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Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My

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name is Matt Pierce. Today I want to talk about something that if you're in

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training and development, you probably have done. If you've ever made a video, maybe you

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haven't, and you know, you're just really good off the cuff. But I want to

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talk about scripts. We've talked about scripts on the show before, of course, but I

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think it's always a topic I like coming back to. One is because

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frankly, I'm making a lot of scripts right now, writing a lot, and

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it seems relevant to talk about the process, to talk about the things that I'm

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learning, things that I've experienced, and hopefully help you to make a

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better script. Now, let's be fair, the world of scripting

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has changed dramatically in the last couple years with more and

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more AI. I think people are turning to AI, whether you like

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it or not. They're using it to help them to get to something, get past

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the blank page perhaps, or to even do it wholesale.

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In fact, you know, I think about my own process and there's lots of different

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AI tools out there. We've been using Gemini, one of My teammates,

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Danielle, she actually made a bot to incorporate a lot of brand information, stuff

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like that. Used ChatGPT before. All these things are great,

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and I think we have to acknowledge— just let's acknowledge the bot in the

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room— that AI is a thing that can get you from

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start. It can do the thing, it can polish the thing, it can give you

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ideas, it can be a partner, it can do the wholesale.

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Whether you like that or not, that's a whole other decision for another

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podcast about ethics of AI and everything like that. But we have to

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acknowledge it. But Today's episode, we'll talk about AI,

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but I really want to focus on some process, some

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structure, things that I've been thinking about, particularly for learning videos. But if

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you're a marketer or others, stick around. There's some really great stuff here. I think

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the line between really good marketing and the line between really good learning

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is very, very close, if not just one big Venn

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diagram. And if you know me, I love a good Venn diagram. So

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let's start with your intro.

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Every video needs a starting point, right? And there's lots of ways to

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start. I start the podcast the same way every single time.

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Is that good? I don't know. Maybe it's not the best way

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to start. Maybe there are better ways to start than saying who I

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am, telling people good morning, whatever. I think the idea though

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is in most videos, learning videos or otherwise, you do want

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something to draw your learner in, that hook. And I've talked about this in other

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places, but that hook is really important. Why? Because it is the

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establishing thing. It's what sets up the learner

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for the opportunity to say, yes,

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I want this, or okay, I— here I am, I'm going to get

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this. And I think there's lots of things to think about.

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I think one is from a cognitive load perspective, a good

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hook, one, it connects, right? It's like it

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brings you in, but two, it can establish where you're going and

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what you're doing. So hopefully there's a start of a mental

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path for your learner to go down that they're not like, what is this

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about? Why am I watching this? What am I trying to get out of this

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thing? Is this even relevant to me and to what I'm doing? So

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you've got some time. You gotta move fast. You gotta think about that.

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One thing I found, and this is where AI can come into play, is it

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can definitely help maybe ideate on some of those hook ideas.

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I do think there's an opportunity here to start creating your own

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kind of library of hooks, or as you go out and watch videos, How are

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people engaging you? What are they doing? I talked

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to one of my colleagues today and they talked about that they watch, you know,

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as they're going through Instagram, they hear this one voice and it's like, hey,

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and they know every single time without even, they don't have to look, they just

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know that it's this person. Is that the right hook? Probably not,

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not for a corporate brand, not for training, but I do think there are signals

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that you can give to someone that sets the tone.

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When my guests come onto the Visual Lounge podcast, one of the things that often

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share with them in advance of hitting the record button is I have a

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specific process. One of the things that I do before I record

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is I have a little bit of music. It used to be when the

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show was live, it would play and it became very

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Pavlovian. And I know when that plays,

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I'm in the zone. I'm on the Visual Lounge. I'm doing the podcast. This is

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what I need to be. This is who I need to be. This is what,

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what I'm about. And I think by establishing

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a series of the right types of introductions and hooks, particularly

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for an internal organization, I think you can do something very similar.

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Now, we're not trying to science experiment on our people, but

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the Pavlovian behavioral science is real.

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You can help people to say, like, this is the mindset I need to be

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in when this happens. And then that

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hook, that hook, that little thing can be the thing that can help. And

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of course, you know, you want to gain interest, maybe you set up a problem

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for somebody, you know, give them an

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unanswered question so that they're like, oh, how

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do I do that? How do I make that change? You know, I can

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imagine if you're an HR professional, you're doing something with— you want your staff

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to designate beneficiaries, you know, for policies and

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stuff like that. You could say, What would happen

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if you were to pass away to all your insurance,

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blah, blah, blah, right? Like, it's not a perfect example, but you can see like

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all of a sudden like, oh, maybe I don't know, or I do

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know. And then I know what I'm like, okay, I know this. I know what

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I'm in for. I'm set. But I think we can really play, start playing with

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the hook. And, you know, AI again gets us past the blank page. Use it

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as your kind of sounding board a little bit. But I think every video

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needs a good solid start if you are starting with your company

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logo. I don't recommend it.

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You can, you can obviously do whatever you need to do, whatever your company policy

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says. I'd push back against it. I would start with something that's going to be

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engaging, interesting, sets up the problem, sets up the

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opportunity, you know, brings them along. If you're starting with

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music, that's fine. Music's not bad in the beginning. Just make sure

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it's not drowning out the purpose. Make sure you're taking that, like, think

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6 seconds. You got 6 seconds to engage my brain.

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And internal training, maybe a little bit longer. External, it might be

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more like 3 seconds. So you gotta, you know, you want to get into it.

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Next, in the scripting process, what I've been finding

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lately is that there are a variety of different

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structures for different types of videos. If you're making an ad,

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that's going to look very different than a how-to video. That's going to maybe

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look a little bit different than what I'd call marketorial or something that's maybe a

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little bit more polished marketing, but it's also helpful.

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You might do a customer testimonial, you might be doing, you know,

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a longer kind of training that's more like maybe a Zoom

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presentation, right? And what you want to make sure you're doing is creating

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a strong structure and flow. You want

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to make sure— and this is true for any training, whether it's a video or

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not— but you're thinking about, hey, I need them to do X, Y, and

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Z. What is going to be the logical progression to get them through

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that? And thinking about the words that you're using, thinking about the opportunities

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that you have, thinking about What's going to move them through? And if this is

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going to be a longer video, it's going to be longer than, I don't know,

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2 minutes. What's going to re-engage them along the way? So you've

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got your outline, you're starting to build that out and saying like, hey, you know,

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I hooked them in the beginning. Now I probably need to give them some, a

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little bit of background information. You're going to have the debate with

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yourself. Do I provide the learning objectives? Like what they should be able to do

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at the end of this? Maybe depends on what you're trying to approach it with.

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Then your outline, maybe it's moving from 1 to 2 to 3. Whether that's steps

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or whether that's concepts, you know, front load, always

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front load your stuff that you really want them to know the best you can.

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We know if people are going to fall off, they might fall off at any

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time, but they might, it might not look in the viewer analytics, but they might

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do this. They might just turn their head and be doing other work. And the

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other work probably is important, but it's distracting. I

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can't stop them. That's the reality of modern work. You can't

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stop somebody from being distracted. But what you can do is make sure they're getting

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the information in your outline. Early on, right? And

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so there are some opportunities there. Again, if we're talking AI, this is

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where you might lay out, hey, here's the 3 things

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I need them to learn, here's my learning objectives, what are some ways I could

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structure that? Now, if you talk to Josh Cavalier and other

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AI people who are much more expert than I am, you know, you give them

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that— the AI a role, hey, as an expert

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instructional designer. You might want to give them some context, the

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opportunities, like what are all the stuff that's going to help them, and, and really

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start to frame in. What I've found is, and I think I've talked about

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this, but just getting questions,

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asking the, the AI to ask me more questions so that I have

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to answer it. And as I answer it, we're building a body of knowledge to

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then flesh out that structure and that outline.

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But I think, again, a good hook, you don't have to write it first, but

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that's got to be the first thing in your video. Come up with that structure.

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What are the things that we're going to go through? And maybe you're moving things

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around again because maybe you don't want to quite reveal the,

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the, the, the ending. You're building a little bit of mystery, but you want to

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make sure it's clear and easy to follow. In the video viewer study,

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over and over again, over the many years that we've done it, it's videos that

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are easy to follow are the ones that people want to watch,

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particularly if it's a how-to. If you've ever watched a how-to video and you

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found it difficult to follow along, that's a problem.

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That's not just a little problem, that's a big problem. I recently—

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building some furniture, not handmade by any means, but like putting together

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some furniture, I should say. And I appreciated a video I

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watched because it did give me some step-by-step. But I made a mistake

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early on. You had to put on like this bar and, you

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know, get it aligned up and so that you could put the screws into your

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wall. It's what anchored your furniture to the wall. And I watched the

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video, I watched it a couple of times just to make sure I understood everything.

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And as I was doing that, I I anchored it, put them in my anchors,

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and I realized one thing they didn't point out is that

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you had to— even though, like, you just look like you kind of set it

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in there against the back cabinet and, you know, it had some notches for it

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or whatever, you actually had to lift it up a little bit so it could

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align with the holes that are on the side of the cabinet so it would

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hold it. And I missed it. They didn't say anything about it. There wasn't a

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notice about it. And that was, that was frustrating to me because I ended up

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having to drill another hole, which

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I didn't like. I don't want to have to put another wall hole in my

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wall and put an anchor in, things like that. So, you know, make sure you're

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going through that process to make it easy to follow along and that there

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are steps you're not missing. Those things you might even start with

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kind of where level setting, like, hey, in this video, after

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you get through your hook, here's 3 things that you need to know. If you

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don't know these 3 things, make sure they're level set, right? We want to, we

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want them to connect with these things and you move them along. There's some

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emotion there in training you want to help them feel, but obviously

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there's a lot of different areas how you might approach that depending on

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your culture, depending on what type of video it is, things like that. But you

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want to make sure you're, you're helping them to move along. So we've

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got our outline, we've got a hook. Obviously we need to start

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thinking about like outcomes. If we are not already, your outline should be

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getting in outcomes. And so I think the next thing we, we think about particularly

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again, we're writing a lot of marketerials, is once we've got that kind of

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outcome and outline, we're starting to think like, hey, what's coming

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for them? Like, what should they be able to do? Are

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steps clear? Then really spelling that out, like writing out the script. Now

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again, this is a chance— maybe AI could do that for you, but like, I

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just worked on a script today, in fact, that we used AI, and what

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it really needed— it needed a human. It needed someone who could

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understand the nuances of the product. It could understand things that it just

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maybe doesn't know because no one it, and I didn't want to necessarily

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tell it all those things. It also couldn't understand maybe

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the bit of the tone we were going for. A little bit different in the

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script. I won't talk too much about it, but it was like, it

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wasn't just a traditional, like, in this video we're going to talk about blah, blah,

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blah, blah, blah. And so there were some nuance to the tone that

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I just didn't understand. Again, doesn't know all things.

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It couldn't read my mind, but I could spend the time massaging,

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fixing, changing, rearranging in a way

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that allowed me to get those key ideas across.

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And so I could segment things a little bit better. I could provide

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a little bit more nuance, a little bit more context, and

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even a little bit of honestly what I think was funny.

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I didn't know, right? So I think you just have to be thoughtful about those

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things as you're building out and working to that. Like, yep, here's the step one.

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Step 2, step 3. Another key thing is always follow along, like do

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your homework, go through the steps. Did this do the thing

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that I expected? Was there anything that I had to do

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that I didn't mention? Remember moving the bracket?

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That's really important because sometimes we know, particularly I work for software companies,

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so I know the products fairly well and there are things

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that I have just stopped thinking about. Just

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steps along the process that I don't think about that. It's like,

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hmm, I didn't even think that I had to do that step. Someone new would

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maybe not know or catch on to the fact that I had to do that.

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So you're working through that process, you get that all put together, and you're getting

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your detailed instructions in place. And then there might be other things

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that you're adding in during this time. You're adding the value statements,

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the motivational statements, The things of purpose, like,

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you know, someone's going to be learning to use a new system.

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Help. Yes. Train them how to use the new system, but

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what's in it for them? The WIFM we talk about in instructional design and learning.

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What's in it for them or me? WIFM.

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It's one of my favorite acronyms of all time, just because it sounds so great,

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like WIFM and people get it, right? You get it. So you want to

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make sure again that you know And you're laying that out

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for them. Don't assume they know. Don't assume they've been in the

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conversation. Don't assume anything about that.

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And you might find as you go through, as stakeholders review, you

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can— there are things you probably can cut, but by leaving it in there, putting

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it in there, you're going to make these statements that are allowing your

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learner, the viewer, to really to come along and

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not just assume things about them because they might not have been

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in the conversations. They might not be aware. Maybe you've told them 20 other

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places. You can reinforce the value there. You can reinforce

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like, hey, this is going to help with, you know, value to

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you being smarter, faster, getting more done. Or maybe value to the company—

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we can do this more effectively, cheaper, easier. You know, we're going to

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save money, we're going to get bigger bonuses, whatever it is.

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But usually those are not that dramatic, but You want to make sure they know

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that because that reinforces after the learning,

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like, hey, yeah, you really need to do this because here's the value you're going

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to get. And sometimes you might be saying, as a

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compliance training, I just have to tell you to do it. And we've talked about

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compliance training on the podcast. So you tell them, this is

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compliance training, you have to do it. Well, what's the penalty?

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Do I— am I gonna get fired? Am I gonna get fined? Is the company

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getting fined? You know, like, I don't know that you have to go to those

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extremes, but like, help them to understand the real outcome, because there are real outcomes

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with this. Okay, moving on to our next thing. One thing to look for in

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your script as you're writing, particularly screen recording, screen software, software

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tutorials, right, is there's a principle by Richard Mayer that

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talks about, uh, using specific phrases for

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signaling. And you want to be really thoughtful about this, is making sure that the

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things that you're saying are aligning with what you're showing if you're

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talking about a process. So you might say something

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like, now look here, That's even a little bit too

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ambiguous. Like, look where? Using the mouse cursor, of course, you can

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guide in their direction. That's why one of the reasons I love Camtasia is because

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I can make that mouse cursor a little bit bigger and make it easier to

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follow along with. But you might be a little bit more specific. In the

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upper left corner. Now there's a whole world of accessibility that

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you want to be careful about. So you want to be specific, like

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in the upper left corner, there's a button

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that says click here or whatever it might be.

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And, but you want to focus the learner and you

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can, you know, start moving that mouse cursor. And as it's moving, say

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in the upper left corner, click on the button and that will

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give them a sense of where are we going. So as you're going through your

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script here, you've started to flesh out that outline into actual words that are going

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to be said. You want to make sure those instructions are clear

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and included because it is really easy to be ambiguous.

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Or just give context or directions without context.

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So for instance, you might say something like, click on the button.

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Well, if I'm in Microsoft Word, which one?

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Or go to the menu. Which

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menu? File? Edit? What is it? And

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so just be, be really thoughtful. The other thing that Meyer talks about is

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a personalization principle. I love the personalization principle. I think it's

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really important. It's the I, you,

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we versus being more third person.

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Also making it conversational, like use contractions in your

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video. Now you might again have reasons why you've got to be stiff and

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formal. I can't think of them, but

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you might have them. And so what I would say is make sure that you're

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writing in such a way that it is personal. It feels like

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you as a coworker, as a friend, are maybe

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walking them through. We actually have this whole thing from

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a voice standpoint. Now, AI voices may make this redundant

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or not needed. I'm a fan of personal voices in a lot of videos.

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I think human connection is really important, which we'll talk about more. But I would

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say if you're struggling to get consistency in your voice, one thing

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you can do if you're doing a voiceover particular— it's a little weirder for video,

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but you can still make it work— you do the Hey Mom principle. And we've

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talked about this, I think, a long time show, but it's like when you start

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a line, you say, "Hey, Mom, I want to talk to you about how to

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click on the menu in the upper left-hand corner." Something like that. Or,

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"Hey, Mom, drag this box across the screen

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into the drop zone." That "Hey, Mom" just makes it feel a little bit

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friendly, gets you kind of a nice beat. It makes it feel a little bit

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more personal, warm and friendly. If you're against your mom, I'm sorry. I

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feel terrible about bringing up moms. But if most people have a decent

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relationship with your mom, even if they're complex and strained as they can be

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sometimes, Being saying like, hey mom, or even your best friend,

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hey Sarah, let me tell you about this, right? So whatever it might be,

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you can use that to connect. And think about that, you don't have to write

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that in your script, but it is, it's a great way to make it feel

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personal because you sound personal, you sound connected, like you're connected to that person

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that you're trying to help. And that's a good way to write a script.

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Now, the other thing here I think is really important is you're looking to remove

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redundancy. You don't have to, you don't have to

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repeat things all the time. If it's on the screen for

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them to read, maybe you don't say it. You just give them time to read

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it. Or if you said it, don't put the text on the screen. Like we

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put too much text on too many screens. We've got too much, especially for video.

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So just be really mindful of any redundancies that are not necessary.

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Now, again, if you're showing them to go up to click, I think it is

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a helpful guide to give them that instruction. All your audiences

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will be slightly different. All people are different people. So you want to think about

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like what's going to help them to be most successful, even if they might be

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more expert in their craft. Once you've got all that done,

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you're looking for just polish, making sure you're not getting into jargon. If

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there is jargon, you're defining the jargon, particularly if it's for an audience that

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you don't know if they'll know what that thing is. Like, what is

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an LP in marketing? What is a

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LOB, what is an API, what is whatever, right?

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You want to make sure you're defining those appropriately, giving people the benefit

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of the doubt that they might not know, you know. And then

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ruthlessly cut everything you don't think you need. Be

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brutal, cut it out if it's not needed, if it's not helpful.

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You might also in this process be thinking, starting to think visually, because

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hey, all video is visual, right? And be thinking about like, what am

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I going to show? And if you're getting to a point you're writing your script,

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you're What am I going to show? What's going to be

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on screen here? And you're not sure. That's a

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great time to pause and say, why do I need to say this?

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You might, and that might be a time for you, or if you're into the

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AI avatar thing, to be on the screen.

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That could be a point of personal connection. But

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ultimately, what you want to do is be brutal. Remove it if you don't

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think it's— if it's not helping move it along. And sometimes

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you have to be brutal and ask other people to be brutal. I love

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working with our video producer Katie, and now our new video producer David,

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because we're building this rapport that we can just be brutal to each other's scripts.

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We're just like really questioning the word choices, questioning like,

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does that need to be there? Do we need that? And it is making

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me a better writer and a better video creator. So

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find that person, even if it's not the final stakeholder. Your stakeholder's

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probably gonna be brutal. Hopefully they're gonna be brutal in the right ways. So

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just keep working on that and make sure that you're thinking about those visuals. So,

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okay, we've talked about a lot of these processes in the script. At the

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end, make sure you've got some kind of call to action, steps to take.

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What's the thing that they're going to do? They watch this video, therefore what?

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There's a great person I love who is very wise and has said a lot

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of things, and he was giving a talk and he said, you know, we have

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to ask the question, therefore what? And therefore what, right? What is

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it that you are to do. At the end of this podcast, I usually give

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a little call to action like, hey, try to do this to level up, right?

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At the end of your video, if it's a software tutorial, what's next? Do I

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need to go practice? Do— is there a specific task I should do? Is there

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something along the lines that's going to help me to improve? Particularly from

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a marketing standpoint, where marketers are really good— call to action, go look at the

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web page, go buy this, try it, whatever it might be. Training,

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we need to develop a core function functionality that we're

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thinking about what's next. I love Mike Taylor. He's been on the show. He talked

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about maybe we stop thinking about training as courses and more as

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campaigns, right? So if you got a video, is there an SOP they

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need to read through? Is there an assignment they need to do? Is there some

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on-the-job type thing that they need to get viewed at, right? Like,

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what is it that you would have them do? And make sure you're putting that

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in there. And through all this

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whether you're using AI or not, find the way to

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be human, right? We talked in a previous episode not too long ago about

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the Human Framework from TechSmith. I'll link to that in the stuff below that

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you can check it out. But bring the humanity into

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your training and people will respond. They will listen. Now

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look, we're imperfect. We make mistakes. Videos are hard.

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Don't let anyone fool you. Making a good training video can be hard because

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There's lots of nuances. We got lots of constraints on time and budget,

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opportunity. Our audiences are all different at all different levels with maybe different

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constraints for themselves. So like, this is hard, but it— I think

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having a little bit of human in there goes a long way. And I'm not

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saying don't use AI. I'm not saying don't have it help you write. I'm not

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saying don't use it as voices. I'm not saying don't use it as avatars. We've

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heard great things and results that come from using those

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as well. But I think in through all that, there's a thread that we get

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to pull on that when it comes to learning, making sure that you're thinking about

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at the end of this, whether you're using AI or not, there's a human

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watching it. And as the human watches it, make sure that they are the

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focus of your success, that they are the ones who will be able to succeed

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because you have a training video. Because a training

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video that's successful, a marketing video that's successful,

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it's not about you. It's about them. So with that said,

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I hope this has been helpful insights into some scripting thoughts I've had lately.

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I hope you are using scripts. If you're not and you're good off the

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cuff, that's awesome. Write an outline, do what you got to do.

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But I think there's fundamental practice, and the only way to get better at writing

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script is writing more scripts. The only way to get better at writing better scripts

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is getting better feedback from those around you who are willing to

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help you understand and break it down.. And you might say, no one around me

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is a video script writer. It's okay. Ask them, do

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they like it? Ask them what they would change, what was hard, what was

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easy? Were they able to follow along? There's lots of great questions you can prompt

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that will help them. And as you do that, I think you're going to find

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a lot more success and you'll get faster at it. And you'll understand even working

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with the AI, how to prompt it better to be able to get better outcomes.

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And in a future episode, we'll talk about using rubrics for

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your AI. I think there's— got something I'm working on. Hopefully it pans out

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with Rubrik. We'll see. But most of all, thank you for

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watching. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of the Visual Lounge community.

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So grateful for each and every one of you. I do want to note that

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we do have a new domain. It's visuallounge.net. So you can go there

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or podcast.techsmith.com will work as well. So grateful for

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that opportunity to continue to grow the brand and share with you guys, hopefully things

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that you find useful. With that said, I hope you're also taking time for yourself

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to level up every single day. Thanks, everybody.