Recording Instructional Videos

For the last several weeks, I’ve been in New York and New Jersey. I can certainly tell you that I never thought in a million years that New Jersey wold be so beautiful. I flew into NYC and rented a car to get to my destination, which was about 40 minutes to an hour outside NYC.

No one had warned me about the toll bridges. Geesh, good thing I had brought some cash, which I rarely carry on me. Think I went through all my bills on the way there, and also luckily found a different route back that didn’t have as many toll bridges.

I had borrowed my daughter’s GPS and I can verify what others have said. They do try and kill you sometimes. I did somehow finally find my way to my destination, Park Ridge, NY, and wow it is the cutest little town. It is on the edge between NY and NJ and the road off the highway to get there was very photographic. Unfortunately I was always in a hurry, and never got to stop to take my camera out almost the entire time.

I was there to do some videos on Dreamweaver CS5. I’d come back maybe later for Fireworks, but Dreamweaver was the cause for this trip. I’d been so busy otherwise, I could have prepared better for these videos, but here I was just the same. So nightly, I’d have to do all the lessons for the next day. As an Adobe instructor; I can honestly say that I’ve never worked so hard before coming up with lessons that a new user wold be able to follow.

The real problem was, as comfortable as I am talking to a crowd, doing these recordings was nerve-racking. I kept messing up my words, and stumbling around like an amateur. Well, to be honest, I was new to this recording stuff. I failed doing these at home. I have a large old house with 48 windows. These isn’t a room where I could record without some noise, so that is why I had to come to NY. For a week I sat in a 6X6 room all day and with the help of my producer, I finally finished. Man, thank goodness for editing. I haven’t heard the result, but I am sure they did a great job. I can hardly wait till the video comes out.

Being Self-Employed

I’ve been self employed again for a few months. So I wonder if I have learned anything since last time. The biggest problem I had before I still seem to have. Time-management.

I became self-employed because I am an Adobe Instructor. I train maybe 10 or so days a month. A normal job wouldn’t allow me to be a Instructor. So I fill the other part of my time with production work. This time around I paired up with a marketing firm downtown. I thought it would be good because they had nobody that did web. Well, it turns out, they don’t even have a website themselves. Wow, yep in 2008 they didn’t see a need. Amazing.

I also thought I’d be able to do some design work, but it turns out that he didn’t want to insult his print designer and I am never going to be able to design there. Her designs look like print. Plain and simple she has never cut up a page for HTML so she has no idea what it takes to make a web page and it shows. We had a bit of a fight about her designs once because I mentioned I don’t do tables. She thought I was a nut. You could hear the laughter in her voice. Amazing. She was laughing and looking down at me because I use pure CSS to lay out my web pages.

Lets say it didn’t make me want to go hang out down there. They have a client that keeps me semi-busy so I just do the work from home. Again, turns out he didn’t want me working at home and was expecting me to hang out down there so he could ask me questions and learn about the web from me. HA! Seriously thought I’d just hang out and work from there even if I wasn’t working on his stuff. No thanks, my office is much more comfortable.

I still do some production work for the guy I train for, but none of it makes up what I made at my last contract gig. That was nice making that kind of money. So the question is do I help get more training gigs? Do I just market myself better? What do I do to get my career back on track without having to go back to work for someone?

The biggest issue I have is time-management. I tend to get up early with our 3 dogs, work for awhile, then take a nap. Then I get back up and do a few chores around the house. I get back to work and then get dinner ready. It seems that after 8 o’clock is when I really like to dig in and work. I sometimes work until 2 or 3 in the morning.

So I have decisions to make. Can I actually learn time-management? Can I be more productive? I like working for myself. I’ve become tainted over the last few years. Only getting a job at somewhere like Adobe would give me enough incentive to stay happy at a job. I do miss working with a team. I’m a pretty social creature. I look for my UGM and Community Expert friends online and I couldn’t do that in a regular job, so I guess I’d better make it work is my conclusion.

Practical Web Design magazine

Lately I’ve been reading a new magazine, Practical Web Design. It’s a magazine out of the UK, and I just love it. It’s not for the hard core developer, but it is a nice blend of knowledge that not everyone will have. It comes with a CD wich has some really great stuff on it. Both Mac and PC solutions are used, which I love.

There are articles for designers and developers (well… developer to be) alike. Design, CSS, Flash, PHP and more are not only talked about but they have tutorials on things you’d use all the time. I think their intended audience is for the part time web person. Not necessarily for someone who does it for a living, but I’d say there is something there for you either way. For instance, there have been some great articles on RSS feeds, building a Flash aggregator and PHP lists.

I also came across the podcast from the magazine. The CD has it on there, but you can subscribe via iTunes as well. They are from Paul Boag, a designer who has his own design business in the UK and gives some great tips. I think they are bi monthly, but are usually about 45 minutes long. He also has some great podcasts at BoagWorld, as well as some fantastic book buying advice. I agree with pretty much all his favorite books.

There is a great section of 20 sites he finds interesting, and they are. Go take a look. I recently took a trip and listened to the podcasts on my way home. I was tired after my long drive, but couldn’t stop thinking of ideas I’d gotton from these podcasts. Can’t say everyone will gleen something from every single one, but I bet it’ll get the creative juices flowing, which can be a wonderful thing.

Dee
KCWebCore manager