[Info-vax] YouTube channel dedicated to OpenVMS

[IanD]

Well, now you made me go and have a look and I have to agree, it's pretty dam hard to hear what's being said, I think either the recording mic is a super China special or they recorded it in a public place

While the standard is below what one might think is acceptable, I guess it's better than nothing which is pretty well what we've had in the past

I'll put on my target jacket as well then, the one with the big bullseye on the back that I'm sure some folk are going to aim at.

Without a clear direction and communication flow from the new OpenVMS custodians, what else can we expect for now

I hope in time VSI take charge fully of OpenVMS marketing, including publishing frameworks/guidelines for standards but until then I guess we need to be grateful for anything (I'm not personally happy to say that but I gather that's all we are going to get at this stage. I just happen to think marketing is extremely important).

For anyone creating content, Thank You!

For anyone creating content but who wants to add professionalism and/or raise the bar as delivering professional level content, I'd recommend looking at the lectures available via places like Edx and Coursera to get an idea of what's already out there and being done. Watch a few minutes of things like the Pycon conferences as well

Since I've got on my target jacket, I'll start the ball rolling by saying, let's create a list of how we could / should be presenting a Youtube topic. 

How about we explore things like how to even name the topics on Youtube so that they can be easily found and more importantly searched for meaningfully versus just matching basic name hits like VMS.
Let's explore things like file naming conventions, what to include in the upload information, what platform was the presentation recorded on (PC, Mac, etc), intended target platform, codecs used etc etc etc.

Add the date of the recording too, what version of OpenVMS it was recorded on and/or targeted for. 
What layered products/tools were used and anything else that is helpful. Let's move on from simplistic things like How to install VMS and get a little smarter and have something like OpenVMS 8.4 Alpha install on Charon windows emulator :-)

There is already so much written stuff out there that doesn't specify the specific platform that when you search around to try and learn, you can spend endless hours as a newbie reading reading reading only to find it doesn't apply! 
So much of that frustrating could have been easily avoided if someone had simply taken the time to say something simple like 'This is for Alpha, running version xyz package etc...'. 

I'm sure those experts out there know everything and that is obvious to them but when I was trying to learn how to set up something as simple as SSH keys on OpenVMS, I spent countless hours, no days, looking looking looking to try and find out stuff. 
So dam frustrating and if this is how we are going to move OpenVMS forward with video as a teaching mechanism, then were doomed I tell you, doomed!!! (I can feel those arrows coming already)

When we start a video, how about an introduction slide or slides in large readable fonts in neutral colors and outlining the structure of what is going to be covered?

While I'm sure some folk may like things like bright crimson, I don't think it's very professional and I think it's distracting so choosing things like colors and layout etc just raise the professionalism bar.
Is there a chosen font that OpenVMS should be using btw?

If your going to add music, remember copyright. YouTube will take down your video quickly if you borrow music from a well known music trac so be careful. 

Can we also agree not to present learning videos with heavy metal or other loud distracting stuff? 
Yes, I once was a head banger many years ago but whenever I come across instructional videos on YouTube were people think it's cool to overlay the loudest most distracting music possible, I click the close button within a few seconds. 

Were going to have a hard enough time attracting people to OpenVMS, let's not give them any reason to cut their viewing time short. If it's a video that is showing a slide, a soft music is good, without vocals (unless your narrating of course) or the use of silence should not be overlooked also

I love tags in the titles. I think it helps one quickly find stuff by grouping. How shall we differentiate VSI based from existing OpenVMS content?

There is too much other crap out there now using the VMS only name. Vendor management systems is one that comes to mind. I believe OpenVMS is owned by HP but since we are attempting to make a single place for video content in not sure we need to differentiate between the two as far as content is concerned when it comes to the initial search, we can do that perhaps in the description or if it's specifically VSI, add it in the title proper

Things to always include in the YouTube title ...

OpenVMS VMS (always, this will make it easy to find in Youtube searches)

Things to add as need be...

[VSI] [HP] [Layered Product] [Vax] [Alpha] [Titanium] [x86-64] etc etc etc  (optional) 

In the details...

Date recorded, location, platform initially recorded on, Recording purpose (i.e. recorded at connect conference or in my basement last night after too many vodka's)

The purpose of this post is not to criticise the efforts of others but to start the ideas flowing for developing a minimum standard that we can aim for so as to present OpenVMS professionally to the public when creating YouTube content

Thoughts...