Meet Elise Racinais, Learning experience designer

This interview is part of a series where we take a closer look at the Cegos delegates behind the scenes. They are responsible for maintaining the innovation and high quality of our solutions in the market. These are the dedicated team members who work tirelessly to ensure that our partners and customers receive the best possible experience.

You previously had the opportunity to meet Zairo Samssudin, Mario Stofenmacher, Christelle Delavaud and Nuno Moreira. Today, we invited Elise Racinais to tell us about the production of MyStory season 2. The first season of MyStory was on the leadership expertise. This second one is dedicated to sales skills.

Let's find out what Elise has to say about it.

What is your expertise and your role at Cegos?

I have been a learning experience designer at Cegos since 2008. My role is to ensure the instructional design and to develop the Cegos' digital corporate offer. I am the producer of the second season of MyStory.

Can you tell us how the idea of building e-learning modules in ‘TV series’ format came about?

The initial objective was to design a series with heroes learners can identify with. They want to follow them and see them progress all along the episodes. The characters evolve in different situations which the learners can recognize as they have already experienced them. To make MyStory more appealing and create a real dynamic, we reused the codes of reality TV. It also creates a closeness with the learner.

What was the biggest challenge for you during the design process?

One of the main challenges was to make sure that the episodes remain independent outside the series: the learner can follow a module standalone without having to watch the whole series. Another key challenge was to bring in humour in a professional and international context.

Why did you choose 'sales' as a theme for MyStory 2?

We had identified that the sales target had a particular appetite for the short "video" format. It is also important for sales people to observe key gestures and postures. This has more impact than reading… The MyStory format is therefore particularly adapted to address the behavioural dimension of sales teams.

How did you 'think' about the characters?

Each actor embodies a different character based on the DEFI model communication styles: Determined, Empathetic, Factual, Ideas.
To ensure that learns relate to them, the characters are deliberately not perfect.

What was the most difficult part of the shoot for you?

The difficulty was to shoot 177 sequences in 7 days of shooting, in 12 different settings! It was demanding but at the same time so stimulating!
Working over so many days in so many different places was a true coordination... and we had to make sure that the outfits and accessories worn by actors on the last days matched those from the first day. This turned out to be a real challenge!

A funny anecdote to share?

Our lead actor broke his leg the day before we started shooting! During the whole shooting w had to ensure that the crutch remained hidden! 😊
This also meant that we had to readapt the script at the last minute!

Thank you Elise for taking us behind the scenes of MyStory season 2 and for sharing the following photos from the shoot.

Find out more about MyStory

MyStory is a reality TV style series of short interactive video episodes featuring real life professional situations using a diary approach. In the first series we meet Clare as she takes on a new role as a manager. We follow her during 100 days throughout her interviews with each employee, team meetings, exchanges with her manager… This first series of interactive and immersive videos recreates the experience of a novice manager and allows to learn from Clara's successes and mistakes. Click here to discover the teaser video.