The Year in Review

I did this experiment of trying to blog in 2011 while waiting for opportunities to return to video. I thought it was worth trying because I could do more from home, since I needed to be home more this last year, and could provide the same quality information. It didn't work out so well.

One major hurdle I had was in getting responses to interview requests. No one likes cold callers. I didn't know if my emails weren't going through or if the person on the other end was not interested. I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew so I'd wait on one person before asking the next and the lack of response slowed this process down considerably. Another major hurdle I faced was that those who responded favorably were often impressed with my questions and too busy to respond to them in text. Text is more formal, more detailed, more scrutinized, and more involved. After spending the time writing and editing the few interviews which were completed, I would send the final work for approval and it wasn't uncommon to not hear back. Dozens of hours of work sit ready and unpublished, much of which is no longer of particular interest because it was concerning current (at the time) events. People who have wisdom to share are, as an obvious correlative effect, very busy people. I need to be able to have 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever it is that they're available for and then they need to be done, but I didn't accomplish that with the text model.

On a personal front, I am able to write the best questions when I talk with a person and learn what is important and of interest to him or her. I'm also most motivated to work when I have personal connections. Working on my own at home with a computer screen and text was a personal challenge which I did not always conquer.

All of this combined to an end product others were happy to see, but I didn't get requests for more of it. On the other hand, I continue to receive regular requests for my video interviews. This affirmation that the content is what people are interested in and the video medium is where it is best conveyed has brought me back to video interviews. It is obvious that my talents are best used in service to the church there.

God willing, I will be taking videos in the coming weeks and I will be posting video interviews regularly throughout 2012. I've heard you loud and clear and I'm responding to your call! Please pray for me that I continue to seek God's will and that I conform to it so that whatever I do brings glory to Him.