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We are launching a new series of videos that we refer to internally as
the “unplugged”.
Why did we choose to set this series apart from the rest?
You see, we usually publish videos with a specific topic and goal: explaining a concept, solving a typical scenario, or introducing a new feature. Recording the video is a small part of the overall process: The editorial process includes video editing, subtitles, and multiple reviews of the content. This process is often longer than what is required to publish an article. If during the recording something does not work as expected, we cut and retake that portion.
The result is short and neat, but it also isn’t as real as we would like it to be; plus, it makes us look like DAX geniuses. This is not the case; we make mistakes, and we spend a ton of time struggling with behaviors we do not fully understand… yet.
We wanted to share more of our day-to-day work with you. Enter the idea of unplugged videos. For example, we would like to share how we optimize a measure, explore a new feature, and investigate bugs. This content is harder to categorize and classify. The experience we want to offer you is that of sitting next to one of us while he works, and maybe picking up a thing or two from our way of solving problems and scenarios.
The first rule of the
unplugged series is that there are no rules. We have an overall idea in mind, we turn on the camera and we start working. Here are the details that make the unplugged videos different:
- no editing – besides removing long waiting times or hiding sensitive data, if something bad happens… it stays there;
- no time constraints – 20 minutes, one hour, it takes however long it takes;
- no goal – rather, the goal is not to teach something directly, even though any learning is always a welcome side effect;
- no title – we have a hard time coming up with an easy title; we describe the content after having recorded the video, and it often turns out different from our original idea;
- no carefully crafted subtitles – all of our subtitles are hand-written and double-checked in English; but for the unplugged videos, we wanted to shorten the delivery time. Therefore, we rely on YouTube’s automatic subtitle generation. This, along with our accent, is likely to bring to you a few hilarious moments… they are welcome!
Watching an unplugged video can help you in many ways. You might discover something new, watch different approaches to solving a problem, find topics you might want to study in more detail later, or just be inspired with new ideas.
Enjoy
the show!
Marco Russo