Skillshare: Part I – The Contact

Wait, did I hear you right? You want me to teach? Thanks Skillshare for giving me an ego boost.

Last night I published my first online video. I am so embarrassed you have no idea. For the most part I’d rather be the puppeteer of situations and projects and not the main show. Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down, and I’d like to take a minute just sit right there I’ll tell you how I became the prince … wait… that’s not it. Here’s how I got involved with:

Skillshare


You know it’s really weird how this all got started. About 3 months ago, Artsy contacted me at my personal email after finding my blog post on On Kawara Silence Exhibit at the Guggenheim. They asked if I would link my post to their site. I obliged but then I realized… I don’t have my personal email address on my blog at all. AT ALL. I had asked my contact how he found my email, but he did this digital hand wave of flattery, I online blushed and never pursued it any further. Artsy folks, you are web hypnotist ninjas and that’s a fact. I may still blush thinking about Artsy.

After that incident, I decided I probably needed to have an email address that went along with my website in case someone wanted to ask me about any sorts of partnerships. Yeah I know, rookie mistake not to have some way to contact you on your own site, but honestly I felt like for the most part I write for me and I have a direct link with myself, so who needs an email address? Am I right? Anyhoo, I set up the email address and then promptly forgot about it.


Early December I get an email from Skillshare about my Asian Styled Catfish recipe. They had found my recipe on my blog, (again, what??? people read this other than my friends and family?) and wanted me to teach a class on sous vide. Who me? *blink blink*

Ok so what even is Skillshare? They have an About section on their site, but I’ll break it down for you.

It’s an online community of teachers and students for people who are both interested in educating others in, and learning new skills respectively. Get it? Skill + Share? Pun so intended.

So the next question you may be asking is, because I know I did, “How is this different from YouTube?”

Firstly, there are no adorable cat jumping in box videos. Instead of that, they might have a video on how to film your cat jumping into a box, or a class on how to get your cat to jump in a box, (not sure if these actually exist, but I’m just giving you an example). It’s a place that not only showcases the final product, but how to create products and learn new skills. Better yet, teachers come up with a homework assignment for students to share with the class, so for this example it might be taking a photo of your cat successfully in the box. Also if I haven’t given it away with my example I love Maru the cat and when he jumps in boxes. I could watch these videos for days.

Now I’m pondering whether or not I should teach this class, after all I often feel like I’m so awkward. Why would anyone want to watch me teach anything? Instead I fought against fear, and focused more on the flattery at hand that Skillshare found my recipe in the vast interwebiverse of content and in the spirit of The Promises 2016 whereby I said I would create more in any format, decided I too could teach a class.

Now that you know what Skillshare is and how this all came about, in the next edition of this saga you’ll find out how I got started creating my class.

Leave a Reply