Time for a re-evaluation...

Well just back from my first trip to my local leisure club following the MacMania09 Asia trip. It's been three weeks since I got back, and it's taken me that long to feel well enough to subject myself to some swimming and a nice hot sauna.

So I suppose, I'm back into the old routine.

However, I think I need to make some re-adjustments.

Since starting ScreenCastsOnline, I've been balancing the weekly shows with some external production work, mainly custom screencasts for clients. This was an absolute godsend in the early days, as it went a long way to keep our head above water, whilst I built up the ScreenCastsOnline audience. It's taken the best part of four years to build up ScreenCastsOnline to the level that it is now and the need for the external jobs to help pay the mortgage is not as necessary as it was in the early days.

ScreenCastsOnline is still mainly a one man show, I do all the technical and creative stuff, although my wife is getting more involved in the admin side of things. However, the one resource that is in limited supply, being such a small operation, is time.

The weekly show probably takes up the best part of a half to a third of the week, admin and maintenance related activities, another day or two and that's most of the week gone.

The problem is, as any self employed person will tell you, it's so hard to say no to work.

An even bigger problem is the time it takes to do the commissioned stuff. You would not believe how much work and effort that can go into a scripted three minute screencast for a client. I've done loads of them and I still don't believe it!

The result of this is that I feel that ScreenCastsOnline takes a back seat some weeks and that just doesn't sit well with me. It also means I have no spare time for my pet projects or just free time to kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

So come September, I've decided to pretty much say no to all* requests for custom screencasts and concentrate more on ScreenCastsOnline.

*All? Look, I'm not completely crazy. If someone needs a screencast and is prepared to pay a premium for it, I'd be daft to say no. Also, if a prestigious project turns up that will increase the visibility of ScreenCastsOnline then again, I'm not going to turn them away. I'm just saying, I'm going to be highly selective in what I take on.

So if that goes to plan, I'd like to take some time to build on the current success of ScreenCastsOnline and make it an even better resource for members and non-members alike.

I'd like time to focus on such issues as:

• Making the huge amount of content on the ScreenCastsOnline archive more accessible
• Making search easier
• Revamping the ScreenCastsOnline website
• Enhancing the Membership experience
• Promoting and marketing ScreenCastsOnline more effectively
• Streamlining and automating the production process
  
• Ramping up show production to produce more shows in advance
  
• Giving myself some time to work on some other ideas I have
  

Of course, the other option would be to expand ScreenCastsOnline with some extra people but realistically, I don't really want to go down that route. I really just want ScreenCastsOnline to remain small but perfectly formed!

We'll see how it goes come September.

PS I'm going to try and restart my regular blogging activities too, perhaps not everyday but a lot more frequent.

Click to read more ...