When someone mentions the word ‘corporate’ to you, what comes to mind? Vibrant colors, creativity, innovation, daring ingenuity, humor? Chances are, if you’re like me, you’ll think of the color blue, numerous managers, bureaucracy and long revision processes. These aren’t wholly bad things, they just seem to come with the territory. For the most part the training produced by such organizations mimic the same attitude of safe, boring and looooooong paragraphs (sort of like this one) explaining 19 points of interest over each 10 minute slide. I remember a teller at my bank asking me what I do for a living, so I told her we create custom training… She sighed, put her head down and mumbled something under her breath that probably wasn’t pleasant, referring to her own experience. This certainly isn’t the response I’d want. Training should always have the potential to educate, engage and entertain!

Notice how I don’t use names or point fingers here, that’s because I’m not trying to get into trouble… I’d just like to stress that when everyone gets their way, and all voices are heard (in other words, no single individual is in charge) messages blur and focus is lost. The end user, generally the employees or clients of such a company are the victims… told to drudge through countless screens of information no one could ever realistically retain in time for the post test.

The point? Corporate doesn’t have to equal a mind numbing experience, but that sure is a simple statement for what is in reality a very complex environment. Fifteen people all trying to simply get a job done on a tight deadline does not leave room for creativity – the job just has to get done. But chances are you’ll end up with an already dated approach to ‘training’ where little to no education takes place, in other words, a waste of money. But who’s going to care? It’s not their personal money, it’s the corporation’s. Not only that but you’ve been ordered to get that money spent by a specific date or it disappears!

You may be thinking ‘don’t be silly, just take the money and do the job’. But this is my point of view: I’m passionate about bringing a true memorable educational experience to any topic, with any team, on budget and on time. There isn’t a single topic out there that can’t be approached in a creative way given a few days and medium sized budget needed for that training to be a success. Humor costs just as much to write as boring corporate-speak. Memorable photos in off-beat situations cost just as much to purchase as that collage of multi-ethnic business people standing in a line that I see on 50% of all eLearning development company home pages. My biggest suggestion of all would be this: Would you rather have a 100 minute long course where 10% of the training is grudgingly remembered, or a set of ten, 10 minute courses, on topic with memorable interactions and goals where 60% of all information is retained in digestible chunks. It’s like comparing a five hour long staring contest to a slap in the face out of nowhere. One is brief, memorable, and with a little work actually helps your corporation grow and thrive, as opposed to wasting time and money.

If I’ve learned anything over the years, constructive honesty isn’t always appreciated, but it’s definitely the best policy. This is true with my family, my co-workers, my contractors and my clients. We’re all in it together, and if you’re successful, we’re successful.