Creating Information Products But Which One? Part 2 – Types

Well, Thursday and Friday was one of those days … or is that were … ah, well you get the idea. It’s been interesting this week.

In any case, I promised you to finish this series. Just not today. Today we’re going to summarize the different types of information products you can create – or more correctly the different formats you can create information products in.

The main formats of information products are:

1. Written – articles, blogs, books
2. Live events – seminars, workshops, public speaking
3. Personal videos
4. Slideshow videos – webinars, slide shows
5. Audio – podcasts

The first is obvious given our product – write it. Write yourself a book, or an article or create a blog like this one.  Put your thoughts down on paper. Of course, writing a book takes a lot of work. Besides the research, there is organizing, writing, editing and publishing.

The second format is the live event.  This can take many forms. Many of those forms are defined by the amount of audience participation. Lecture, seminar, workshop is one common example of a convention based on participation. Generally, the amount of work is directly related to the length of the presentation not the type.  Preperation can take an extended amount of time. Generally the minimum is the same amount as the presentation. However, most seminars, lectures, and public speaking will require closer to 10 times the amount of work  before the presentation than during. Much of this preparation is involved in writing and then practising the script. After is minimal and limited to review of the presentation and reviewing lessons learned.

The third format is the personal video. What is a personal video – beside the opposite of an impersonal video? A personal video is any video that shows a talking head – a person. Generally, this is a live person as opposed to Max Headroom clones. Some people believe that this involves much less work than writing. But, in reality, they are simply showing their own preferences. A video requires much more preparation than writing. This preparation takes the form of writing a script, and practice speaking before a camera. Many of us who are comfortable speaking before a crowd find the switch to a camera difficult.  Why? No audience and therefore no energy flowing from the audience. Once the video is “filmed”, it still needs to be edited (part of the post-production process).  An advantage that a video has over live events is that mistakes can be removed.  To do this, however, requires extra video be filmed whenever a mistake occurs.  Generally, you can expect the effort required to be of the form 4 2 4 where preparation takes 4 times the finished length, filming takes twice the finished length of the information product and post-production takes four times. Meaning a 10 minute information product will take roughly 2 hours from research to ready to post.

The slideshow is the format that many of us are most comfortable with. In many ways it is the most efficient format.  Preparation generally takes about twice that of the presentation. However, the more time spent in practice and review the better the presentation. One of the big advantages is the ease of editing out mistakes. Because the screen shows only a static view, it can be edited without the need to (re)film extra. Slideshows can consist of the normal text based powerpoints with voice over or can be a set of photographs with animation and music over.

Finally, the last format is the audio. This is often distributed as an mp3, podcast or CD. Typically, audios are presented in the form of interviews although audio books and recorded speech are certainly possible. Audios need some preparation especially practice. However, post editing is the most effective for this format. All of the video formats limit the amount of editing which is possible since the video and the audio need to synchronize. However, with an audio it is possible to eliminate even the normal dead spots while a person’s words and synchronize.

Most of the above formats can be provided in one of two ways. Either a machine readable form (i.e. delivered via computer) or in physical form. So a book, for example, may be delivered as a downloadable eBook or as a physical paperback or hardcover book. Videos and audios are delivered as either a download (e.g. YouTube) or on a DVD or CD. Live events are the exception since they are experiential.

Next post we’ll talk about the techniques that can be used to create information products.