My guest for today is Erick Prospero, the founder and chief Ninja at Ninja Tropic, which is NOT a self-defense agency specializing in hot weather combat—but rather an eLearning animation company born out of passion and practicality.
In this very ‘practical’ conversation Erick and I talk about
📣 What is Ninja Tropic? The genesis of Ninja Tropic because of a need to create microlearning at scale (or high-volume) for the nonprofit universe… and how Eric and his now-team got it done
📽 The different kinds of video, and why you’ll use video for everything from a 30 second video to introduce a topic, to long form video for deeper explanations… and why finding the format that your audience responds to, is critical
🤔 The need for immediacy vs quality storytelling. And why you might consider keeping your boring content for video, and your exciting, juicy content for text or other formats
🌦 Corporate learners vs academic settings. Eric explains how it’s so often not about what the learners want, but what the institution is set up to be able to produce and the cultural inertia behind it. (hint: academia generally ain’t interested in competing)… and examples of Higher Ed that are solving for this and doing cool stuff
🌮 The process for creating great microlearning. Eric walks us through the process Ninja Tropic uses to work with a diversity of clients to produce effective content. And, why the best content is motivational (not necessarily instructional). PS. Eric gives a huge shout out to flautas
👨👩👧👧 How to produce content that can be consumed anytime. Eric’s experience shows that people are looking for both timed & structured courses, as well as “consume at your own pace” content and what we really need to be focused on is how to remove friction from accessing content
🛎 How much of learning data is actually used, and how much is this just lip service? Eric explains how he helps his clients use lead and lag metrics
🕹 When to use animation vs live video? Eric explains why he’d always choose live video, but that this isn’t practice and why animation is better suited to certain types of content
📴 When will VR take off for the masses? And why this won’t become mainstream until it’s completely frictionless and immediately accessible to everyone
