It’s only logical really that something based on multimedia also requires multiple skill sets. Fully featured interactive training calls on the knowledge and talents of quite a cast of characters – because while the trainee is focused on the visual surface of the program, there’s so much more going on to ensure the application meets the goals the sponsoring organization has set for it.

So just as it the common wisdom says it ‘takes a village’ to help a child grow to maturity, it can take a considerable team to deliver training that lives up to expectations for an organization.

First up, there has to be a sense of urgency and commitment from the sponsoring organization – all driven by a vision of what this investment is going to return. So you need that individual or group of individuals who are going to play the role of champion. If you expect to videotape or photograph content at a corporate location, for example, your guiding group has to identify that location and then commit to putting it in apple-pie order. That can require an internal team right there.

Next up, you need your subject matter expert(s) (SMEs) on tap – the men and women who will help to define the learning objectives that, once achieved, drive the measurable benefits. The instructional designer (ID) can bring general experience of how to structure the program, but still needs guidance on how to focus it for each particular client and environment.

The instructional designer, in turn, sets the scriptwriter off in the right direction. Of course, once the script is drafted, it’s going to go back through the hands of the SMEs and the ID in circular fashion until everyone is happy. And the writer can then hand it off to the production team, which might be a photographer, or a video producer/director, with a creative director looking over their shoulders because he/she will want to have a say in how the images and video are styled and timed, and how the on-camera talent (who may be actors or full-time employees) deliver their lines. In fact, it’s quite a different skill shooting video for use in an interactive experience compared to a product that will be passively viewed.

Eventually, the production team drops a heap of content off with the video editor and the production designer for reviewing and digitizing and editing and compressing. In the meantime the interactive designer has been hard at work designing interfaces and interface assets, waiting to get her hands on chunks of digitized content.

And that’s not all. Once we introduce logic into an application and seek to measure trainee performance, we’re in need of a programmer (or more than one). If the program is going to be controlled by a learning management system (LMS), then that pulls in a database administrator. A web designer may be required if the training is integrated with a website.

Eventually, the project team reaches the finish line, and the first trainees fire up the program. If they have the odd feeling that someone is watching them with particular interest… they’re right!

Andrew Webb has been building interactive multimedia solutions since 1992.

To learn more about how Quicksilver's interactive training program development can enhance training for your business, click here.

Interactive training is a well-established alternative to books, binders and the classroom. But with the evolution of tools such as Flash and XML, the meaning of ‘interactive’ when applied to training is rapidly expanding. The term now encompasses everything from a simple ‘read and test’ format to elaborate simulations, branching video, and users making choices in real time.

By themselves, interactive technologies do not automatically enhance learning or provide a better return on training investment, and not all topics are an equally good fit for an interactive format. Even when the fit is a good one, the development of effective training must start with the definition of learning objectives and an appropriate program design, and the identification of metrics (in other words, the discipline of instructional design is as important as ever). With that foundation, technology can be used to engage trainees, enable them to learn through ‘action,’ and provide tailored feedback on their actual choices. Where retention of information and understanding improve, then important metrics such as safety and productivity can improve as well.

Interactive technology is a potential boon for franchise environments where staff replacement rates, sometimes in excess of 100 percent, place a constant burden on managers, budgets, and the maintenance of brand values.  The food service industry, for example, spends $4.3 billion each year to train a constant stream of new employees.

Interactive technologies are increasingly familiar to each new generation of trainees from their online experiences outside the workplace. Gartner, the leading technology industry analyst firm, has predicted that by 2011 corporate training will embrace computer games as a crucial component of improved learning. “Simulation helps you to ‘fail forward,’” says E-Learning Magazine, “to make progress through mistakes without any real negative consequences: only learning opportunities.”

At Quicksilver, we used interactive video as the basis for helping RSC Equipment Rental employees to identify safety hazards they can expect to meet on the job. Every employee has completed the training, and new hires must complete the course on their first day before they can venture out into the workplace. Follow this link to find out more.

Andrew Webb is Director of Internet Solutions and leads the development of interactive training.

How many points of interaction can you give your site visitors? Plenty. That’s why ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘social media’ get so much attention. Potential online tactics for engaging your audience include blogging, polling, forums, rating a product, Facebook, Twitter, desktop widgets… it’s a long list, and getting longer. And implementation is getting easier, which is fortunate, because your visitors, as they catch on to the social media trend, tend to expect more.

Just the other day, YouTube became the second-largest search engine behind Google – bigger than Yahoo, MSN, or Ask. Yet even in Internet terms, YouTube is a young company. Its success results from providing an interaction point that, in hindsight, everybody wanted and therefore enthusiastically adopted. And let’s be clear: it’s also blurring the traditional distinction between content ‘publisher’ and content ‘consumer.’ Basically, it’s increasingly easy to be both.

To take one more example of social media, and how it connects consumers and business: Tehcnorati, originally a blog search engine, now connects blogs and social media sites with advertisers and indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time every day. Technorati likes to describe itself as 'placing brands at the center of a global conversation.' 

Thanks to Web 2.0 innovations, online communities now arise with surprising speed. And while we can’t all be as successful as YouTube and Technorati, we can learn some lessons from this measurable phenomenon.

Click here to learn how Quicksilver integrated social media into a new consumer site for the Academy of General Dentistry.