Check out the inspiration for this blog title  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs

 

Remember the Eighties when music video clips just started to emerge and then proceeded to take over the music industry ? Well the second coming of videos is upon us after 25 years and its all about improving our communication productivity.

Do you like to be shown how to do something rather than be told? Well, it's time to show unto others as you would like to be shown yourself. Fortunately all the tools to do this are now readily available and cheap (or free!)

Have you heard about YouTube or have you been on Mars for the last few years? You Tube is a great resource for finding how to do just about anything. Can't work out how to reject a call on your iPhone , go to YouTube, type in the question and bingo you have a video of how to do it. It's quick and easy so in this post I wanted to get you thinking about your own company YouTube for training staff, passing on important information or simply keeping reference material available for anyone who needs it.

The first part of the process is CAPTURING the content, the second part is TRANSFERRING the content to a central storage area and the third part is PRESENTING the content.

CAPTURING content.

1. Take a video on your phone - these days the quality is good enough to get most messages across. Its great for those spur of the moment issues that you want all of your people to see and hear.

2. Flip video camera. - The Flip camera is more purpose built than a phone but is not much bigger and the quality is by all accounts far superior to most phones. You can mount them on mini stands or similar for hands free operation and the best thing is the USB attachment built in that lets you transfer direct to your PC in the correct format.

2. If you are needing to capture software functions on your PC use a program like Fastone or Snagit ( my preference is FastStone  www.faststone.org) so capture all the screen clicks and windows along with a audio commentary. This is great for training staff in new software programs or for capturing the processes required to get perform a task in any software program.  For example ,your company back up procedure; Don't write out a laborious Step 1. Open  folder \\XYZ  etc etc, Step 2 . Right button click here,copy etc etc  document when you can record the process in a video along with a spoken commentary. It's quicker ( increases productivity) and its FUN ( increases productivity )

 

The main function here is to get the content from the capturing device into a place where it can be accessible for your audience. The considerations are:

* Do you have a filing structure on your server / PC etc that makes sense

* Does the content need to be stored on your company server or can it all be hosted using web based services like Google, YouTube etc.

* My next post will detail some of the specific methods for transferring and storing the content.( my best sources are still on holiday !)

 

Ok, I'm just going to go for the ultimate solution here and you can use your imagination or budget to scale back. What about a number of iPads positioned around the workplace that play your  video instructions/messages on demand via a web browser. Relatively cheap to purchase and setup(they are wireless), easy to use by anyone and the content can be managed and updated daily if necessary.

Again I will post some details when my experts are back on deck

 

I hope this gets your imagination running with how your communication productivity can be improved.

 

Save some time...and spend it doing something you love.

 

Tim