This month’s Harvard Business Review contains an article by Paul Andre, Michael Bernsetein, and Kurt Luther titled, “What makes a good tweet”.

The authors asked 1,443 Twitter users to rate tweets along a number of categories including the degree to which the tweet was worth reading in the first place.  Sadly, only about of 1/3 of the tweets rated achieved the coveted label of worth reading.

The authors provide a series of simple tips for making tweets useful: don’t whine/complain, keep things new (don’t retweet old news), and provide information that is actually useful (e.g., it turns out no one really cares where you are, stop checking in).

However, what struck me most was their overall conclusion, “The key is to be aware of one’s audience and how different people’s values may differ.”  In other words, when using a communication tool, use basic principles of good communication.

I also just heard about some new best practices in developing virtual learning – insert some type of “interaction” every two minutes. In other words, when you are teaching people something, keep them engaged.

It turns out, that this new principle is pretty old.  I remember heading the same advice 5 years ago also for virtual learning, 10 years ago for web-based training and 15 years ago for computer-based training.

The problem is that the people recommending this, seem to be focused more on the technology than the principle.  Interactivity in learning isn’t about inserting some type of mundane question or “activity” every two minutes.  Interactivity is about thinking.  It comes from having context, surprise, utility, alignment with experience, and application. 

A good speaker can achieve those things in a lecture.  A bad virtual learning design won’t achieve those things regardless of the number of “interaction” breaks it has.  I would bet that more people would prefer to sit through a seventeen minute TEDtalks video on sexual harassment (if one existed) than their company’s current  seventeen minute “interactive” sexual harassment virtual training module.  Yet, I’m sure that most of those training modules have a number of “interactivity pauses” along the way.  

When new technologies arrive, we often get distracted by their form.  We hear promises of these technologies revolutionizing the world (commerce, learning, medicine, etc.).  Once people start jumping on board, over-using them, or misusing them, the articles start appearing on how to most effectively use the new technology.  More often than not, however, the research simply rediscovers the tried and true principles that underlie those new technologies’ function:

If you are communicating, understand and respect your audience, have a clear, simple message, and stay on point

If you are in business, understand and respect your customer, continually evolve, and design for simplicity

If you are a leader, understand and respect your employees, create a vision, hold people accountable

If you are teaching, understand and respect your students, provide content that is engaging, let them experience things and make mistakes

If you are trying to solve problems or innovate, challenge assumptions, think critically, and get multiple perspectives

The new tools and technologies don’t change the fundamentals; they just provide new alternatives for executing them.

Instead of teaching leaders the next big thing, maybe it’s time to step back and teach them the basic principles of how to lead and run organizations. That way when new technologies arrive, they are ready to go.
——————————————————-
Brad Kolar is an Executive consultant, speaker, and author. He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.