It’s about the job performance. With over two decades of experience weaving the magic that moves audiences to action, I have become a wizard at knowledge transfer and motivation that makes audiences better at what they do.
I have supported the launch of new software and computer systems at Toyota, Los Angeles Unified School System, and Southern California Edison.
I have designed sales training and product knowledge for Pioneer electronics, Movie Magic Screenwriter, and most of the Asian car companies.
For clients including Kaiser Permanente, Hitachi Data Systems, and Genentech, I have helped to improve technical skills.
The Medium is the Message
Starting out with a degree in broadcast journalism I went on to work in film and video production, managing film and video studios for Santa Fe College in Florida and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. This means polished production work that many instructional designers can only talk about.
The Sizzle and the Steak
Much of my later career was in marketing communications, where we knew to “sell the sizzle instead of the steak.” This gives my writing and design the energy and urgency that’s demanded by marketing. And it knows how to sell: Sell the idea, sell the knowledge, sell the right way to do things.
Through more recent and extensive experience in developing learning support I have learned to be clear and concise. This all makes me a wizard at delivering to you the best of both worlds: The energy of good marketing and the clarity of great learning support.
Engaging vs. Entertaining
“Engagement” is a big buzz in instructional design. Too often that’s taken as encouragement to “go Hollywood” and “jazz it up,” which too often adds cognitive load, distraction, and a less effective learning experience.
My approach to engagement means taping into the interests and concerns of the audience: Design that goes straight to the WIFFM (what’s in it for me), making an emotional impact on the audience that this is how to move closer to achieving your own goals and ambitions.
A polished production, with intriguing visuals and captivating sound track, are of course all part of this magic, but all in service to audience needs and concerns, rather than an instructional designer’s need to show off.
Real People Say:
“It is my pleasure to highly recommend John Morley as an Instructional Designer. Over the past 5 years, John has served as a key member of the Genentech Oceanside Technical Training Group in the capacity of Instructional Designer, bringing deep expertise, curiosity, a strong work ethic and an innovative mind set.
As a lead ID, John developed both short and long format trainings, covering areas spanning from Manufacturing automation training to Safety training to Quality Control while also producing video content for our leadership team. John’s projects often meant working with short timelines, competing priorities with subject matter experts and shifting scope, all the while maintaining a positive can-do attitude and a high degree of professionalism.
John also cultivated an innovative mindset, bringing new modes of training such as periodic boosters to ensure effective knowledge transfer post training. This approach greatly enhanced the teams understanding of how effective our training was performing and allowed us to further improve.
John is always a positive, thoughtful and humorous personality and I would not hesitate to hire him”
“John has worked for our team for 5 years, and has done an amazing job developing highly technical training content for our site. He has definitely raised the quality of our eLearning content. He is extremely hard professional and dependable. Although his contract is ending for now, I wouldn’t hesitate hiring John back in the future if we need his help.”
FANTASTIC! I love it! Great job!!!.
“John is and was one of the most professional people I have had the pleasure of working with. I hired him when Executive Vice President of Multa Comm and his work was excellent. He then created my company web site and again his work was top drawer. I would recommend John to any company looking for excellent results on time and under budget.”
“John has a passion for instructional design. John and I worked on the same team to develop training materials for SCE’s Edison SmartConnect project. Both of us were independent contractors. While working with John, I was impressed with his intelligence, research skills, analysis of technical data and documents, and ability to generate and ask important, critical questions.”
“The videos you produced for this event were instrumental in getting the key messages across in a compelling way.
Thank you for your time, expertise, quick action and flexibility in producing these for Thrive.”
“Thank you for all of the last minute work to get this prepared and in the system. I just checked training status and it looks like 11 operators have completed prior to the first BDU operation of the campaign tomorrow. Perfect!”
“Nicely done! Check-ins can be a real game changer for our site.”