Trainer’s Notebook

One of our clients asked if we could help all 100 attendees at a conference have a fun experience making videos - essentially low production-values educational videos for the client’s new hires. They recognize it’s going to be important to have a video presence if they want to hire the best and brightest. They realize 20-somethings think making videos is creative entertainment.

What a lovely assignment! We had fun doing it. We divided the group into 8 teams of 12. This is actually a pretty common team size for anything but the biggest commercial video productions. It takes a lot of specialists in screenwriting, makeup, lighting, sound and editing to do a project. Few people are well-versed in everything. We found instructors at local tech schools here in Seattle. They were producer-advisors to each of the 8 teams, but team members came up with the concepts, wrote the scripts, and held and operated the gear. Producer’s role was to help the team get past stumbling blocks and dead-ends. In two evenings the teams wrote scripts, created storyboards, and shot their footage. We then edited-out the projects into 3-4 minute projects with titles, music, rolling-credits.

We showed the videos at a wrap-up lunch for the attendees, and they were amazed and amused (howls of laughter and applause) to see what they had created.

The client wants 3 more! Yea!

Our new Drupal website on team-building video creation:
www.vidteams.com

We’re testing the functionality of Microsoft’s LiveMeeting webconferencing product for the American Society for Training & Development Puget Sound Chapter. Microsoft uses LiveMeeting for thousands of tech learning events every year. You can record the conference and people can view and hear the content anytime afterward. I’m told they never show video, and I’ve wondered why?

First, keep in mind most people at Microsoft think their PowerPoint slides are pretty good and if they don’t talk too fast, sprinkle an audience involvement trick in once in awhile and throw in some humor, it’s fine. Microsoft actually has a rating system for speakers for awards and prestige. Woot! Problem is, of course, the whole rest of the world is flowing to video like a tidal wave.

We used a high-end camcorder for our “Beta” meeting last week, and recorded the event. When you go to view the recording what do you actually see? No video. If the speaker is walking around the room, taking questions, and we are using the zoom functionality to show the audience asking questions, etc. it stands to kick up the “people” aspect of the event for the remote viewers, yes? But none of this is played back on the recorded version - just the PowerPoint. And let’s say someone’s PowerPoint is just average - lots of wordy bullet point slides.

Well, I encourage even strangers on a bus to read Edward Tufte’s “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint - Pitching Out Corrupts Within” so I’ll just drop the reference in one more time. Can we say “Screenshot?” How about:
- cartoons
- photos of people
- diagrams
- Google Maps
- Agendas
- Mind-maps
- Pie Charts
I will just put in this “Bravo” for our June speaker, Stephanie Bell, her PowerPoint was above average:

My friend Jeffrey Shilling told me recently I might want to put some updates on my interests and activities into a blog. I thought this was ironic because I have told myself many times in the past few months that “This would be a great thing to put in my blog.” But didn’t do it. So a brief update:
- Completed a 2-day presentation skills workshop for a large architecture firm, using the Marcus Buckingham “Strengths” as a basis for helping people find a path to get more fun and zest out of pulling together and delivering presentations.
- Completed a work-up on a course on best practices in webconferencing. Delivered two of these through the local ASTD chapter.
- Completed a new curriculum on classroom facilitation. The model for this was Bloom’s Taxonomy - and specifically using open-ended questions that access the higher levels of processing in the brain.
- Completed a “Make Videos” workshop for 100 employees of a large public accounting firm. We formed up ad-hoc teams, the teams created storyboard scripts and shot video, serving as production staff and talent. We edited-out the videos into short 3-4 minute videos and showed them at the wind-up lunch for the conference. I was thrilled by the howls of laughter and spontaneous applause. People came up to me after the lunch and told me this was one of the most creative things they’ve ever done at an educational conference.
- Researched how to use a camcorder as a webcam for webcasting meetings and presentations. This is easy to do with a firewire-enabled camcorder set back in the audience, plus a low-impedence mic and some inexpensive enabler software. We will likely start webcasting the local ASTD chapter meetings in coming months leading up to a major focus on webcasting at the October 2 “Future of Training” conference at the Seattle Central Library.