Video As Project Documentation

Everybody hates doing documentation. Anyone who claims to enjoy doing should be on some kind of watch list. Robin East (@insidedctm) asked the question on twitter today

project documentation: “documents” on their own are totally inadequate. Wikis are barely better. Anyone tried something else?

The most effective documentation experience I ever had was the first where, as an afterthought, we incorporated video.

Robin’s question prompted me to think back to when I left Delta Air Lines in 2002 after ten years. I had started at the air line working in an entry level clerks position in maintenance and ended my career there as an advisory architect in document management. An odd beginning but by the end I had touched every content management related project at the company and as you might have noticed I tend to collect opinions.

Despite the thousands of words in project documentation, presentations, java docs and visio’s I struggled to find an effective way to communicate and pass on more than just details.I wanted to convey the ideas and strategic rationale that guided my decisions across the separately funded and diverse applications spread over a decade.

Unlike many departures where you announce you are leaving and the guard meets you at the conference room door with a box, my resignation was completely amicable and just the next step in a career. Consequently they wanted to squeeze every bit and byte out of my brain they could in a two week period. There wasn’t time to write it all down so I opted for the oldest method mankind has for preserving information. Oral history.

Continues @ http://bigmenoncontent.com