Professional development

Archive for the ‘Professional development’ 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!

Raise the bar with your e-learning

Written by Frankie O'Brien

One of our clients recently described their previous experience of e-learning as unengaging and boring. In fact the very term ‘e-learning’ seemed to provoke an automatic raised eyebrow. The experience for this client had been typical of many; learning online that was little more than a page turning exercise.

Although we too have experienced this all too familiar style of online learning in our working careers, we are still surprised that learning is delivered in such a disappointing way. Self-led learning shouldn’t be a passive experience. It shouldn’t be devoid of engagement, interaction or challenge just because it’s online… we have all the tools and techniques now to ensure an absorbing experience. It also doesn’t have to cost the earth.

Affordable quality

Our aim as a company has always been to make engaging learning experiences that help our clients meet their business objectives. E-learning can and should include a range of methods to engage the learner, helping them connect with the learning experience so that they can understand how it will benefit them. A great example of this is our work with FFT, taking a very data heavy topic and creating learning for school governors that puts it all in plain english. Best of all, it was a ‘Rolls Royce’ delivery at a very affordable cost because we made the technology work for the learning rather than the other way around.

Feedback from school governors has been excellent, with 99% stating that the experience was very helpful (73%) or helpful (26%) – a far cry from the experience our potential new client had mentioned. We aim to offer the same standard to all our clients and put the excitement back into the term ‘e-learning’.

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.