Making Yourself Irreplaceable through Screencasting:

Three tips that will help you hang onto your job,
even in a crappy economy.

At the end of last week, the U.S. economy hit an uncomfortable milestone. Starting in 1970, states have been able to offer extended benefits for the long-term unemployed when times were tough. But from this Monday onward, no state in the union will continue offering extended unemployment benefits. This means that over half a million jobless (511,000, to be more precise) just lost their benefits. You’d think that the removal of this crutch is the sign of a strengthening economy. Yet the national unemployment still lingers at a painfully high 8.3%, the housing market remains sluggish, and belts continue to tighten across the board.

It’s a rough time to be out of a job.

Having trained thousands of screencasters between my books and my live training events, I occasionally get updates from my more enthusiastic pupils about what they’re currently up to, and how they’ve managed to leverage what they’ve learned. In listening to their various war stories, I’ve noticed a few trends. I’d like to share those with you.

1. Companies value workers who can save them time, money, or human resources.

You know, the real beauty of screencasting as a discipline is that it’s so easy to financially justify. Building up a library of tutorial videos lets you front-load the investment of time and money into something you can use again and again. No longer does an HR rep have to consume their mornings teaching people how to fill out a time off request form. Menial training tasks get off-loaded to a video library, where they’re available any time, anywhere, and get taught will 100% consistency. Not only does this mean that key staffers can concentrate on more important things, it also means that the organization can by with fewer people. But you can bet that the builders of that library won’t be among them. Historically, when the business economy got rough, the training staff was often the first to go. This no longer appears to be the case, at least for those who can automatize their training.

You might wonder if a particularly industrious screencaster might not end up capturing their way out of a job, once everything’s been documented. From my experience, this fear is unfounded. Business needs are constantly in flux, and there’s always more to learn (and therefore, to teach).

2. Companies value workers who make them money (and can PROVE it).

A couple of years ago, Forbes magazine interviewed a bunch of mid- to high-level executives about how they get their information online. Three quarters (75%) said they watched work-related videos at least once weekly. 65% had visited a vendor’s web site after watching a video. More than half of younger executives say that they’ve made a business-related purchase right after watching a video.

And perhaps most compelling of all, 59% said if text and video were available on the same page, they prefer to watch the video. This obviously bodes well for those who make screencasts for sales and marketing.

But an oft-ignored component in the equation is measurement of success. Marketing is a helluva lot more scientific than it used to be. It’s now possible for a screencaster, through split-testing and web metrics, to know just HOW successful their video has been. I cannot stress enough to you the importance of measuring your results, for one simple reason.

No company in their right mind is going to fire you if you can actually show that you made them 10x your annual salary last year.

I may even end up teaching a special workshop just about this. Drop a comment if you think that would be valuable for you.

3. Companies value workers who show professional initiative.

Everyone loves a go-getter. Especially cash-strapped companies. When revenues beging to sink, they start looking for deadwood to trim. If you can demonstrate both the ability and the willingness to wear many hats and continue your professional development, you’ll easily outlast the lazy and uninformed.

I should know. I’ve been a self-employed screencasting professional for nearly a decade, and I’ve never been out of a job.

In September, I’m holding a special two-day Boot Camp for Camtasia Studio 8. It’s going to be a generous mix of technical detail, workflow tips, and industry know-how. I’d love to see you there.

In addition to the course itself, with your tuition you’ll get a free copy of Camtasia Studio 8: The Definitive Guide as well as a coupon for a free 30-minute consultation with yours truly to clear up any post-workshop questions and concerns.

And as someone who loves the Windy City, I can tell you that September is one damn fine month to be strolling down Chicago’s Miracle Mile.

Please join us, and MAKE YOURSELF IRREPLACEABLE.

[maxbutton id=”3″] — including a full course outline and venue details.

All skill levels are welcome. More advanced users are encouraged to bring ideas and assets for their own real-world projects.

To your continued success, d.

p.s. Has screencasting saved your job? Tell us about it!

Is that a monkey on your back?

How to pick screencast topics that ease your workload,
simplify your life, and let you focus on more important things.

Not long ago, I had a client project with Monterey Peninsula College out in California. MPC had just received a grant to promote their cooperative work experience education program (or COOP), and their idea of building a promotional video series landed the ball squarely in my court.

My contact was Kathleen Clark. Kathleen had a problem. As the sole faculty member in the entire program, she was forced to wear an unbelievable number of hats. She had the long-term strategic task of growing the program, but at the same time, was saddled with the tactical day-to-day hustle of  recruiting both students and potential employers.

This split focus was naturally frustrating. When you’re responsible for both short- and long-term goals, it’s easy to get the nagging sense that you aren’t really doing either side justice. Perhaps you can relate.

MPC’s initial idea for me was to produce a few co-promotional pieces featuring some of their employers in specific industries (graphic arts, automotive tech, etc.) and their role in the program. A solid enough idea, albeit with a few potential flaws:

• By focusing on the most popular industries (and thereby the neglecting the less popular ones), they were potentially limiting the long-term growth of their program. By its very nature, this approach excludes those in newer industries who might never have thought of offering a COOP experience.
• Even within a particular industry, you worry about whether your audience will generalize the message. For example, if an employer views the successes of someone else’s program, there’s almost a natural inclination to say, “Well, yes, that worked for them, but our situation is different because blah blah blah…”
• For co-promotions to be a success, the partnering employer or industry needs to be as enthusiastic and dedicated to the task as you are.

After several false starts, Kathleen finally said to me, “You know what? Let’s scrap the current plan. I want to do something that makes my life easier.”  Good plan. We went back to the drawing board to pick a better set of screencast topics.

A bit part of Kathleen’s job was sitting down with students and employers to explain the benefits of the program. She eventually clued into the fact that there just weren’t enough hours in the day, and compiled a narrated PowerPoint presentation to walk students through the finer points of the program. I viewed it once, both to become familiar with the content and as a point of curiosity, just to see what I was replacing.

Longest twenty minutes of my life.

Okay, perhaps that’s an exaggeration. But it was a wordy, overly long meander which, while giving all the pertinent technical details, failed to front-load the material with tangible, real-world benefits. Y’know, the kind of thing that gets people psyched to find out more. Plus, the visual curb appeal was virtually non-existent. The presentation was an endless sea of bullet points.

In the end, we cut out the clutter, put the program’s Unique Selling Proposition front and center, and sexed it up with animations and great stock imagery. Take a look here:

Here’s what Kathleen had to say about the experience:

“In a nutshell” the videos Daniel produced are allowing me to get specific messages to target audiences.  The feedback I have received from students and employers has been fantastic.  My favorite comment was from a student with whom I spent a great deal of time before sending the link to my “Introduction to COOP” video.  He said, “You really didn’t need to spend all that time with me.  The video answered all the questions I had about your class.” 

In short, we figured out a few sweet-spot topics that helped to free up an appreciable bit of Kathleen’s day. And this is only one of four thoroughly kick-booty promotional pieces we did for MPC. Kathleen no longer needs to lose so much breath explaining every intricacy of the program to students and employers. She’s got an automated 24/7 recruitment team working for her. Now she can focus on the strategic aspects of growing her program, without having to deal quite so much with the daily grind.

What tasks can you put an autopilot with a screencast series today?

Have you had any major successes, where screencast planning and execution paid serious dividends in saved time and frustration? Leave a comment and tell us about it!

To your continued success,

Daniel

Animations and Screencasting:
The Perfect Marriage of Form & Function

In just 10 minutes, you can learn not only how to sex up your videos, but also to become a generally more productive human being.

I know that’s a pretty tall order for ten minutes of your time, but I’m absolutely serious.

You see, I had a problem on one my recent projects. We had just wrapped a series of videos on a productivity system called The Secret Weapon. But now we needed to top it with a quick introduction that not only provided a bird’s eye view of the system, but had just enough razzamatazz to compel the good folks to actually watch. The overview needed something, but it took a while for me to figure out what it was. Then it hit me:

Ninjas.

We merged traditional screencasting and ninja-tastic cartoon animation in touting The Secret Weapon.  It shows just how effectively animation can work in “framing” your screencast material. Check out the video and see if you agree:

[jwplayer config=”ninja” mediaid=”1027″]

 

And there’s a side-benefit to tuning in. TSW is something you should be learning about, anyway. It’s a powerfully simple productivity workflow based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology that can help you become more relaxed and efficient in your work than you ever thought possible. TSW uses your e-mail client and the free (and awesome) Evernote software to collect, organize, and accomplish everything you need to get done.

I use it myself. And I don’t make any money at all by suggesting you do so as well.

Adopting this process is simple, free, and altogether wonderful. Over the years, I tried to implement the Getting Things Done system at least three or four times, and this is the first time it actually “stuck.” It has transformed my entire professional workflow, and it can do the same for you. At no charge.

But this is only the first of an entire video series about TSW, all of which you can check out here: http://www.thesecretweapon.org/

As I said, this information is 100% free. They don’t even ask you for an e-mail signup.

At any rate, let’s get back to the animatin’…

So why complicate your screencasting with animation? Because it gets results. Human beings (and other animals) are genetically conditioned to pay attention to motion. It has helped us over milennia to track both predators and prey, and therefore keep us alive. Animated segments are much more likely to penetrate the skulls of your audience than are static images. Motion helps them retain that information.

Plus, animation is sexy as all get-out, and thus also more likely to get viewed in the first place.

But what if I can’t draw or animate to save my life?

Doesn’t matter. I can’t draw, either. But the world is bursting with starving artists who can, and whose talents can be had on the cheap. Peruse one of the freelancer sites like Fiverr.com or ODesk, or better yet, contact the art department of your local college or university. Artists are increasingly leveraging tech skills as a way to make money with their art.

Even if you don’t necessarily want to populate your video with the silent deadliness of the ninja, you can now animate content directly in the major screencasting tools, without having to turn to more complicated softwares like After Effects or Motion. Camtasia Studio or Screenflow will work just fine, even if you’re just working with a series of still images. If you look at some of the other TSW videos we did, you can see that we utilized these slideshow-style animation effects to very good effect. Just get yourself some stock photos, and you zoom, pan, slide, and spin content to your heart’s content.