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Archive for the ‘Healthcare’ Category

Video: An essential
e-learning tool!

Written by Rob Lenihan

Video has exploded on the web over the last few years thanks to services like YouTube and Vimeo and it’s safe to say as a content medium, it has the highest rate of engagement when compared to other types of media. This is borne out of the growing popularity of video on the web. In a recent paper published by Cisco it is predicted that 82% of all consumer internet traffic will be video by the year 2020.

This indicates that whilst other types of media are important for content, video cannot and should not be ignored.

Widen your audience

One example that encapsulates the growth in popularity of web video is TED lectures. the TED website, which has over 2,000 video presentations and boasts a viewing count in the billions. Packed with concise and easily digestible videos (they are no longer than 18 minutes) open up the audience much wider than the numbers that can typically attend the very popular TED face-to-face events. Events can be expensive and attendee numbers limited. Filming the event and publishing online can widen and share knowledge, views and perspectives with a much wider audience.

Some videos capture the imagination and audience in such a way that they become extremely popular. Take for instance the Sir Ken Robinson TED talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ which has been viewed nearly 40 million times. This represents phenomenal audience engagement considering that it’s a specialist education lecture and not a Hollywood blockbuster.

Communicate more effectively

We recently produced an online recruitment tool for the NHS called Values for Healthcare (coming soon…watch this space). This is aimed at people considering a career in a support role in the NHS. It helps them understand if they share the values of the NHS through a series of video challenges. The videos show real-life situations, based on research involving people working in the target roles, and ask the user what would they do in the situation? The use of video is a helpful way to explore the subtleties of cultural values, which are often hard to demonstrate in words. Video is immersive, full of subtlety and visual clues. The audience can imagine themselves in the environment, job role and culture of the NHS much more easily than reading a brochure or even browsing a website. With writing, the audience is left with the prospect of filling in the blanks with their imagination; not so with video.

‘But video is really expensive isn’t it?’

It used to be expensive to produce video, but now most of us have all the video equipment we need in the palm of our hands. The quality of smartphone video has improved to the point that it is now used by many industries to produce cost effective content. Its immediacy compared with planning and implementing video shoots with traditional equipment is attractive, because it can save money and still be an effective communication tool. This works because the aesthetic expectation of today’s audience is open to a more candid approach, mainly for in-the-moment video. Take for instance news footage of a major events that is now commonly shot on smartphones by reporters in the field where portability of equipment is essential. To the audience the content of the video outweighs the need for scripted and finely edited pieces

However, quality doesn’t need to suffer just because a smartphone is used. Take a look of this short report about the world Latte art championships that has been filmed and edited entirely on a smartphone. In this instance we can see that good storytelling and direction have utilised accessible smartphone technology ensuring the filming quality matches the content.

Better e-learning

When combined with other tools, such as interactive content, questions and tasks, video can lift the impact of e-learning to the next level, ensuring that the learning endures in the learner’s mind. Thanks to developments in technology, video is much easier and quicker to produce. More importantly, your audience will be expecting it!

E-learning awards
2016

Written by Rob Lenihan

The 2016 e-learning awards are always a fantastic way to celebrate great ideas and innovations in e-learning. This year we were pleased to be invited along by e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) as their creative partner on the re-launch of their e-learning hub.

The hub has been providing thousands of users specialist health e-learning across the NHS, delivering over 30 e-learning programmes since 2003.

e-LfH in partnership with Health Education England asked iflourish to help re-design the hub for a more contemporary learning experience. A huge undertaking that required not only visual design and re-branding but also responding to the vast amount of feedback provided directly from users.

The newly designed hub went live in 2016 and has received critical acclaim for improved user experience.

Quick we need an app!

Written by Frankie O'Brien

Is that a statement you have heard in your organisation recently? In our mobile, ‘always on’ world apps proliferate and its very tempting to think that your organisation must have one or be ‘left behind’. An app may well be a very useful way of achieving an objective, but have you thought through why and whether it’s the best way?

For example, have you thought about what apps do as compared to other digital methods, e.g. a mobile-optimised website? If the answer to that question is yes, then well done. You’ve done more thinking than most and you’re well on the way.

Mobile learning

Apps can be very useful for learning purposes. The mobile nature of apps mean that they can be more flexible when using on the move, e.g. recording information when you don’t have access to a big screen device or learning while travelling. The smaller screen size – for most smartphones at least; tablets are less of an issue – means that the screen layout and features have to be thought through carefully, but with a bit of care and planning this is no more of a challenge than designing PC-based learning.

Things to consider

Does the app need to record information, e.g. evidence of learning to be stored in a learner’s portfolio or to demonstrate progress, such as completion of a task or passing a test? If yes, then the app may not depend on an internet connection, but it will need one at some point to sync the information elsewhere.
What platform do you want to use? The two dominant platforms for apps are Android(Google’s mobile operating system) and iOS (Apple’s equivalent). Android is the world’s most widely used smartphone platform and there are over 700,000 apps developed, with iOS having roughly the same number of apps at the time of writing, which brings us neatly on to our next point…
How will you market your app? The figures above show that for every Angry Birds success, there are thousands of others that largely lie dormant with very few downloads. Are you able to communicate to your audience that you have an app and give them good reason to download it, competing with the many other apps they may already have on their device(s)? if you’re going to charge for the app, you’ll have to think about the price point – apps are generally sold for a low cost – and also the cut you have to give Apple to sell through the iTunes store.
How much do you want to invest? Like anything, you get what you pay for. Apps can be relatively cheap to produce, particularly compared to the early days of website development. But it all depends on how much functionality the app needs, e.g. storing information is going to require some sort of database, which will naturally add cost. We’re all getting used to the idea of rapid development and constant releases, so you may want to consider phasing functionality, offering a set of features to meet basic needs, and then adding others later if you’re app is a success. You have to balance this against offering too little initially to the extent that your app ‘dies at birth’, but if you’ve read this far then we suspect your mind is already whirring with the possibilities for your app idea!

We’re particularly interested in helping our clients with apps for learning purposes, so we can help you think through everything you need to consider before deciding to invest in app.

You can read about a learning app we recently produced for the Imperial War Museums here.

Why you should never be pleased to announce anything

Written by Declan O'Brien

I’m sure you recognise the phrase ‘we are very pleased to announce’. It is usually followed by something else that is of little interest to you but is of great importance to the seller.
Maybe the seller is delighted or even thrilled – but why should you be? We all want to know ‘what’s in it for me?’ More on that later.

What can your business learn from advertising?

Each industry and business sector has its own language, one often built on tradition. So too has the advertising and communications business. The principles of communication are common to every organisation, service and product whether we are talking about the use of social media, digital, print, video or carrier pigeon. So how do you persuade your audience that learning is a good idea, that it will benefit them and not just represent something you are excited about?

AIDA meet WIIFM

If you haven’t met them let me introduce you:
AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire and Action are the four basic steps of the advertising process. You could call them pillars. An attention grabber followed by some more detail to hold your interest. Then throw in a need – you know the kind of thing that Apple are so good at. Finally wrap it all up with a call to action. Yes the world has moved on in sophistication, but the way we are motivated has not. Which is why I should introduce you to WIIFM or What’s In It For Me?

WIIFM drives our thinking around what we see, hear, read, buy… and watch. I am sure you are a very nice person and self interest is a nasty failing you only see in others. But when you looked at that family group photo at the weekend, who did you look for first? I thought so. Worth remembering, eh? No not the part about you looking at yourself – the part about seeing it from the other side.

David Ogilvy – the original Mad Man

If you have never watched Mad Men, you really should. If only to wonder at Don Draper and company downing Bourbon at 10am and pondering if any of their livers survived the decade. But behind the drama was David Ogilvy the father of advertising. Some of his wisdom illustrates my point:

“I don’t know the rules of grammar … If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.”

“Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone.”

It seems obvious when it is put that way, talk to people personally and in their language. It’s just that without thinking we start to take on some kind of corporate speak dialect that is not our language and is certainly not the learner’s. This is even more poignant when selling the idea that learning something new will benefit your audience. They may never have dipped into the subjects on offer, so the most important language to speak is theirs. Keep it simple and from their perspective, e.g. this will help you further your career.

What does your audience want?

Confession time. Yes, I too search for myself first when I look at that group photo, that is what’s in it for me. So what will your audience be searching for in your message? I genuinely try not to announce anything, not with pleasure at any rate.

About the author

Declan is a Chartered Marketer with over 20 years’ experience in sales and marketing. He provides branding and marketing consultancy to a range of businesses, primarily in financial services. He has held senior marketing and business development roles in blue chip companies including Aon and RSA.

His experience encompasses B2B and B2C marketing with a specialism in large global accounts. Declan believes showing a ROI is crucial to marketing success and has utilised CRM systems such as Salesforce to deliver results.