Is Video a Crock? It's Certainly Not the New Holy Grail. Get Off the Screen, Dudes.

Many of you will recognize the title – borrowed from “Enterprise 2.0 a Crock” Dennis Howlett.

Needless to say I was quite interested in his discussion with David Terrar, who is more of an E20 fan.

Hm…hard to watch. Dennis is too loud while David is barely audible. I kept on turning the volume up and down, until I quit after a few minutes. But it’s not just the technical issues. It’s a long video for the message it delivers, and I hate to admit but it could not glue me to my chair for 8 minutes.

His opinions and sometimes abrasive style aside Dennis is a great analytical thinker, but he is (as I suspect all of us are) simply more organized, more concise in writing. Simply more convincing – or thought provoking – and definitely easier to “consume” in writing, than this video-torture. So now you see where my title comes from. If Dennis says E20 is a crock, then I say so is video. It’s simply not the best medium for a lot of messages.

But I am not picking on Dennis. Here’s a video by Allen Stern of the CenterNetworks fame:

Dude, you’re not that hot! Get off the camera! (Just kidding – or am I?) But seriously, why is this delivered as video?

But I’m not done yet. Here’s fellow Enterprise Irregular and SAP Community maven Craig Cmehil (geez, am I about to lose all my friends in one fell swoop?)

Frankly, the best thing about this videos is the logo. On dude sitting with an ugly backdrop delivering a monologue … it does not belong on camera! Think it through, write down the gist, I’ll be happy to read it.

Now, let’s compare this to a video by Tom Raftery:

He is doing a demonstration and video is the perfect media for this. (And yes, he is also “guilty” of doing monologues @ GreenMonk TV on otherwise interesting subjects… Update: I better be careful critizing Tom. He’s got friends he can send after me… )

Get my point? Just because video is now easily accessible and even easy (cheap) to produce, it’s not the New Holy Grail. Seriously, think of your content and consider how it’s best delivered. You’ll likely find that most of what you have to say comes through better in writing. And if you agree, perhaps it’s time drop the camera and pick up the old pen … hm … OK, keyboard.

Unless you are …well the are exceptions.