One Person, One Thing, One Hour

This post is about doing something for supporters of my Special Projects.
Read on if you’re a supporter already – or just curious!

A few years ago my friend Robert Twigger published a new book, and he was interviewed about it on the Today programme, perhaps the most prestigious slot on BBC Radio.

Afterwards Rob shared a link to the interview on Facebook. I saw it, and I worried for him.

I worried because:

• Facebook doesn’t like users to leave Facebook, so it might not show his post to many people
• the BBC radio link Rob shared looked a bit ugly, and not particularly recognisable as a link
• even devoted friends, if they happened to see Rob’s post, and read it, wanted to listen, and THEN bothered to click the link, would need to scroll through the whole three hours to find Rob’s interview.

(This was before the current BBC apps, which make sharing and scrolling much easier.)

I worried that people might give up without hearing him.

So I set up my computer to record only Rob’s interview, which lasted 3 mins 37 secs. I stuck together two photos of Rob and the interviewer, and I mixed the sound and image to create a rudimentary three-minute movie, for YouTube and Facebook:

In tech terms, this all happened quite a long time ago. If I were doing it differently, I might have done some things differently.

I like doing this kind of thing

I like helping Rob, who has helped me many times. But if I’m honest with myself, I sometimes just like the idea of doing whatever it is.

Helping Rob is a bit of a pretext.

Nobody is hurt, because I always make it clear that he’s free to make use of whatever I’ve done, or not, as he wishes.

More recently, I recorded a conversation with Rob on Zoom, then edited it to become a video. This wasn’t about one of his books but about something he does on the side – coaching would-be authors.

In that Zoom, I interviewed Rob so that he would talk to me as if to people who might want coaching from him – to keep that particular audience in mind.

Naturally, I also asked him to do more straightforwardly things, like: “Can you raise the camera?”

Then I edited the film, cut it and uploaded it to YouTube. I’m happy to say that Rob uses it to introduce himself.

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It often occurs to me to do something like this for Special Projects members, because I’m hugely grateful for your support.

But again and again I’ve hesitated to offer, because I worried that I can’t do something for everyone, and I don’t want to cause disappointment.

This week, walking around in central London, I came up with a possible solution. Something to try for a while, anyway:

Each month, for one member, I’ll do one thing, for up to one hour.

I don’t know why it took me so long to come up with this idea. But hey. If you’re a member, and you think there’s something useful that I can do for you, please ask.

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