Infrabel Academy — Boosting collective intelligence

Cartoonbase and Infrabel have already achieved an impressive track record together, no pun intended. We worked on successful projects ranging from their global visual identity to a branded card game for children. This was our first collaboration with the Infrabel Academy, the company’s very own training centre.

The Academy had the smart idea of harnessing their teams’ talents using video. They were looking to harvest material created by workers in the field themselves to share good practices with a broader audience within the company. Cartoonbase was brought in to help make the most of this precious resource, drawing on our experience with storytelling and video – and of course our creative touch.

Their request: create five video capsules in French and Dutch explaining to staff how to create appealing video content that can serve as tutorials – simply using their own phones.

The videos needed to be dynamic and demonstrate that creating high-quality videos with a phone is not that complicated. It was important to ensure that this new task didn’t turn into a burden for workers. 

That’s why we suggested to start by taking a step back: we kicked off a co-creation process to develop guidelines and practical advice that could be easily understood and applied while involving a core team in the full process. 

We facilitated two workshops with around a dozen participants – Infrabel ‘ambassadors’ for the project: field workers with different profiles and levels of digital literacy. This observation period enabled us to identify needs, develop relevant materials, and build enthusiasm for the project.

The first workshop focused the technical aspects of producing good quality videos, covering questions such as sound, lighting and angle. After the session, the participants were invited to practise by filming themselves, explaining how they use their coffee machine. A group chat was opened as well to answer any questions that came up during this exercise, and share their videos.

The second workshop covered the messaging itself: how to structure and deliver video content that is engaging and easy to understand?

Based on the outcomes of the workshops, we decided to go for mixed media video capsules. This enabled us to show the example by using real footage, while adding extra clarity and a bit of fun with a few animated elements. These illustrations are vector images based on Infrabel’s graphic identity, ensuring coherence with the company’s other communications.

The video tutorials we produced were shared on internal platforms, inviting the entire audience to start using their phone to create their own learning content.

As with any project, some things need more attention than others.

This was the case with our goal to offer simple content. The videos aim to encourage even the least digital savvy audiences to contribute their own material. They also needed to be appealing to get everyone on board.

Involving a team of ambassadors in the creation process helped us tick both boxes. Getting their input and understanding their realities during the observation phase enabled us to deliver content custom-made for our target audiences, while giving them a sense of ownership.

Finally, to optimise the production time and the budget, we worked with one single actor mastering both French and Dutch, adding subtitles as needed for a fully bilingual result.

The video capsules are a real added value to the Infrabel Academy as they encourage the sharing of good practices internally. This initiative has boosted collective intelligence at minimal cost.