• First, take a look your script. Are there 75-cent words that have no place in everyday conversation? Strike them. Industry jargon that only a portion of your audience will understand? Simplify. The goal of your screencast isn't to demonstrate how much smarter you are than they. Whether training or marketing, you need to connect on a basic, human level. That's a little hard to accomplish when you're talking down to them.
  
  
• On a related note, try to use the first person in your narration when possible. When working for a large organization, I know this isn't always feasible. A lot of companies shy away from letting individuals in their group be, well, individuals. But think about the last time you were on hold after dialing up some corporate entity: "Your call is very important to us." Yeah, right. Now think about the times (increasingly rare nowadays) that you actually managed to reach a human being on the other end who was compassionate, personable, and eager to help. In screencasting, you want to be that dude (or dudette). When one person is empowered by their large, impersonal employer to spread their knowledge and enthusiasm in a personal way, good things happen. Check out The Cluetrain Manifesto for more information on this.
  
  
• Try to avoid too many layers of polish. It is of course vital to be professional. But one thing that's always bothered me about products like Adobe Captivate, with its smooth-as-glass mouse movements, is that the content looks like a robot did it. In both your visuals and your narration, try to keep it a bit loose. Make an off-topic aside or a corny joke. Show a little emotion (so long as it's genuine). Let 'em know there's an actual human being behind the scenes. Of course, these assorted bits of personality tend to be first on the chopping block if you're one of those unlucky souls who must submit their storyboards for committee review. Narrow minds will always try to suck the humanity out of your work in the interest of "professionalism." Fight to maintain it when possible.
  

Clip Speed and Screencast Efficiency

As any of my screencasting students will tell you, one of my biggest pet peeves is work that's polluted by pointless content and pauses through which you could drive a Mack truck. I'll even go as far as to say that it's disrespectful to waste your users' time in that manner. If you show hunt-n-peck typing of whole paragraphs, endless loading screens, and progress bars that progress at the rate of drying paint, then you're guilty of this. When I as a user have one of these atrocities inflicted upon me, I more often than not end up shouting at the screen: Get to the damned point!

 

Up to now, the best option for addressing this was to make judicious cuts while working through the video, but when you're wanting to show an entire process in an expedient way, this can be incredibly time-consuming. It's literally death by a thousand tiny cuts.

 

Enter the Clip Speed feature of Camtasia Studio, formerly practically unusable, but it got a HUGE facelift with the release of version 7.1. I threw together a quick screencast showing you not only how to use it, but why you'd want to. Check it...

 

 

 

Grumpy Old FAQ: A Cantankerous Author Dives into the Mailbag

Over the last week, I've gotten loads of good feedback, including some questions and concerns. As a lot of the same ones tended to turn up over and over, I assembled a quick document here to help address them. NOTE: I was feeling a bit sassy when I sat down to compose this section, so proceed at your peril. This ain't your father's FAQ...