Product Launch Boot Camp Progress Report

We’re deep into the development of the BrainKraft Product Launch Boot Camp and progressed to the meat and potatoes of the course.

Here’s what’s completed so far:

• The boot camp learning objectives have been defined

• The modules and lessons have been mapped out

• The design of the course workbook is complete

• The worksheets and templates have been mapped out

• The BrainKraft Product Launch Framework version 1 is "code complete"

The biggest priority now is storyboarding each lesson and developing the supporting content. We’ve chosen to skip the usual, obvious route: PowerPoint. While we love PowerPoint we prefer the freedom that comes with not having a fixed development environment. So no death by PowerPoint, as they say. It will take multiple tools to deliver the best experience we can. Our development platform includes Keynote, Camtasia, Viddyoze, and Pixelmator Pro (so far).

We had a big decision to make about how we will deliver the boot camp. Do we go online, on-demand or live instructor-led sessions? Both have a place and both have merits. The decision path has huge ramifications on course design though.

In a live delivery model (even virtually) an instructor makes up for gaps in lesson content on the fly. They can shape their delivery in real time. In an on-demand model there is no instructor.

When you design for live delivery first, moving to on-demand is very difficult. There is no instructor to fill in the gaps on the fly. The content must do all the work.

When you design for on-demand delivery first, moving to live delivery is much easier and more natural. You can decide what role the instructor should play in the delivery.

So that led us a major design decision: on-demand first or live first? We chose on-demand for the reasons above and more.

In an on-demand model we can iterate faster to make improvements (think software releases). We can add supplemental lessons, case studies, and examples as needed without disrupting an instructor’s flow. And we believe we can help more people in more geographies with an on-demand model.

We’re working on a two-week content development sprint and will update you when our progress then.

All the best, —Dave