What Aristotle and Star Trek can teach us about the art of writing and instructional design.

This series of blog entries is not how to make a great training video, but explains the elements of a great training video.  Many thanks go to Platte Clark of VitalSmarts for this information.  Platte has developed some of the best video based training scripts Xcelus Studios has produced using the power of story.  This information comes from a white paper and presentation we co-developed for a local ASTD event in 2006.

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Part 1 Why Story?

Let’s do a quick history test – Tell me all of the details of the Apollo 13 mission where does your mind go to first?

Encyclopedia?

School Textbook?

News Article?

I would wager a bet that most of the readers of this blog immediately thought of the Tom Hanks Apollo 13 movie.  You probably had an image of the Tom Hanks pop in your head other than the one of the original flight crew pictured in this blog.

Can you explain the details of the Apollo 13 crew?

How did Jack Swigert become a crew member? (Think of Kevin Bacon’s character)

Why didn’t Ken Mattingly fly on Apollo 13?

Did they land on the Moon?

All of these details can be remembered through the power of telling a story and the use of video or visually imagery.  Why is story-based knowledge and memory so powerful?  People naturally learn by hearing stories.  It is easier to remember details and fact through stories. Some research shows that during a story both sides of the brain are working together.

Roger Schank & Robert Abelson wrote:

“People who fail to couch what they have to say in memorable stories will have their rules fall on deaf ears despite their best intentions and despite the best intentions of their listeners. A good teacher is not one who explains things correctly but one who couches his explanations in a memorable (i.e., an interesting) format.”

Platte Clark shares the following:

• People need a context to help them relate what they have heard to what they already know
• When a decision-making heuristic, or rule of thumb, is presented to us without a context, we cannot decide the validity of the rule we have heard, nor do we know where to store this rule in our memories

Video is a great tool to tell a story, but often training videos are nothing more than an audio or talking head with endless bullet points of data.  We have made our fair share these videos and they continue to be a preferred style of some of our clients.  They are easy to write and take less effort to make.  Weaving a story into a training video can be complex.

One of the best training videos we developed was for Zenger Analytics. The 3 part video was a component of a two day instructor led training course for account managers of insurance companies.  The video started the training session telling a story of an account manager visiting a client who is frustrated with the account manager because of the lack of details in their reporting.  Take a look here…

I was sitting in the training class observing at the account managers watch the story.  It really illustrated their typical account visits.  Immediately after the video was finished they all were connected to the training and related several stories and experiences that were similar to the character in the video. The training included two additional videos throughout the course retelling the story with different outcomes based on the new knowledge they gained from the course..

The interesting part about the whole training experience was at the dinner that night everybody was referring to the video as they were discussing the training with their peers.  The six minute story proved very effective in connecting the training audience to the content.  It made them pay attention and gave them a point of reference of why they needed to become better account managers.

Another example of a training video telling a story is one we created for a Biotech company about insider trading.  We took a 60 minute presentation and turned it into a 3 minute story. Take a look here…

What makes a good training video? Tell a story.

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In part 2 of this blog we will discuss how to develop a training script using screenwriter’s techniques.