. Okay.

So what's one thing you wish you knew when you first started your career?

Nathan Moore: I guess just that you don't have to fit into a box; that you can bring your whole self and even, and actually it's not even the start of my career, it's come up.

Time and again, where I've tried to fit into other spaces or adapt to a particular situation, I put on a 'real sales-y' Nathan hat and all this and you realize that just doesn't fit me. That's not who I am. It's not how I present myself and people do see through it. You know, I have my own personal brand.

I have my own personal who I am. And generally, that works. Yes, you have to adapt in some ways to situations, but when you really try to change who you are to something completely different that just doesn't fit with you, often it's not going to work. 

Lucy Wark: We talk a lot about the idea of not necessarily authenticity, but having a sustainable version of yourself that you bring to the world, like it's based on who you are, it can adapt to situations, but yeah, there's definitely a lot of truth to that. And then finally,

what's one resource book, podcast, article, perhaps it's experiential learning in your case, that helped you in your journey?

Nathan Moore: I would say the biggest one for where I am today with the entrepreneurial piece was the Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program based off some of the work they did at the NHS, which is the Clinical Entrepreneur Program. It's a 12 month program I did.

The Mum Test that they gave us in that was really useful as well - just on how to ask questions about your idea. I thought that was really cool. And the other good one is Talking Healthtech. The network that has done, Pete's work through there, is absolutely fantastic and some of the connections I've made have been invaluable over the last, four to five years I've been involved.

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This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.