Why most organizations don't actually have a video problem.

A team came to me last month convinced they were behind. Everyone in their space was posting daily; they weren't. They wanted to talk cameras, turnaround times, what a month of content would run. Reasonable questions. I asked a different one . Who's it for? Nobody had a clean answer. One person said "our community," another said "younger people,". That was the whole meeting, really. Everything after was just confirming it.

They didn't have a video problem. Almost nobody who thinks they have one actually does.

It helps to know what the feeds look like right now, because it's genuinely strange out there. LinkedIn just added a button that lets people flag a post as AI "slop", a platform building a complaint form for the sludge it's swimming in. On that same platform, around 41% of long-form posts are now made by AI, and close to a third of the short stuff too. Off LinkedIn it gets weirder: the New York Times recently traced hundreds of fake AI "wellness" personas quietly selling supplements to people who couldn't tell they weren't real. And nearly nine in ten people who make creative work for a living now use AI to do it. Influencer Marketing Trends: September 2026 +4

So the worry, "we don't make enough video", is backwards. Video is the least scarce thing in the world this year. A competent, watchable, utterly forgettable clip is about ten minutes and one prompt away for anyone. Making more of it doesn't move you forward. It adds your voice to a very loud room where everyone already has a microphone.

The organizations struggling here are almost never struggling with production. They're carrying a quieter problem and mistaking it for a loud one. Usually it's that they can't say, in one sentence, who they're for. Or they know who, but not what they want that person to do afterward.

Or, the deep one. they've never actually decided what they stand for, so everything they make comes out sounding like it could belong to anyone. Video doesn't fix that. It magnifies it. A fuzzy message at 4K is still fuzzy; you've just paid more to be unclear.

I didn't get here from theory. I got here from years of sitting in rooms like that one and watching the same thing happen. The people making work that lands often on budgets that would embarrass a mid-size marketing team always know exactly who they're talking to, sometimes down to a single face they keep in mind. The ones spending real money every month and getting nothing back have almost always skipped that part. Not because they're careless. Because "make more content" is an easier yes than "figure out what we're actually here to say."

So before you shoot a frame or open a single tool, three things.

Who is it for? Specifically. One real person, not "the public." If the honest answer is "everyone," you're making it for no one, and people feel that instantly.

What is it supposed to do? I tell people a story has a job: it builds belonging, builds momentum, or holds onto an idea or legacy. Belonging makes a group feel seen. Momentum makes an idea easier to get behind. Legacy keeps something worth remembering. If you can't name the job, that's your answer - it isn't ready.

And what you want to happen after someone watches. Earlier in my career, the goal was "look impressive," and I learnt the hard way. If that's your goal, you've already lost, because nobody acts on impressed. They act on recognized.

Answer those and you'll usually find you don't need a content calendar. You need one good thing. Can't answer them, and you've found the real work, which no camera and no model is going to do for you.

While you're at it, stop counting the wrong number. Nearly every organization I meet measures output: how many videos went out, how many posts this month. That number meant something once. In a feed that's 40% machine-made, it's worth less every week. Count what's getting rare instead. Did a real person feel seen, did someone reach out because something finally sounded like you and not like everyone else. Harder to put in a report. Also the only thing that survives the flood.

This is why I don't start with a camera, and why I'm slow to let anyone rush me past the questions. I grew up in Nigeria and now I'm building family in Canada, and somewhere in there I decided stories are mostly how people survive being misunderstood. Get the story right and the video half-makes itself. Get it wrong and there isn't a budget on earth that saves it.

So if you're sure you've got a video problem, humour me first. Ask who it's for, what it's meant to do, whether they'll see themselves in it. If those come easy, good, let's go make something. If they don't, that's not bad news. It might be the most useful hour you spend this year, and it beats a conversation about frame rates.