Agtel

Inspiration for Young Entrepreneurs

Going on Dragon’s Den was an intimidating experience reveals Tim Rooney, founder of the health food snack Surf Seeds, in a fascinating case study Agtel filmed with him recently. But he managed to rise to the challenge of the dragons and they invested €100,000 in the business. Likewise, Nicola Byrne who founded directory enquiries services 11890 had tough meetings with potential clients when she first started promoting her business – but finding clever ways to overcome the obstacles in her way is one of the things that’s made her business successful.
 
Both Nicola and Tim feature in the latest Agtel on-line and DVD production for the County & City Enterprise Boards. You can check out Tim’s case study here. Their candid and inspiring case studies are designed to motivate young students to set up their own businesses – and to enter the annual Student Enterprise Awards. The case studies are accompanied by a series of five “soft skills” tutorials that help teachers convey hard to teach topics such as sales and branding. The video tutorials use drama scenes focussing on a group of school students (played by actors) going through the whole process of setting up their own company to bring the subject to life.
 
The video tutorials and case studies are integrated into the on-line Student Enterprise Awards website and are now also being distributed on DVD to schools around the country.

Launch of eQuality Measures

We found in our recent organic gardening production for Bord Bia, that girls and boys were equally energetic and courageous when it came to tackling the big jobs of composting, bug catching and snail hunting.  But such gender equality may not always arise naturally.  Some school structures, curricula and subject choice options may inhibit the extent to which both girls and boys can participate equally in the educational system. 

Agtel has just released an ambitious pack consisting of two DVDs and set of five PDF booklets that provide post-primary school management with comprehensive information and practical guidance on the implementation of a gender main-streaming programme.  Produced for the Department of Education and Science, this pack tackles a complex subject in an engaging and accessible manner, with the focus very much on practical implementation.

Maureen Bohan, Senior Inspector with the Department said:

"It’s been a long journey from the time we started the project and I want to acknowledge the excellent partnership we established with Agtel since you were awarded the tender to undertake the making of the DVDs.

From the beginning the Agtel team became an important part of the whole project. Although employed to undertake the technical part of the project, it soon became evident that you understood the objectives of the project and this was proved by the excellent direction and editing of the interviews and relevant background material and by the beautiful design work for the booklets.

I am aware that we were pretty demanding clients in terms of asking  for several edits, designs and finally proofing but the patient and courteous response of all of your team was commendable and very much appreciated. I think everyone will agree that the final product ticks all boxes in terms of quality."

The pack was an enormous undertaking both in terms of video production and print design and Agtel worked very closely with the Department to ensure that the focus of the message remained paramount at all stages of the production.

In Production: Oireachtas

Ireland has many important choices to make over the coming years.  What type of society do we want? How do we tackle the big issues of climate change and energy supply?  How can we build a sustainable economy that will provide good jobs for our young graduates?  Read the newspapers and you will be left in no doubt about the choices and challenges we now face. 

There has never been a more important time to understand how our parliamentary system works and Agtel is in the final stages of completing an exciting new production that aims to explain the workings at the heart of our democratic system, the Oireachtas.  Our intention is to establish a new standard for this type or production. 

Edit in process.  Watch this space.  We might even give you an opportunity to vote on the final production!

More images from the shoot are available on Flickr

HSE: Training Value for Money

Training course design, trainer fees, travel, per diem expenses and lost working hours.  How can essential training be delivered without the expense of traditional face-to-face training sessions?  Agtel has found a solution for the HSE with the production of a DVD-based training resource that features video playlets, graphics, audio, animation, text and a self-service menu option that allows either trainees or facilitators to work through the content in an intuitive, appealing and effective manner. 

Drawing on best practice in adult learning principles and courseware design, a hybrid DVD was developed that provides HSE Line Managers with both the theory and practice of people management and employment law.  The realistic drama scenes, provide a learning experience that is highly visual, interactive and grounded ‘in the real world’. 

Supporting text, downloadable forms and other resources make the DVD an innovative package – a complete training centre on a DVD.  Add to this, the full integration of the resource with the HSE’s eLearning system and the scope of the resource is extended further.

High quality training delivered in a highly cost-effective manner.

New Videos Inspire Young People to Set Up Own Businesses

With so much doom and gloom around, it’s been great to work on a series of inspiring videos for the Student Enterprise Awards recently. Every year, over 10,000 students from all over the country set up their own companies in school as part of the competition. The prizes are pretty impressive too - €1,500 is up for grabs, along with an all-expenses paid trip to Europe worth over €10,000.
 
We started off by filming the students taking part in the national finals, and their enthusiasm was so great that we’d no problem creating high-energy, motivating and fascinating video profiles of some of the best projects. Those video profiles are up on-line on the Student Enterprise Awards website: www.studententerprise.ie
 
Live on that site you’ll also find the first in our series of business skills videos which are designed for classroom use by teachers – videos that cover many topics that are hard to teach using text books. Building on our experience of educational projects which take a “problem-based learning” approach, they’re divided into three segments so that teachers can use them to kick off discussion in the classroom without giving the answers away.
 
The first video that’s up on www.studententerprise.ie covers idea generation and brainstorming techniques, and it will soon be followed by other fast paced videos covering areas like people skills and branding. Bringing these topics to life was no problem because of the talent of the young actors involved – and the drama scenes we filmed with them really help crystallise some of the main learning points.
 
These projects are all part of our on-going work with the County & City Enterprise Boards. And who knows, maybe someone watching these videos will set up The Next Big Thing…

Martin Lindstrom and Seth Godin - Does Every Brand Need a Charity ?

Martin Lindstrom (latest book ‘buy-ology’) has a conversation with Seth Godin (author of ‘Permission Marketing’) about brands and charities.  We’d love to help Martin make his videos but we’ll igonore the production quality on this occassion.  One one side or our business, many of our clients are concerned with brand building.  On the other side, we work for a range of charities and voluntary organisations.  What Seth and Martin have to say should be interesting to both.  Watch the short video at: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1370868150/bctid30848505001

You might also like to check out Martin’s website at http://www.martinlindstrom.com/.  It’s an interesting place to spend a little time…...

Social Video and Advertising

Finding new, interesting and effective ways to engage viewers with online video is a hot topic of debate at the moment.  Has the 30 sec. TV commercial passed its sell-by date?  Does online video work?  Can audience engagement be measured?  What is the balance between online/broadcast media consumption?  There are probably more questions that answers at the moment but some interesting examples of best practice are emerging.  Check-out this short video about social video.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1370868150/bctid28952728001

Test and Trial Video Online for ComReg

Online video is an ever increasing aspect of our work.  Most websites benefit from a video makeover and with improved broadband speeds this tend is only going in one direction. 

You can check out one our recent productions for ComReg at http://www.testandtrial.ie/video.php    This is being used to support the international marketing of the Test and Trial service that ComReg offers to technology clients.  Just in case you didn’t know, of our Ireland’s great natural resources is our high quality, uncluttered frequency spectrum.  ComReg reports a very postive response to this video amongst potential clients in Asia and beyond.  How do they know?  Because one of the advantages of online video is that see when, where and how many times the video is watched. 

Agtel wins prestigious IVCA Award

Agtel was honoured to receive a Bronze IVCA 2009 Award in London.  The award was for our DVD ‘Mission 4: Space Robotics.  This high-energy and engaging teaching resource was produced as part of our “Project: Zero Gravity” series for ESA’s ISS Education Programme.  The production includes footage shot by the astronauts themselves on board the International Space Station (using storyboards created by Agtel as a guide) and also includes footage shot in schools in four countries across Europe.

We already have plans for our 2010 entry and will continue to focus on quality and originality in all our work and for all our clients.

More information on this DVD series is available on the ESA website: http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMZTFYO4HD_education_0.html

Innovative eLearning DVD just launched

Agtel’s latest production for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (www.fsai.ie) has just been launched.

A finalist in the Best eLearning product or course category of the 2009 Digitial Media Awards, this innovative eLearning training production is a key part of the new “FSAI Safe Catering Pack”. It uses a TV show-style approach to engage the target audience of 29,000 food businesses around Ireland, and makes full use of high quality video, DVD interactivity and motion graphics to deliver its message using solid adult learning principles. The DVD also contains frequently used forms in PDF format that the food businesses can print out themselves.

Mary Wallace, TD, Minister for Health Promotion and Food Safety at the Department of Health and Children launched the FSAI Safe Catering pack at their headquarters in Dublin. Food safety is becoming increasingly important as more and more businesses from shops to small cafés start to provide a range of foods to customers. In response to this, the FSAI developed a Safe Catering pack that smaller food businesses can use to put a food safety management plan in place.

The FSAI faced a challenge in ensuring that industry professionals move through the “tipping point” form initial perceptions through to an understanding that the pack is a valuable and practical tool. Agtel took a unique and innovative approach to this challenge by developing an accompanying eLearning resource that uses a Presenter-Led Investigative Journey captured on video to bring learners on a tour of a variety of businesses that are already using the pack. Seeing the pack in action creates an engaging and motivational learning path, while the presenter provides an accessible and approachable “face” for the resource.

Usability was a key consideration for this eLearning resource given the diversity of backgrounds of the target audience. The learners it is aimed at have different levels of computers literacy and also varying levels of access to computer resources. To deal with these issues, Agtel recommended that the resource be distributed in DVD format and the resulting product makes clever use of DVD menus to enable interactivity with users. Clear explanatory graphics are seamlessly embedded in the video clips to emphasise key learning points.

Enabling Self-Directed Learning is an important consideration for any eLearning resource aimed at adult learners. Users of this resource can choose which order they want to cover the material in simply by selecting the relevant section from an on-screen menu.

Another important criteria to take into account when dealing with adult learners is motivation. This resource tackles this aspect creatively by including interviews with people in the catering sector in each section who give their own personal reasons for using the pack.

For maximum knowledge retention and transference among learners, the presenter wraps up each section with a recap of the most important educational key learning points. He also uses the opportunity to prompt them to open up their own workbook and start filling in the relevant part of it.

Demand for this eLearning resource has been high with industry professionals who are very keen to engage with it and motivated to put what they’ve learnt into practice.