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Home » Computers And Internet Articles » Make Your Own Tv Show

Make Your Own TV Show

If you're anything like me, you've spent many, many hours of your life watching television. From sit-coms and game shows to cartoons and reality TV, we've sat in front of the box for a large part of our life watching stories of one sort or another. What we mightn't have known is that for every one show that gets on the air there were probably a hundred that didn't make it. This might be hard to believe with shows like 'The Joe Schmo Show" and "The Simple Life" out there but our world is a strange place with weird people, now isn't it? However with the advent of the Internet and legal file-sharing you can now film your own TV show and put it up on the Web for everyone to see. If it's any good, word will get around. That's how the Internet works: Word of mouth.

You no longer have to make a pilot show and sit in front of a large group of executives praying that they will like your material. Television is heading for your computer, literally. You can already download some of your favorite corporation-backed shows on the Internet legally, for a small price. It is a commonly held belief that in the not-to-distant-future computers and televisions will become one, a flat digital screen replacing your monitor. Eventually all TV channels and individual shows will have websites where you can download and stream their programs. The interesting new phenomenon is that you can join in the fun too. There's a low barrier to entering the Internet TV game. We have now been given the freedom to produce, and to share our stories with the rest of the box-watching world.

Check out http://www.welcometothescene.com/index.shtml and http://www.purepwnage.com/. These two sites are a couple of the multitudinous masses that are now being put up on the Web for people to watch and share. It can almost be thought of as an artist's exhibition, where you and your TV-maniac friends finally get to show your shows to the rest of us. I get the feeling that the whole idea is based around the concept of freedom. We get the freedom to create, a medium where we can choose to show our creations, and the freedom to download a show and share it with our friends. Word-of-mouth spreads and all of a sudden your show's got a huge underground cult following. What happens next in the story? You tell me.

As always people are going to try and make a dollar out of something cool and new on the human scene. If you look at the show on http://marcushateshisjob.com/ you will see a pretty funny TV program. It is sponsored by Sprite, a division of the Coca-Cola Company. There's nothing really wrong with this (artists have to get their funding from somewhere) except that it could possibly result in nearly the same paradigm as the old TV company-controlled structure, if Sprite achieves power to dictate what content goes into the show. There's a name that has been coined for this sort of behavior and in this case the product-placement, commercially-based Internet program fits into this category perfectly: Astroturf. The former shows are grass-roots programs, a sign of the individual freedom that can be obtained on the Internet. Astroturf makes itself out to look like grass-roots philosophy, yet like football, it is definitely a more painful place to get tackled.

The whole concept of file-sharing has a huge amount of nebulous clouds surrounding it, but in this case things are simple. You want people to watch your show. You haven't downloaded someone else's copyright material. You're sharing your own creation. Get to it people, and get it to the people. I want to see what you can do. One can only take so many reruns of "Gilligan's Island" and "Different Strokes". 'What you talkin' bout Willis?' is what they'll be saying after watching your inspirational new television masterpiece. Hey, you might even start a whole new era. Remember, one day, a long time ago (and thank the Universe for it), no one even knew what a sit-com was!

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Coaching for Success

Coaching is perhaps the most effective method of increasing performance available to managers, team leaders, and colleagues. This article defines coaching and outlines a process for effective coaching.

Coaching Defined

Coaching is perhaps the most effective method of increasing performance available to managers, team leaders, and colleagues.

If you wish to improve the skills of your employees, you must plan to observe them and provide them with feedback. If you're like most supervisors or managers, you have limited time and are looking for employees to become proficient â€" and independent â€" faster.

Entelechy's Coaching Model is designed to help you do just that!

The Coaching Model is appropriate for developing the skills of employees if the employee is willing to improve. Coaching should not be used as a softer, gentler version of corrective action; if a performance problem occurs, you will want to use the Problem Solving model.

The Coaching Model is based on several important principles:

1. There are two primary goals to coaching:

• To improve performance.

• To help employees gain the ability to self-assess.

2. It is important that the coaching sessions follow a predictable process. This will help the coachees feel more comfortable and relaxed, which will help to ensure they actively participate in these sessions. It is for this reason that we suggest that you share the coaching model with your employees prior to coaching.

3. Coaching is a planned development process and should not be a surprise.

4. The way you open the conversation sets the tone for what will follow.

5. After we open the conversation using our initial probe, we discuss positives first and areas for improvement last. Beginning with positives first is motivational and accomplishes the following:

• The goal is to have employees increase their performance. If they are not in a positive frame of mind, they will not be open to this change.

• Reinforces good behavior and ease into the coaching session.

• Builds self-esteem.

6. Ending the coaching session with a discussion of areas for development ensures that they are focusing on those areas.

7. Always give the coachee a chance to self-assess before you offer your insights. Encouraging self-assessment is positive for several reasons:

• It encourages improvement even when you are not coaching.

• It allows you to determine why the employee may not be performing as desired; they may not know that they're doing something incorrectly.

• It builds self-esteem.

• It increases the chances that behavior will change.

8. Reinforce correct self-assessment.

9. Defer or redirect inappropriate or incorrect self-assessment.

10. We focus coaching on only two strengths and two areas for development. Limiting the discussion is important and accomplishes the following:

• Increases the coachee's ability to reach proficiency.

• Focuses on the most important issues.

• Other issues can be addressed after some progress has been made on the most important issues first.

11. If an employee is not identifying areas that you identified (or has identified them incorrectly), use increasingly specific questions to allow the employee to self-assess if possible. This allows you to determine if the employee doesn't know what's expected, doesn't have the skill, or simply chooses not to demonstrate the skill.

The Coaching Model at Work

Now let's turn our attention to Entelechy's Coaching Model in practice.

Step 1: Open the Conversation

The coach opens the conversation with a general question; this helps the coach get a sense for the accuracy of the coachee's self-assessment. If the coachee responds with, "that was the best call ever" and you thought that the call was poor, you know that you'll have to adjust your coaching conversation.

Step 2: Probe for What Went Well

The coach asks the coachee what went particularly well and listens for the responses. By identifying what went well first, a positive tone for the coaching session is set. We want to make sure that the coachee continues doing these things. This also forces the coachee â€" NOT THE COACH â€" to identify superior performance.

Step 2a: Redirect or Defer

Sometimes the coachee will bring up a negative when you're discussing positives. You will want to defer that discussion until later in the coaching conversation by saying, "I'd like to talk about that more later. What else went particularly well?"

Other times, the coachee will claim something as a positive that â€" in your opinion â€" was an area that needs development. You will want to redirect their perception by pointing out what you saw that helped you conclude that it was less than desirable. "Oh, really? Did you happen to see John's face when you discussed the product's features? That's right, he seemed to lose interest when you started talking about us rather than about him...."

Step 2b: Support and Build

When the coachee correctly assesses his performance â€" both strengths and areas for development â€" support the assessment by saying, "I agree." Build from their conclusions to reinforce the accuracy of their self-assessment. In this way, you are reinforcing one of the most valuable skills anyone can acquire: the ability to assess and improve their own performance.

Step 3: Probe for Areas for Development

The third step is to ask the coachee what he would change if he could do it again. Obviously, if the coachee knows what could be improved and knows how to improve it, he won't benefit from YOU telling him! And by mentally rehearsing what he will do differently, the likelihood of him actually carrying out the improvement is increased.

Most experts agree that two or three areas for development are enough for anyone to work on. Working on a laundry list of things to change is frustrating and futile. Focus on the areas of greatest need.

When identifying areas for development, the coachee may not have identified the one that you thought was most important. Again, you can redirect their perception by identifying what you saw that they might not have that allowed you to come to your conclusion. "I agree that the two areas that you identified would definitely had made the call go better. What do you think the effect of your product feature presentation was on the customer? Why? What might you do differently the next time...?"

Step 4: Summarize and Support

Even though you may have limited the coaching to a few strengths and a couple areas for development, you will want to briefly summarize the discussion, especially what the coachee will do differently the next time. This recap will cause the most important things to remain fresh in memory. You will also want to support the changes by saying something like, "I think those changes will make your next call go even better."

Follow these four steps to help your employees and colleagues increase their performance. In the next issue we discuss how to give feedback within the coaching framework.

(This information comes from Coaching for Performance, a module in Entelechy's High Performance Management program. Check out this module as well as our 40 other modules, training tools, and eGuides at www.unlockit.com.)

I have a diagram jpg or Word drawing of the coaching model that would illustrate the process better than words. I also have this available in Word format.