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THE SCREENCASTER
The Official Newsletter of dapper|text

 In this issue:

    * Lessons to the aspiring screencaster from Strunk & White.
    * Monthly screencast: Let's get "embed" together...
    * Client spotlight: Wordtracker and effective keyword research.
    * Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

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Lessons to the aspiring screencaster from Strunk & White.

Dear :

The other day, I got a solid lesson in good screencasting from a
most unexpected place.

Most Americans, at some point in their academic careers (could be
high school, college, or in my case, both), have an English
composition class foisted upon them by the local administration.
This is done with the supposed motivation of churning out graduates
who can express themselves succintly and coherently in written
form. Persons armed with this knowlege will be able to master
business reports, research studies, doctoral dissertations, you
name it.

Or, at the very least, have the most eloquently written MacDonald's
employment application on the block...

One text that's basically regarded as standard issue in these
courses is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White,
and has been thus since its initial publication in 1959. I bought
my first copy back in 1989, when the book was a mere pup at the
tender age of 30. In its nearly 50 years on the shelves, this tiny
grey paperback has prevented millions of grammatical foibles the
world over, defusing everything from awkward sentence structure to
the careless use of non-words like irregardless.

I recently pulled my dog-eared copy of the shelf in an attempt to
decide the correctness between "None of us were there" and "None of
us was there" (it's the latter, by the way), when I came across an
essay at the back that I hadn't remembered. It was called "An
Approach to Style," and moved away from the specific prescriptivist
"grammar police" ruleset that comprised most of the book, and
instead just offered up a list of basic guidelines to bear in mind
when communicating with words.

I was astounded by how many of these suggestions were readily
applicable to narrated visual media as well, despite the fact that
it was written a good 45 years before Jon Udell ever coined the
term "screencast." I wanted to share a few of these with you.

Place yourself in the background. "Write in a way that draws the
reader's attention to the sense and substance of the writing,
rather than the mood and temper of the author."

This is a particularly sticky one for marketing screencasters. When
crafting a video advertisement or marketing spot, it's vitally
important to focus on your audience. Their lives, their problems.
With luck, you can be there to offer the solution. There are
instances (such as this newsletter), where it's appropriate for the
author to be more "present" within the content. But you can't ever
lose sight of your users and the benefit to their lives that you're
attempting to bring to the table. More on this next month.

Do not overwrite. And this goes hand-in-hand with two other basic
tenets of theirs, Write in a way that comes naturally and Avoid
fancy words. "Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally
unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating."

As you write your narration script, you must take care to avoid the
kind of thick, jumbled wordiness that makes your video impossible
to penetrate without a dictionary in hand. Most people won't
bother, so don't use a 75-cent word when a 10-cent one will do.
This goes doubly for industry terms and other technical jargon.
Only use a technical term when no other more common replacement
exists, and when you're certain that at least 95% of your audience
will understand it. Take a second in your narration to clarify the
term if you're not sure.

Do not explain too much. "It is seldom advisable to tell all."

Amen, brothers. Amateur screencasters often make the classic rookie
mistake of explaining every field and button. Even a comprehensive
tutorial should exist to show completion of a given task or set of
tasks. Clarify only those features and aspects of the application
that are directly involved in getting the user from point A to
point B. In screencasting, the hackneyed slang phrase "Too much
information!" really does apply, so don't inundate your audience
with a lot of extraneous info.

Revise and rewrite. "Revising is part of writing. Few writers are
so expert that they can produce what they are after on the first
try."

Revision is a necessity in the screencast production process. If
possible, try to segment your revision as much as possible. What
does this mean? Well, take a quick look at my workflow, which
generally goes something like this:

Write narration > Craft storyboard > Record footage > Edit silent
cut > Record and clean up narration > Produce final output

You should be giving the decision-makers (clients, managers, etc.)
access to your work at nearly every point in this process. If
there's an unnecessary paragraph in your narration, it's a lot
easier to correct early on, when it's just words on paper. If
something's destined to get the ax, you're wasting valuable time by
coming up with visuals, recording clips, and cutting it all together.

Don't overstate. "When you overstate, readers will be instantly on
guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well
as everything that follows will be suspect in their minds because
they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise."

Overstatements are dangerous territory, particularly for marketing
screencasts. Yes, you want to convey the benefit of your product or
service, and yes, those benefits should be as compelling as
possible. Just don't promise them the moon. Or, promise them the
moon, provided you're ready to deliver on that promise and you can
provide good testimonials and other proof that you're not just full
of hot air.

Good stuff. The advice of these two men from nearly a half century
ago is as relevant as ever to those of us who create content for a
living.

----------------------------------------

Monthly screencast: Let's get "embed" together...

One topic that seems to come up time and again on the TechSmith
forums is how to integrate a Camtasia Studio screencast with a
pre-existing web page. You know, the kind that's already filled
with other content. This has been made easier in the past year or
two with the introduction of ExpressShow and Screencast.com
embedding, but those who don't output to SWF, or who don't want to
pay service fees, are essentially left up to their own devices.

In this screencast, I'll talk about the various options you have
for embedding your videos into a content page, including a neat,
easy option that works with all output formats, and has the added
bonus of saving you bandwidth.

http://www.screencast.com/t/neg7gAA5Tp

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Client spotlight: Wordtracker and effective keyword research.

In the five or so years I've been in business as a freelance
screencaster, I've served organizations of all sizes and flavors,
and the exact vocations of these enterprises are as broad and
varied as life itself.

A few industries off the top of my head: stock trading,
homebuilding, paperwork management, promotional products, plastics,
and dental practice management, among many others.

It's hard to imagine that such a broad range of business endeavor
exists in the world until someone calls you up wanting a marketing
spot to advertise their extensive line of holy bibles in audiobook
format (yes, seriously).

There are, apparently, exactly one million and one ways to fill a
need for someone and get paid in the process. Nothing surprises me
anymore. Of course, fortunately for them, when it comes to a
company's screencasting needs, I'm pretty equal-opportunity...

That said, I can't tell you what a rare treat it is to be
approached by someone whose product you've not only heard of, but
actually use. Such was the case when the good folks at Wordtracker
contacted me to create a series of demos on their amazing keyword
research service.

If you're a MarComm manager or internet entrepreneur, then it's
likely these guys need no introduction. For the rest of you, I'll
give you the quick elevator statement: Wordtracker lets you
research the popularity and competition level of internet search
terms as well as easily pick out potentially profitable related
terms. Armed with solid keyword research, companies can avoid
costly mistakes in their pay-per-click and web optimization efforts
by focusing on keywords that are more likely to bring in actual
business.

In fact, you're unlikely to meet anyone really serious about search
engine optimization who is not already a Wordtracker subscriber.
They're the de facto standard in keyword research.

If you're still confused as to what these guys are all about, I
created a seven-day series on getting the most out of your first
week with Wordtracker that should serve to clear things up.
Wordtracker is giving away the full tutorial series for anyone who
signs up for Wordtracker's f*ree 7-day trial. If you plan on ever
setting up an Adwords campaign or do any SEO at all, I strongly
encourage you to check 'em out:

https://www.wordtracker.com/trial/

A quick disclosure, in case anyone was wondering: I receive NO
affiliate revenue whatsoever from these trial sign-ups or any
subscriptions that may come about as a result. I'm hyping them
because they run an awesome service, one that I used before they
were ever a client. And also because I'm proud of the work we've
done together, and I hope you'll watch a video or two and perhaps
play with the service a bit on your own.

But if you happen to be one of those jaded souls who's averse to
no-cost, no-obligation signups as a matter of principle, here's a
totally 'stringsless' link to the first video in the series:

http://www.wordtracker.com/tutorials/day1.html

Enjoy!

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Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

This month's Screencaster was partially brought to you by a
generous bit of elbow grease from Fernando Alvarez Torres, a top
systems administrator, my brother-in-law, and an all-around good guy.
It may surprise you to know this, but even screencasting nobility
like myself aren't immune to technical issues. The 'royal
motherboard' on my production machine took a royal dump yesterday,
and I was left scrambling to figure out how the heck I was to get
this issue out the door with only a rock and chisel as my main
toolset.

Fernando came to my rescue, making an afternoon's inconvenience out
of what would otherwise have been several days of frustrating trial
and error. Let's take a brief moment to appreciate the systems
admins of the world. Along with plumbers, secretaries,
ombudspeople, and others whose sole domain is simply to "make stuff
work," these folks clear away the chaos and leave tiny parts of the
world a little better than how they found it.

If you happen to see your systems admin in the hall, conference
room, or kitchenette today, please take a quick opportunity to say
thanks. Unless, of course, you are the sysadmin, in which case,
please take a quick opportunity to bask in your own glory...

Thanks, Nando.


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All of the above is ©2008 by Daniel Park, except in the case of
articles by guest authors, who retain all rights to their own
musings.

Feel free to send Daniel rants, raves, and other assorted bits o'
feedback to info@dappertext.com.

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