What Videos Should We Make?

Hey Lee & Sachi, It's me (chris). Again, we're always trying to find ways to explain rich internet applications to people. Sometimes the term goes over people's heads if they are not in the web/tech scene. It would help us out tremendously if we had a way to show them IN PLAIN ENGLISH. :) Hope you guys are doing ok! Hope to see you at SXSW in March, if not before then.

I work in the E-commere division of a big international retailer/wholesaler. Our company is well established and an industry leader. We still find it a challange sometimes to convince a vendor to do business with our e-commerce division. I would love to have a Plain English video explaining to potential vendors how e-commerce and dropshipping works.

As a former technical writer, I'm really digging your work. It's awesome! I've started using WordPress for community organizing. It has a lot of exciting potential, but unlike the professional space, in which you can assume a certain level of proficiency, the community space has a broader range of user abilities. I'm planning to point to your RSS in Plain English soon, when I introduce my readers to the feed. There are some other "web 2.0" concepts that I'm concerned might be flying over people's heads, like "what is a blog?" or "what are comments, and am I allowed/supposed/expected to participate?" If you were interested in branching out beyond the workplace, I know your approach would add a lot of value in the community space.

"Genetics in plain english": describe what is DNA, how the parental DNA is transmitted to the children, what is a mutation, what is translation, what is traduction etc...

Not sure if you have one already, but email etiquette would be a good topic. Other topics include... Marketing Yourself Online Email Writing Best Practices Understanding Email Security (or lack thereof)

Hmm...to be frank, I'm not liking many of these suggestions thus far. What are the criteria for choosing a topic, aside from the ones that Lee describes: * You should be able to thoroughly explain it in less than four minutes. * It should be of broad use and appeal * The topic should probably be relatively new to the average person. If it's not new, then it should be poorly understood by the general populace. * It's a topic that people genuinely need to know about. That is, knowing might improve their lives or work. The only suggestion thus far that seems to match these criteria is 'distance learning'. I'm sorry to only comment to discount other suggestions, but I thought I'd share my analysis. Off the top of my head, you could do a series on alternative energies: How does solar power work? What are the arguments for and against nuclear power? Where does ethanol come from? Darren - http://www.darrenbarefoot.com

As a high school teacher and a common person - I love the Plain English videos! One thing that I have discovered is that my students and older people as well believe that anything on the Internet is fair game for them to use. I think that a Plain English video on brief copyright laws and creative commons use would help to educate many people on what they can and can't use from the Internet or at least make them more aware of what to look for. Again, I love your videos. The RSS in plain English convinced me to get a google reader and one of my first subscriptions was to your page. Thanks for all your work!

My company or school would be better-off if people had a quick and easy way to learn about *widgets.*

So many people are scared to death of them, but they don't really understand what they are or how to protect themselves. Even something as simple as always installing the latest updates. I've lost track of the number of friends who had unupdated machines.

I think that a lot of people don't really understand what is meant by the collaborative web. As I have introduced a few parents to the power of collaborating using such tools as google calendar and google docs to do hockey schedules, agendas, registration forms, etc etc. they have been absolutely amazed. A quick video showing how you can harness all the web 2.0 tools to collaborate using the example of a hockey team or club etc would be great. -shared calendar for people to maintain and share -google docs or some other service for making up registration forms, rules/regs, or many other things which can be circulated as people have time instead of endless meetings deciding all those things -a photobucket account for everyone to share pictures of the game -a wiki to post all the results from the game and I"m sure you know more applications that would be useful. The other one that would be great would be one about Ning -- but they should pay you to do that one!!

Hi Lee and Sachi How about cloud computing - seems to be everywhere at the moment and not many, me included, are too sure what it is all about. Lx

Cloud computing. I also second: * Creative Commons * Widgets / Gadgets / desktop applications / iGoogle / NetVibes * Viruses / malware / worms and * the Semantic Web I did not think about it as: "My company or school would be better-off if people had a quick and easy way to learn about ______" but as I always use commoncraft, when someone asks me a question about "what is ______ ?" and I know you have a video about it, I just send them your way. The above are questions I wish you had a video about so I could send more people your way :)

Your videos are terrific and explain things in language anyone can understand. The work of people like Shel Holtz is terrific too. I don't want to suggest any new topics, I'd like to suggest you get into some more detail on some of the existing ones. For example, take blogs, wikis and RSS feeds. I work in internal communications for a telecommunications company in the UK and I'm completely bought into the value they could add. I absolutely get the concepts. So what are the practical things I now need to do to turn that into reality? I don't have the faintest idea where to start. Do I ask our IT departments to download versions of the relevant software and provide some kind of 'hosting' service (you might guess I don't really understand this bit). Do internal corporate versions of RSS feed software exist? So taking some of the existing content that step further is my suggestion.

I think you could explore the numerous popular search engines (Google, Dogpile, Ask, others) and search techniques. Remind explorers that Universities initially created the Internet for research. Allowing for change at the speed of light, explain that today's search results may not be as CORRECT as they are POPULAR. Describe the use of words in searches - less is more.

I find that when I work with beginning computer users, they really don't understand the concept of using different browsers. I've explained it as something like driving various models of cars (each one with its own look and its own features) on the same information highway. I would love to see a video that explained this in plain English :-) A related topic might be the concept of using different search engines. I know these topics are elementary compared to many that have been suggested, but they are foundational to young students and even adult beginners. Thanks for considering this idea!

Lee... I'd like to see a video on "how to do a community of practice." Although it sounds like a recipe the idea would be the opposite ... to show, in simple language/visuals, that a community of practice - given that it involves people, relationships and practices - is something both more simple and more complicated! I'd need to do it with you!

* malware / spyware * creative commons / public domain / fair use / attribution * tags / tag clouds / folksonomies * Web APIs * CSS * JavaScript * XHTML * AJAX * Mashup * Web-based applications / Internet applications * XML or even something as simple as * where did the Internet come from? * How do (Internet) packets work? / How is information transmitted over the Internet?

I would love to have a good resource that clearly explains the relationship of an ISP versus a homepage. I struggle to explain this when talking to people with various skill levels, not just beginners. Love your videos, and refer people to them frequently. The style and format is wonderful!

I just celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary last month. We have 3 kids and a wonderful life. But comma however - I still don't understand women. Perhaps a "Women in Plain English" narrated by Sachi, and Lee doing "Men in Plain English" for the ladies?

A lot of people outside the US (and inside, for that matter), don't understand what dating is supposed to be. What's a date? When are people dating vs. just "seeing each other"? Is dating exclusive? THAT would be a great explanation.

I didn't see any mention of it, so I'd suggest "user experience" (or, user centered design) in plain english. You could more generally think about that in a series of "user centered" video topics, e.g., customer service, Cluetrain-type perspectives on genuine communication, how people use the web to find real information when presented with marketing hype, how to create good feedback channels, etc. Along those lines: marketing hype in plain english and beyond marketing hype in plain english! Also, I second the Nature Deficit Disorder suggestion--these live action videos on Richard Louv's site might suggest some ideas: http://richardlouv.com/appearances

OK - so security is boring, but as everyone needs multiple passwords for banking, shopping and networking (let alone their systems at work) it would be great if you could do a video that explains in plain English how to use a phrase to make a secure password that a) you won't forget b) isn't broken by a dictionary attack in 60 seconds. It could be easily covered in four minutes, and would be something that I'd hope businesses would rush to license from the store. It would also be a good Karma thing to help people with. I'd be more than happy to help out with the script (I'm a governance geek).

Our company has a contract with one of the major web analytics vendors, but we make little or no use of the data we are collecting. Having a web analyst position is new to my company and I am the only one so far. Many directors and executives still do not know what web analytics is and those that might happen to see a web analytics report struggle to understand its meaning or relevance. I think it would be helpful to have a Web Analytics in Plain English video that explains a few key metrics, what they mean and why they are important to the business and how web analytics can be instrumental in improving the performance of web sites. Thanks.

One topic would be basic guidelines of communicating online. Knowing some of the common conventions for posting to comments or forums and some of the things to avoid when using text as a communication medium might help people get more out of their time online

You mentioned your fans of wordpress & drupal. Perhaps you could make a video explaining to those who only know sites as html & images of how these engines keep the data in the database and have themes and plugins/modules that expand their functionality. I've found myself trying to explain this to a number of people who clearly dont understand that wordpress runs on the server. The idea of keeping content, design & 'engine' separate is foreign to the non-geeky and I would LOVE a video to show that highlighted this. In an earlier comment someone mentioned communications guidelines and I agree that would be great too. Neitquette, with how to respond to e-mail, participate in mailing lists and forums and how to avoid other basic net faux pas like forwarding or posting private e-mails or copyrighted material (there's a whole other video actually, 'Fair Use' (though I guess you could cover this in the 'Creative Commons' one folks suggested earlier) On a personal level, since i'm up here in Maine where the heating oil prices are going to reak havoc on any semblance of a budget, I'd love an explanation on different alternative home technologies like solar heating/electricity, groundwater pump heating (how the heck can I heat my house by pumping water underground so it can heat exchange with 55 degree water?), on-demand water heating, biodiesel, wood pellets and home wind farms etc etc. On a non-geeky front my 5 year old would love explanations of common questions he comes up with like 'What do moth's eat?', "Why do pirates say Arr?" and "Why and 'Why do sharks make the (insert jaws theme) sound when they are swimming?'. I'm also curious what you're going to do for halloween this year? Cthulu in plain english? Ghost Hunting in Plain English? Quiji (sp?) Boards in Plain English? How to know if you're a werewolf? Can't wait :) Thanks so much for all you do. I wish I had the time to do what you do, it looks like it's so much fun.. and you even get paying clients! Go you! Keep it up -Matt Ellsworth, ME

for the gen y'ers that think flip flops and shorts are the dress code norm in corporate america a video that shows how to act, dress, eat, etc. at a business lunch/dinner would be great for college students that are beginning to move on to the real world.

I would love to see you guys make a video in this field. I will definitely purchase it and put it BetterRankings.com. This will help all of the people that come to our site and read all of the content, but may still be confused. It will be a great way to explain to all the NON-tech people how it works, and why it is so beneficial. If you guys need any help or information regarding the topic, please don't hesitate to contact me.

I think a great topic for a video would be Project Management. Since Sachi recently received her PMP certification you both must know how important the project management process is to organizations. Additionally, since project management is relevant to a large number of companies from a wide variety of industries I think a video showing what project management is all about would be a very popular product.