Training Videos

As I am now a manager I have to sit through an ever increasing number of US online training videos. These are all glossy productions with clean cut, attractive, young Americans sitting in tidy and spacious offices being very sincere and committed to whatever the training is about. I don’t know about you but that is a million miles away from my work environment or colleagues!

I saw a US and a UK version of the same video today; it was about maintaining server security. The US version had a 25 year old slim, brunette woman in immaculate chino’s and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt with a clipboard in front of a huge rack of gleaming server blades in a smoke fronted cabinet. The UK version had a 40 year old fat balding bloke in jeans and a grubby T shirt (no, it wasn’t me!) in front of a old monitor covered in yellow stick it’s with a load of wires running over the top of the cabinet into the next bay where a tower system was jammed in. Funny!

It reminded me of the John Cleese training videos I used to watch 15 years ago which I could certainly relate to much more easily than the ones of today. I wonder how many of the glossy training video’s I sit through now I will remember in 15 years like I do the “office move” one of Johns. There are some previews available which will give you a taste which are rather dated but still frighteningly accurate. I’m thinking of using the review ones for my management training sessions!