- Wednesday night ~ SCORE workshop w/Pat Huston
- Thursday night ~ WordPress meetup w/Sam Richardson
- Saturday morning ~ Tampa Bay Technology Center presentation w/Tony Rockliff
SCORE
SCORE, as an organization, has a dozen or more workshops a month throughout Pinellas County. This one was held at the Largo Library at 6pm on October 24. Pat Huston was the presenter, and her topic was "Making Videos with a Smartphone"
Pat covered a lot of ground, buy mostly emphasized how easy it is to create and edit video. She likes the word "free" and based on her recommendation I revisited Windows Movie Maker.
- I sat in front of my computer, then...
- launched Windows Movie Maker
- recorded using the web cam on my monitor
- edited out most of the eye movements where I was controlling the software
- added an intro, a caption, and credits
- uploaded to YouTube (chose "shareable link"):
- Enjoy: https://youtu.be/lfGUg7VnOKc (30 seconds)
I probably spent an hour doing that, and it was intended as a learning tool for me. It sparked my imagination, and opens lots of opportunities for me. I now see how the WordPress default theme Twenty-Seventeen can be used!
WP Meetup
WordPress has at least 3-4 meetup gatherings a month. Two are in St. Pete, one in Tampa (new), and one in Clearwater each month at the Tampa Bay Technology Center. The last one is hosted by Sam Richardson.
This meetup is interesting because Sam invites users to specific bring problems to be worked on during the 2nd hour. Tonight David brought an interesting problem:
YouTube had let videos end with a blank screen. They've changed that. Now, at the end of a video they will suggest additional videos for viewing. That's something Dave (and other developers) want to avoid for a video that's embedded in a website.
At the Meetup, Sam found where YouTube announced the change effective in September, 2018.
Check it out for yourself: https://youtu.be/3QXhXDdu-zQ ~ Would you want visitors to your website see this after watching something from you?
Anyway, Sam said that Vimeo will definitely be a topic for a meeting in the near future. I just now signed up for a Vimeo account and uploaded my video: https://vimeo.com/297373308 (Quality looks the same.)
TBTC ~ Tampa Bay Technology Center
The TBTC had is twice-yearly open house. It's an all-day event on Saturday that begins at 9am. I heard about it on Meetup.com, of course. This was headlined as a "Free Computer Repair and Social Networking Event."
I attended Tony Rockliff's 10:00am presentation, “'Creating videos to pay for the startup costs of your dream business.' Tony teaches video creation that's simple to learn, fast to create, and easy to sell. His method needs no video knowledge and there's no video equipment that you have to buy."
This workshop was tremendously valuable, and well worth the time! His presentation covered 5 areas:
- Impact of web video
- Types of videos
- Video creation systems
- How to get new video clients
- Create a video
Impact of web video
This part was a reiteration of what I had heard earlier in the week with Pat. Tony reinforced the impact with statistics.
Types of videos
Tony identified three types of video: Branding, Promo/PR, and Passion. For me, this was an example of different ways of using videos. He showed ads in Facebook and Instagram, and basically reinforced his points on the impact of web video.
BTW, the most important take-away for me was the phrase "whiteboard videos." It opened a whole new resource, and I was able to use Google to find tidbits of advice and sites that offer to build video whiteboards for me.
Video creation systems
In this segment, Tony was gracious enough to share 4 months of his research on over 40 online solutions. He outlined what to look for (templates, stock footage, etc.). He did make a recommendation based on what he learned. (Wave.Video).
How to get new video clients
Wow!! Tony took the time to show how to monetize these new skills.
- How to sell your videos directly through a storefront
- How to move videos through a subscriptions
- How to prospect for potential one-on-one customers based on their existing use and experience with video
How to actually create a business is not something I would have expected at a show-and-tell workshop like this.
Create a video
This was a really fun part. Tony had obviously practiced this, and which allowed us to watch without any awkward fumbling.
He used Wave.Video to create complete advertisement in just a few minutes.
- Tony...
- launched Wave
- selected a template
- found (free!) stock video footage
- added./edited text
- copied the segment and pasted it at the end
- replaced the background video on the 2nd segment
- edited the text on the 2nd segment ($43,000 per minute?!)
- adjusted the time to an even 15 seconds
Finally, Tony was kind enough to send a copy of his slide deck. It had these links at the end:
A Better Computer, Inc. (...my company...)
This changes my perspective on many things.
First, money up front. Video software is going to significantly increase production costs. Wave.video runs $600/year, and Vimeo costs $500/year. This doesn't count webcams, microphones, and design for a (home?) studio.
Next, I've been basically giving away my services to save my friends/clients money. Yes, I can bring up a website for about $100/year. But that doesn't include the hours of my personal time trying to bend free WordPress plugins to do my will.
Analogy: In my younger days I could change the oil in my car. I'd crawl underneath, drop the oil plug (a bolt, really), let the old oil drain into a pan, change the filter, replace the oil plug, and refill the oil from the top of the engine. Then I'd clean up and dispose of the used oil and empty oil cans. Today, I can find someone else to do all of that for around $25, including supplying the the oil and filter. An hour later, it's done. I'm still clean and someone else can deal with the disposal!
The take-away from my analogy is that some things are cheaper by contracting them out. I've spent dozens of hours exploring membership plugins for WordPress. A premium membership plugin runs $100/year ~ 2-4 hours of my time depending on how I value it.
For the near future - by the end of the year - I need to re-evaluate and repackage pricing my services. Next I need to incorporate the changes in my website and add video. Finally, I will leverage social media marketing. Whew!
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