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It probably doesn’t need to be asked, but … why train with video rather than a traditional manual?

The easiest reason is to simply look around today.  What are people doing when they’re alone?  Reading books?  Listening to something?  Or watching and listening to something?

I heard recently that the average American spends nearly as much time in front of the television as at work.  I’m sure that this number is skewed considerably if you take into account that most people under the age of 18 spend FAR more time in front of the TV than older people.

Written words are just as effective today as they’ve always been.  But they’re very one-dimensional when you think in terms of adding audio and video.  Audio creates a second dimension, and video adds a third.

In audio recordings, voice inflections, cadence, timbre, pitch, and a host of other vocal attributes communicate a ton of information that simply cannot be captured in books.  Some books try, but they tend to be novels and they’re not very educational.

When you add video to the equation, the visual cues, appearances, gestures, and other attributes again conspire to communicate far more than can ever be attained with the written word. 

While it has been said that “pictures are worth a thousand words”, it’s also true that there are aspects to visual communications that simply can NOT be expressed adequately in words.  The same can be said of audio recordings.

The truth is, most people under 30 have become so accustomed to viewing television and movies that they’ve much more comfortable with that medium.  The popularity of Apple’s iPods illustrates the movement towards portable media.  The recent explosion in the models that incorporate video testifies to the power that video has in the marketplace.

If for no other reason, people will watch videos because it’s effortless, unlike reading where you have to concentrate on a number of things just to be sure some of the material “soaks in”.  When someone starts watching a video, there’s a far greater chance that they’ll view the entire piece, regardless of length, than if they had to read the equivalent material as printed words. 

And if the producers of the video do a good job, then it will hold the attention and even accomplish its goal far more effectively than any kind of printed media.  Of course, there are people who’ll always learn better through the written word, but we now have an entire generation of people who’ve been fed a steady diet of video every day — hours of it.  Given the choice, they tend prefer video over other media.

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