Many of you will recognize the title – borrowed from “Enterprise 2.0 a Crock” Dennis Howlett.
Needless to say I was quite interested in his discussion with David Terrar, who is more of an E20 fan.
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Hm…hard to watch. Dennis is too loud while David is barely audible. I kept on turning the volume up and down, until I quit after a few minutes. But it’s not just the technical issues. It’s a long video for the message it delivers, and I hate to admit but it could not glue me to my chair for 8 minutes.
His opinions and sometimes abrasive style aside Dennis is a great analytical thinker, but he is (as I suspect all of us are) simply more organized, more concise in writing. Simply more convincing – or thought provoking – and definitely easier to “consume” in writing, than this video-torture. So now you see where my title comes from. If Dennis says E20 is a crock, then I say so is video.
It’s simply not the best medium for a lot of messages.
But I am not picking on Dennis. Here’s a video by Allen Stern of the CenterNetworks fame:
Dude, you’re not that hot! Get off the camera! (Just kidding - or am I?) But seriously, why is this delivered as video?
But I’m not done yet. Here’s fellow Enterprise Irregular and SAP Community maven Craig Cmehil (geez, am I about to lose all my friends in one fell swoop?)
Frankly, the best thing about this video is the logo. On dude sitting with an ugly backdrop delivering a monologue … it does not belong on camera! Think it through, write down the gist, I’ll be happy to read it.
Now, let’s compare this to a video by Tom Raftery:
He is doing a demonstration and video is the perfect media for this. (And yes, he is also “guilty” of doing monologues @ GreenMonk TV on otherwise interesting subjects… Update: I better be careful critizing Tom. He’s got friends he can send after me… )
Get my point? Just because video is now easily accessible and even easy (cheap) to produce, it’s not the New Holy Grail. Seriously, think of your content and consider how it’s best delivered. You’ll likely find that most of what you have to say comes through better in writing. And if you agree, perhaps it’s time drop the camera and pick up the old pen … hm … OK, keyboard.
Unless you are …well the are exceptions.
Thank you, thank you for not embedding me and my new friend Marge in this piece.
I oweyaone.
OMG, how could I forgot that
Zoli, if you are going to “dog me” for abusing the use of video at least spell my name right
And yes you have a big point there about the use of video, in fact one of the main points of the show I do is all about “figuring it out” and as often as possible I do pull in sites, and additional media and not just the monologue.
Video is a an interesting thing and one that many of us out there are still experimenting with. Will it continue? I’m sure of it. Will it evolve – most definitely and hopefully others will learn from what myself and others are doing now and make the strides and jumps needed to take it in the right directions. Reminds me of the early days of blogging.
Oh and yes I know there are many that do it right already but I always go back to my thoughts here: http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/2009/02/01/grab-a-mic/ – like blogging now why can’t rich media be the same? Maybe it shouldn’t be but hey time will tell right?
I’ve been doing audio and video now since 2004 on the web and the live video for the past almost 3 years now and I can say that what I’ve been doing has evolved a lot in that time from SHOUTcast to Kyte to my show now, and I expect that it will continue to do so, well for as long as people seem to be interested in it at least
sheesh why does everyone hate my backdrops?
Ouch, Craig, apologies for the spelling – fixed now.
And you know it’s not personal… it’s not just you, but everybody who uses video for the sake of using video.
My point: use video where it’s the ideal medium (interviews, event reports, demos), and use text where it’s best: concise essays, summaries, analysis.
Cheers:-)
Thanks for the fix there Zoli! And of course I know it’s not personal, be insane to take these things personally.
I also agree with you, does not change the fact I will continue to experiment and search for the right balance and again I hope that others can learn from what I’ve been doing
and not just “not to do it” or to not even try but to, as I talk about (often lately) http://fridaymorningreport.tv/2010/01/20/craig-cmehil-about-twitter-etc-at-the-sap-open-source-summit-2009/ it’s all about finding the proper communication channel for what you want to communicate.
!zoli – now you know why I say I have a great face for radio !!
[..] That makes for a good dynamic, so we spent 5 minutes riffing a little on that. The mixing quality isn’t great (asZoli pointed out on Cloud Avenue), but you can hear Dennis’s views coming through loud and clear: [..]
Personally, I think you missed the point of Craig’s video. His video is not just a monologue, it is an interactive discussion. Video draws people in real-time, and there are questions being asked and answered live. Would it help if Craig were better looking? Sure. But the point of the medium in this case, as I see it, is not as much to show him off as it is to grab people’s attention, which video certainly does better than print.
[..] and his “Video is a crock“ [..]