I was pleasantly surprised by the participants of a workshop I conducted in Myanmar for their only public-private partnership channel MRTV-4.  The worshop brought a huge change in the outlook of the 60 strong young professionals.  The workshop conducted on behalf of Asia Pacific Institute of Broadcast Development (AIBD) was aimed at exposing the participants to latest programming styles in Television.

Not being exposed to different formats of programming the channel and its team was lagging behind by many years.  One week of intensive exposure however not only changed their outlook but also surprised even the bosses on what their own people can produce. This was not the first time I was conducting a workshop such as that, but the results for the one conducted for the MRTV-4 group were amazing.

The reason for this sudden metamorphosis was the willingness to learn amongst the participants.  The change was all the more praisworthy as there were many obstacles for the participants.  To beginwith they did not understand English and I had to use a translator to give the lessons.  Further since they were not exposed to the latest programming styles even smaller aspects had to be highlighted.  Every session of the workshop was an aha! experience for the participants.  Further, the availability of equipment and technology for the group was limited.  But the participants were so keen to learn that they were easily able to overcome these limitations. They were always waiting to get more from the next session.  For a trainer there can never be a better atmosphere for teaching. My own motivation was so high that I tried to add something in every session.

The end result was amazing, just within that one week the students ended up producing programmes that were technically very good, and content wise refreshingly different. Some of them were good enough to compete with better television channels of the world. 

The example goes on to highlight that a good attitude to learn will definitely get best out of any workshop or training.  And the wrong attitude can ruin the best of the workshops.