Edible Log Farm Weekly Blog
As a self-employed person it is important not to get isolated and too self focused. One way of having colleagues at a distance is to join an organisation with members that have a similar mindset and an overlapping field of work. On Thursday and Friday last week I was part of an Annual General Meeting with a group of 60 other Dutch Ecological Landscape Gardeners and Designers (loosely translated). Most of the members are outdoor people with a healthy dosis of reservation against all modern forms of communication; distasteful but useful. The need of reaching potential customers and being part of the business community has nevertheless lead to investments in technology. In the last few years websites have been improved and a mobile phone has become an essential part of the toolkit. Just a courageous few have dared to dabble in the world of tweets and snapchats. Vlogging and films were not yet considered as attainable. The organisation of the General Meeting thought otherwise. We were going to be educated. We had to make a vlog.
At the beginning of the workshop we counted the number of people who thought that this could be useful in their work: result – almost nobody. After a short introduction by a couple of professionals we were split into small groups to make a film about a chosen subject in a couple of hours. Every group had a unique topic. We chose to make our film about the wood from the trees that had fallen down in the storm a week earlier. Our initial skepticisim quickly turned into delight at the ease of the whole process. After filming our desired sequence it was time for the editing phase. Back inside the building we joined the other groups of grey headed teenagers huddling over a minuscule mobile phone screen zealously poking and prodding at it with their fingers. We swiped, we deleted, we chuckled at ourselves. Our teachers found us very amusing but were used to controlling groups of opinioniated students. Within half an hour we were amazing ouselves by watching the birth of a real vlog. And ………we were all impressed.
Warning: Vlog is expected sometime soon…..!
