Creating a Virtual Leadership Academy: A Case Study #ASTDTK14

Virtual learning event for physician leaders.

These are my live blogged notes from ASTD Tech Knowledge session with Eric Heckerson.

 I missed his opening setup, so didn’t get some of the context. But the upshot is they created/designed a virtual leadership event. It was “faux live” video of a teacher/speaker, onscreen with PPT slides, also links to chats and other resources. The moderator was live, but the speakers/videos had been pre-recorded. It used to be all in person events -- so they were trying out doing virtual events with one live event once a year. A bit of a pilot program to see if this was an approach to continue with.  

Here's the process he followed to figure out the right approach and get it developed:

When shooting video of classroom teaching, people preferred the video shot not as talking head, but where you see the speaker in front of an audience (even if just a few people in the audience)

How they built in interaction and motivation to the live virtual events:

• Asked the doctors to sign an “I commit” statement (I won’t multitask) – they had to send their initials to the presenter to publicly commit to paying attention
• Answer occasional polls
• Enter chance to win an iPad
• Find a secret word (embed the secret word twice in the presentation that animates across the screen – the learners were told to look for it. They needed that word to fill out a survey at the end in order to win the ipad – 30% of people couldn’t identify the secret word).

Content was around things like how to coach. Then in the follow up in person sessions, they had the chance to practice.  (Coaching, mentoring, etc.)

What they liked:

• Convenience
• Focused approach
• Topics
• Ease of use
• The secret word
• Length (3 focused topics in a short amount of time)

What they didn’t like:

• Technical issues
• More interaction
• Diverse topics
• Some speakers
• Classroom vs. studio

Lessons Learned

• Brief: 45 minutes broken into 15 minute blocks (Keep your content brief. Try monthly learning nuggets of 10 minutes. No one will be offended by brevity).
• Easy – simple to access, log-on and learn.
• Linked to action – What will they do with it.
• Interactive – polls, chat and questions
• Engaging – keep their attention
• Visual – relevant graphics and video
• Effective Speakers - -make sure they’re strong and engaging
• Relevance

Overall, people liked virtual and appreciated the convenience. Don't want to do away with live events ever.