Just from the title you know this is going to be good. But first, a quiz:

Please name the appropriate state for for these 2 letter state identifiers:

1. “FL” is the 2 letter identifier for which state? “Florida?” Correct!
2. “NY” is the 2 letter identifier for which state? If you said “New York” great!
3. “MO” is….

If you said, “Missouri”, yeah yeah, your right BUT if you said “Montana” you would not be the first one to think so. In fact, you would help me feel not quite as bad for a recent, “Really? Oops”.

Now, it isn’t a BIG deal probably for most people if they don’t know all the 2 letter state identifiers. I mean the absolute worst thing that could happen is that your mail is delivered to the wrong state. But if you run a website that has a large professional GIS (Geographical Information Systems) user base, I mean, people who KNOW geography…then it could be a big deal.

On one of my sites I create software video tutorials on how to use a professional GIS / GPS software application. I demonstrate how to do certain things like loading, modifying and creating data in this program. I recently created a video showing people how to load and export some sample data I have available on the free download section at that site. Sounds like a great way to build some loyal users and repeat customers right? Well…

My second child had just been born, so sleep was a luxury and creating video tutorials for this site had to be done at whatever time I could get them to fit them in. After fiddling with the software for a couple of hours and getting everything “just right” I created a tutorial (at 3 A.M.) that beautifully and visually explained how to load the sample data into the program and export it into another popular free program. The sample data was “Blue Springs, MO 24k DLGS”. You don’t have to know what the rest of that title means to understand this story.  Just understand the fact that MO is Missouri NOT Montana. Which is how I pronounced that state identifier no less than 4 times in a 5 minute video.

When the DEVELOPER of the software sent me an email, thanking me for the tutorial he wrote:

Thanks for the new tutorial, it looks great (although FYI, ‘MO’ is Missouri, not Montana :-)!

I am sure sitting at my desk when I read that email I turned beat red. I thought, “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I did that.” I went back and either dubbed my voice over or I deleted the part where I said “Montana” which sounds a bit funny too. It is funny…now that I listen to it I can actually hear the voice over like a cheesy movie. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get it to sound the same as the rest of the audio on that video clip. “Blah blah blah…MISSOURI…blah blah”.

Lesson:

Don’t create video blogs, video tutorials or audio podcasts when you are struggling to stay awake. When you are sleep deprived, the first thing that starts to go is your brain. You are going to say something silly or even downright stupid and most likely your readers, viewers or even sponsors will catch your embarrassing mistake before you do. They may laugh about it and shrug it off or they may find another site with a developer who is awake.