Does there exist a library of the "best" startup focused articles written across the net? Kind of a Digg-fashion voting system?
19 karma · joined June 21, 2010
EDIT: A few suggestions while finishing your most recent interview (Space Shuttle Engineer).
- The video puts you pretty far from the camera and makes it feel very distant. You might "engage" your audience more if you filled more of the frame by being physically closer to the camera or zooming in. I suggest having your head fill the top 3/4ths to 2/3rds of the frame instead of dead-center as Douglas sat.
- You cover your mouth a few times while listening to the response. Try to avoid this, you seem anxious.
- Smile. A LOT! It makes you charismatic and puts your viewers and interviewees at ease.
Hope this helps.
Idea: Maybe you could make certain interviews "open" where you invite your users/readers to submit their own follow-up questions during the next few days after it posted to the site. These follow up questions will spur discussion, your interviewee might agree to answer these questions after the deadline, and you'll create a "stickier" site that readers can enjoy until your next interview posts. ;) Great work.
Anyone know if something like this exists?
- The Scholar App sounds like a great idea, however I see a large hole in your business model. Your landing splash screen shows the differences between Bill (the average student) and Ted (the above-reproach student). You show the value proposition for a user like Bill (which, I assume, is getting help from students like Ted) but really don't provide incentive for a student like Ted to get involved. I would try to make this aspect more obvious in your screen cast. (Or change your somewhat misleading splash screen.)
- Don't make us watch you type directions. It really breaks the rhythm of your presentation and makes me want to fast forward (missing important info?) or close it altogether. Instead, have the information pre-copied and paste it from the clipboard (the low-tech way) or edit this out of the video.
- An important part of a screencast demo of an application is to give the user a brief experience of the application in action. I noticed in certain portions of your screen cast where you provide generic placeholder information (clearly for the purpose of the demo) however the placeholder data you used doesn't provide any idea of what information you mean to convey there. The example that was very obvious to me was the screen title of the Class "Demo 101" which read "Demo 101 - The Scholar App Demo". This is probably the Class Designation followed by the Class Title, but it's difficult to tell (at least for me) when it sits next to your app's logo.
This might seem like a small gripe, but you might as well make the most of the attention your screen cast is getting and give the clearest possible experience your users might benefit from when using your app. So instead (if my assumptions were right about the type of info you intended to display) you might display "Demo 101 - Example Class Title". Your users will recognize the "Demo 101" as the name of the course and the string "Example Class Title" will convey that they will know which course they are currently viewing (an important UX feature which someone might appreciate). You don't convey any LESS information than you did before and if you influenced at least one person to try your product then it was worth the change.
- It feels as though you haven't really practiced the presentation. It's noticable in your delivery. Nothing to do here but practice more. :)
Cheers!
I'm attempting to get more involved in the CakePHP community myself and am taking the tact of contributing to smaller supporting projects (their documentation) and lurking in the IRC chat to understand other people's problems, learn from them and get to know the core developers.
Edit: And never have the expectation that you'll ever get to work on core development. (Not that you can't, but this mantra will help to keep your motivations altruistic.)
http://nobulb.com "mg" at the above domain.