"The stage is set, your lines are well rehearsed, everything's perfect, but sometimes S!#T happens."

This is how one of the most effective training videos I've ever directed begins. It gets a laugh every time. More importantly, it prompts audiences to relax and allows the learning process to begin... every time.

PhDs call these "behavior-modeling videos"; I prefer "scenario-based learning." Whichever title you like, the bottom line is-video is a highly effective tool for teaching the kinds of soft skills that are so important for success in almost any business.

From pharma sales to the concierge desk at a boutique hotel, if your front line customer experience relies on positive, consistent face-to-face interactions, video that changes the behaviors that drive your key business goals is must-see tv.

Telling associates it's important to smile, make eye contact and take ownership of customer problems is one thing, but reinforcing those messages (and many others) by illustrating these behaviors in action, within the context of a story, delivers more impact by:

• Increasing retention


• Breaking down many language and education barriers


• Facilitating increased and accelerated learning

From hospitality to retail to HR, when you're teaching soft skills, a picture's worth a thousand words.
Delivering those "words" online allows you to more frequently update your content and keep associates tuned in and turned on, on their schedules, without the hassle and expense of duplication and dissemination.

Wanna read more? Read our other entries related to video, hospitality and soft-skills.

An interesting Business Week article estimated that U.S. companies spend $50 billion on talent development - and those were 2005 dollars. Whatever your company is spending on learning and performance improvement, here are a few tips to help your investments pay off.

1. Market Your Training: Yup, you heard right, market your training - just as you would market a product. The average American adult is bombarded with approximately 5,000 advertising messages every day. These are critical viewers. You have to convince them that what you're offering is worth their time and energy. So whether your pre-program promotional campaign consists of flyers or Flash or video, you've got to get the word out in a way that breaks through the noise. Focusing on the What's In It For Me is usually a good place to start. In a nutshell: you've got to reach people before you can teach them.

2. Make Your Programs Engaging: Fear and anxiety trigger the release of certain brain chemicals that can limit people's capacity to learn (adrenaline cortical response). So, when you're creating new programs you can improve performance by considering learner's emotional states.

3. Do Some Research: Check out Harvard's Dr. Ellen Langer.(The Power of Mindful Learning) Her twenty-five years of learning research has uncovered the value of establishing a personal context for learning before delivering the drill down details. Dr. Langer has also proven that the use of humor and novelty are two key tools that enhance long-term memory. So don't forget the fun factor.

The most successful learning programs win both hearts and minds. Here's an easy-to-remember model that should help you get off on the right foot:

The "E-Z | E3" Model

• Engage
  
• Establish Personal Meaning
  
• Essence Before Details
  

During a quick lunchtime "loop" as we call the walking path around the Charles River in Watertown, I saw that I was coming upon a hopscotch spray-painted on the asphalt. I was expecting 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10... But that's not what I got, exactly.
As I got closer, instead of the configuration I thought it would be, I discovered something different. Kind of sweet. Unexpected: 1 - 2 - I - L - O - V - E - U.

Because it was unexpected, I've told people about it. I even went back and took a picture.

But the point is this:

Because what I saw flew in the face of what I was expecting, it made an impression on me.

When you want your audience of learners to remember something, surprise them. Make it unique, novel, humorous...even wrong. This works for content - make it easy to understand; and it works for the delivery of the content - make it unique. If your content has to be very straight and narrow (now think about it - does it really have to be?), then deliver it in a surprising way. Maybe it's a comic strip. Or a podcast. Or an electronic scrap book.

This isn't bullshit - lots of studies and papers and conferences and people talk about all of this as Adult Learning Theory. But you don't have to know all of that to understand one simple thing: Surprise me and I'll remember.

We had a major technology company come to us and ask if we could find a way to teach their employees (all 30,000 of them) to understand the seriously influential technology products the company produced. Could we give them the tools to talk about this technology to anyone, anywhere, at any time?

We couldn't wait to get started. We designed a program to interactively teach employees (not train them) about the business strategies and the key technologies that drive its success.

With the program, employees learn about the foundational technologies while a "geek speak/plain speak" dial lets them pick a level of technical detail that they feel comfortable with. It is purposely light on textual content - 3 easy pages of very scannable and understandable text with great illustrations - but heavy on memorable video stories explaining the technologies in real-world scenarios. So real-world, we even shot in a Chinese restaurant! The learner can then go on to practice explaining the technology to different audiences in unique, exceedingly fun activities, and is rewarded with amusing and delightful results.

We also had a client who knew we were passionate about getting it right. A client who trusted in our abilities to tell wonderfully humorous and inventive stories that inspire people to learn, retain and apply what they know. We worked collaboratively with them to develop the rich-media experience that went on to win a bunch of awards, but most importantly, broke all records for completion rates.

How do you define successful eLearning?

What can make a hotel stay, a night out to dinner or even a taxicab ride more memorable? The people you interact with along the way, and how well they've been trained, have a lot to do with it.

A friendly smile, efficient service and taking ownership of guest-related problems are huge. "Take care of me and I will come back again and again" seems to be how most people feel. You can't make people care, but you can teach them how to master the critical soft skills that increase guest loyalty.

From hotels to cruise lines to F&B, over the years some patterns that define successful hospitality training initiatives have come into focus. By patterns I mean identifying the threads, that when woven together, create exceptional guest experiences on land or sea.

If you're tasked with launching a hospitality-related learning program here are a few high altitude tips that may help you get off on the right foot.

• Be objective, or higher a research company to be objective for you, but step one is identifying those key moments where guests' functional needs and emotional wants intersect. For example - A busy hotel guest needs to be checked in fast - that's the functional side. That same guest may have had a horrible day and they want to interact with someone who cares about their happiness - that's the emotional side.

When these key moments have been identified take your organization's pulse:

• Do they agree the moments of interaction you've established are important?


• Do they agree that improvement is necessary?


• What obstacles are standing in the way of realizing improvement?

You don't have to spend a ton of money or time gathering this information. In fact there are lots of free or almost free survey tools you can use- surveymonkey is a good one.

But you do need feedback from all constituencies. This helps build initial buy-in which in turn makes a big difference in how enthusiastically your program is supported when it roles out.

There is a lot of research out there about how our brains work, and its effect on how we learn. We have internalized these studies, papers and books as well as our own experiences as learners and teachers to inform our approach to eLearning: Tell, Show, Do, Review. Sounds really simple, but success depends on its execution.

Tell:
Deliver the essence before delivering the details and tell the learners what they're going to learn. Set expectations and they'll appreciate knowing what's coming.

Show:
Give as many examples as possible - there are many different types of learners out there, so make sure you've got them covered.

Do:
We all learn better by doing. And we retain more when it's hands-on. Make the learning interactive (this doesn't mean only electronically). Give your learners the opportunity to practice, make mistakes, practice some more and assess themselves.

Review:
Summarize the key concepts for your learners and enable them to go back and look at any part of the course again. Use the feedback as another learning opportunity - don't give negative feedback - by explaining why an answer is correct or not.

How do you begin?
Create a story your audience can't wait to get through. Pick the right blend of media, tools, and delivery to make the learning engaging, memorable, useful and knowable.

Meet your audience where they are: do your sales people spend a lot of time on the road? Then give them a mix of print, mobile, and podcast delivered content. Do new employees have regular orientation meetings? Then craft some great eLearning that's supported with live content, like role plays or interactive group games.

You know it.
When you learn, you get a broader picture, a better context and a way to ultimately share what you've learned with others - whether you're instructing them, or selling to them.

You don't just remember it. You know it. And it shows.