OtherThanThat

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It’s election day and as media outlets of all ilk are saturated with Blue & Red statistics, I was thrilled to get an email that had nothing to do with whether the Democrats would retain control of this or that or which Propositions had passed. Instead it was an email from a producer at CBSInteractive with whom I shot a series of videos this past week telling me that the first of the series had been posted!

The series, “Dodging Landmines”, is produced through BNET (the small/medium business focused content quadrant of what used to be CNET, now CBS Interactive). The content focuses on, as you might guess by the title, various and sundry “landmines” that business owners encounter – things like office politics, hiring issues, negotiating with partners and such.

They approached me because they were looking to do a series of videos that touched on various challenges facing businesses as they move rapidly towards integrating social media technologies/platforms into the work environment. The way the series works is this: First they book the “expert” (which in this case would be me, though I was adamant that they avoid labeling me with “expert”, “maven”, “guru” or any of the other overused monikers saturating the market). Next there are a series of production meetings & calls to hammer out a set of high level questions, each of which is then further crafted into 3-4 additional sub-topics/questions. Once the content is somewhat scripted, it’s time to go into the studio.

Though I’ve worked in and around media my entire career, my time in front of a camera has been limited in terms of scripted performance. I’ve been a guest/panelist/interviewee on any number of shows and stages for conferences. I’ve also emceed/hosted and done plenty of unscripted discussion; and of course every week I host an hour-long, talk show … but that’s all audio for starters and it’s not scripted in the least.

To say that this was challenging would be slightly less than accurate. The hardest part, though, was retaining focus and keeping energy up for take after take. In the end we were in the studio for about two hours, a session that will result in 4 segments, each of which is less than 3 minutes long.

Overall, I’m pleased with this first foray … though of course have already started deconstructing so that I can up my game next time!

With that … here’s the first of four installments of me on BNET’s “Dodging Landmines” … enjoy (and please comment!)