Outside My Comfort Zone: Going YouTube

Although I am pretty technical, write hundreds of words per week  (work emails/proposals), spend many hours on telecons and speak to live audiences several times per week/month, podcasting, video blogging and video content has not been in my priority list until recently.

I totally see it as a must have skill in today’s world and for the foreseeable future.

A while back my wife had a great idea for a podcast and I did not know much about how to help her in the daily production of one. So I began a short format (4-minute) personal  podcast (audio only) on random  topics. The goal was to learn, experiment and see how to do it…

I published 29 episodes (one per week) and got the process buttoned down to the point of about 30-45 minutes  per episode. Since I travel so much and had many hotel sleepless  nights, I used only my phone to do the recording, and Audacity to edit them.   It was intended just for me, but according to the stats, somehow I got about 40 listens per week.  Pretty unexpected, as I thought it was just a me, my wife and a couple of family members listening.

A couple of weeks ago, on episode 30, I decided to get out of the comfort zone, and went YouTube.   I produced episode:   Stepping It Up A Bit   on video and published it to YouTube  as well as the audio version to my podcast.

I know the goal for many on the YouTube platform is to make money, which is not a bad goal to have, but that is not me at the moment.    I am a bit more in the “coming out’ phase. No – not that type…

What I mean to say is:  I am at the basic stage where I am getting used to doing and seeing myself in videos, talking naturally to a camera, getting familiar with my “perfect imperfections” and mistakes I make, editing most of them, getting used to the new tools, and actually tapping into my highly dormant creative side leading to the final action of posting them to a public forum.

I created a YouTube channel (a personal vlog), created the intro video, and posted my first two vlog style videos with two more in the editing table. I do not expect many followers outside my immediate family (they know) and, some of my friends once I let them know (terrifying – not sure why, as I know most of them like me 🙂 !

I do plan to have a more business or niche focused channel, but I consider this personal channel my training wheels.

Remember it’s a new thing for me… lots of room for improvement, but here we go. We will improve as we go! #learning #experimenting #newthing. #vlog

You can find my personal YouTube channel at:  https://jorgep.com/blog/youtubechannel

Would love to heart from you !   Feel free to follow me, subscribe, comment, ask questions!

Cheers!