A magic show for the people who classify technology.
Technical raters decide whether a drawing, a manual or a piece of code needs an export licence under dual-use or military controls. It’s precise legal work. The client wanted their classification training to be just as precise, and a lot more watchable.
The challengeExport classification, where one wrong definition counts
Technical raters are specialists. They classify the client’s technology against national and international control lists, and their decisions determine what can be shared, with whom and where. Their training has to go deep: what the law counts as technology, what “required” means, how military and dual-use lists differ, whether information is for development, production or use, how software is treated. The material is exact and dense. Training that simply mirrors it gets read once and resented.
What we deliveredDual-use and ITAR classification training in three TV shows
- 1An Alignment Brief with the client’s export control experts: the definitions raters most often get wrong, and the reasoning behind each one.
- 2A Story Blueprint built on one idea: a TV show called Tech Tricks, where a presenter reveals the hidden mechanics of export control like magic tricks.
- 3A three-module export classification training course, about an hour and a half in all. Module 1 (40 minutes) covers why classifications matter, where they come from, the national control lists, military versus dual use, and the EU dual-use list digit by digit. Module 2 (30 minutes) covers control language: defined terms, entry notes, technical notes, general and category notes. Module 3, on technology controls, runs 25 minutes and covers technology as information, “required” and “peculiarly responsible”, military and dual-use lists, development, production and use, programs and microprograms, and source and object code.
- 4A practice round where raters decide whether information is for development, production or use, and an eight-question quiz.
The idea, and why it workedTech Tricks: export control explained like magic
Each episode of Tech Tricks opens like an evening show. The presenter holds up a blueprint of an integrated circuit and reveals the first trick: to a technical rater, “technology” really means information. Then the next: words in quote marks have a legal definition, and “eagle-eyed viewers” will spot them. Then a harder one: a drawing created during development may still be for production, because what counts is what the information is for, not when it was made. Every definition is set up, revealed and explained, with worked examples from the control lists. The earlier episodes use the same trick with different shows. In module 1, raters hold a remote control and change channel between chapters, then classify items from an assault rifle to a laptop to a gas turbine engine, cutting the dual-use list down digit by digit. In module 2, the Great Export Bake Off turns control language into a pizza menu: entries, notes and technical notes written for “circular dough sustenance”, so raters build a pizza and work out its control code before they meet the real thing.
It worked because it treated specialists as an audience, not just as readers. The content stayed exactly as precise. The format gave them a reason to watch it to the end.
