Dear Hollywood,
I bring you tidings from the Corporate training world. I hope you are doing well, and am looking forward to your summer fare.
I just have two pieces of bad news for you, and as a friend, I thought I would break it to you directly. Here is the first: your movies are just too long.
Here are just a few examples:
- Hot Fuzz: 2 hr. 1 min.
- Spiderman 3: 2 hr. 20 min
- Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest: 2 hr. 20 min
Plus, when you add driving, parking, and previews, we are talking about a 3 to 4 hour commitment or longer. Who are you trying to kid? WAKE UP!
I can tell as a fact that no one has 3 hours anymore. No one. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find 3 hours in people's schedules. People are just too busy.
Learn from me. If I propose any program, I make sure it takes less than 30 minutes, and maybe even less than 15 minutes of a person's time. My motto is deliver a bit of information exactly when they need it and move on. My ultimate goal is to be a faint, useful smell wafting through the corridors. That is, after all, the easiest conversation to have with my business colleagues.
Now granted, that means I can't actually develop any new capabilities. But I can, using this "wafting" strategy, get enough funds to scrape together program pilots, as long as I only put one group through it of less than twenty people. I know, I know, you are producing blockbusters, and I am facing another budget cut. But that's just because your audiences don't get the new realities, and mine do.
I just thought of another great example. YouTube is doing so well because it provides short movies. My IT people tell me that employees entertain themselves for hours at work watching these clips and.. (oh, wait. Never mind. Bad example.)
The second piece of bad news is actually worse. Your movies take too long to produce. Two years? You have got to be kidding me. Ask any "expert" from the training world (and we have a lot of them). THERE IS NO WAY OF PREDICTING THINGS that far in advance. We have to react constantly. Wait... hold on.... THERE! Everything changed. Did you feel it? Entire social orders were up ended. Old models fell apart. Things change every second. The fact that you actually think you can know what people will like and need two years from now if frankly, a little embarrassing. (And the best part is, "embracing" constant change really means that you always have an excuse for not doing anything very well. Why research anything when you can "gut check?" Why design a program when you can just use Google? Why take responsibility or ownership at all?)
So, I thought I would give you the two pieces of bad news, and please accept my deep, deep condolences. And, of yeah, my resume.
Sincerely,
The Training Community
