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Necessity is the mother of inventions, similarly, experiences give birth to ideas. Sometimes ground-breaking ones. Social media, e-commerce, and search engines, all have one thing in common, they are all inspired by personal experiences and stories. Ideas are everywhere, and entrepreneurs have to be keen to notice them and then turn that idea into reality. We stumbled upon one such story of Bill Baker and his leading company GoReact.
In 2009, Bill Baker, then a course director of management communication at the BYU Marriott School was attending a meeting. To his surprise, he was stuck in one of the worst meetings of his life. He also notices that the subject of the meeting was not bad, and neither was Bill having a bad day, it was just that guy presenting at the meeting was just a terrible presenter. After ruling out all the possibilities, Bill found himself in a boredom-induced daydream.
He thought to himself, “I bet he doesn’t even know just how punishing this is for all of us. I wonder if there’s a way to help people like this improve—so there will be less suffering in the world.”
It was then that a brilliant idea struck him.
For nearly 30 years, Bill had been training college students in public speaking. In all these years he was able to ponder on ways to teach presenting better and was evaluating methods to make this process faster. While listening to his peer delivering a poor presentation it was clear that solution was required not just for students but every presenter out there. He wanted to invent an easy way to teach better speaking skills by increasing awareness. Though the idea sounded simple, there were several underlying challenges that Bill could guess considering his experience in the industry.
Only a few presenters have indeed watched or analyzed themselves speak. Also, if one considers reflecting on constructive feedback, there is a wide gap between truly understanding the feedback and applying it. Stuck in a pickle, he seeks advice from professionals. This is where GoReact was born.
While discussing the parameters of this platform, he and his peers were able to pinpoint the two main reasons behind poor public speaking—most people are unaware of what they’re doing wrong, and it’s difficult for students to apply feedback without context. Bill realized that he had to focus on increasing awareness and context which can be achieved only through one medium—video.
Cloud servers were gaining popularity. It was clear that by recording these presentations to the cloud the result will be more than satisfactory. Thus, with help of developers and few business colleagues, Bill, and his team created a platform—GoReact that broke the barriers standing in between great public speaking. GoReact solution helped presenters be aware of themselves by recording videos that they could analyze later. This solution proved beneficial in providing contextual feedback as teachers are allowed to leave time-coded comments on the video feed. The solution was simple but shockingly effective.
Today, researchers are confirming that video combined with feedback is the best way to teach performance-based skills—which was already discovered by Bill. Bill’s futuristic solution has been improving presenter’s public speaking for years. The solution is termed as a record-and-critique method that is helping presenters change their habits quickly, set goals for improvement, and measure their progress reliably. Moreover, receiving immediate feedback from a professor is the most scientifically effective way to reinforce learning and develop new skills quickly.
Although how effective the solution seemed, there were still few barriers to cross. One of them being classroom execution. The effectiveness of video and formative feedback had already been established yet, executing it in a classroom was tough—especially online.
E-learning has been fairly opposed by many, and in this case, several contended that teaching public speaking online is impossible. However, the narrative has changed today with several students preferring online courses. As for the public speaking courses, many renowned and reputed sources like LinkedIn, Forbes, and NACE all claim that soft skills are the highest in demand for employers nationwide.
With soft skills being a vital skill in the market and also difficult to teach, it placed GoReact on a pedestal to deliver the best. GoReact did not disappoint the users and has proven to be a useful course to enhance public speaking. It takes a truly innovative solution to make a difference and Bill introduced us to the same. Soon, the solution was adopted by many. The solution was chipping away at the public speaking learning curve by integrating video and time-coded feedback in an easy-to-use interface. Moreover, as the solution is web-based and hardware agnostic, it can be accessed from anywhere. GoReact was ahead of its time, and swiftly the innovative solution started making a difference in classrooms and beyond.
GoReact was initially established with a vision to improve public speaking. Over the years, the software has made a difference in public speaking classrooms, however, its applications were further extended. The solution ended up having more applications than just improving public speaking. It is now being leveraged in learning environments like presentations, projects, or performances. Also, it has become a great tool for observing student teachers remotely. For instance, it allows clinical instructors to record and assess medical procedures. Furthermore, the solution is capable of teaching debate, performing arts, and even visual arts assignments. It also helps sales and business professional improve their pitches and hiring managers to conduct remote interviews.
With GoReact, anything can be recorded and analyzed for improvement seamlessly. However, by far the biggest achievement has been to bridge the gap between students and teachers. The technology enables to build of trust and understanding between people who teach and people who learn. Bill Baker’s boredom-daydream has today turned into one of the leading edtech companies with over 700 institutions. Millions of videos have been uploaded to the cloud using GoReact and Bill is hopeful that millions more will follow.
