Coming soon to a desktop near you!

Date posted: June 2005

There have been a lot of changes recently to the way you work. You're angry at the lack of training and feel frustrated because you don't know what's going to happen. Does this sound familiar?

But what if, unbeknown to you, there's a fantastic e-learning course on the way.

Imagine how differently you'd feel if you knew this was the case. If you could have a flavour of what it was like and you knew what and when to expect it, wouldn't this put you in the right frame of mind for the learning when it went live?

Feedback from our customers suggests that electronic communication pieces can achieve just that.

Online communication pieces

Online trailers, teasers, tasters - short high impact communication 'pieces' that run on the intranet, as links, as email attachments, on CD ROM, DVD or video - are increasingly popular as a way of ensuring maximum take-up of new e-learning courses, and maximum return on investment. For example:

  • Scottish Power supported the launch of their new training portal site and commitment to lifelong learning with a link on their intranet to a 45-second trailer featuring an animated sports car race as a metaphor for 'learning as you go' with pit stops as the chance to 'top up' on learning!
  • BUPA sent an online teaser as a link in an email to all employees to promote an upcoming e-learning course. This communication piece was heavily branded with the high production value of a TV commercial to make it attention-grabbing and effective.
  • When T-Mobile developed e-learning for a new IT system, Brightwave produced a three-minute 'coming soon' trailer promoting the benefits of the new system and the training that would support it. This, and an extended 15-minute version, included plenty of opportunities to interact with extracts from the e-learning itself.

Visual impact

Communication pieces stand or fall on their visual impact and need to be media rich to achieve real credibility, but as they are delivered online they also need to run reliably with minimum bandwidth requirements over busy intranets, out to laptops or even on the internet.

Flash is a multimedia development tool that we use to do all this, and it can be viewed on most computers: for example 98% of internet enabled desktops have Flash. Mix really talented Flash developers with writers who know how best to put your key messages across and you have a winning combination for bringing imaginative and highly visual ideas to life.

Powerful message

All power to the medium! But even more powerful is the message that well produced online trailers/tasters/teasers send out: a high profile demonstration of the organisation's commitment and investment in its people.

But an electronic communication piece for e-learning should be just the start of a more complete 'wrap around' plan that ensures successful implementation of the whole training programme from start to finish. Planned communication should support the launch, report on take-up levels and perceived value as well as evaluation and feedback from the users.

If you're interested in seeing what an electronic communication piece can look like or how you can use the technique to promote your e-learning initiative, simply email us and we'd be more than happy to meet up with you.

Read more BrightIdeas.