Adding video

Ever since I started blogging properly – over ten years ago – it’s been all about text with the exception of a few images. Then, not so long ago, a customer remarked that he never read anything longer than five or so sentences. It was a useful reminder that we are all different. We prefer different modalities: reading, watching, listening and so forth. I like discussing and reading most but I must admit, in the car I listen to podcasts such as Business 901, Click and Freakonomics. Then a year ago, I did my first Live Hangout which later became a YouTube video together with Jacopo Romei.

That started as a conversation on Twitter:

@GregerWikstrand We might share some thoughts on an hangout. Would you? /cc @duarte_vasco #contracts #lean #agile

— Jacopo Romei (@jacoporomei) 15 maj 2014

Recently I have been doing many more videos. Together with my colleagues Casimir Artmann and Joakim Lindbom we have been recording a series of videos either as conversations or interviews. You can find them on YouTube or Vimeo. It has been a great learning experience.

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Sound Quality

From this video, we learned the importance of sound quality.

It turned out to be a problem with one of the microphones, combined with the not so great acoustics of our recording location. If we had only monitored the audio quality throughout the recording there wouldn’t have been a problem. We have also started using backup audio recording so that we are not dependant on a single source. The last time we recorded I used my mobile phone as backup audio recorder. The built in microphones are OK but I have been looking for something better. Perhaps the Sony STM10 would be a good choice?

Light

During our first sessions, we used natural light combined with the built in artificial light in the room. The results were OK but recently we have been using proper lighting. See the difference between these two sessions.

Source: Unknown

A construction light

Redundancy

Both for audio and for video we are always trying to do backup recordings. A few days ago when Casimir and I recorded our first remote session we used Google Hangouts for the remote session but each of us had additional cameras and audio recording ongoing at each end. Redundancy creates a fallback if the primary recording session fails but it also creates the possibility to tell a more interesting story.

Story Telling

Now that we are beginning to feel that we have these technical things in good order we will work on improving the way we structure the videos so that you will find them worth watching. We’re still learning so all and any input is definitely welcome!

Our main principle has been to talk about topics that are important to us, without any preparation or initial discussion. We simply pick a topic and start talking. For instance, this tweet

Cómo proteger tu privacidad al usar una #WIFI gratuita. #Infografía #socialmedia pic.twitter.com/SjAfdvPtnA

— Pedro Rojas (@SeniorManager) 26 februari 2015

was the inspiration for this video

which in turn inspired me to write this tweet (2 versions)

We will certainly keep doing this spontaneous style but we will add a few twists to the videos more interesting to you but we will probably never go this far… But we will certainly do our best to make sure that viewers understand in the first few seconds of the video what it is about and why they should watch it. We will make sure to use variable shots to make the video more engaging. We will make sure to provide links and images so that the video is a valuable resource for you.

Guests

We will make this videos more interesting by having more people participate in the videos. We are looking at having more people onsite as well as offsite (eg through Hangouts or Skype). We have already agreed on sessions with Mario Lucero, Julian Holmes and Mike Lehr. I have good hopes of being able to do sessions with Jesper Kråkhede and Bhavuk Arora. I have good hopes of a new session with Jacopo Romei as well.

Topics

Do you have suggestions for topics or other suggestions? Let us know on Twitter or through the comments below.