Tomorrow we will be hosting a new webinar that will be really valuable for those of you who have to communicate with users about products you create or support.

Our customers often ask us if they should use a screen recording application, like Screenflow or Camtasia, or something like ScreenSteps (ScreenSteps is a tool for creating step by step guides out of still images).

What they are really asking is “Should I create a video/screencast or a step by step visual guide (what we call a ScreenSteps document)?”

Our answer is, “It depends.”

The truth is, if you are going to have an effective product communication strategy, you need to be using both screencasts and ScreenSteps documents. The tool you use for a specific communication depends on two things:

• The level of engagement your target audience has with your product at the moment you are communicating with them.
• The type of knowledge you are trying to transfer to that user.

In tomorrow’s webinar we will layout a framework that will help you decide when to use a screencast and when to use a ScreenSteps document. We will follow a new user through four levels of engagement with a product and discuss what type of communication is most effective at each stage. We will also provide examples of effective communications at each stage.

The four stages of user engagement with a product are:

1. Product awareness
2. Product interest
3. Product investigation
4. Product implementation

This webinar will be ideal for marketing and product managers, IT and customer support or anyone who has to educate users on product usage.

We have just prepared a new video that shows how you can create a visual knowledge base in under 10 minutes using ScreenSteps Desktop and ScreenSteps Live.

Visual knowledge bases combine images and text to provide clear answers and instructions to your customers and users. Visual knowledge bases have the following advantages:

• They have full text search – unlike video libraries.
• They have clear visual information to help users complete tasks quickly – unlike traditional, text-based, knowledge bases.
• They are easy to update when things change – unlike video libraries.
• They are faster to create than either a video library or traditional knowledge base.

The video goes through the entire process of creating a visual knowledge base including:

• Signing up for an account
• Going through the new account setup wizard
• Configuring your ScreenSteps Desktop software to post to ScreenSteps Live
• Posting your first manual to ScreenSteps Live
• Customizing the design of your ScreenSteps Live site

You can view the video below.

The new account setup wizard on ScreenSteps Live really makes it easy to get your ScreenSteps Live site up and running quickly.

Webinar – Creating Visual Knowledge Bases with ScreenSteps Live

A lot has been added to ScreenSteps Live over the last month. To help introduce existing users to the new functionality and introduce new users to ScreenSteps Live we have scheduled a webinar for this Friday, Nov. 20, at 10am EST. Topics covered will include:

• The basics of creating visual knowledge bases
• Understanding the difference between buckets and manuals on ScreenSteps Live
• Introduction to the new “tasks” feature
• Introduction to new color customization options for spaces on ScreenSteps Live

We will of course leave time for answering questions from attendees. You can register for the webinar here:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/943393976

We hope to see you there.

We had two great webinars on Tuesday going over some of the basic and advanced features in ScreenSteps Desktop. Here is a recording of one of the webinars. Be warned that the audio is a little distorted. We are aware of the issue and have already figured out how to improve this for our next set of webinars. You can register for an upcoming webinar on our webinars page here:

Register for a webinar

You can download the ScreenSteps Jump start webinar here from Tuesday here:

ScreenSteps Jump Start 4/28/2009 (Windows Media 51MB)

Yesterday we hosted our first webinar about how to use ScreenSteps and ScreenSteps Live to decrease customer support requests. Thank you so much to all of you who attended and for all of the kind words so many of you have shared.

Brian Weiss of WORD’SWORTH, one of the attendees, emailed us and said:

We hope that the rest of you felt the same.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend, we have posted a recording of the webinar. The recording is about 75 minutes long. The first 30 minutes contain a presentation on how to effectively use ScreenSteps Live to handle customer support. For the last 45 minutes Greg and Trevor respond to questions from viewers.

You can download a recording of the webinar here:

Decreasing Customer Support with ScreenSteps Live wmv (66.3 MB)

Decreasing Customer Support with ScreenSteps Live m4v (81.5 MB)

We are already working on plans for our next one. We hope you will join us. Be sure to check this blog or sign up for our newsletter to be notified when we will present one.

You can subscribe to our newsletter here:

http://www.bluemangolearning.com/newsletters/screensteps.html

We are just back form the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and are excited to announce our first webinar. The webinar will be held this Thursday, April 9th from 2pm-3pm Eastern Standard Time.

In this webinar we will:

• Introduce you to some of the obvious and not so obvious enhancements available in ScreenSteps 2.5. We have packed a lot of workflow enhancements into ScreenSteps 2.5 that make it easier to work and collaborate on large projects. We’ll show you how you can improve your workflow with ScreenSteps 2.5 to create your manuals in even less time than before.
• Show you how to create a customer support site and populate it with a lot of content in a single afternoon using ScreenSteps 2.5 and ScreenSteps Live. Our customers are seeing dramatic improvements to their customer support process after just a few days of implementing ScreenSteps Live. We’ll show you the workflow they are using and how you can achieve the same results.
• Leave time at the end to answer any questions you have about ScreenSteps or ScreenSteps Live.

Please come join us and see how you can improve your customer support process using ScreenSteps Desktop and ScreenSteps Live.

Register for the webinar here