The optimal video length is 6 minutes or shorter -- students watched most of the way through these short videos. In fact, the average engagement time of any video maxes out at 6 minutes, regardless of its length. And engagement times decrease as videos lengthen: For instance, on average students spent around 3 minutes on videos that are longer than 12 minutes, which means that they engaged with less than a quarter of the content.

I have extensive experience using Adobe Captivate and TechSmith Camtasia Studio. In my experience, it will take you approximately <strong>2 hours of labor</strong> to produce<strong> 1 minute of eLearning playtime</strong> if you use Adobe Captivate. If you use Camtasia, your labor will go down a bit (<strong>1.5 hours for every 1 minute of playtime</strong>). If Articulate Storyline is your tool of choice, developers who use that tool have told me that Storyline is on a par with Captivate. In that case, you should plan on <strong>2 hours of labor</strong> to produce every <strong>1 minute</strong> of Storyline eLearning.

In the last week, I have heard a number of claims that research supports the idea that workers on-site are more innovative than those who work from home. I remain skeptical. The notion that impromptu conversations with colleagues in the cafeteria are the core of innovation seems a bit simplistic; in my experience, they are just as likely to produce talk of better jobs at competing firms or last night’s “American Idol” winner. Besides, much of this “research” simply shows that workers who collaborate with others in loose networks generate better ideas. It doesn’t suggest that the best way to create new products and services is by isolating your employees in the silo of a single location.