Helping people think for themselves

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who was staying at a hotel for a wedding.  The after wedding party was taking place at one of the hotels and as a crowd gathered in the hotel, the after party group began to get larger and louder.  Not wanting to disturb the other guests in the hotel, the party asked if they could use one of the meeting rooms.  Now keep in mind this was on a weekend late at night ---- no one is using these rooms. 

The hotel desk clerk's response was "I'm sorry but you have to reserve these room 24 hours in advance" -- the wedding party offered to pay for the room -- but again the response was "sorry we can't accomodate you." 

So rather than allowing the party to continue in a more discreet area and creating a revenue source for the hotel, the clerk stuck to the rules and forced the party to be held in the lobby.

Now what does this have to do with training -- everything!  Back in the days of video training I used to sell the ever so popular "In Search of Excellence" program where Tom Peters sought out companies that demonstrated excellence, empowered employees and beat the odds in performance. 

I see a lot of companies so focused on strictly functional training that I'm fearful some of the non-functional training is getting put on the shelf in an effort to try to save $. I know that we all struggeled financially in the last 12-18 months but now more than ever, we need to provide training and support on the skills that encourage initiative, customer service and risk taking ---.

Defining Video PodCasting

We teach a class on how to podcast and how to creat video podcasts.  I quickly realized in the video class that not everyone has the same definition of video podcasting or vodcasting as I did. 

True video podcasting makes the assumption that you will be producing and MP4 or MV4 file that is to be displayed on a mini video player like an ipod or other mobile device.  But what I discoverd is that many people are categorizing video podcasting as short videos played on the computer like YouTube.  The process to develop the content for both is for the most part, the same but with a couple of differences.

1- When producing content for a smaller screen like an ipod, you have to be more sensitive to any text on the screen or how detailed the picture has to be in reference to what you are communicating.  For example a screen shot of a web page on a mobile device such as our home page, is hard to make out what you're looking at vs. the same screen used in producing video displayed on a computer. 

You can still use this content but use something like Camtasia's video editor to use the zoom and pan effect to zoom in on the area of the screen that is important at that time for what you are communicating. 

2- Another difference is the publishing options.  You can produce web video content as Flash, Windows Media, AVI, MOV, MP4, etc.  but for mobile devices you should be publishing as MP4 MV4, H.264, MOV or 3GP.  So make sure the tool you are using allows for that or get your hands on some low-cost conversion tools like Danuisoft or AVS4You.

As more and more people are pushing for video content there are some great options out there but be sure to confirm what they expect to play the video back on and then decide how to produce the content.

If you have any questions on how to create video podcasts give us a shout!