In a recent blog post, David Hopkins wrote about icebreaking activities for students that could be used to introduce them to a “Virtual Learning Environment” (VLE) at a college or university.
This is really excellent stuff, albeit not directly relevant to the subject of this blog. But it reminded me of something important that I’ve noticed through the years. Training initiatives (whether related to information security or otherwise) that appear to be sponsored (or endorsed) by a real person known to the student are much better received than those which seem to originate in a faceless organization.
At Cosaint, we’ve always recommended that clients set up a ‘Welcome’ page on their training portal with the picture of a senior executive, and a message endorsing the program. Students immediately treat the training far more seriously. Some of our clients have taken this one step further and have posted pictures of the staff associated with the program including managers and executives from IT, HR, compliance …
It’s tempting to interpret this as a call to ‘brand’ the training initiative with a logo, a name, a color scheme etc. And I’m not arguing with the value of that … if you can afford it. But simply associating the training with a real person (or people) is quick and cheap – a personal photo and message will probably suffice – and has an immediate and very real effect on acceptance of the training program.
One last thing … please try to find photos that show the subjects smiling!
