ISO FileMaker Magazine: FileMaker Video Tutorials, Templates, Help & More

The virtues and pitfalls of trying to cater to your whole market

Every once in a while, I receive an email from a developer who mentions that my style of video delivery is a bit superfluous. To respond to this form of comment, I reply “Yes, you’re absolutely right. I do occasionally add some ‘fluff’ into the video article - obviously, making it much longer than it needs to be.”

These comments don’t hurt my feelings in any way. In fact, I like getting these emails and comments. I need to hear from all levels of viewers watching my content. If I’m not creating what people want to watch, then I’m not going to feed my family.

To take this to the extreme, and bypassing any concern that the following statement might cause a loss in subscribers, “I myself wouldn’t even watch my own videos.” They’re often longer than they need to be and they cover certain areas I already know.

Ah, there it is, “areas I already know”. This is the part where I feel like the delivery works for those subscribers who value the content. You see, the range of your market, especially a technical one, is always broader than your own level of knowledge. You’re at point X when everyone else is in the range from A to Z. Personally, I would love to see all of my videos covered within an extremely short period of time and offer only the nuggets needed to pull of the tricky stunts. Of course, this takes on a number of assumptions about what you know and what level you’re at.

The Problem

When you boil it down, there are highly advanced developers who know what you’re talking about as soon as the screen shows a small snippet of code. On the other end of that spectrum, there are viewers who don’t even know what you can do with the Let() statement.

While I don’t focus on the low level beginner, I do try to avoid assumptions about what a viewer may (or may not) know. This carries both positives and negatives. I’ve heard that going slow and covering everything is great for intermediate and international speakers who aren’t fluent in English. It provides a basis for which additional learning can sprout even though I don’t offer all the specifics.

The downside is that if you know what you’re doing, the video can get boring and even a bit painful to listen to. In fact, I have some developer friends who also view the video articles and use the fast forward playback feature of QuickTime (you can find this by using Command-K or Control-K in QuickTime Player - look for the Playback speed).

So, I’m constantly asking myself. “How can I solve this problem?”

Solving the Problem

I’ve long considered splitting up the content I cover and offering a beginner track and an advanced track. The problem is truly knowing where the bulk of all my viewers are. True, I can use a survey and ask some technical questions to try to assess this, but, how well will this work? FileMaker isn’t a super large market and my goal is to offer content that appeals to the widest range of possible viewers.

I’ve offered the Developer Overview movies in the past, which try to showcase a technique in the shortest time possible, and I’m always open to suggestions. Is it the way I say it - or - what I say?

If you have any ideas about how I could make things better or can tell me specifically what you do and don’t like about the content or quality of delivery then, by all means, leave a comment on this page!

Tell me what you want to see!