Thursday, January 26, 2017

Leap of faith



Subscribe to my channel:

This is a first, and you are witnessing history.

Last week I got a little lift courtesy of Ted Kettler's Motorcycle Men podcast when he interviewed me. I say a little lift because that interview took me from publishing my thoughts here in writing to sharing my thoughts in audio on his podcast.

I have had to scramble the rest of the way up to the windswept pinnacle of video blogging (or 'vlogging').

Let me know what you think.

I am brimming with a few vlog topics so this may not be the end (unless you are particularly cruel, in which case I'll take you on in a Twitter duel).

Finally, in response to David Blackburn, here are pics of those business cards. They are hot out of the mailbox:



 


23 comments:

redlegsrides said...

Braver man than I, Gunga Din.

Good luck in finding your voice and comfort zone in terms of vlogging. I shall not follow you down that particular path.

Steve Williams said...

Congratulations on your first video blog entry. As I watched it became even more apparent to me how much work it is to put something like you've done together. Not only do you need to master the technical aspects to a degree where we can see and hear what you decide to share, but you have to have a focused message and adopt some presence to share it. As Dom says, pretty brave Gunga Din.

Also, I listened to your interview on Motorcyclemen. Considering it was an hour and 22 minutes long it was quite engaging and easy to listen to. They probably love having someone who has stories to tell. Makes their job easy!

Video blogging.... you've certainly tweaked my interest in that content form and I've credited you in my latest post for raising the idea again in my mind. I love the form but am just not sure I have the "voice" for it. Perhaps I should just stick to words and pictures...

Good luck with your adventures and I look forward to the next episode.

Unknown said...

Mr. Masse, I thoroughly enjoyed your vlog. It should be a mighty fine way for us followers to better know your world, to better know in a different way how you perceive the goings-on around you.

Your comment about how YouTube is an outlet for those with "something worth saying--something worth seeing" resonated with me. For we who desire to release creations into the world, the internet in general has given us two extreme options with infinite degrees of blend between: Quantity and quality.

Though most of us can agree on a definition for quantity, quality's is elusive, subjective. The internet is over-saturated with quantity--new and infinite quantities every second. So, in order to raise our human culture to the next level, we must individually begin focusing on quality.

I believe that we each should publish our best content every time and try to raise the bar for the next time. We should strive to outdo ourselves—to only improve on what we’ve been and done before. (Hell, maybe a collective focus on quality content would trickle down to positively affect our elected officials. Some of them could really use better examples on how to be good, high quality, respectful members of the human race.)

I look forward to your future vlogs—am keen to see where the outlet will take you and where you will take the outlet.

RichardM said...

Some technical suggestions. Look into either software such as the no longer supported Levelator or watch the audio levels in your editor so that all of the souces such as music, voice, sound effects, etc. are at the same level. Also choose your background carefully or disable auto focus on the camera. If there are straight lines in the background, the camera will usually choose those to focus on.

You forgot to remind viewers to "Like" and "Subscribe" as you want Google to promote your videos.

Nice start. Keep them coming.

Scott Seidl said...

I enjoyed your video blog and in fact it was the best one I'd ever seen. Never mind the fact that it was also the only one I'd ever seen, I thought you did a fine job with it. It's nice to put a voice and personality to the written blog. It makes me wonder if I want to give this a try myself.

Ted Kettler said...

David was a fantastic guest!! Inspired me and has me now looking at Vespa's. Really great guy and guests like him do make my job easy.
Ted
Host - Motorcycle Men

SonjaM said...

You seem very comfortable with being interviewed, and also your fist ever blog shows that your are more comfortable with blogging than you care to admit, my friend.

As for the podcast interview: Am I famous by proxy now? Thanks for mentioning our encounters and our tale of co-ownership. By the way, I really loved you talking about Bob, the moto blogger community, and Scooterbob's travels around the (blog) world.

Well done, David.

Canajun said...

David, well done. I think many of us who blog can relate to much of what you say about sharing and community, although few of us (myself included) would ever be as comfortable as you seem to be in front of the camera. I know you claim it's a first, but I expect there are more than a few outtakes on the cutting room floor (so to speak) so perhaps a blooper reel is in the works when you run out of new ideas.

At any rate, please keep sharing. I expect your list of topics will be long and varied.

Cheers.

SonjaM said...

auto correct made a blog out of vlog. Time for it to be updated... it's a word now ;-)

len@RE-GLAZE-IT said...

Hi David,
Hope all is well mate!

This is quite interesting stuff, will it be occasional or become the regular norm?
Or is it simply a wait and see what happens?
It's all a bit pioneering of sort...actually quite brave stuff:)
Look forward to seeing more.
David would you consider doing your famous blogger to blogger interviews using Vlog ?.
Kind regards
LEN

David Masse said...

Well Dom, it certainly isn't trivial, I'll say that for sure.

I think it is possible to tame though, and I'm going to give my best.

David Masse said...

Thanks Steve, that means a lot to me.

I suspect that it's all about the story and engaging effectively with viewers, and not so much about razzle-dazzle, sound effects, a radio voice and a face made for TV.

There is no doubt in my mind that if you tried it, you'd be very successful.

Thanks for listening to the podcast interview.

David Masse said...

Ted, I am so pleased that you managed to track down the Stephanies (Yue and Jeavons). I thoroughly enjoyed their interviews.

And you did your level best to get them both to ride to Alaska come spring. They would make an for an epic Arctic Adventure. Hopefully you have convinced them to give it a shot. Though in fairness to Ms. Yue, she was already seriously considering it.

David Masse said...

Ry your kind words of support and wisdom are deeply appreciated.

Here's hoping that I'm up to the challenge.

David Masse said...

Excellent tips Richard.

I think I may have found a feature in Final Cut Pro that will let you select all the various sound clips and apply some uniformity. I am crossing my fingers on that score (pardon the pun).

I need to look into whether YouTube supports clickable links. Otherwise it will do in the comments, and I will do my best to heed your advice and remind viewers to like and subscribe.

David Masse said...

Thanks Scott for the kind words!

David Masse said...

Sonja you are famous in your own right, don't you know :)

Thanks for listening to the podcast interview. Check out the subsequent interviews of Steph Yue and Steph Jeavons.

David Masse said...

That's so kind David.

We'll see how I do covering my upcoming Florida foray.

David Masse said...

Ah Len, you're just a few steps ahead of me there.

I already have Rider Profiles ready to publish since my failed Florida trip last year. As soon as I meet those folks I'll post their profiles.

I will keep to the written Rider Profiles as is just for the sake of keeping everything constant. I find that having all types of people answer those same ten questions really interesting.

But... I am thinking of augmenting the Rider Profiles with video interviews that will complement the Rider Profiles with different questions and more spontaneity.

So stay tuned by all means.

Kathy said...

Nice job, David! You do seem very comfortable in front of the camera. I liked the podcast bit, too, and will definitely listen to the whole thing.

I'm not sure how I feel about Vlogging. I know I would never do it, but only because I can't imagine what I would say and I've never been comfortable in front of a camera, still or otherwise.

I, too, look forward to seeing where you take this. The only critique is one of the things Richard said about your background. The books look nice, but they caught your camera's attention and you were blurry for awhile.

Dar said...

Good job David! It takes a bit of getting used being in front of the camera. What I liked about it was that you are being yourself and not adopting a persona. Its harder than blogging because you truly are putting yourself out there. Keep it up!

David Masse said...

Thanks for the vote of confidence Kathy, it's really appreciated.

Episode two is now up. I think it's an improvement. I have to say, it's quite a chore.

David Masse said...


Wow! Coming my from a real honest to goodness TV personality that's high praise indeed.

Thank you so much Dar.
Delete

The copyright in all text and photographs, except as noted, belongs to David Masse.