Sage 100

Are there any Sage ERP 100 (aka/fka MAS) product videos that show the latest changes in 4.5? Customer wants his employees to see what's new in order to get their buy-in to upgrading. ""How is this going to help you? What do you see as possibilities?"" etc. The only thing I could find was a Sage ERP overview. Even just quick tutorials?

Check YouTube, including the sageerplearning Channel.

The feature sheets just don't cut it any more????

They never really did, did they @JeffSchwenk? And I checked the YouTube videos but I'm sorry, Mary(?) just doesn't cut it either.... Thanks though @BrettZimmerman.

Sounds like something that Greg Kyte and I need to create!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ffyEJniCc I think I'll feature this one as ""worst business video of the month"".

blink...blink...twitch...twitch

Which is why I don't want to use it....

I am glad that I'm not the only once who didn't ""get"" the value of cartoon Mary. I asked about this when she first appeared and people looked at me as if I'd just delivered a swift kick to an infant. It was almost a sin to make fun of this cartoon. Who the hell buys ERP software based on generic cartoons?

I think she would be more believable if they would at least synch her lips...........................

Does anybody remember a company named Blue Bear Computer Services? They used to make videos of MAS by module. Dry and boring but it showed the features and processing. At one time, I had all of their tapes. I'm definitely aging myself now...

http://www.mas-ss.com/archived-webinars/mas-90-200-training/

Cactus Computers here in San Diego became Blue Bear which became ISM - San Diego. Carla (Santucci) Brown worked for Blue Bear and still works for ISM. I hired Jon Reiter away from Cactus/Blue Bear twenty years ago, and he's now our Chief Software Engineer. Those tapes you have are probably about 17 - 18 years old, and no, they are not collector's items. :-)

I guess I can get rid of them then...they were handy at the time though and my client's loved borrowing them. I just had a hard time getting them back!

@ThereseLogeais - if you have Webex you can record your own. Start/join your own meeting with Sage 4.5 open, hit share desktop and hit record. I'm sure Goto meeting and others have the same feature too. When your ""meeting"" is over, you can download it or point the client to a link. Usually need some kind of web-video playing software to be downloaded too that's provided in the Webex video download area. For your script - use the Sage brag sheets as a guide, but you're own personal touch will sell it over the top.

Wow, thanks @MoiraGoggin but that means *I'd* have to record them.... ;) And yes, @KathyPurkiss I DO remember Blue Bear (I was twelve at the time, haha..) I didn't know Jon came from Blue Bear @DougDeane but he was obviously a keeper. Okay, so I'll record my own. Wanna copy Kathy??

Our various video sites are some of the most trafficed (sp?) sites we've created. Check out www.erp-demos.net and www.dynamics-nav-training.com or www.mas90ees-tutorial.com (our CA office did the mas90ees one and needs to rebrand it) I'm probably pipe dreaming here but if we added either a substantial video section to 90minds.com or created www.erp100demos.com and did forced registration so we could email blast new posts to signed up members, that's how we would over time achieve a brand here

Mark, that's not a crazy idea. Product Marketing has been pretty open in the past about what they plan to do such areas for the next several quarters. It would be worth confirming that it's not one their radar 1st. I know the SLX team just took down their recorded demos because they were flash. They sounded a bit vague about when they would replace them.

Nice stuff @MarkChinsky.

It's not that the idea is crazy, but as @WayneSchulz can tell you, getting members, beyond a small core group,to reliably contribute is like corralling cats.

Maybe the best way to create these is through a webinar like @MoiraGoggin suggested - and record the brief demo. Do several of these in a row -- quick easy stuff like ""how to create a sage 100 report with Crystal"" The real issue is there must be a way to funnel these prospects into some type of paying relationship or we will find -- as we did with ask90minds -- that we attract people looking for free training and nothing else.

Topics that come to mind which might be good: - Double or triple the speed of your ODBC Sage 100 connections - Use scripting to enforce tighter data entry controls The key in these would not be for them to train - but to generate inquiries for people to do the work. I'm not entirely sure whether it would work but I'm thinking 2 minute video with either: a. Contact us b. Subscribe to our newsletter

Would we get as much mileage from a three or four person Google Hangout (which I believe now automatically create's a YouTube) where we briefly (under 4 minutes) discuss topics like: a. Best practices for Sage 100 upgrades b. Top mistakes people make when upgrading c. Favorite Sage 100 add-ons What I'm wondering is whether a brief impromptu recording pulls views as well as a more lengthy edited demo? @MarkChinsky

If we did it like my existing sites, there would be a teaser intro video, but then you must register to see the content. We have it so that a human reviews the registrations to filter out the professors in India who try and sign up. We might decide we don't have the man power for that and just allow bogus signups. The key is signing up gives permission to push out an RSS feed from 90minds.com combined with the video site (via Yahoo Pipes) and that would be pushed via MailChimp RSS to Email feature which is free up until 2000 signups. It's pretty straightforward. I could get a quote from my web folks to clone one of our video sites for this purpose so the R&D would be very low. I would say, we then have a 'contact me for help' and 'find a var' be limited to only those 90minds members that contribute. To make this a fair effort, perhaps members raise their hands, first come first serve to reserve 2 states. If they don't produce 1 video per month, with a 1 month grace, they get booted IF there is a waitlisted member. All contributed video becomes property of the main site and stays, even if you get booted. Folks, this is Social Media Marketing, and other than referrals, is one of the few, not super expensive (aka adWords) way's of marketing that still works. It might take months before somebody finds a viable prospect, but the content is cumulative. The next project would be a '50 tips & tricks' auto responder sent out once per week to all those who signup on the video site and 90minds site. that way, all who sign up get 50 emails, not just new content like a blog push does.

@WayneSchulz BTW, these videos don't need to be 45 minute JobOps demos. 2 - 5 minutes is perfect and about handles the attention span of the average user. We then put a few samples, or 30 second teasers on a 90minds Youtube channel with an inbound link to the video site. Youtube content ranks real well on google. (surprise surprise..). no reason the videos can't be a combination of edited content, and Wayn'e Hangout idea. The Hangout sounds a bit like a TWIT video podcast.

I'm mostly wondering if something quick and relatively easy for members to contribute to -- will pull as well as a video that's s demo which requires editing and skills with screen manipulation. I don't know whether it will or won't - but it might be worth a test. You could have 5 videos pretty quickly Embed on 90Minds.com. If you are not doing training on the video - then I don't think a required registration is needed. Have an easy way to subscribe to an email newsletter. I can say from experience this will take a year to produce anything that you will brag about (unless you get lucky which is generally one-off and not recurring type leads).

I had a similar request this morning about MAS 90 Fixed Assets. So I browse to the Sage site and find a link to a just released video. Great! I click and am greeted by... Coffee Stain Carl. WTF???? I'm embarrassed for Sage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4nmkNsQIG0&list=UU15k4thucQonZ5jkhGj7YNg&index=23&feature=plcp

OMG, seriously??

This sounds like an opportunity for a group effort to demo ne features in Sage 100

And these cartoons are just laugh out loud lame

Any recommendations (or disrecommendations if you tried something and it was crap) for free/cheap tools for making the videos?

I hope Sage isn't just saving $$$ on actors ... I wonder if they ever previewed these Sage salespeople. It wouldn't be the 1st time a company's marketing dept went off and produced a nice ""art project"" that simply doesn't sell.

When I brought it up originally Sage was very defensive and their response was basically that I was a complete moron for thinking that cartoons would not sell or be a good idea....

I'm curious about whether you were talking to sales or marketing?

Cartoons sell cereal...and Jerry it doesn't matter if you talk to either sales or marketing, they are both equally clueless. Having produced the last online LinkedIn meeting, I can tell you that Sage doesn't have any media wits, mostly just twits. Ok @WayneSchulz - I'll take up the first run through on a presentation - agree with all comments that it should be short, to the point and not a training session. Average attention spans being what they are I'd say two minutes or less, single topic. And no talking heads, babbling cartoons, or other gimmickry.

Moira, I was afraid that was the case. Part of this reorg that started last fall seems to be a consolidation of product marketing mgt at BMD level. There is somebody new there; probably told to do something ""new and bold.

@PhilMcIntosh If I'm wanting to capture video from the screen (in other words, to record a process such as ""how to reverse a payroll check"", I use SnagIt to record video and audio. For editing, I'm using Adobe Premiere Elements 10. I usually generate the video as a 1080p mp4. I would highly recommend getting a wireless lapel mic since it dramatically increases audio quality. You may want to look at http://www.audio-technica.com/cgi-bin/product_search/wired_mics/mics_by_type.pl?product_type=Microphones%3A+Lavalier. You can get them for way less than retail through Amazon (or similar). I think it's very effective to interview your customers about a particular topic. In this specific case, interview a customer about why upgrading to 4.5 was valuable to them. A decent quality HD video camera is good enough. Just make sure to get one with an external mic jack. That way you can use your wireless mic and get much better audio. If you're going to do interviews, it would make sense to invest in two mics (make sure they transmit on different frequencies).

For 'mere mortals' (even Elements is pretty heavy duty) Camtasia is a nice well rounded suite of recording and editing tools for demos. The key on a mic (never do a phone audio recording or use the crap built into a laptop is all you'll hear is the banging of your keyboard) is get one with a wind screen so everytime you use the letter ""P"" etc, it doesn't sound like a drum beating on the mike from the rush of air. You'd be surprised and the noise from an air conditioner etc, get's picked up so make the room as absolutely quiet as possible. If you make a mistake, stop for a few seconds, cough, wait a few seconds and start that piece over. This way when you are in the editor, you'll see the silence in the audio timeline, the big 'pop up' from the cough' and can cleanly edit out your mistake. Also remember, some apps, like camtasia, have hotkeys for pausing if you have to sneeze, forget your thoughts, and a key to put in a 'marker' to remind you during editing to address something at that point in the timeline

these are great suggestions about video tools. Thanks!

I found that with Webex you can download the Webex recorder and editors (it may be based on your account level). These are very simple tools that can be run outside of a Webex session and are much easier to use than a heavy duty program like Song Vegas Movie Studio. Screen recording quality is okay but agree that a quality mic is essential - and a quite room.

Weber is difficult to convert to a YouTube friendly format where you get maximum seo juice

Reviewing Friday's e-mail I have one from Advanced Applications of Houston that has a video subscription service for 100, 300 and CRM. The site is www.aavideomarketing.com . I reviewed Bank Reconciliation Entries and it seemed a bit dry, but perhaps that's just the subject.