What I Learned from Big Bird

I cut my teeth developing programs for Bert and Ernie, Oscar and Elmo, and of course Big Bird. Sesame Workshop (formerly CTW) gets it right because they do formative research. Basically, before you can produce great programs you have to understand where your audience is right now and then build the bridge to where you want the program to take them. That means you have to talk to your audience (a lot) before you do anything.

Fortunately for us, we have a built-in audience with Kimmi’s two boys who are both smack-dab in our target. We talk to them so much they should really get producer credits. Kimmi also has an awesome network of parents who have boys about the same age who give us constant feedback. My network is awesome too because we shared raising our boys together and have learned from experience.

So we’ve taken what we’ve learned through conversations with parents and kids (and experts) and put them into a 40-minute block of activities and now it’s time to let it rip. Formative research is all about testing content and see how it flies with your audience. Strap in and put your helmets on. We’re going for a test drive.