Monday, September 18, 2006

High fidelity WAY overrated these days

Rober Scoble has a great post today on Two Corporate Announcements..., but what he is really addressing is the shift that is happening in media today.
I believe content and context is more important than media production quality. You can spend millions on a Superbowl commercial with high production value, or you can be clever enough to get your product on YouTube.
In learning situations the content and the context is more important to learners than the production quality of the video. No, I have no research, just a hunch. If I am motivated to find some information, gain some knowledge, learn a skill, etc. I will easily endure a low quality video if the content is exactly what I need. No level of slick production helps.
The only time high quality production value helps is when you are trying to "sheepdip" your entire organization with some new content. Nobody is motivated about it, so we convince ourselves that if we spend money on a "high quality" production people will be entertained, and therefore learn. There's definitely a problem with this, but we do it so much, even I'm enticed to continue doing it. What's up with that?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You bring up a good point. I think that is holds true when we're talking about informal content such as video on Youtube.

I'd be curious to see what you think of my recent post on mediocre course content on my blog.

bschlenker said...

Jody, Thanks for the comment. See my additional comments on your blog.
BTW- I love your blog!