Paul Colligan – The People And Business Of New And Social Media

Focus And The New Media Maker

One of the better quality training pieces I ever put together came from a Skype Screenshare where we recorded the entire thing live with no takes. It was for Andy Jenkins and the Video Boss product.

Now, I spent LESS time on that bad boy than you’d think. I put together the slide deck in about a half an hour (I do live this stuff, it comes easily) and “recorded” the whole thing real time. Andy took the recordings (the recording from my machine was actually just a backup), sent them to his video editors, and out came my part of his piece. I did nothing after we were done.

I’ll make very good money as a result of that 3 hour project – where I only did the “fun” stuff.

The video of Ed Dale and I picking up our iPads is a ton of fun and makes both of us look much cooler than we really are. That was done entirely with a Zi8 camera where I uploaded the clips to my editor from LAX Wifi before I jumped on the plane home. Out popped a YouTube Video worth watching. The engagement on that video as tracked by YouTube is amazing – I never seen a better chart.

Some of the best teleseminar recordings you’ll ever hear from me came from me picking up the phone a few minutes before start and hanging up when everyone else did. An editor picked up the recording and made the magic. I went back to that whole content thing.

I’ve written 5 books. 2 of them as a ghost. The one I’m proudest of was completed in 20% of the time of any of the other books.

Now, the flip side of the story.

I have sold product that, although worth every dime, got more hours from Paul in the editing and rendering department than from the content creation side of things. I have no doubt in my mind at all that if I had taken the time spent doing what I could easily have hired out, I could have sold much more product – and made a better profit after paying out the editor.

I won’t even dare go into how much more fun I could have had.

Podcasts. Oh Podcasts. Content creation – 15 minutes / editing and publishing and syndication – 40 minutes. Why do I do this to myself?

Yes, there’s a fun little buzz that comes from handling every part of the media creation process. Being the “talent” and the “editor” lets you create stuff that is entirely you. Having your fingers in every part of the process brings a power rush.

Here are the questions?

Is creating stuff that is “entirely you” something you should be spending time on? Is it arrogance of the highest order to think you can play all parts of this piece better than anyone else? Is the power rush of having control of everything too often met with a crash of having to have done it all?

We gotta do better.

Mom once told me “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

There’s amazing wisdom there that I need to relearn on a weekly/daily basis.

Every time I’ve grabbed some help, I’ve done better. Every time I’ve played the solo game I’ve produced less and felt a lot worse.

How about you? You a loner? Do you actually think it’s good for you?

How are you gonna get help?

P.s., As I wrote this my video editor texted me with a question about a title for something. There might be a video on YouTube by the time I’m done. And, as a bonus, content will be much better than anything I’ve edited yet.