Sometimes people have good ideas but desperately need some advice on how to put them into action. This survivor's guide is a case in point.

MYOB is one of the most popular small business accounting programs on the market and a lot of people make good money out of training people in how to use it. Liz Atherton is one of them. She has been working as a consultant to small and medium businesses for a dozen years, assisting them with their computerised accounting systems, so it was probably natural that she would want to put her knowledge into a training program.

But it can be a giant leap from teaching in person to putting that knowledge onto disc. A good educational program needs to be intuitive, informative and interactive. Users should not only be shown what to do, they should be able practice what they have learned before taking on the real thing.

It also is a good idea to enable users to print out various parts of a lesson so they can refer to them without having to fire up the program again.

While the Survivor’s Guide for MYOB users certainly has all of the information any MYOB user is going to be likely to need, it is all presented in video format and narrated by Liz Atherton.

There are more than 100 video clips ranging in length from a few seconds to a few minutes and they cover everything from how to use the Survivor’s Guide and setting up your general company file to finalising your accounts at the end of the accounting period.
The guide is right up-to-date with the latest versions of MYOB and covers everything from MYOB Business Basic to MYOB Premier, with the clips arranged in three categories - Basic, Advanced and Accounting. Only the latter has any detailed (but non-printable) text with it.

Users can choose from a Complete Course menu or a MYOB simulator where the videos are accessed from a mock up of the MYOB Command Centre.

The videos are clearly presented and a lot of work has been put into compiling them. However, there is no interactivity, nothing is printable and it won't be long before you feel yourself nodding off with boredom. While Liz is undoubtedly an expert in her field, she has a voice like Pauline Hanson and would have done much better to have employed someone with formal voice-over training to do the presentation.

If you prefer to learn by sitting and watching a video then this guide is for you, but if you prefer to participate in lessons, look elsewhere.