Weaklefthand4ever

I just want to take a moment to say that your continued input on this conversation is greatly appreciated. It's great to have someone who can speak to the here and now from an MM perspective and show the openness in the dialog. That really goes for everyone in this thread but I wanted to call it and say thank you.

I teach a 3 week class twice a year (this year it's three times) on adult learning theory and delivery design for adult learners. All of our corporate trainers have to go through it. I want to say there are about 15 of us on the North Amerca staff who are certified to teach it and we all have to be master certified through ASD. It's not hard...just expensive. Then the trainers go through a week of training on effective coaching and feedback. At that point they're certified to train for a program (client) which is it's own certification. Adults learn differently. It's a fact that effectiveness and retention are tied to delivery method. It's the single reason why I HATE PowerPoint (the Walmart of Instructional Design.) Well intentioned people all over the world use it as a delivery method for important learning when it's not built for that. Last year I actually had to do an e-learning on how to actually build presentations in PowerPoint that met the accessibility standards for design when someone actually had a seizure which was possibly brought on by flashing animations in a presentation. A LOT of thought goes into effective presentation. It took me 20+ years to get to where I feel 110% confident in writing curriculum. Even now I question design choices in my own writing.

From what I have seen and heard, I think SoA invested the time, money and care to do anything necessary. And that was probably a big ask. But the lessons learned there would probably give some valuable insight and probably already has on many levels. The design software out there now is so good that it can build almost anything you want. It just takes a good designer, a good plan, and good lawyers to check the content. I think often, designers (or even the client asking for training) fail to start with the end goal in mind. They have content and are just asking for it to be organized and put into a usable format. But that's not education. That's an information dump. You have to begin with what you want the end goal to be, is it attainable and how will it be measured.

Sounds like they may have a reporting issue Jeff. But I could be wrong.

"Why are there cowbells mounted to all the tenors?" "We just thought they would look cool." "So.....no cowbell quintet for the tenors???" "Nope" "But....cowbells......COWBELLS...."

Typically I would say yes as part of the UAT. We do that with corporate compliance especially for overseas work. If you don't pressure test the system then you're really only doing half the work. That being said, I was never part of that specific piece of the puzzle. We would sometimes be asked to make adjustments after UAT but rarely did we get a reason as to why the adjustment was necessary.

The worst part Jim, is that I still have to TAKE the exact curriculum that I write same as everybody else. So after all the UAT before rollout, I figure I've probably seen and edited that content 15 to 20 times lol. We do try to keep up with adult learning principles though. This year we took the "big enchilada" 4 hour corporate governance training and built the majority of it around gamification. The results were FAR better with first time scores in the 90's. Previous years, the first time testing was around 82%.

Thank you for contributing to the conversation @rmurrey74. It's always good to have voices in conversation that are open enough for some constructive discourse to take place. I would be interested in hearing how the SS model does their certification of facilitators for in person learning (ILT - Instructor Led Training) as well as for participants and how the participation and completion for enrollees is tracked.

I'm not implying that Safesport is not a good program or that it's vital. The questions would still be same of any program. 1. How comprehensive is it 2. Is there testing to ensure understanding and knowledge transfer 3. Is it tracked for compliance by a 3rd party and enforced Again, it could be an excellent program. In my world we do 2 hours alone on sexual harassment prevention at the entry level for employees. Managers have FAR more hours of training as they are responsible for any employee that comes to them (plus about 12 hours of compliance work twice a year.) It could be an apples and oranges comparison. I am simply posing questions. Just as an aside, a LOT of study has been taken place on adult learning theory over the years as you can imagine. Video presentation comes in towards the bottom of the list when designing curriculum (still above lecture alone.) Adults tend to have limited recall of what they have seen and heard without additional learning methods to reinforce the skill transfer.

I wanted to reach out to the broader audience and experience of the general population here for this question. I am going to make a broad assumption that all of the corps in DCI do NOT use the same curriculum for mandatory member safety and reporting training. That being said, this is transparently assumed from my experience with one corps and that was quite a long time ago. My question is simple. Why is this the case? A single curriculum, professionally built, edited yearly and uploaded to an LMS with robust reporting is relatively inexpensive if the cost is spread across all member corps. The type of curriculum that I have built and managed, allows for the same message to be presented, consistently and the reporting is fantastic. I just rolled out a training to over 50k employees in the US. I can track completion in reports that take less than 10 minutes to run. If I need to flex to instructor led instead of e-learning, I offer that option to any vendors who we outsource to. It just seems that if I am correct, leaving writing and delivering something of this level of importance up to individual corps, is not the best way. Who is reviewing their curriculum, testing the participants for knowledge and ensuring that the message is consistent and of equal importance, legally compliant? I've been doing this now for 23 years. I have started to reach out to few corps to literally review their materials and make recommendations for free. I doubt very much that I will get any traction, but the offer is there because these actions are VITAL to the members and staff. But again, I go back to why is it this way?

In the corporate call center world, we always say "The higher they go, the less they know."

Ehhhhh. I can see where you're coming from there, but I think there are some tradeoffs that you can go either way with. Having marched on both, my biggest fear on artificial turf, was always a twist turning into a tear. Yes it's more durable, more even on the feet and you can roll massive props on it. And rolling an equipment cart on a bad grass surface is painful. That's why I always hated it for the cats in FE. That being said, unless you've tripped on a sprinkler head on grass (especially wearing 22lbs of tubs,) you probably haven't had that slow motion moment locked into your brain pan all season. I'm sure the brass and guard also share this pain. Contra + ground + face = NOPE! Some would also probably argue that as props go bigger and higher, there's more concern on member safety, cost, bigger props equalling GE etc. And they have point. Maybe the next reinvention of marching arts is less props and even more creative drill design. And please don't think I hate props. I hate pointless props that do nothing to add to the presentation, but that's an opinion shared by many.

I knew someone would do it but I didn't want to be the first one lol

That's how chaotic my work life is with 56 trainers reporting to me lol. I often forget what day it is. Outlook calander and One Note save my ### on the daily.

If that number is above the corps placement in 2024, you get a super cool prize? I'm joking of course, but Wednesday is my "Dealing with dullards on conference calls all day" time and I'm grumpy.

Agreed. I think they may have had to adjust for talent levels and experience a bit the same way SOA seems to have done. Maybe someone should plug it into an AI and if can explain how you design a show...because I certainly could not.

Exactly. Honestly because of the way it's discussed that wrote drill, a prop would have simply become a piece of the shape of the set or whatever. When I think of George based on what I have seen and read from people who worked with him, he seems part artist and part architect. The artist paints the picture and the architect molds his or her design to have the picture wrap around the framework.

Agreed 101%. I know people are fanatical about their corps for various reasons and I know sometimes things get stated on this forum that seem more to do with emotion than fact or reason. But it's opinions about placement. Should an opinion rely on measurable data? Sure. That's what lends some form of validity to it. But the way to have meaningful discourse with someone doesn't typically include attacks. I had to call this out in a directors meeting not long ago at work and called out a Sr. Director for attacking a vertical of the business based on literally no data. I didn't attack back. I simply asked clarifying questions until eventually they realized that they needed to curb their attack dog mentality. My point is this. If this were a fact thread, then fine. Tell someone to put up their facts and dispute the finer points. But in a thread that literally used the word GUESSES in the title....... If someone disagrees with you, so the hell what? Have some disourse, make it genuine, honest and open to change and let's all get past our egos and talk drum corps. P.S. I have PR in 5th or 6th. Call it a gut instinct. It's my opinion. Now fight me (j/k)

Point very well stated. The corporate model wouldn't work in a plug and play type of format for sure. I think pieces of it could, but some of the wheels spokes would definitely have to be reinvented. I would, however wonder if it's the model that wouldn't work or it's a will vs skill type of scenario at some level. As we traverse the many major reported incidents across several corps (SCV is not the first and unfortunately will most likely not be the last,) the pattern of corps seems to be the "We do things the way that we do them because it's always how we've done them." Change only occurs at two levels: 1. Willingness to change in order to keep moving forward with minimal risk of future issues 2. Force by circumstance. I don't know what the right answer is. And I'm smart enough to realize that there may not be an easy model/answer. But if corps aren't striving for transparency until they get punched in the jaw, that's a recipe for disaster.

And it's a double edged sword really. No corps wants to have to constantly have every issue aired in public. It hampers your ability to pivot quickly. That being said, by the time that something comes to light in the DCI world, it's already typically a potentially corps ending issue. There has to be a middle ground somewhere. I simply don't understand the DCI model I guess. It's an organization that has one, tentative foot in oversight, but only as a reaction to large issues. The model worked for as long as it has because most things simply never came to the light of day it seems. With social media, that landscape has changed and so to should the model in some way. Just my opinion

Time to leave the shoes on the field lol

I would have to check with my mom as she worked with dad for the last 10 years of his career (he was working himself literally to death) but I want to say with Aramark at least, there was a different division they set up for things like NFL camps, etc that didn't have the same requirements. I'll see what she remembers.

Yessssss....it's 104 degrees outside. What shall we make the mm's wear? Yes....wool uniforms and fur hats....good...gooooood.

That's good to know. It's not something I really think much about these days or really for the last 30+ years. Always hire experts (and those companies do what they do, very well in general.)

So wayyyyy back when, my late father told me about being approached by Suncoast Sound about how to properly set up food trucks and replenish on the road. He worked for Aramark (ARA at the time) and alas, I can't find out more now (miss ya' papa.) I would be pretty confident that major food service companies like Five Star, Aramark and Sysco could make the food part of tour pretty darn easy. You just have to have someone explain the unique needs of a touring corps rather than the typical stationary college campus or elite private high school.