If you’ve ever committed “Death by PowerPoint” to a glazy-eyed room full employees, then you know that it hurts you as much as it hurts them. Unless you identify with Steve Martin’s role as the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, it’s not much fun for anyone in the room. Cyber security training is only exciting to a handful of people on this earth. That means you need to find ways to keep employees’ attention long enough for them to absorb something worthwhile.
You’ll be a dentist. You have a talent for causing things pain! Son, be a dentist. People will pay you to be inhumane!
If you missed out on your dream of being a sadistic dentist, by all means, continue your current training techniques. On the other hand, if you value your employees and would like to provide a higher and better service than causing pain, try these 3 ways to make cyber security training fun.
1. Use Video
It’s said that 60% of all people are visual learners. That’s an impressive stat. Here’s another one: 90% of all people will throw-up the next time they see a PowerPoint. Now I’m not hatin’ on PowerPoint. It remains one of the most effective tools for presentation, even if it is a bit overused in some organizations. On top of that, most of us already know how to use it. So, what if you could take your tried and true PowerPoint Cyber Security Training Presentations and turn them into videos.
2. Give Interesting Real World Examples
Unfortunately, cybercrimes are all over the news today. One of the reason for this is that they are an all too common occurrence. Another reason, is that cybercrime is interesting and fairly new, so the it’s good for TV ratings and Internet hits. The point is that there is no shortage of real world examples. Choose one that relates most closely to your organization. If that happens to be healthcare, talk about real people who have paid heavy prices for HIPAA violations. Rest assured that it makes a better point than showing a table of dry statistics and penalties.
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3. Hold a Contest
Gamification is the new craze in software design. Why? People like to play games and try to win something. If you can spark the awareness of a lot of people, provide some fun, and make a lucky (or skilled) winner happy, most organizations will be happy to pay for a few nice prizes. Here’s one you can try: Create a cybersecurity handbook that you can publish to the company intranet site, or simply email it to employees. Announce that you will then email a test to all employees at the same time. The first 5 employees to return the test via email will win (the email servers timestamp can serve as a timer). Then watch everyone dig in a learn more about cybersecurity in a few minutes than most would in a year otherwise.