Jan. 22, 2025

Mastering The Digital Stage In Just One Take: Alec Johnson

We rolled out the digital red carpet for the tech-tastic Alec Johnson, the mastermind behind Take One Tech and the Digital Stage Academy. If you've ever fumbled with tech gear or felt like your camera was judging you, Alec is here to save the day—and your dignity!

We dive headfirst into Alec's journey from YouTube novice to digital dynamo. We promise not to make you "Fear The Gear" as Alec uncorks his massive treasure trove of tips to help you harness tech for your rise to digital stage domination.

 

Alec is the guy whose methods will have you speaking to the camera with the ease of chatting with an old friend.

 

Whether you’re an entrepreneur itching to amplify your influence or a content creator striving to stand out, Alec’s insights are the virtual compass you need. 

 

🔗 **Engage with Alec Johnson**

✅  Website: https://www.takeonetech.io 

✅  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TakeOneTech 

✅  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alec-w-johnson 

✅  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@TakeOneTech 

 

 

➡️ Our amazing guests are often booked with PodMatch, a top-quality podcast matching service. For booking great podcast guests like this, we love using PodMatch:  https://www.joinpodmatch.com/castahead 

 

All of the products discussed in this podcast can be found here: http://dealcasters.shop

All video episodes available for free at: https://dealcasters.live

 

👤Connect with Dealcasters:

https://Podcast.Dealcasters.Live 

🎧Grab all these great episodes as an audio podcast at: https://Podcast.Dealcasters.Live 

🎥Catch all the full episodes on replay or live at: https://dealcasters.live

Follow Dealcasters:

✅ https://dealcasters.live/ 

✅ https://www.instagram.com/dealcasters 

✅ https://www.twitter.com/dealcasterslive 

✅ https://youtube.dealcasters.live 

✅ https://www.linkedin.com/company/dealcasters-live 

✅ https://www.facebook.com/dealcasterslive 

✅ https://www.twitch.tv/dealcasters 

✅ https://kick.com/dealcasters 

DISCLAIMER: All opinions are ours. Some links are affiliate links, meaning if you buy something through a qualifying link, we might make a small commission at no additional cost to you. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases.

 

 

Chapters

00:00 - How Alec Johnson Overcame Perfectionism in Video Creation

08:08 - "Easy On-Screen Content Integration"

15:25 - Unscripted Video Strategy Insights

18:39 - Alec Johnson's YouTube Business Startup Strategy

22:39 - Alec Johnson's Email List Building Strategies

38:04 - Authenticity in Podcasting with AI

41:34 - How Alec Johnson Uses ChatGPT: Organizing Thoughts and Focus

52:11 - Alec Johnson's In-Depth Gear Reviews

Transcript

Chris Stone [00:00:01]:
Alright, ladies and gentlemen. We're thrilled to have Alec Johnson, the force behind Take 1 Tech and the Digital Stage Academy. Alec has a groundbreaking technique called the one take methodology, which has been empowering entrepreneurs for years to deliver authentic, high impact content while overcoming professionalism. Professor Alec, welcome to Dealcasters, my friend.

Alec Johnson [00:00:27]:
Hey, guys. Thanks so much for having me. It's a real, real honor to be, be here with you today.

Chris Stone [00:00:32]:
The honor is ours, sir. And, I meant it like what you know, when I said it earlier. I've spent, many hours as, you know, the millions of other viewers have watching your videos because there's something about them that that is is not not only am I gonna learn some new technique of how to use my broadcaster or, you know, how to use Zoom more effectively or or some little tweak on ECAM or or on my stream deck, I always have I start watching these things and I realize there's really not much editing that's that's going on. And I'm like, how is how in the world is this this this guy doing this thing? So I wanted to as we introduce you to hopefully some new people here, I wanted you to just kinda talk about your your journey and and how perfectionism, was was a part of that because I consider myself a recovering perfectionist as well and how you developed this one take methodology to to sort of overcome this perfectionism.

Alec Johnson [00:01:39]:
Yeah. It was really, when I was trying to create a course completely separate and before, Take 1 Tech And I was, an experienced public speaker, so I have no trouble standing on a stage in front of 100 or thousands of people talking. That's, no problem. But when it came to creating a video course, I found that I was always looking for that perfect take and that was the perfectionist in me trying to get everything, everything exactly as it should be. And what I found was that that would mean that not only would I be taking, lots of takes, but then when I took it into editing software to try to create the, the final masterpiece, it was far from a masterpiece because I wasn't actually a great editor either. And what I often found was there would be this thing where, you know, I do loads of takes, I'd get all the content together and then I'd realized as I was trying to stitch it all together, oh, I'm actually missing one critical bit. So I've got to now go back and film that other bit and it was just, embarrassing how long it'd take me to create even a, you know, a 10 minute recording for a a course. And I figured, well, I've got no trouble speaking on the stage in front of people.

Alec Johnson [00:02:42]:
I've got no trouble sitting down next to somebody at a desk to just talk them through something, a friend, a colleague or whoever it is. You know, I'm a lot of people's go to tech guy in my circle outside of this anyway. So, I figured that I should be just be able to do this in in one take effectively and just do it as if I am talking to a friend or a colleague or a family member or whatever. And so that's when I started investigating this, this possibility of doing that. And then it turns out, oh, actually, yeah, there's loads of pieces of software out there that can do exactly this. And I I did start with, OBS, Open Broadcast Software, which is a free platform. It's cross platform on Mac and PC. I I always say I pulled out my last hair with OBS.

Alec Johnson [00:03:21]:
It didn't work the way my brain worked and led to it led to endless endless amounts of frustration. And then I just happened to be watching MacBreak Weekly which is a podcast that I love. I've been watching that for years, decades at this boat point, I suppose. And it just happened to see an episode with Doc Rock on it and he was talking about, ECAM and, obviously, praising how great it was. This was before he was actually, working with ECAM directly, but he was just saying about how great it was. And so I thought, oh, let me give that a look. And I've honestly never looked back from there and so I set up the channel Take 1 Tech just merely as a a vehicle to basically practice this process of making videos in one take with no edits because Ecamm Live is live production software. It enables you to have yourself on screen but then, bring up a screen share of the, the content that you wanna share on your screen, have multiple camera angles, obviously, exactly all the things that you're doing here with, with this stream as well.

Alec Johnson [00:04:16]:
And so as I got into practicing that process, that then led it down a whole rabbit hole of all of the tech gear associated with it, all of the possibilities that opens up the fact that it's not actually just for recording videos or live streaming, but we can take that into Zoom and so that can transform all of the, other meetings and everything like that that you can you can do with with Ecamm. So, in a nutshell, that's been the the the the seed of it and the business has just all grown out from from the channel really.

Chris Stone [00:04:44]:
It's really incredible when I think about it because it's, you know, the way the way my squirrel brain works on on this is, you know, you first said, okay. I don't love to do this editing. I you know, it took me forever. But then I hear you talk talking about this and my mind's going, well, doesn't that take forever? Doesn't it take forever to organize yourself in such a way that you that you have to set up all of the scenes on the stream deck and all of the scenes on ECAM? And to someone who right now doesn't even understand, ECAM or OBS or all you know, StreamYard, whatever it is, and how to understand how to put together scenes. Right now, they're just like, hey. This sounds great. I don't have to do any editing. Right? This if I can do this all in one take, and I can change scenes, but then once they get into the tech of this this kind of stuff, you know, you worked with people to simplify that aspect of it.

Chris Stone [00:05:43]:
So where where are the stumbling blocks there when someone is is trying to develop? Like, I would love to be able to like, I do love editing, but I would love to do less cumbersome editing. Like, you know, maybe maybe I add some Lutz here or maybe I add some transitions here that that, you know, kinda make things, you know, whatever. But, like, what are what are some maybe some some building blocks for someone who methodology to really just sort of start instead of trying to to to to boil the entire ocean? Where do they start to dip their toe in?

Alec Johnson [00:06:18]:
You've you've hit the nail on the head there really. It's it's not actually trying to do it all from the beginning. I use lots of, productivity tools, automation tools so like Keyboard Maestro on the Mac is one that I use that can do all sorts of, crazy automation things. Now, when I first discovered that tool about 18 years ago, I realized all that it could do and so I decided that I was gonna set aside some time, to create the ultimate productivity system using Keyboard Maestro and it was at the time, it was all reliant on, keyboard shortcuts. So I spent probably the best part of 2 months planning out all of these different automations, all of these keyboard shortcuts, all of this amazing stuff that it could do and then I, came out of my man cave ready to start actually putting it into action. And what happened was I didn't actually have any muscle memory built up to know how to do any of it and so all that time was effectively wasted because there's no point trying to set up like the almighty system if you don't actually have the knowledge of how to use it. And so the and not so much the knowledge but the, as I say, the the muscle memory. And that's the same with something like Ecamm Live.

Alec Johnson [00:07:21]:
You can start with just having a couple of simple scenes. So, yourself on screen and then maybe a screen share and then have, you know, a screen deck button or use a keyboard shortcut to just switch back and forth between them. Maybe you want to integrate a presentation so then you might have a, you know, main camera, a screen share, and then also one that brings in keynote or PowerPoint or something like that. And then you're only really trying to do really minimal things to begin with. And then you can start layering on things bit by bit as you've got a need for it and as you, start to realize that there's, you know, there's there's more that can be done. And so actually, the barrier to entry with something like Ecamm Live is really quite low because you can open it up. You don't need to have a really complex user interface. There's lots of windows in Ecamm, but technically, you could have most of them shut to begin with.

Alec Johnson [00:08:08]:
And so all you're seeing is basically you just your your camera, maybe you want to add on, like, a lower third with your your name or a bit like that you've got down at the bottom of the screen here with the the title of the show, name tags like you've got on all of us as well. You can just add these things in bit by bit. And so as I say, the barrier to entry is really quite low to it and it you can look at what people are doing and think, oh, I can, I don't know how I would begin to achieve that, but it's just a case of, you know, building up over over time? I do have a a free, not going to plug things, but I do have a free Ecamm Live masterclass. And actually, although that is a 150 lessons or more, I did make just 13 quick start guides and they're kind of like 15 minutes each and you could literally just go through those and then you'd be, you know, up and running within, you know, within a matter of a a couple of hours or so. So I think that the barrier to entry is really low. It's just understanding what it gives you and it's the ability to speak normally as you would to, to a friend or a colleague and then just bring on the information on screen sort of seamlessly without having to go through all these sort of complicated things that you might need to do with either putting it in in post, in editing, or if you're in a live Zoom call, for example, you know, when people want to do this screen sharing in Zoom, there's that little dance that people go through where they say, okay. I'm sharing the screen. I'm looking for the right window.

Alec Johnson [00:09:26]:
No. Not that one. Something else. And, actually, the impact of that, although I sort of make make light of it, the impact of that is is not to be underestimated because it basically destroys the flow of Right. The value that you're trying to deliver, and it's just a distraction. You want to be able to just seamlessly bring stuff up on screen as you're talking and then take it away when it's not relevant anymore. So that's what Ecamm and live production, enable you to, to do. And as I say, there are other tools available but for me, Ecamm is just the the winner all the time.

Chris Stone [00:09:55]:
It is massively incredibly go ahead, Jim.

Jim Fuhs [00:09:58]:
Yeah. No. I was gonna say and, Alec, you know, and Chris and I have talked about this and and you're a great example of it is, like, even, like, what we're doing here. What people don't understand is you can take your, like, Alec's window, and he can use this in a Zoom using Ecamm as his virtual camera and do all this stuff. So now to your point with the Zoom, you don't have to do the, hey. Can I get permission to share my screen? And the host is like, oh, yeah. How do I do that? And and I just think that was such a powerful thing and and, you know, now the integration. And and I also I just wanna say I wanna thank you, and I appreciate that free course you put out.

Jim Fuhs [00:10:35]:
I've been going through it, you know, because ECAM has changed a lot, but you really kinda lay it out in a simplistic format to get people moving. And I and I think it's so important what you said. Right? It it's like people see these high end productions being done on ECAM and they feel like, oh, well, I wanna do that. But, you know, Chris and I have been doing this for a while, and there's still stuff we're learning. And and you gotta go step by step because the other thing to remember is, right, the more complex you get, the more chances there are for, we'll just say, the gremlins to

Alec Johnson [00:11:08]:
to pop up. So

Jim Fuhs [00:11:09]:
I think that's something to be, you know, to think about as well.

Chris Stone [00:11:14]:
Yeah. These courses highly recommended. Go to Take 1 Tech on YouTube even though it says take one tech dot I o. That's, of course, Alex, the main site. There's also Digital Stage Academy. We're gonna get into that. But this YouTube channel, ladies and gentlemen, if you're not already subscribed to it, and why wouldn't you, just do it. It's amazing the amount of content that you absolutely put out there for free.

Chris Stone [00:11:38]:
It helps people get up and and running off the ground. Obviously, if you want to get more advanced, you may you may have to open your wallet a little bit and maybe buy Aleka coffee here and there, but, that's that's the life of a of a entrepreneur. We do have some folks in the house, and I wanted to, I wanted to mention them. Jeremy is in the house, and he specifically just said hello to me, guys. So sorry.

Alec Johnson [00:12:02]:
He doesn't like you.

Chris Stone [00:12:05]:
I'm I'm kidding. Jeremy, welcome. And then Saeed is here. Thank you for joining us. And he's got a few, fun things to say. Don't give people the time to check their phones and their emails, which is so so important. Right? You start pausing, you start looking, you start doing stuff, and all of a sudden they start to to start to check out. Check their emails and they're checking out and you you just miss them, to that point.

Chris Stone [00:12:29]:
And here's here's my favorite comment that Syed has, and that is everybody's freaking out. Cap cut his band, and Alex, like, what's that again?

Alec Johnson [00:12:40]:
You know, it's funny actually. I I stood I do get people comment on my videos sometimes saying, like, the the editing of this is really great. We don't see the edits. And I was like, do you think if I was editing, I would have left in all of the mistakes and the ums and uhs, but there you go. It's Well, it's some people don't realize it's it's Isn't

Chris Stone [00:12:56]:
it about, like, not not just, you know here's the other thing that I think about is that, you know, we don't edit these conversations. And I still say, and this is this live video for me helped, you know, sort of overcome no. I don't wanna say overcome because it's, helped helped me, you know, become less of a perfectionist, I should say. Mhmm. Because I was constantly repeating phrases. I was saying, you know, Jim Jim would get on my case because I'd always say whatnot. Now whenever I say that I I have some trigger in my brain that, you know, electrocutes me. Yep.

Chris Stone [00:13:28]:
But, you know, I talk about authenticity because I think that's that's something that people miss. And I'm not talking about showing up and doing a, you know, doing a show that's not necessarily professional and you you everybody's looking at your up your nostrils and you're spinning ceiling fans and, you know, you're not wearing pants. And, you know, I'm not talking about that that kind of authenticity. I'm talking about still being yourself. Right? And I think a lot of times when when people see these these glorious videos that are edited that are really just highly professional And you're actually trying to be an entrepreneur and and leading someone to to help them with the problem, but it's also there's also a cost involved. You know, when not having that authenticity, that trust, you know, can sometimes go the go the wrong way if you have things that are just too polished and too edited.

Alec Johnson [00:14:19]:
Absolutely. I I think people as well try to be authentic. I I watch videos sometimes where I can see that people are trying to look authentic and actually all you need to do to be authentic is just be yourself. It's it's that simple. But I see I I kind of feel that sometimes it's, I watch videos and it's almost, you know, cringe worthy when you you you feel like they're kind of forcing it to make it look like spontaneous or whatever it is. I I don't know what the word is but it's it doesn't actually come across that well that way either. But what you get with a one take thing is it's unpolished at all. There's there's no way that you can sort of sugarcoat things in the same way that you can if you were just be able to, sort of edit things.

Alec Johnson [00:14:59]:
And the same, by the way, goes for reading a script. So I never use scripts. I have sometimes bullet points if it's something that is a, you know, a long video and I need to make sure that like, for example, you know, there's an Ecamm Live, beta update out today so I've got bullet points of things that I wanna make sure I cover off. But, apart from that, there's no sort of scripting involved. And so I think that that's something as well that I I learned from when I was trying to do the the edited videos myself and failing. I would have things scripted as well to try to make sure I hit everything and it just didn't sound like me honestly. So, the the the the edited me scripted, did not sound like the person that if you were sitting with me, I would how how it sound which is basically this, you know, making the odd mistake here and there. And I think that if you are, trying to grow a business on YouTube by providing educational content that's, you know, is is gonna help people with solving whatever problems they've got, with, you know, a a selfish view also that maybe some of those people may go on to buy some of your products or or whatever or services.

Alec Johnson [00:15:58]:
It's actually really good to be able to just show that you genuinely do know your stuff inside and out because you're out there doing it without any edits so there's no no scripting involved, you're not sort of piecing things together. Same with the live streaming as well, you know, people come on and ask questions there and, I can either answer them or not know the answer but that's the other thing is if I don't know the answer, I'll just say, hey, I I don't know this. There's no shame in not knowing everything. That's right. So I think That's right. I think that's something that people get hung up on sometimes.

Chris Stone [00:16:26]:
And it's worse to give the wrong answer. Right? It just to be I'd be honest as opposed to like I hope what I'm saying is the right answer and then, you know, trying to pretend like you're an expert and, you know, especially nowadays that comes out, you know, relatively quickly that you're wrong and people are not afraid to let you know if you're wrong on YouTube, for sure. I'm glad you brought up YouTube, Alec. First off, the you know, I I told you that you gotta subscribe to to Alec's, YouTube channel. So go and do that right now if you haven't already or you don't already have done it. But secondly, your emails, sir, especially since you you started, you know, crafting them a lot more, I think the end of end of the of this last year into this new year Yeah. Have been phenomenal. And I mean that.

Chris Stone [00:17:12]:
I and I think I've I've mentioned that to you. I replied to one of your emails. And Yes. Alec does reply to his emails, ladies and gentlemen. And, you know, they're so well done, so chock full of value. And I think that's really hard for people to do. Like, you know, everyone talks about building your email list, you know, live off the rented land, and and that's how you do it. But it's not just that.

Chris Stone [00:17:33]:
It's not just, hey, everybody join my email list. It's like people need a reason to do it. They need some some value, and I think you're doing a fantastic job. But I you brought up YouTube. And in a recent, YouTube email, you go pretty deep about how you should treat YouTube not just as a place to maybe park your content, but you're you're talking about how it's like one of the most powerful inbound marketing tools that people, can actually use. Can you can you dig a little bit into that? Because I thought it was it was fascinating in just one email. You you went through like the 7 keys to to actually using YouTube as a as an inbound marketing tool.

Alec Johnson [00:18:13]:
Yeah. The funny thing is the course that I was building when I started practicing the one take methodology with the the channel, was actually about social media marketing and Facebook advertising and so on and that was, I I won't go into the full details of that, but that was basically what the the crux of the course was about. So it's all about paid advertising effectively. And then there I was setting up this little free, YouTube channel, not really planning to grow into a business and started building an audience. I did want to make sure on one of the those seven keys that I talked about was if you are starting a new business on YouTube or wanting to have it supplement or or not supplement but rather support an existing business, then you do wanna make sure that it's it's cost neutral from the start. I've seen people who are really heavily, investing in YouTube from, you know, like hiring professional editors and things like that when they haven't really got a a large following. Now, if you've got the the funds to to to go through to do that then fair enough. But for the majority of people, you wanna see it as more of a, you know, slightly longer game and so try to make it as cost neutral as possible.

Alec Johnson [00:19:15]:
And that's what I did when I set up the channel. You know, I had a basically a month when I registered the channel and then got everything ready to do my first live stream. And I set up things like buy me a coffee so that people could support the channel but also so that people could book a a call with me because if you're providing educational content, then there's a strong chance that people might want you to just talk them through it 1 to 1, so people could book a call through buy me a coffee. And I sent up a few other affiliate programs and things like that and started building out some digital products. But the funny thing was that this thing that started out as a hobby, really started growing momentum pretty quickly. And so by the time I was monetized technically on YouTube, I started in May whenever it was 4 years ago and then by the end of the year, I'd reached that sort of monetization stage on YouTube. However, I'd already made significantly more than I I've I had made on YouTube or just from those coaching calls and things like that. And so Yeah.

Alec Johnson [00:20:10]:
The irony is that setting up this thing to to to make a course about paid advertising. I haven't done any advertising for Take 1 Tech and yet it's grown entirely organically purely off the back of YouTube. And okay, I've done some, you know, collaborations with people. I've spoken at some events and things like that but essentially, it's still all been organic and I haven't run any, any paid advertising as yet. So, or may maybe I did a boosted post for an event once. I don't know. But, generally, no no paid advertising. So it is a tremendously powerful inbound marketing tool because, basically, you're you're taking people on a huge part of the customer journey before you've even got to speak to them.

Alec Johnson [00:20:48]:
You know, people become aware of you through a paid ad and then they've got to go through and do all their due diligence. They've got to go and click on your landing page, understand what it is you do. Maybe they wanna have a a call to, you know, establish, you know, if you can help them or not. And so they're going through this whole process of of understanding and evaluation, as a potential customer. Well, YouTube just sort of handles all of that part for you really. And if you're putting out the the content, it happens all the time, you know, on one out of every 2 new people that I speak to on a coaching call. There's this moment where they just say, oh, I'm sorry. It just feels like I've known you for for ages already because Yeah.

Alec Johnson [00:21:22]:
We've seen so many of your videos. And so people do get to, you know, that know, like, and trust part that's, you know, an essential part of people buying your products and services, that's sort of handled by, by YouTube. And depending on how much content you've put out, I mean, I've it's it's, it's it's over a 1000 hours and I know that there are some people who tell me they've watched every video. So you don't really get that exposure with with, you know, just an ad or something like that. So it's tremendously powerful. But those 7 keys though are talking about just a couple more of them. The idea of making sure you can monetize from the beginning, making sure that you can, you know, have have some way for people to do that. So, don't wait for, you know, 3 months and think, well, I'll get some content up there before I start, you know, promoting a coaching call or, you know, whatever it is, a consultation.

Alec Johnson [00:22:13]:
So that's like another another important point there. The idea of collecting email addresses if you've got, you know, a lead magnet as we call them, so something that you can give for free in exchange for somebody's email, that is, you know, a really important thing to start building that email list. This is something that I honestly I didn't do properly from the beginning. I was probably slow to start to do it. And then when I did start collecting email addresses, I always felt slightly guilty because I wasn't really sending anything out apart from the, you know, the initial download. And then it felt like, oh, I'm only I'm only ever contacting people when I've got somebody to promote, which just felt kind of icky as well. Yeah. So that's why, you know, it happens, you know, busy with other priorities, but that's why, towards the end of last year, I just started getting a lot more focus on, providing value first content with, you know, the occasional promotion sprinkled in there.

Chris Stone [00:23:04]:
Yeah. Jim Jim, I know you were wanting to jump in about that.

Jim Fuhs [00:23:07]:
Well, I think I think that's that's so important and I think too to your point about the whole use of your video, I mean, we actually got to meet in person in 2023, right, because time flies when you came out to creator camp. And I felt like I knew you because I've seen you on video, and I think that, and and just like you said, you're the same in person as you are on camera, and I think that that kinda goes back to what you said as people need to be authentic. But can you also talk a little bit? I think, you know, and and I'm not saying that the Ecamm fam is guilty of this, but I think sometimes people get really, feeling like, oh, I gotta spend all this money on gear in order to make good video and to really create good content. And and I don't I think you kinda help people walk along that journey.

Alec Johnson [00:23:58]:
Mhmm. The the the I I guess probably 2 thirds of my videos were made in the 1st year of of of YouTube. I've not been as prolific as I used to. I did start out making a video a day for the 1st 100 days and then tried to extend that out to a year. I think I ended up making 300 and something in my 1st year but not quite 365 but never mind. And so actually, the past 2 years though, I've been really more focused on building out my, academy content. And so there's been lots of, course videos and stuff like that. So and it I digress.

Alec Johnson [00:24:29]:
The point is that the majority of my videos were made in that 1st year. And actually for that 1st year, I was using a 10 year old, Canon EOS 60 d, 10 year old at the time and now 14 years old. And it, it had a USB c, a USB, not USB c but a USB out that I could take into the computer. It was only giving me 720 into the computer. Ecamm was nicely upscaling it to 10:80. But I didn't get people saying to me that, you know, the the videos looked bad quality and it was a, you know, a 10 year old camera. I I actually bought the camera at the time my daughter was born. I had the idea that my my first daughter that the idea that was gonna be, become this expert photographer, it never really happened.

Alec Johnson [00:25:09]:
I'm not honestly a camera guy. Even now, the cameras are sort of set up and behind my teleprompter and and rarely touched. But, yeah, that that was the case. I just repurposed the old camera. The only thing that I actually bought to start creating content was, a a mic. Not actually this one but this one, the Shure MV 7. These are this is the RODE, PodMic USB. They're both pretty pretty similar but if honestly, if RODE hadn't sent me this one for review, I would still be using this one.

Alec Johnson [00:25:38]:
So they're they're both as good as each other. Audio, you know, if you've got a good quality mic, the other thing about a microphone is it's gonna last you, you know, years years. It's not something that requires upgrading like, you know, there's always new cameras coming out with new features, higher resolution. There's always, you know, new everything. But the one thing that there isn't is, you know, there are new microphones come out, but it's still, you know, gonna last you a long time because, they they're not the sorts of things that, that break easily if you if you look after them. And they don't get sort of dated with their new, new technology as much. So a good mic is the first thing that I invested in and the other thing was, the Stream Deck. And having just said that the mics don't need updating, actually, the Stream Deck is still the Stream Deck XL that I was using, you know, back back then.

Alec Johnson [00:26:24]:
And you could almost take a time lapse of my entire studio setup and it was a Stream Deck and that microphone and everything else has sort of evolved around that. And even even the camera I was using, you know, these days, the cameras that you've got on the, you know, mobile phone is is great. You could just be using that. So just get your audio right and, that's literally all you, all you need to begin.

Chris Stone [00:26:49]:
Yeah. There's so many analogies that I can think of like when you when you want to develop as a as a runner. Right? You you don't go out and buy $400 shoes. Right? They're they're only gonna last 300 miles anyway. Right? You gotta and so you know as a as a creator you've got to you've got to use the stuff that you got and and develop that over time. On one of your emails, you talked about, like a like a contest for people to to, like, like an author or whatever said there was a contest to develop the the best pot, you know, plant plant pot or whatever. And and so like some of them, I'll let you explain it. But it was like, you know, it was basically like, you know, you have to go through the reps You have to, like, you know, like, you could take forever to develop to develop this one thing or you can develop a bunch of them.

Chris Stone [00:27:40]:
And which one is better? It's the one that that, you know, you had to go through all the reps to to create. And so, you know, Jim and I, when we first started, you know, we had, Samsung q two u microphone and Audio Technica 21 100. Those are still great mics. And if all my mics were were burned in a fire, except for the Samsung q two u, I would be fine. It wouldn't stop me from creating content. If everything burned down except for a Logitech C920, webcam, that would be the camera that I would use. And, you know, and I wouldn't use maybe a teleprompter, and I would I would have, like, a plexi cam on my just the basics. And and so let's let's talk about those basics.

Chris Stone [00:28:21]:
I think one of the basics people forget about is eye contact and placement, on a show. I was, you know, I'm I was mostly stoked, Alec, when you joined our show backstage at ECAM. And I was like, I had to adjust my cameras back to normal because you know how to place yourself, on on camera as opposed to other people who are coming in, you know, like this and they're down here and they're, you know, and so you just you have to move around them. Maybe talk to some folks before they start spending $400 on a microphone and a $1,000 on a camera and a lens, how they can work with what they've got in order to present themselves well on this digital stage?

Alec Johnson [00:29:02]:
Yeah. Positioning, you're absolutely right, is a is a huge thing. There is a thing called the rule of thirds. I've got a nice little template that fits over my

Chris Stone [00:29:10]:
my face here. Oh, yes.

Alec Johnson [00:29:11]:
So if you if you imagine like this this line a third of the way down, that's where you want your your eyes to be basically. Now, how how sort of zoomed in you are within that is, you know, you can vary that by all means. And if you wanted a shot like where you're off to the side then you if you sort of typically have it, you know, on this this third line here as well. But what I see all the time is people who are basically putting their eyes, I can't even do it, in the center. It always looks to me it always looks to me like somebody's just sort of peering up over the bottom of the desk looking at the desk. So it it just doesn't look it isn't professional, at all. So, that's that's the basic thing of of positioning. And even if you've got like a a a laptop, you're using a built in camera, I mean, you know, the the built in laptop cameras these days are getting better and better.

Alec Johnson [00:29:56]:
Just, yeah, making sure that you've got it at eye level, you know, put it on a stand or a a pilot box or whatever you need to do just so that you've got it at that eye level and then also position yourself with your eyes, at the, at that third of the way up is gonna make a is gonna make a world of difference. And the the other thing I should say well as well is, with lighting. You know, even the worst camera can be dramatically improved, by some good light lighting. I mean, I've got sort of more professional looking soft boxes these days but actually the first ones I got were some, they weren't from Amazon but something similar. You know, just some cheap soft boxes. They, they had variable temperature lighting as in from yellow to the more sort of daylight, but that was only achieved by changing light bulbs for daylight or warm light. So there were that that that that sort of level just using regular light bulbs. But that made a huge difference to the, to the image quality just by having that better better quality lighting.

Alec Johnson [00:30:48]:
So there's certainly things you can do just as a as a basic that are gonna improve the way things things look for you.

Chris Stone [00:30:54]:
I would add to, like, you you know, you mentioned the laptop and and getting it, you know, get getting it on a pile of books or or whatever. The the one thing that I always add with people and I I, remote produce shows every day throughout the week. It's it's what I do and most times, when somebody's joining a show, that's what they're doing. They've got a laptop and so I try to get them. But the other thing that I try to get them to not do as much is to pound their table or to move their, their desk because what happens is that that laptop screen is is on in, like, a, like, a, whatever, spring or whatever the whatever is engineered in there. And so you're so when it's doing that, guess what? So are you you're doing, you know, they're they're and and it's like, that can be just it can drive people nuts. But, you know, I love how the one of the first things you talked about when we talked about people starting where they're at, you talked about audio. And you didn't say, you know, you basically said this is a, you know, this is a pod mic USB mic.

Chris Stone [00:31:51]:
And, you know, I had the issue m v 7. None of these mic microphones are gonna completely break the bank. They're they're getting not only are they getting better, they're getting more affordable. And, they're they're they're they work, you know, just by plugging into a computer now just plugging into a phone. So you can get this, like, really great high end sounding microphone that you can plug into a phone. And there's really, you know, there's almost no excuse, really. It used to be people would get, you know, I don't have the budget, you know, or I don't understand. I'm not a tech person, which I have a whole like, that's a thing that drives me up a wall.

Chris Stone [00:32:23]:
It's like, no. You're just not taking the time to understand how this stuff works. You're not subscribed to Take 1 Tech on on on YouTube where they can they can tell you how to use a use a stream deck and how and even in the most basic way to turn on certain things. And and so, I think you just gotta you gotta put in the work. So speaking of putting the work, Alec, we've got some, we got your your fan club is here. And so we gotta we gotta say, hey to, to Rich Graham. Kilroy is pee peeping up. So apparently, that was your lower lower third, peep that he had.

Chris Stone [00:32:56]:
I'm gonna I'm gonna probably, butcher this name. Alize Paradise, baby? Is that how we say that? Hello, everyone. Hello. Thank

Alec Johnson [00:33:04]:
you for joining,

Chris Stone [00:33:06]:
on Amazon. And, we have Saeed and, Jeremy Hubbell just, busting each other's chops here in the chat. We don't we don't need to see that. No. Kidding. Speaking of busting chops, doctor Hicks is in the house. He says next time I say whatnot, he's gonna hit he's gonna hit me with a little shock. I appreciate it, James.

Chris Stone [00:33:25]:
Thanks for, thanks for, joining us. Syed says I sometimes see video podcasts where they edit out every pause and filler word. At the end, they look like they recorded in 12 FPS so many jumps and cuts. It's true. It's like when Descript came out with this remove filler word thing, and it it works it works on video, I I was like great because I say a lot of filler words. Let me just get those things out. Right? And what happens is, you know, if I said, you know, and then I moved a little bit, you know, all of a sudden, it's like, you know, it's going crazy. So I think you just have to you just got to do it all in one take, Alec.

Chris Stone [00:34:03]:
You don't have to worry about it. Right? You don't have to worry about these edits.

Jim Fuhs [00:34:10]:
Well, I think that I think that's a great point, Chris. It's like by being live, right? You're you're natural. I love what Alec brought up earlier because I know I've been, you know, recording some different videos where I was trying to use a script, and I it just wasn't me. Right? So it's like, okay. What are the main points? I'm gonna say it, and it and it you can tell. Right? It's just more natural. It's the same way we're talking right now. None of us has a script.

Jim Fuhs [00:34:36]:
We're just kind of going along with a conversation, and I just think that that's where a lot of these people, if you're getting started, right, just be yourself. Just be be natural. Don't worry about the umms, the ahs, the whatnots, whatever word I said. I don't know. Chris hasn't necessarily told me what I say over and over. But those are the sort of things that people are more likely to connect with you, I think, because, like, you know what? They're a real person, and they're not trying to be this this perfect thing. I mean, I I don't know. Let me ask both of you.

Jim Fuhs [00:35:06]:
If you give a talk, do you sit there and actually, like, write it out word for word and then try to memorize it? I I don't do that anymore. I always kinda joke like, yeah. I have no idea what I'm gonna say when I get up there. Right? It's just gonna come out.

Alec Johnson [00:35:20]:
And the same is is bullet it's bullet points essentially. Now what you find though if you are doing the same thing over and over again is you'll find that there are certain things that you've sort of repeat over and over again and so you almost build up an a subconscious sort of script about certain things. Anyway, I'm sure there's certain things I've talked about like earlier on when we were talking about the, you know, the why I created the channel and the journey and so on. This is something that I've talked about so many times now that there are certain things that have subconsciously almost become second nature. It's not to say that I'm sticking to a script but it's it's that, you know, they've they've become embedded almost in the the the way that I talk about things. So certain things you find that if you're, as I say, talking about things often they will, they will just naturally recur, I suppose, in that way. But, yeah, I don't I don't use a script as we

Chris Stone [00:36:06]:
My podcast coach, Dave Jackson, says write like you talk, talk like you write. And and so it it's like and I think that's part of being authentic. Right? Especially now in AI and I I wanna I wanna touch a little bit on Alec, because I'm curious, how you utilize it. But so there's so much, you know, with AI right now that that well, hey. Well, I don't have to I don't have to hammer out show notes or I you know, I you know, I I don't have to worry about questions that I need to ask Alec Johnson when he's on our show. And, you know, like, all of these things that you you might be tempted to just kinda say, well, this is a nice little easy button, and let's just take what what what's given here. And I think it's a good framework in a lot of in a lot of ways for you to kind of go, oh, you know, I didn't think to maybe ask Alec this question, but I'm going to ask it as if I'm asking it. Right? It's not I'm not going to I'm not going to, you know, speak emojis.

Chris Stone [00:37:02]:
I'm not going to speak, you know, about delving because I never delved in anything nor do I ever say that. So

Alec Johnson [00:37:09]:
how

Chris Stone [00:37:09]:
do you, utilize AI in this because so much of what you do is the one take is the authentic authentic part. Are you utilizing more for processes and and organizing yourself or how do you how do you utilize it? Maybe some maybe some programs you use, specifically would be great.

Alec Johnson [00:37:30]:
It's almost exclusively ChatGPT. Okay. I recently canceled my subscriptions to Claude and Gemini because I although I signed up to them, I just wasn't using them. I found that the thing about, ChatGPT that is, really its superpower. And to be fair, it's the superpower of the others as well, but you've got, I've just got to pick a lane basically, is the fact that it has this, longer term memory now of us. Actually, the head of AI at Microsoft said that we're likely in this year, at some point gonna get to, to all intents and purposes, infinite memory, for our conversations with ChatChippet. It's the thing that is, I constantly run up against is where it's got this if you're running it on the on the mobile or on your desktop, then you can go wait, you can do it on the the web actually but you can go in and say, right, I wanna selectively remove things from the memory, and it does get full up. I'm not talking about in an individual chat thread but just generally the things that it remembers about you cross threads as well from one chat to another.

Alec Johnson [00:38:31]:
And I'm finding that I have to go back and, you know, go down to the bottom and think which bits of these are not necessarily relevant, you know, to to to me anymore. But that is gonna be really a a game changer and I use the, the voice. I'm on the verge of basically upgrading from the $20 a month to the $200 a month because although I'm not doing the complicated maths computations that it says that that's ideal for, what it does give you is just continuous use of the voice feature to be able to speak in the advanced voice mode. Now one of the things that people don't necessarily, know about me because they think, oh, Alex always putting out content and he's prolific and he's whatever. Things that people say to me. The fact is, I struggle tremendously with, procrastination, with all kinds of, of other things. And if you look at, you know, things that I've put out, I can guarantee you that, many of them were either later than I was expecting, many things that I have not put out that I had intended to put out. I've fallen short of targets that I've set for myself, regularly.

Alec Johnson [00:39:36]:
And the biggest game changer for me that I found with chat gbt is actually helping me organize my thoughts, organizing, my schedule and focusing me on what's the thing that I need to be doing next. And I often am very good at these sort of big picture ideas thinking that, you know, oh, I'm gonna I I need to launch this or I'm gonna launch that. But actually, okay, let's dial it down, what are the steps that I need to take between now and then so that I'm hitting those those deadlines. And that's something else that I started doing probably in, I wanna say June last year. And that's what's actually had the biggest impact because it's been able to, it's it's allowed me to be more focused on things that I need to focus on and not be distracted about the, things that I love but that are not actually adding a huge amount of, value or maybe not driving me in the right direction. So I will sit and talk to Chuck GPT daily, for an extended period all the time, like, through the day about things that need to need to get done. In terms of, in terms of writing and content creation, my problem in my writing as in my videos is talking too much and waffling. And so what I find is that I'll do the first draft and then I'll give that to chat gbt to, let's just dial that down a bit.

Alec Johnson [00:40:56]:
So that's where I'm using And

Chris Stone [00:40:58]:
for clarity, so to speak.

Alec Johnson [00:41:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. And and so things like the newsletters, the way that I create those is I have a long conversation and I talk through things. It then creates, an edited down version and then I go through that one and then I add myself into that. So that's the that's the sort of process. Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:41:17]:
That is fascinating. I didn't I didn't really and because you're speaking into it, it it it has your voice. It, you know, you Yep. It and quite literally your voice, and and it's utilizing that and then editing for clarity and then, like, throwing in 14 rocket emojis probably. Right?

Alec Johnson [00:41:33]:
Yeah. I I I try and remove those where possible, but occasionally, I'll leave them in for emphasis.

Chris Stone [00:41:39]:
Oh, that's hilarious. Alright. So, we've got quite an active chat. And, so I think when we were talking about, a lot of the stuff, earlier, Jeremy says it's it's kind of like reminding people to like, subscribe, and comment below, links below. After a while, it becomes not only second nature, but you learn to read the room to determine if you should say it. Yeah. I mean, I mean, how many times have I recorded a video and then I I would forget to say, you know, don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell and, you know, do this, that, or the other. Let us know in the comments and or, like, if I'm doing a product video, the disclaimer that we're supposed to say where this, you know, such and such, you know, sent us this, but these opinions are all our own.

Chris Stone [00:42:27]:
Like, those are the things, like, you get in trouble with, you know, the, FTC for not for not, you know, saying that disclaimer. Like, those are all things if if I were better organized, I could easily do that in one take. But, Jeremy, we appreciate that. And, this is an interesting comment from Saeed. Watching your own recordings is powerful. This is something that I do a lot and and but I have to I have to get away from it because sometimes it can Mhmm. It can it can it can be deconstructive for me. But, you know, because as long as I'm I'm looking I'm looking at it and trying to improve myself.

Chris Stone [00:43:00]:
But, Saeed says, watching your own recordings is powerful. Cringeworthy at first, I totally agree, but you'll improve fast. Watch like you're in your own audience. I mean, have you done that Alec? Is that is that part of your process or?

Alec Johnson [00:43:15]:
It's not part of my, process as such, but I have watched my own videos for for that purpose to, you know, obviously obviously not for entertainment. But I've watched them back to to see. And and I I I haven't really done this for too long really. But, going back and watching them, the thing about them being one tape with no edits is it means that they don't, by default, have timestamps in them. And I've got out of the habit of doing this. But I used to go back and basically, watch them at double speed to, you know, figure out where to put the the time stamps. So I would see, I I would watch them by definition doing doing that. But I've I've got out of the habit of putting time stamps, unfortunately, so I need to get back to that.

Alec Johnson [00:43:54]:
That thing though about watching other people as well and and watching yourself. Mhmm. The the barrier that there is with this idea of perfectionism and and one of the barriers for people putting stuff out is, is this sort of fear of failure or fear of what people are gonna think when you put yourself out there on video and for potentially the whole world to see. Guess what? The whole world isn't watching but still, we have that that thought that, like, oh, if I go I mean, my my first video on YouTube was also my first live stream on YouTube and I hit the go live button with 0 subscribers and guess what? 0 people were watching as well. So So yeah. It's it's there we go, which was a kind of odd, odd experience just sort of streaming to myself. But anyway, the thing though is we are really super hypercritical of ourselves. I'll speak for myself.

Alec Johnson [00:44:40]:
I am. And I think people in general tend to be more critical of themselves than other people. And this fear of failure that people have, if you think about what it actually is, what is the fear around failure? It's a fear of what other people will think of you. It's a fear of, embarrassment potentially that might be caused by, you know, falling flat on your face or whatever the case may be. It's that fear of what people are actually gonna gonna think. But in actual fact, if you look at the content that you watch and notice how you react when you see somebody make a mistake or it's not quite right or it's not quite perfect and think about like your favorite, YouTubers that you watched for for, you know, informative content. You'll probably notice that they're also not perfect if you really focus on it. But does it actually impact your view of them? And so if we take that sort of more compassionate view of ourselves just as we do with other people, you'll realize that, yeah, actually that's the way that most people are looking at you too.

Alec Johnson [00:45:35]:
You know, they're they're not looking there being hypercritical over everything. This was really brought home to me recently, when I watched, I I watched a course and the person making the course, I don't know whether they had intended to edit the course afterwards, but their videos frequently in the video, the person would say and then let's say it was a tutorial, they were talking about clicking on buttons or whatever. They'd say, and then we go up to this button here and we click on this button and then they sort of stopped and paused and went and then we go up and click on. They repeated it like as if they meant to cut it out but there was no editing in the video whatsoever and it was done like that with literal retakes all through the video. Oh my god. And I just was really noticed that I didn't care. It didn't bother me at all. I didn't think, oh, this this guy doesn't know his stuff because he was he was still saying the same thing.

Alec Johnson [00:46:23]:
He was just obviously conscious about how he was being on camera and maybe intended to edit it edit it and forgot. I don't know. But whatever the case is, I did not feel any less about him or his skill or his ability to, you know, to teach the the the stuff that he was doing. It just seemed to me like an editing issue. So, that that's really the the point there is it's easy to be hard on ourselves when we wouldn't be on others and just know that others aren't gonna be as hard on you as you think they are.

Chris Stone [00:46:50]:
That's fantastic advice. I I I love that. I think, you know, somebody said something like if you if you think about how little other people think about you, then you'll think about all of that stuff less, you know. And and it's it's so true. You know, if you ever do you ever think about years ago when you do something incredibly embarrassing, you know, like, Jeff c tells this story about how he spilled ice water in his lap right before he went live with a really major guest. And, you know, like and he tells that story, now or, like, something that you consider really embarrassing. No one remembers it but you. Right? It's like and if you've learned from it, whatever mistake you made, and you've learned from it, then just keep going, you know? And I think lots of times when people let that stuff pile up, it keeps them from from from creating and they get stuck.

Chris Stone [00:47:40]:
So I'm I'm really glad, that that's a that's fantastic advice. So we have something here from Think Legal that's, specifically for you, professor Alec. You, Al, you, mentioned, doing a training on Notion and it got me curious. So I've signed up for Notion and started using it. I would love to have Alec's master class slash class or something on Notion. You have this is a request from Think Legal.

Alec Johnson [00:48:08]:
A lot of people have requested it since I've been talking about Notion, actually. I will do something on Notion at some point as in a a course, and then there'll be something in the academy as well with, with that as well like workshops and stuff. But, yeah, I don't I don't have a firm date for that but there's definitely gonna be something, something coming. I highly recommend though, anybody interested in Notion, go and check out Cat Mulvihill's channel Mhmm. And also some of the things she's she's talking about related to notion and productivity beyond just the system itself. So I think the when I started the the Take 1 Tech channel, bearing in mind that it was just intended as a way for me to practice the process of making tutorial style videos rather than it being focused on, you know, the tech that I used to do it which is it's got a bit meta in the in the meantime. But I did actually consider making a productivity channel. That was what was I was gonna focus on to practice this process, where I talk about my, you know, productivity system.

Alec Johnson [00:49:06]:
The reason why I didn't do that and I'm always a little bit cautious is because actually, everybody's minds work differently. And so it's very easy for somebody to say, oh, I'm just gonna go to, you know, grab a template from somebody which is their entire system that they run their life by and they seem to be doing very well with it. So let me just take that and I'll just plug into that. The fact is that we're all wired very differently and what works for one person doesn't work for another. And so, I will make a Notion system at a Notion, course at some point but it will be more about the sort of ideas behind how you can use it and stitch it together to make something that works for you. In the meantime, go and check out Thomas Frank. He's another great Notion guy and has got loads of free templates for Notion as well. But, yeah, just be conscious of, getting the, all singing, all dancing system and template but then figuring that there's a load of friction involved in using it just as me when I created my own ultimate system, but didn't have the muscle memory to use it.

Alec Johnson [00:50:03]:
It's it's a case of learning the building blocks rather than just being handed a template but that's what my course would ultimately do is give people those the structure to build something themselves.

Chris Stone [00:50:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of courses, I you know, every time a new great piece of gear comes out, especially from from, from RODE, like the RODEcaster Pro 2 or the the video, unit that they just came out with or anything related to something like that. I kinda wait for my man, Alec, here to put out a video because I, I know he probably signed an NDA and he probably has videos just ready to hit, you know, go live, from YouTube. And and there's there's a that's because I trust that what you're going to deliver is going to be, you know, for me and I'm gonna understand okay well this is like a fairly expensive piece of gear. Is it something that I just gonna gonna snap my fingers and it's going to show up here on my desk and it's gonna make me a better you know, remote producer or do I really need it? Can if I've got some other interface or whatever. And your level of detail, sir, on these videos is is just is amazing. And then you'll put out, you know, different, you know, you know, like, one will be just specifically for, you know, the program pads and other will be, you know, going through all the processing and all those those kinds of things, just outstanding videos.

Chris Stone [00:51:26]:
I'm curious. This is just kind of like a, you know, maybe off off the cuff because I know there are a number of creators here that that look at that and they go, oh my god. Like, how long how much patience do you were you once like a like a an actual professor, like a teacher at university or something?

Alec Johnson [00:51:44]:
No. Actually, no. Not at all. Wow. I just get asked a lot of questions. I've always been a total tech geek and so I have always found myself explaining things to people and and, I guess that's where it's that's where it comes from but I

Chris Stone [00:51:57]:
mean, how do you carve out the time and the discipline? It just seems to me like, you know, I we Jim and I get sent, products all the time. And, you know, and a lot of them, you know, some of them are, you know, before, you know, before it actually comes out, we go through that whole process of NDA. And so you kind of put it through its paces. And it's not a short amount of time because you when you are putting out something, you want it, you want that trust, you want to be able to to speak authentically about whatever that thing is. So you you want to just kind of, you know, beat it up and, you know, test out and some and something as complicated as a road caster or or the videocaster or or or a stream deck there. Incredibly, how do you carve out that time and discipline? Does does that easier for you because you've gone through the reps on on these things or is it a is it a, you know, like, I what's what's your process there, I guess?

Alec Johnson [00:52:50]:
It's the, yeah. It it's I've always been, someone who whenever I get something, I will just press all the buttons, you know, from from being a kid seeing a new car. I'll just go and press all the buttons or the new VCR arrives. I'll be, you know, pressing everything to figure out what it does and that's I just go through systematically and figure it out. I can't can't say it any other way than that. That's basically what I do. And when people are trying to learn a new piece of software, for example, often what happens is they open it up and they think this looks tremendously complex. I don't know where to begin therefore, I won't begin.

Alec Johnson [00:53:25]:
Yeah. Right. Whereas, you can actually learn an awful lot just by clicking on the application, going up to the menu bar, going through the edit menu. What do all those things say? What do those potentially do then? What do and and it it's it's for a piece of software that is kind of what I do. I just go through every single menu, every single menu item, then I will refer to the instructions. But I always wanna get a perspective of, like, how things work just out of the box. That was the same with the RODECaster video relatively recently. I did get an early release of it, and I got it about a month before, the official public release of it.

Alec Johnson [00:54:03]:
But I didn't take it out of the box until the day before the release And I only spent that day with it just going through with it. And then, the next day, the embargo was lifted at basically 10 PM my time. So I spent one day just going through it and pressing all the buttons. And the next day, I actually spent creating keynote slides to illustrate the points. So that was that was the the time involved. But I think that it's important to actually for the especially for new things to give that sort of first perspective where you haven't just sort of spent, like, months getting used to it. Because there were a lot of people who said the RODECaster video is complicated and I think unlike other pieces of tech, you know, you're gonna need, you know, a good month to get used to it. Well, in actual fact, I've found that it was pretty intuitive out of the box and I didn't need to refer to any of the documentation to to, you know, to get going with it.

Alec Johnson [00:54:51]:
There were certain things in the documentation that I was like, oh, I didn't realize that. So, you know, definitely do that part as well. But, but still that's the the sort of the time that I sort of spend with these things. And often with software, like, with all my, Stream Deck, videos, one of the things that, works in my favor is the time zone. So I'm in Thailand and I often found with Stream Deck by the way, I haven't released a Stream Deck video for for quite some time but I used to always be like one of the first out with when there was a new release of the Stream Deck software. And what would happen is, normally, I used to record my videos for YouTube at sort of between, 4 and 6 in the morning, and that was my YouTube time. But if a a a release dropped for the stream deck, that that was in the evening then I'd also go down and just make a video at like, you know, 9 PM or 10 PM and I'd get the video done, post it and then everyone else woke up the next morning in the US then it was just sort of there waiting for them. But that was literally, you know, go through the release notes.

Alec Johnson [00:55:46]:
Go and try pressing all the buttons and, and figure it out. And so that there's not much more to my process than that really. Wow.

Chris Stone [00:55:56]:
So when you do that when you do that, how do you do you how do you ensure that it's targeting your ideal audience? Right? So and, you know, things change. Right? New firmware for RODECaster Pro 2 or, you know, things like that. You say you're not doing the the new updates, for Stream Deck as as often, as you as you want. You know, you become like a like a like, the new, Ecamm beta when when, you know, that came out. That was the first thing in my head. I was like, oh, hey. We're interviewing Alec Mhmm. Tonight.

Chris Stone [00:56:26]:
He's gonna he's gonna be able to tell us all about it. And then the truth is, it's like you're you're working on it. Right? But it's like, you kinda don't. And you're just gonna I guess you're just gonna go through and push all the buttons. And, you know, but for me, when I see you do that video, it doesn't seem like that. It seems like you you've you've planned so much to go into it. I just it's

Alec Johnson [00:56:44]:
it's That's great. So I'm not I'm not necessarily pressing the buttons for the first time in the video. I am pressing them at least once or twice before.

Chris Stone [00:56:52]:
Okay. But

Alec Johnson [00:56:53]:
so I will you know, I will go through it. It's it's not quite that fresh but, yeah, like with the Ecamm Live, beta for example, that would be a case of, you know, I I know what's in there. I know what's what they can do and I understand, as you say, how it relates to to my audience and I I I do try and with Ecom stuff, it's a bit different. I try and give a broader scope of stuff that maybe even I'm not doing, but actually most of the updates for that apply to me. But I'm also very conscious of, you know, when I do talk about things that I do specify that, you know, this is how it relates to me and this is how I'm using it. Even just things like the Stream Deck, I'm obviously a Mac guy so, I don't cover, you know, plug ins that are PC only for example, and so it's just being aware of of that much. And I will say that, you know, I'm using Stream Deck for productivity and live streaming whereas other people might be using it for something, something different. So, being conscious of of of of who the, you know, your core audience is is important so you sort of frame things as as it relates to to that.

Chris Stone [00:57:53]:
Outstanding. Ladies and gentlemen, take one tech dot I o is the website. Make sure you go and subscribe to the YouTube channel which is at take one tech, Alec. The Digital Stage Academy is is another thing that's that you can find by going to take one tech, dot I o slash academy. And, I you know, this just an outstanding, amount of value that, that I've gotten, Jim, has has mentioned, you know, hey. Did you see this new video that, Alec Johnson did on this? I know. You're just, you know, you're super impactful to content creators. Thank you so much for the, the outstanding work, that you're that you've done.

Chris Stone [00:58:35]:
Thank you for coming on the show and sharing your audience with us. It's just been, it's just been outstanding. And I I'm glad we record these things because now I gotta go back and and and time stamp all these things and be like, okay. I didn't have to write down this note that Alex sent because I need to I I need to be doing this, that, and the other and I just, appreciate you as a as a content creator and, you know, just the amount of value that you continue to to provide and serve to, to creators in general is just outstanding, man.

Alec Johnson [00:59:06]:
Yeah. Oh, thank you so much, Alex. It's, thanks for having me. It's been been a pleasure to to speak to you and you know, I think so highly of you. I was just saying to Chris before we before we went live. Honestly, your, your repurposed content is something that is only in my dreams because I just never get ready to do any of the repurposing and it always just looks so, so, so on point. It's, it's amazing.

Chris Stone [00:59:29]:
If I can figure

Alec Johnson [00:59:30]:
how to cap cut. No.

Chris Stone [00:59:34]:
Oh, that's that's funny. Yeah, I think, I appreciate that, man. I think I think if we can figure out how to repurpose content in one take, you know, that's impossible. But, yeah, I appreciate that and and we'll we'll be, you know, there's plenty of nuggets from this episode that we're gonna we're gonna repurpose for, for all the people as well. So thank you, Syed. Thank you, George. Thank you, James. Think legal.

Chris Stone [01:00:01]:
There's a huge list, Rich Graham, Jeremy, Elizy. Yeah. We'll even thank James Hicks. We'll even thank James Hicks. No. We gotta

Alec Johnson [01:00:09]:
bust his

Chris Stone [01:00:10]:
chops. Alec, thank you once again and, as always, don't fear the gear.

Jim Fuhs [01:00:18]:
Thanks for listening to Dealcasters. Congratulations. You've taken another step forward in your content creation journey. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe or follow button here in your favorite podcast player so you can be reminded every time we drop an episode.

Chris Stone [01:00:34]:
We love hearing from our listeners and viewers.

Alec Johnson [01:00:37]:
And if you're wanting to

Chris Stone [01:00:37]:
watch our shows live on Amazon, feel free to follow Dealcasters Live as well at deal casters.live. Follow us on Twitter or

Jim Fuhs [01:01:00]:
also email us at dealcasters@dealcasters.live. Thanks again for listening, and you know the deal. Don't fear the deal.

YOUR FEATURED DEALCASTERS PODCAST AUDIO EPISODES