I started playing games with my sisters so I could have contact with them on an almost daily basis. When they sends me gifts and notes I know they are ok for that day. A funny thing happened. Through gaming I discovered cousins that I hadn’t seen or spoken with for over 20 years. I discovered cousins that I didn’t know I had. And I really like that. Social Media at its best. Then I found old friends on the same games. It recreates the gaming atmosphere of my teens when we would sit for hours playing whist and bridge.  “It’s ok not to have a lot to say. Let’s play.”

Many management courses that I’ve participated in use the game model to get the point across. Whether it is trust, conflict management, accountability, there is a game to play. Granted, these were usually done offsite, all employees of a particular group or division, similar ranking within the company. I don’t know if offsite training happens as regularly as it used to. I suspect not. It is too costly. Training now takes place online.

eLearning and its counterpart, mLearning (mobile), open up training avenues that are cost effective, easy to manage, and easy to coordinate. The individual takes a course online, tests online, and has his/her scores stored online. Management gets instant, unbiased feedback, and instant progression scores. Great. Except the community aspect of training is gone. Synergy is gone.

My question to research this year is how can we take the goodness of gaming (look at Second Life as a prime candidate) and the goodness of offsite training, mash it all together and come out with effective eLearning and mLearning systems? Is there a way to create a learning environment that lives and learns as the employee “goes up in levels”? And is there a way to instill boundaries in those games so that gaming does not become the primary focus of the employee?

To read this book as a producer, director, editor, cinematographer for video promotions is obvious. Yes, read the book. Find out how to tell the story, the logline, in a small time frame. Is this for people who creating learning modules? I argue that anyone who creates a “story”, whether it is how to use a product or pure entertainment, anyone who is in front of an audience can benefit from this book. This book is about how to tell a story.

Someone who creates eLearning modules must be aware of the elements that go into a good production: creating the logline, the purpose of the module, writing, design, directing, cinematography, editing, optical and visual effects, music, and special sounds. When you create a module, you are telling a story. You are engaging the viewer in your world, giving over to him or her the essential information. You are telling a story.

We don’t compete with books anymore. Online learning, electronic learning are not competing against tutorials in a book. Nor are these modules competing against a classroom setting where the speaker can physically dominate the talk; where the speaker can cause change and excitement through bodily movement. Online and eLearning are competing against movies, web series, and television shows. The viewer expects to learn, but has been so conditioned to passively watching that any module must be, at some level, a form of entertainment.

How many people out there have sat through an online tutorial only to wake up and find that they missed a half-hour of the module because they fell asleep? I have. And I’m fairly focused. eLearning, online learning must capture the audience the way movies capture the audience. There must be those moments where the viewer almost “leans” forward in suspense.

Now lest you think I’m cracked, I actually have experience with some very good trainers. The people at Lynda.com such as Tim Plumer and Sven-Erik Seaholm, or the guys at Layers Magazine like Corey Barker, Rafeal Concepcion, or Kelby Training really understand how to tell over their stories. And one of my favorite instructors is RJ Jacquez with his Adobe Connect learning modules for the Adobe Technical Suite 2 and the Adobe Learning Suite.

There’s some great training out there. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of poor training. If you are in the business of story telling, which is what publishers are, you need to read The Lean Forward Moment.