Disruptive Conversations

It was April 2007 and a whole bunch of us from the from the Boston area had gathered at Boston University for Doug Kaye's latest Podcast Academy 2... C.C. Chapman was there... Chris Brogan (before he started his ascent to rock star status ;-)... I seem to recall Christopher Penn... it was all the "early days" of podcasting and so by and large most of us knew each other in some way. Many of us were in a local email mailing list for New England podcasters - and we were there to learn from Doug Kaye and the talented list of instructors he brought, but also to learn from each other.

The final session at the end of the last day was Steve Garfield up to talk about "Video Podcasting".

I can still remember Steve up on the BU stage... because in the first few minutes of his talk, he completely shredded the curtain I had mentally erected around this intimidating thing called "video podcasting".

You see... I had been blogging since 2000 and participating in audio podcasting since early 2005 (with "For Immediate Release", where I still contribute to this day), but video?

No way! Video was hard... it required expensive equipment... it was difficult to do... it took special knowlege... it was complicated...

And there was Steve, standing up on the stage pointing a silly little commodity point-and-shoot camera first at himself and then at all of us... copying the file over to his computer... and then uploading it to YouTube or his blog or some site... all in the first 5-10 minutes of his talk!

Hello?

Was the awesomely intimidating "video podcasting" really as easy as this???

Yes, it really was that easy back in early 2007 - and it's gotten even easier today with tools like the Flip camera (I'm holding out for the WiFi one!) and with embedded video cameras in most all new laptops. The online services have gotten easier to use... [UPDATE: Over on his blog, Steve has actually dredged up a copy of the video of that Podcast Academy 2 talk. I didn't remember part of how it began (with the online group interaction), but you can see where he started with showing us how to create a simple video podcast.]

Through all the changes, Steve has been there continuing to teach us about how to work with online video... and even more to show us how to do online video through his various projects.

And now Steve's made it even easier to learn about online video... he's got a new book out from Wiley called "Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business"[1] which I read on the flights down from New Hampshire to Orlando yesterday. It's a great book for anyone looking to get started with online video... Steve talks about the tools and what you need to get going... but he also talks about the incredible importance of content and having a solid story... it's all great stuff...

Even if you have now been working with video for a while, as I have with my Emerging Tech Talk video podcast, you're bound to learn more that will help improve the quality of your shows. I know that I certainly took a great number of notes that I'll now look to put into action.

Being about video, you can of course watch Steve talk about what he wrote about:

Thanks, Steve, for continuing to share so openly... and I do hope this book helps even more people start contributing videos online!

[1] Disclosure: Yes, this link to Steve's book and the link on the image both contain my Amazon Associates ID. If you buy the book as a result of following those links, I might make a few pennies. However, this review was not requested by Steve or Wiley. They did not send me a copy of the book. I bought it from Amazon myself.

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