A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Alfredo Castro, a master storyteller. Alfredo will be telling how to use storytelling to improve our business results. Just the other day I had the good fortune to talk to Mark Smith, who has a company that helps companies do a better job of telling their story. Splainers uses short films, generally animated, to help companies explain ideas, or their plans, or even their employee handbooks, in order to get more engagement from the employees or customers. The concept is that people become more engaged with an idea if is presented in an animated story.
Their genesis
Mark comes from the entertainment business where he worked for Twentieth Century Fox. He learned about the importance of having a story hook in order to engage the audience. One day in a meeting, watching idea after idea presented in Powerpoint presentations, Mark realized there has to be a better way to engage an audience than slide after slide. People were doing a poor job of selling their ideas.
In searching for a better way, Mark came across a small company that was using video to explain things, such as what Twitter was all about. Mark’s newly formed company Splainers bought the idea and started pitching to companies about using videos to turn their ideas into little video stories. It became immediately popular and they ended up with a worldwide clientele.
Connecting to SHRM
The clients they had started coming to them to see if the video methodology could be used to explain HR issues. After some successful projects in this arena, they decided to step into the HR world and they attended SHRM15 in Las Vegas. They quickly attracted companies where HR wanted a good way to explain change and help establish a call to action.
HR departments have used them to get engagement on ideas and policies. In today’s HR world where employee engagement is considered of ultimate importance in both talent acquisition and talent retention, having a tool that quickly captures the attention of today’s worker is invaluable.
Splainers has a video on their website that uses It’s a Wonderful Life as a way of explaining the concept of their company. I was engaged by both their story and their ideas. Check them out a the 2018 SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition, Booth 2316 in the Exhibition Hall.
Originally posted on Omega HR Solutions blog.
- 0
- 53 views
Add new comment