2.5 Million Minutes!
Yesterday, the Creo Parametric YouTube channel hit 2.5 million minutes of viewing time. Thanks again to everyone who has supported the channel by watching. Whenever it hits these milestones, I like to review what that time translates into. I also want to share my plans for the channel.
In terms of pure viewing, 2.5 million minutes represents:
41,666.6 hours
1,736 days
248 weeks
4.77 years
As I've explained before, I actually proposed creating the videos as a means of providing technical support and training at my last job. I knew that a lot of our end users were going to YouTube first before filing support tickets. I thought videos could be a force multiplier in terms of how we could help our internal customers. I knew that we were seeing the same help requests over and over again. Why not analyze the data, find out the most common issues, and then make videos on those subjects? That would reduce the time that people could get support and it would be a more effective use of CAD administrator time as opposed to providing one-on-one help.
Here is what that 2.5 million minutes translates into in terms of work time:
5,208 work days
1041.6 work weeks
20.8 work YEARS
So yeah, the watch time of this channel translates into more than two decades of technical support. And it hasn't even been around for two years.
Speaking of which, let me share my future plans for the channel. As I write this, I have 464 videos in the can. I actually have videos scheduled on YouTube almost to the end of July. Back in February I decided to shoot for keeping 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule to prevent any interruptions if/when I get COVID. (Silly me, at the time I thought we would be sensible, shut everything down for a month or two, and conquer the pandemic. I had no idea our government could be this inept at handling the greatest crisis of our lifetime. Now I don't think we're going to have schools or sports until fall 2021 at the earliest.)
Anyhow, I had always figured that the channel would be around 500 to 600 videos. I'm getting kind of close to that. When I look at my list of videos I want to do, my list is getting shorter.
Last year I went down to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday release schedule. During the stay-at-home order here in Washington state, I was doing bonus Saturday and Sunday videos for a couple months primarily focused on obsolete Pro/ENGINEER commands.
Around the two-year anniversary in September, I'm going to downshift to 2 videos a week, releasing on Monday and Thursday. Even at that rate, I'll be making over a hundred videos a year. I suspect I'll be down to 1 video a week by the three-year anniversary. There are only so many Creo videos I have in me.
About the only thing that will change those plans is if I can afford additional licenses, like BMX or ISDX or Mold Design. (Support me on Patreon if you want more videos!) But even then, an additional module only means another 25 videos or so.
That's where the channel is headed. I'm working on a third book to be released in 2020, an update to my first book "Design Intent in Creo Parametric," which will finally be released in a hard copy format.
I'm also unsure of my future plans for CAD and PLM. Workwise, I might branch out into other areas. I've been doing CAD for two decades. I've written books, I write blogs, I made the YouTube channel, I've delivered presentations, I've even delivered a keynote. I've pretty much done everything I can imagine doing in the CAD field, so I've been thinking about the next big challenges in my career.
