Videos

No Regrets - a story of love and learning

No Regrets is a tale of love and learning, produced in 2014 to accompany Clive Shepherd's book More Than Blended Learning. It tells the tale of two young people who meet up in Brighton as they begin training in their new jobs. As the week progresses, they reflect on their contrasting learning experiences, highlighting from a learner's perspective what good and bad looks like in the design of learning solutions.

This film is, above all, an experiment in storytelling as a mechanism for learning. As such, as producers, we almost definitely got some things right and some things wrong. Let's see what you think.

Taking e-learning back to its roots

This video follows on from 'Do we still need e-learning?' It goes back through the 40-year history of e-learning to show that it was at its most promising in the early days, when there was a strong desire to deliver a personalised instructional experience. There are now few, if any, technical obstacles to achieving those goals, as the latest authoring platforms provide increasing adaptive capabilities. The real obstacles are with us, as humans.

Do we still need e-learning?

'E-learning', by which we mean interactive, self-paced instruction, has had a role in workplace learning, under one name or another, for about 40 years. In this video, Clive Shepherd asks whether e-learning has delivered on its promise - how efficient is it, how effective, how popular and how commercially successful? More importantly, do we really still need it, given that other forms of digital learning have enjoyed more obvious success in recent years?

Effective persuasion through ethos, pathos and logos

As learning professionals, it is our lot to try our best to be persuasive, whether we’re trying to convince stakeholders to go with what we believe will be the best solution to their problem, persuade learners and their managers to engage with our interventions, or sell learners on a new way of working. You could say we were in the persuasion business.

As we look for new strategies for persuasion, we would do well to look to those who came before us. They may not have had big data but some of them definitely had big brains. Enter Aristotle, whose three modes of persuasion have plenty of relevance today.

Sherlock Holmes and the Three Ls

This video provides a light-hearted introduction to the process of needs analysis. It also represents Clive Shepherd's one and only acting credit (there will be no more).

The video tells how Sherlock Holmes uses the three Ls (knowledge of the Learning, the Learner and the Logistics) to solve a case.

Exploring the seven Cs

I’ve always been a little suspicious of models in which the titles of the elements share a common initial letter or just happen to spell out a word that sums up the overall message. I would wonder whether important ideas had been omitted because they didn’t fit the pre-determined pattern and how strained the search might have been for synonyms.
You will have to believe me that when recently I was exploring ideas for high-level designs for learning solutions, option after option seemed to begin with the letter C. I did not conveniently leave out options beginning with other letters, nor did I have to hunt for better matching synonyms. It was just one of those days. Enjoy!

Coaching for learning

In their book Transfer of Training, Mary Broad and John Newstrom estimated that merely 10% of the dollars spent on training resulted in actual and lasting behavioural change. And that’s obviously not enough. They did some research into who it was that made the biggest impact on transfer of learning. They found that the greatest difference was made by the learner’s manager in setting expectations before the experience and then following up after. This video shows why coaching does such a fantastic job of supporting a learner through a learning experience.

Show me the data: the case for learning analytics

Data is the fuel that drives effective decision making. Without the right data, you’re relying on guesswork and hoping for the best. Data allows you to accurately assess needs, compare alternative approaches, assess progress and determine results. We look at the arguments for data analytics for learning and performance.

Communicating with sound

Sound is a medium that matters. Your audience can listen to a podcast or a radio programme while they’re busy doing other things like walking, driving or keeping fit. You can add narration and sound effects to your animations and videos or leave it to music to set the mood. Sound is a medium the learning professional can master without the need for in-depth technical skills and professional tools. Perhaps it's time to listen in.

Learning is a human experience

Humans need humans and never more than when we are learning. As we move from a situation in which most learning is face-to-face to one in which we make use of digital content and perhaps even AI as the vehicle for a learning experience, we don't need to give up on our humanity.

Compliance v competence - ten years on

I was looking through some old presentations the other day, trying to find some inspiration on the subject of compliance training, and I found this one. I was amazed to find that it was 10 years old and that there wasn't really anything about it I'd change.

For the learning professional, compliance training continues to provide lots of work but I'm not so sure it's not a deal with the devil. Tick-box training damages our reputation, at a time when we're looking to establish our credibility as performance consultants and learning experience designers.

There is a better way!

A House by the Sea - Musings on Learning

This animation has been rescued from the archives. It was produced back in 2013 for a client project and then filed away but I think it deserves a wider airing. It uses storytelling to explore some of the most fundamental issues of teaching and learning. I hope you enjoy it.

How modern workers learn

Here's my take on the research undertaken by Towards Maturity.

Curating content for learning in 3 minutes

In a fast-changing world, it can be frustrating to be out of the loop. If you don’t have enough information – about the latest strategies, current best practice, changes in the market, the most exciting new tools and technologies, what people are thinking and doing – then it’s hard to do the best job possible.

On the other hand, with the myriad of new communication tools at our disposal, you can easily have too much information. You simply don’t have the time to sort through all the new content that’s fighting for your attention to find what’s really relevant.

This is where the content curator takes over, doing the hard work to save everyone else the trouble.

Coachical - A New Digital Coaching Tool

In this video, Bigrock Client Director Jon Luckett gives an interview about our new digital coaching tool and the benefits it offers learners and business leaders alike. 

We would love to recieve some feedback from the industry and invite readers to take try a Coachical topic (just £60 +VAT and you get a load of online learning content too) 

See the video transcript and accompanying blog post here: https://coachical.com/an-introduction-to-coachical-an-interview-with-jon-luckett/ 

Hybrid Learning - The best blend of online and live workshops

Online and mobile learning tools provide an unprecedented opportunity to deliver high quality learning content and business tools right into the user’s hand, whenever and wherever they need them.

Whether you’re looking to support a wider training initiative or simply deliver learning in a more modern and innovative way, a hybrid approach can help.

Watch this video for more on the benefits of a hybrid approach: https://youtu.be/YSzsa3tja_0 

Digital learning tools enable us to create a broader, deeper and smarter learning journey that everyone in your organisation can benefit from.

Bigrock are about to launch a new digital coaching tool, that can help make hyrbid learning a reality in your organisation. Register your interest in Coachical here: https://www.bigrockhq.com/coachical/ 

Chaos, Uncertainty & Change – How do we handle it?

We arranged an exciting evening filled with some very accomplished speakers dealing with change in the uncertain times we live in. In the video you can see a quick recap of the evening. 

Speakers are often used as the catalyst for change within business. To make the Change happen, you will require behavioural change in order to turn that catalytic energy into the Change you want to see. The cost of forgetting, or of inaction, is not worth considering.

If you wish to download the accompanying ebook, you can do so here; https://www.ontrackinternational.com/change_ebook/ 

Assessing adverse impact in recruiting talent

Harvey Nash are a global recruitment company that values the importance of diversity. In 2016, they partnered with Thomas International to evaluate whether there was any evidence of adverse impact in their robust recruitment process.

Over 12 months, Thomas tracked hundreds of applicants for positions at Harvey Nash, monitoring demographic diversity, behavioural preferences and the eventual outcome of applications. Harvey Nash know that diversity is more than just demographics, and recruit with diversity in behavioural preferences, motivators and personality in mind.

Statistical analysis looked at the chance of each demographic group progressing and dropping out at each stage, using impact ratios, statistical tests and practical tests. The result? No evidence was found that any group was being adversely impacted in the recruitment process, though we were able to make recommendations to make processes even better.

Following the outcomes of the study, Harvey Nash were successful in becoming the first recruitment company to achieve the National Equality Standard, one of the UK's most rigorous and prestigious accreditations for diversity and inclusion.

Are your people ready for cultural change? - video

In today’s demanding and competitive market conditions, companies must adapt to survive and thrive. Cultural change is not always easy, but it is always possible. Managing the process requires understanding, commitment and tools.

With our innovative people assessment tools we create success stories for organisations in times of cultural change – and, now, cartoons!

Featuring Amir Qureshi, CEO of Thomas International, in caricature-form, find out how we can support you in managing and achieving cultural change. 

I still like to listen to Simon Sinek talk about Why, How and What.

Let me know your thoughts on this notion of Why, How and What. I tend to use a variation of this to help clients understand how best to articulate their needs - context, process and outcome.

What do you think?

James