Yes, skiing through a terrain park is a lot like owning business. You look at the various obstacles with initial fear but then once you go through them a few times, you realize how many of those obstacles are not so bad after all. And, sometimes they’re even fun.

For my day 2 of 365, here’s a great example of how to just have fun with video while interviewing some experts. Notice how even with late afternoon lighting, it’s better lighting than what most people would get indoors with fancy lights. It’s hard to beat natural outdoor lighting…especially when it’s at 10,000 feet above sea level!:

My first video of the 365 series for 2010 was taken at my first Ski With Marty meet-up group in early December where most attendees came up from Denver, Boulder and Colorado Springs. This was the first video I took with my new Kodak Zi8 and thought I’d showcase it here as what NOT to do.

Here are several things WRONG with this video:

1. I was hoping to get everyone in the shot but my attempt didn’t seem to work. It was salvaged only by people saying hello at the same time so that it sounded like there were more people than just the two or three that I showed on the video. Next time, I’ll have everyone group into the same spot…a lesson in video recording with a group of people as your backdrop.

2. I got too crazy with the rotating, which I might hang onto in the future as a possible effect, but didn’t really add to the video this time.

3. I never mentioned what “Ski With Marty” really is. Sounds more like I just sort of picked up a bunch of stray dogs or something and begged them to ski with me. SkiWithMarty is a business networking group where business owners, authors and speakers meet and ski every Wednesday at various ski resorts in Colorado.

What did I do right? Only a couple of things that I can see:

1. It was short…thank goodness.

2. I did manage to introduce my name and my website.

3. Although I’m kind of annoying to myself, anyone can hear in my voice that I was in a good mood that day. And, why wouldn’t I be? I was skiing!!

In two days, I’ll begin a quest to conceptualize, create, edit, produce, and promote a web video every single day of the coming 2010 year. I invite you along for the journey as I’m sure this will be a challenge in many ways.

Not only do I have a company to run at HereNextYear.com and more than 50 of my own websites to manage, but I’m going to attempt to prove by example that every busier-than-hell (like me) business owner, author and speaker can and MUST get involved with web video for their website.

It’s not about something cool anymore. It’s not only for those big companies that can afford $10,000 to $500,000 production budgets anymore. It’s not about “too technical for me” anymore.

This is about absolute essential…

Yes, you read that right. Video is absolute essential. And, you’re either going to embrace it or get left behind. It’s just one of those things.

So, my mission with this website is to become a resource center for everything I discover about video over the coming year. Bookmark the site, sign-up for the rss feed or get blog post notices by email, whatever is best for you to check back on this site often.

Expect in advance that I’m going to be having affiliate links all over the place. As I “spend money” to try things, I will be expecting those who benefit from my findings to be okay with me getting a few bucks when they take advantage of those recommendations. It’s only fair and, hey, it’s just business.

Specifically, when it comes to my 365-day video challenge, I will be focusing on 5 types of videos:

1. Educational videos where I pick a topic and attempt to share something I know
2. News videos where I will be reporting on something related to the video industry
3. Interviews of other people using video
4. Entertaining videos where I do something out of the ordinary just for the heck of it
5. Demonstration videos where I will show how something works

So, no video today, because on Friday, January 1, 2010 I will need to launch my first official video for this site. It will be far from the first video I’ve ever created, but will be the first using my system that I’ve outlined in the Free 51 Web Video Tips document that you really should sign-up for.

Have a great New Year’s Eve and Happy New Year to you! Check back by the end of January 1 for my first video and remember my new saying…

“You’re not an Internet loser if you’re a video camera user.”

All the best,
Marty Dickinson
VideoCameraUser.com

If you’re not into video for the web yet, this is your chance. I’ll be exploring uses of video for authors, speakers and business owners. Since, I’m all three of those, I’ll be bringing to the table real advice you can use immediately.