This is the story about a guy and confidence. Said guy lacks said confidence so he tries to go about ways to circumvent it. Honestly the post doesn’t make that much sense, but there’s no use in telling you the ending in the summary.
Confidence. I lack it.
In this case it’s confidence in my ability to write. My lack of confidence in everything else can be equated the metaphorical elephant in the room.
It’s quite the double-edged sword, blogging is. On one hand, I can talk in ways here that would get me slapped across the face. Not that I do, but I could. On the other hand, I seem to suck at the only language I know how to speak in. I have habits of writing really long run-on sentences and overuse commas, so much so that it starts to get confusing and I’m sure the average Avalonstar reader gets a laugh out of my excuse for grammar at times. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Remember, you see the version that’s been read over about 15 times.
I’ve always had an affinity for public speaking. It’s something that’s been a part of me since the 8th grade and when I’m prepared, I seem to do a pretty good job at it.
Forget for a second the time I accepted the Best Blog award at the 2006 SXSW Web Awards where the only words that came out of my mouth were “uh” and “Look, I’m on the screen.” Forget for a minute the instance where I presented by myself for the first time at the Webmaster Jam Session and had to improvise after going through my hour-long presentation in half that time. If you disregard any time you’ve probably ever seen me on stage, I’m pretty good at this.
What I really need is the charisma of Merlin Mann and the voice of Dan Rubin, but alas, I’m stuck with the atrocities that puberty left me. Lessons? Operations? Please?
Oh, did I mention I tend to get lost in my thoughts when writing? Too late for that, let’s move on. In the coming weeks, I want to mix things up a little. I had a lot of fun—subtracting the fact that I had a couple of Coronas—doing the mediacast about Distortion, and in order to make me feel like ScreenFlow is paying for itself, I want to do more of them.
So here’s my half-thought-out plan.
ScreenFlow & Keynote, in place of the usual blog post fare. I see it as more of a visual blog post rather than a videocast or presentation. That way I’ll save you the horrors of having to read my writing all the time, leaving you to deal with my voice accompanied by pretty transitions and animations.
Why? Keeps things fresh. I’m trying to find different ways to express things I would usually want to write about, instead of defaulting to say—a Django post. The more I think about things to write, the less I feel I have to say about design—a fact that makes sense considering the hobbies I’ve been taking up lately.
Let’s leave this with a nice open end. Thoughts? Suggestions? Tomatoes?
I liked the Distortion screencast. It was long, but I’d watch another one like it.
I for one love screencasts — in fact, if I had the choice of reading a post or watching a screencast on something useful or about something interesting I would watch the video first hands down.
So much more can be done with a video, and your screencast on Distortion was something that provided a really useful, interesting and informative insight into your work.
I vote for screencasts (not that writing is bad, its wonderful, but you know)!
Mmmmm I’m keen to at least see how it’l work, like brendan said - the last one was long. It’d be great if it was something short and simple and to the point then I think it could work.
I totally agree. Screencasts/podcasts/non-text-asts are nice to watch, and generally more catching than simple text entries.
I like the idea of screencasting as well, however, I would encourage you to do two things to make it more successful: 1. Include a text version of your screencast for SEO purposes 2. Cut the fat. While the last one was entertaining it ran on and on…sometimes feeling stale. Keep it short and sweet…your personality will keep it interesting.
my feeling on this matter is that this seems to be something similar to a podcast in nature, but not necessarily in the way it is deployed. I could definitely sit through another screencast like Distortion, it was very informative, and I’d love to see some tutorials perhaps in that format, be they about Photoshop, or Illustrator, or even…gasp…programming! ;) i’ve never seen a programming podcast, and considering you have a design background, and are good at public speaking, maybe you could do something like that, perhaps with a bit of a nod to the design community in the way you teach ( that means go slow ) .
As far as a regular thing of screencasts as opposed to blog posts, i say give it whirl. nobody really knows what may or may not work until you try it. im excited to see someone pushing the envelope.
so, those are my thoughts and suggestions. sorry, i left my tomatoes at home.
It really depends what kind of content and information that you are trying to get across because for programming related stuff you really want to use text not a screencast.
@matthew hall - thats a good point, maybe a screencast accompanied by any code in the post as well. i guess im being kinda selfish, as im a very visual learner. i dont know if a screencast would be the best way to learn programming, but i know it would help me. :) hopefully others too. XD
I have to agree. Dan does have a great voice for public speaking, and I have only heard his voice over xbl.
On the second thought, I have been told many times that I am not a good writer nor communicator because of my lack of vocabulary and proper grammar. That’s the reason why I have always been so hesitated to write a post or speak in public. But you know what? Fuck those people. I like to believe that I have the ability to write and speak! Besides, I can read, write, and speak Chinese fluently and most of them can’t!
Anyways, sorry for going off topic. I think screencast can be really good for programming related stuff. Check out http://www.railscasts.com for examples :)
p.s Remember folks, I have reread this comment 15 times before hitting that Post button!
(bucket of tomatoes at the ready!) Mwuahaha! Just kidding! ;)
Seriously though, your podcast/vidcast things are usually cool to listen to, they have a good flow to them. As a blog post? Yeah, that could work too…of course, you’d have to leave ‘open air’ at the end for comments, which might suck after a few minutes. Hey, notice how I keep using run-on sentences too? That’s because I’m English! Haha - I really don’t see that as a problem, it’s just your style.
Okay, you can have Dan’s voice, I’ll have his sportscar and hot female fanbase!! ;)
Oh gawd yes, not another damned Django post - please!!!!!! Nah, I’m messin’ with you, the more the merrier!
One problem with videocasts (and podcasts) is that they are difficult to follow for a non english native speaker, as I am. So I usually don’t follow them. The advantage for you with readers like me is that we can’t really know if your writing style is poor or not. Even better, we tend to prefer simple and technical english to complicated language =)
Having deep thoughts does not mean to write complex sentences. Maybe you could try to focus more on the subject than on the style… And I think I like your blog (for a long time) because of the life you put in your posts (hi jpop!)… Style often hides a lack of life.
Concerning your lack of confidence in writing, I can understand that: I’ve tried to blog in english many times during the last 6 years, but I’ve abandonned each time. But writing english posts for me is really a pain and the result is always terrible…
I’m looking forward to it Bryan…
Have you ever had it when you build a mental picture of someone that you’ve never met, and when you do finally meet them - you’re disappointed?
No pressure, and just kidding ;) It takes confidence to admit lack of confidence.