Creating Information Products But Which One? Part 6 – Value

Man this series has turned into a real book all on its own!

So far we’ve covered the cost of creating your information product,  and we’ve covered the reputation value of each type of information product.  The next item in our triumvarate of decision is actually two related items. One which we’ll deal with today and one which we’ll deal with next week.

Today we’ll deal with the real value to the customer … or to be more precise the suitability of the media to the job.

There are two old sayings that matter for today’s discussion.

• “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember today. Let me do it and I’ll remember forever”

• “I hear what you said.”, “I see what you mean”, “I understand what we did” .

Both of these sayings are correct.

There are three basic learning modes Visual, Verbal, Active. The first two are part of our hardwiring and will change from individual to individual. Most people are visual. They need to see it to understand it. The best way to teach these people is with diagrams.

However, a much lower percentage of people are Verbal. They need words to understand the subject. Frequently, these words need to be on paper in order to be properly understood.

Finally, we all internalize the information when we use it actively.

However, even if we ignore our cognitive biases, as a group, we will learn more when we are shown what to do than if we are told what to do. If we then do it, we will learn and retain the most.

Combine that with the fact that as our participation in the learning process increases our understanding and retention increase.

These latter two points are why our typical breakdown of training is lecture, seminar, workshop.

In a lecture, you have a talking head speaking at the audience who sits back and listens. Information is basically one way. This is good for initial training and basic information.

In a seminar, questions are asked of the audience and a back and forth exploration of the topic occurs (hopefully). Information is two way, and examination and application is encouraged. This is good for developing understanding around the information.

A workshop consists, usually, of hands on application of the information provided in the lecture and the concepts developed in the seminar. It is in this type of instruction that the greatest learning takes place.

Okay, so what does all that have to do with information products?

Basically, it means that you have two types of people. The first group will learn best by seeing diagrams. They will learn best if they have a chance to see you talking especially if they are shown diagrams. The second group (a much smaller group) learn best by reading. For these people books are ideal. However, all of us learn best by doing. So whatever media is used, practice is a key to learning.

So to put it into context …. the best media for training is:

1. Live workshops
2. Live seminars
3. Live speeches (e.g. keynotes) and lectures
4. Video
5. Webinars
6. Books
7. Audio

Interestingly, Frank Kern posted a blog entry discussing a survey he did on what media people want to be taught in. And his results of what people want is very close to the list above (his survey was simpler than my list).

One of the things we need to do when using one of the non-live techniques is to include some participation. It will increase retention immensely. HOWEVER, in VERY big letters, don’t ask the audience to write this down! It sounds made up and chinzy. Better to say something along the line of “Get out your pen and notepad, ’cause you’ll be getting lots of information and will want to make notes as we go.” No pressure, no phoney fill out this form because I think it will make you stay awake. Having said that, a better technique is to ask the audience to stop the video for a moment and answer a question. Questions such as “What will this get you?” and “How could you use this?” are good for this.

When you design your learning content then the best format for the information product will fall out. Keep in mind however, that there is nothing stopping you from repurposing the information product to create other products either to include with the original or to be sold (usually as a downgrade to the original) or given away as a bonus.

Next up, we’ll talk about the value the customer assigns to the media.