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Today's tip for "The 12 days of Screencasting" is from Daniel Park. Daniel literally wrote the book on Camtasia. Several actually. And, he's made hundreds of screencasts. Daniel knows what he's talking about.

La la laaaaa! Ready to sing? "On the tenth day of screencasting, Daniel Park gave to me..."

One of the biggest threats to effective screencasting is bulk. Amateur screencast productions tend to be overly long. Do what you can to trim out those excessive pauses that try the user's patience. Strive to keep the narration light, friendly, clear, and quick. After all, this is video. If the user by chance misses a concept on the first play-through, replaying that content is a simple matter of scrubbing backward. On a related note, don't show yourself filling out every form or twiddling your thumbs through every progress bar. If necessary, make use of Camtasia Studio 7.1's vastly improved Clip Speed feature to help trim down the ol' running time.

Daniel Park is a former TechSmithie who departed back in 2003 to start dappertext LLC, his own consultancy that specializes in content creation. And for screen video, Camtasia Studio is his tool of choice. He flies all over the world to do Camtasia Studio training for companies, government agencies, and academic institutions, but he spends most of his professional time actually creating tutorials and marketing spots for organizations that lack the time or talent to do it themselves. He's the author of Camtasia Studio: The Definitive Guide. He lives in Huelva, Spain.