You’ve seen multimedia that you would love to use in corporate communication. Unfortunately, the corporate IT department is very security-conscious. They resist installing a new server or web application inside the firewall, and they forbid putting corporate information on outside hosts. They ‘encourage’ everyone use the company’s secure document management system (.e.g., Lotus Notes or Microsoft Sharepoint) for all business communication. Is video out of the question?
I wrote a blog article a little while ago entitled ‘Video Speaks Every Language‘. I thought it made a useful point about the difficulty of transmitting technical knowledge across cultural and linguistic borders. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had seen this problem before. Then it hit me. Its just another supply chain.
Text-to-text translation is an inherently risky process. There are at least 5 distinct intellectual steps in the process of sending text-based expert knowledge to someone in a different language and culture. Each step demands the engagement of a motivated, knowledgeable expert to move the information forward to the next stage.
We have a lot of hard-won experience in the management of multi-lingual voiceovers for large, multi-clip, Flash video and animation projects. These types of projects pose some subtle design issues that are typically not encountered on smaller projects. For example:
Donald Travis is the company’s go-to expert on equipment and systems that were installed over the past 30 years. He knows the ‘why’ behind all of the odd configurations, procedures and workarounds. When a weird problem surfaces, he can recognize it instantly and fix it effortlessly. He’s seen similar problems 4 or 5 times over the years. His 30-something protoges might struggle for weeks before they figure out what he already knows. There’s just one problem. Donald retires in 4 months. He’s building a cabin on a lake and has no interest in contract work. Once he’s gone, the next weird problem might shut you down. What do you do?
While iPOV can apply powerful visual transformations to client video clips, it really excels at a series of transformations that are more subjective and content-oriented. iPOV has defined and formalized the transformations in this category – and it has developed formal production processes to support each one.
The essential insight behind these transformations is the fact that video is a powerful and very comprehensive knowledge capture medium. If an expert can explain something complicated to you in person, there is a good chance that a comprehensive video recording of that interchange will contain most or a lot of the information that someone else in your situation would also like to know. As simple as the idea seems, it has always been surprisingly hard to make it work in practice. In iPOV’s experience with more than 350 projects, that usually comes down to three factors:
Over the course of nearly a decade and 350+ projects, iPOV has had ample opportunity to try different ways to author eLearning materials. In that time, we have also witnessed the evolution of the field and seen the introduction of a host of new technologies, strategies and methods. This is a short summary of our take on that history – and where we think eLearning authoring should be going.
Video Speaks Every Language
Problem Statement
You have a critical, but tricky, procedure that must be followed throughout your global operation. You have vendors in China, plants in Portland and Valdosta, offices in Seoul, Stuttgart and Cairo. So far, you have relied on emails and memos, but there are clear differences in the way they are applied in different locations. Is it language? Is it local preference? Are the memos just unclear? Whatever the reason, you need to solve it. Conflicting procedures are almost worse than no procedures at all.
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