Optimize for demos

I used to work in the semiconductor industry, and I once overheard a senior engineer describe the development during the tail end of the year as “CES driven development”.

For the uninitiated, CES is the largest consumer electronics show where companies showcase what’s coming soon in their portfolio, and it happens in Vegas every January.

Most CES product demos are hacked-up prototypes that ignore edge cases, but their job is to provide a small window into the future.

Engineers like me prioritize making it work, making it right, and then making it fast. And that’s great advice from the pre-AI era. Things are different now, because our development cycles are smaller. So making it work, right and fast is a smaller cycle.

In the AI era, our development cycle should optimize for demos. Breaking down the product into features that make for a good, short form video is going to help stakeholders align better with the development team.

Practical ways to do more demo videos

Lets look at some of the tools we are using on the phone or the desktop for making quick videos.

Mobile

The Edits app from Instagram is a great video editor. You can do pretty much everything you need for making good demos. Ofcourse it has features that we don’t need for this usecase, but don’t let that deter you from using it for this.

Desktop

So when you are doing a demo where you need to show logs coming in along with the physical product, OBS is great.

It has the ability to create and save scenes so you can quickly setup and record a video.

One thing that we’ve found useful is a Camo app for the phone, so that you can still record on your computer, but use your phone as a wireless camera while walking around to give the demo.

Magsafe compatible suction mounts are another great tool that allow you to use both hands during the demo. Tripods are relatively bulkier and less flexible.