Written by Geoff Curless VP Sales, Rehearsal

I was watching Sunday Morning at 4PM ET last weekend. The show featured internet celebrities…people who got famous for going viral.  It mentioned many of the social platforms that I am less familiar with like Vine and Snapchat.  But something caught my attention.

I work with video and yet I am still amazed by what it can do — not just the production of it but the impact it has on people. It’s not like we haven’t been using it for decades. In fact, I watched a documentary last week about the Ford Company and saw movies of Edsel Ford partying in his 19^th century chateau. But here is what’s different about video today.

One, as I mentioned, I watched CBS Sunday Morning at 4PM in the afternoon. Ondemand video is nearly essential now that we all try to balance work and life so masterfully 😉

Second, we have short attention spans and yet want to squeeze the most out of the short time we have to devote to learning something new. Video can tell a story in a matter of seconds. Forrester claims that a one minute video is worth 1.8 million words!

Third, and possibly most important, “seeing is believing”. Those of us in learning know how hard it is to measure the impact of learning initiatives. We have come a long way and many large companies are using evaluation models and assessment tools that tie nicely to business outcomes. But would we feel differently about learning if we visually saw progress?

Finally, I’ll throw one more thing into the mix before I get to the point of it all. I’m a gadget guy. I found this during my downtime internet reading: https://getkiba.com/. It’s a video camera that knows how to identify the most important moments you and your family experience. That’s right….it records and self-edits your life so once you watch it, you only see what is important. The camera builds your story for you.

What if you had the chance to teach people, watch them learn, watch them practice, watch them grow, watch them get better? What an amazingly human way for companies to show the impact of talent and development initiatives! The good news is that you don’t need to “get kiba” into all of your offices; you don’t need to get Vine celebs to capture your employees’ greatest “six-second” learning moments. You just need to teach your team and encourage them to practice. Well, at least that is your part. We at Rehearsal will capture the stories for you so you can watch every team member grow.

I’ll leave you with this video that has been viewed millions of times. It’s a six-second time-lapsed video of a woman….growing. What if you could watch your employees grow? You can with Rehearsal.

Do you have video clips — time-lapsed or not — of you, your employees, your co-workers, you kids, learning and growing on video? Share them with us on Twitter at @Rehearsal and hashtag #watchmegrow.