our onsite as a training tool

another batch of trainers completed our company’s trainers qualification program (tqp) and, like always, i gave a talk at the end of the training. this was my 6th time to give a talk and, as a change, i wanted to veer away from the usual way of presenting and offer something new and different. after a while of pondering how to approach this talk, i thought it would be nice to use a relatable topic and turn it into a jump-off point. you must be thinking, “what’s new and different with that?” there’s is really nothing new with that tactic but, as a challenge, i thought of using a topic that is not obviously connected to training, pull something out of it and then relate it to training. nice, huh? 🙂

the first easy choice was to use a popular movie. the predicament though was choosing a movie that i was certain that my audience has watched already (thereby making it relatable). that was a tough task considering i do not personally know most of the participants.

ok, no to movie. how about a book? nope. i don’t read that many books. a music video maybe? hmmm… interesting. 🙂 i can choose a music video and then use it as an opener. that way the whole audience will have immediate recall of the video thereby referencing to it would be much more effective. but what video would offer parallelism to training? and where would i get a copy of such a video? yet another dilemma…

and then it hit me. why not use our onsite video? that’s it! 😉

wait a minute… a wedding video as a tool for training trainers? yup. i told you i wanted something different. 🙂

here’s our onsite video by bob nicolas.



be it a wedding video or in training, both have the ultimate goal of communicating a message across to an audience. for me and my wife, selle, a wedding video should be able to convey the emotions, the love and the memories of the day to its viewer. it’s beyond being simply entertaining using flashy effects and other cinematographic techniques (although that is nice to have also). the same goes with training. trainers should be able to impart knowledge to its trainees. yes, it’s nice to be an entertaining trainer (para hindi ma-bore ang trainees) but impartation should be top priority.

since our onsite video (which we love so much) was effective in showing the love and intimacy of our wedding to our guests (bob is really a master in capturing emotions and presenting them in a cinematic way), i felt like by studying and analyzing it, i can get pointers on the techniques used by bob and then apply it to training.

and this is a summary of what i found out and, consequently, shared to the trainees.

parallelism between training and a wedding video

wedding video: establish your characters.
training: define your terms.
since an onsite wedding video is just 3-5 minutes long, it is important that the lead characters (bride & groom) be established early. you wouldn’t want the viewer to be thinking, “asan na yung bride? yung groom?” or “ah, sya pala yung ikakasal!” in training, the counterpart of characters are terms. like in a video, it is important that the key terms be defined early in the training. this way, the trainer avoids confusion. a trainer should never assume that his/her audience knows the terms already.

wedding video: have a clear storyline
training: have a clear outline
stories are best told when one can sit through it from start to finish without needing to go back-and-forth (pause-rewind-play in case of videos) just to understand what has just happened. a smooth storyline avoids confusion and builds up to a climax. the same goes in training. instead of a storyline, a clear and organized outline of the whole training should be present. kung sa movies merong beginning-middle-end, sa training naman meron dapat opening-body-conclusion. an effective opening determines the success of a presentation. the body should cover all points alluded in the opening. a conclusion is necessary to summarize the points mentioned in the training.

wedding video: captivate your audience
training: captivate your audience
onsite videos are shown at the reception wherein guests have the tendency to be easily distracted. an effective onsite should therefore be captivating in order to grab and, more importantly, sustain their attention. more so in training, where it is much longer and have a tendency to be boring. a trainer therefore should use different tools to capture his/her participants’ attention. put life into training by connecting with the participants. surprise them, avoid predictability. know your audience.

wedding video: details + angles
training: details + angles
wedding details are the oftentimes unseen and overlooked aspects of a wedding. adding it makes a video more interesting. meanwhile, using different (and unusual) camera angles of key points of a wedding adds more drama and dynamics to a video. applying this technique into training is simply saying that a trainer must have something extra (details) and something different (angles). it’s important to know more than enough. give personal insights, share stories and present your topic aside from the usual perspective.

it was a thrill to have conducted that last talk especially since an unusual methodology was used. hopefully, the latest batch of tqp participants got something out of it. 🙂


tqp batch 6 participants with judges
front row, left to right: me 🙂(judge), cris, myriam, frances, len, malou, rose, grace (judge)
back row, left to right: ryan, rj, randy, bhurr, kiko (judge)

special awards:

as-good-as-my-predecessor award: cris
only once before has a company nurse underwent tqp… and she topped her class. filled with so much life and energy, cris kept her audience enthralled throughout her presentation and, based on my ratings, followed her predecessor’s footsteps by topping this class also.

don’t-judge-me-by-my-size award: frances
clear, loud and arresting. it was a pleasant surprise to have such a voice coming from a woman with such a diminutive body frame.

oo-tapos-na-po-ako award: jackie
record-holder for the fastest presentation ever in the trainers qualification program. it was so fast, i barely even got to jot down my comments. 😀

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