📹 Effective Communication (Video)

Video is now an important way to communicate. The most obvious type is Zoom calls. But there are other ways we can use video such as screencasting, recording demos, etc.

Position a decent camera at a good angle. Shooting up your nose probably isn't a good camera position.

Screencasts are a scaling superpower. Record how you do something and share it with people learning. Have them write the documentation or checklist.

Screencasts may be a better way to demo. Record and share the demo ahead of time, then discuss it in a meeting.

With a screencast, it's even more important to have good audio. In a meeting, people will overlook bad audio because you have a captive audience. But in a recorded video, people will likely quit watching if the audio is bad. So get a decent podcasting mic or headset.

Learn OBS Studio - this is a professional way to record screencasts that is free. I've found that setting up a 1080p (1920x1080) section of my screen to record works well. Drag, resize, and stack the applications you want to display in this section of the screen, then just record that single scene. This is much simpler than setting up a separate scene for every application.

If you are working with hardware, get a document camera to video stuff on the lab bench.

And don't forget your phone takes excellent video - we all should probably make better use of this capability.

When possible, record in MP4 format. This format plays easily in most browsers, so you can simply upload a file to a file sharing site, and people can automatically play it in their browser.

I've yet to figure out lighting, green screens, etc. - lots to learn yet. Systems like this can always be improved, so keep improving.