Why Button-Pushing Isn’t Storytelling: Investing your Media Team

John Ondo, a 40-year TV and filmmaking veteran, argues that leaders often wrongly treat media creation as a simple technical task—training someone to “push the buttons” for livestreams or social reels—when high-quality content requires professional instincts built through daily practice. Using golf as an analogy, he says knowing tools and mechanics isn’t the same as developing the judgment needed to adapt to changing conditions and inevitable problems like shifting light or lost SD cards. Ondo warns that low-quality demos, podcasts, and content reflect underinvestment in the team and that digital storytelling is essential for business survival. While AI can save time, skilled professionals are still needed to fix poor AI graphics and scripts. He encourages leaders to foster experimentation and R&D and to think in terms of “storytelling,” not checklists.

00:00 Button Pushing Myth
01:13 Golf Lesson Analogy
01:42 Instincts and Adjustments
02:49 When Shoots Go Wrong
03:35 Media as Survival
03:52 AI Still Needs Pros
04:06 Grow Your Team
04:47 Think Storytelling
05:16 Wrap Up and Next Steps

Watch all of the video format of this podcast on my YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMqz-XMZ8v2VLfSXSCrEtDmfKum5g5ZEb

Transcript

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You know, I hear it every day from leaders and managers. They say, "I, I just need you to train this person to push the buttons for a live stream, or create a reel for our company's Instagram." And the results are always a total disaster, just like my golf game. There's a connection between the two, and I'm gonna shed some light on that today, why you may need to change your thought process on who directs your media. I'm John Ondo, and this is the Media Download I'm John Ondo, a 40-year veteran of television and filmmaking, and I work consulting businesses and non-profits on how to get their stories out in today's crowded media climate. Thanks for watching and subscribing. We are a service of my company, Ondo Media. Now, there's a common assumption among managers who don't fully understand media production. They believe content creation is just another technical skills, that media creation should be like an assembly line, and almost anyone can be trained to do it. And technically, part of that is true, but knowing how to operate the tools is not the same as creating effective, high-quality media. Think of it like learning to play golf. Someone can teach you how to hold the club. They can show you where to stand and how to hit the ball. And after the lesson, you may understand the basic mechanics of a swing, but that doesn't make you a good golfer To become good, you have to play regularly. No. You have to practice your swing, you have to study the course, you have to learn from your mistakes and make adjustments. Ah. Great media creators have to spend time developing instincts that can't be gained from a single lesson. And remember, every game of golf is different. The weather, winds, the course, if the grass was just cut, it all impacts the game, and you have to make a million adjustments to compensate for that environment.

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playing. I don't think the heavy stuff's gonna come down for quite a while. And if the person you just asked to play 18 with you has no interest in golf, you're gonna have a long afternoon on the links. Imagine teaching Scottie Scheffler how to play ping pong. He probably doesn't even like it, and even though he's a top PGA golfer, he will not be the top ping pong player. Media production's the same way. Strong media professionals live in this world every day. They watch content differently. They pay attention to lighting, to sound, to composition, pacing, music, storytelling, audience engagement. They are constantly creating and studying, experimenting and improving their craft. Over time, that daily experience develops their instincts, and those instincts become especially important when something goes wrong, because something always goes wrong. The sun suddenly shifts, and now you have too many shadows in your set. You just lost your SD card. Media professionals are used to these situations, and they know how to pivot. They can work through the creative technical roadblocks without losing sight of the message or sacrificing quality of the final product. You can't simply follow a checklist because every project is different, and the bottom line is when you show your prospective client your company demo, your podcast, and the quality is low, it's likely because you didn't invest in your team. I've heard this many times, "Why are we spending all this money on creating media? It doesn't create any direct income." Well, why don't you go ahead, if you feel that's the case, and shut down your media department? I bet your company will be gone in under two years. Digital storytelling is the language the world speaks. Now, AI can save a lot of time, but you still need someone who knows how to take that terrible graphic AI made and fix it or fix the horrible script that AI wrote you because it doesn't know what it's talking about. Now, this doesn't mean people can't learn media production. They absolutely can. Every experienced professional had to start somewhere, including myself. But meaningful development requires more than a quick training session and access to equipment. You need to encourage your team to experiment, do a little R&D. Tell them, "Hey, bring me a couple new ideas every month, and let's see if we can implement them." I'm telling you, they're gonna love that challenge. If you're a leader, a chief creative officer, a pastor, a CEO, entrepreneur who's trying to crank out lots of media, I hope now that you understand the difference between training someone on pushing buttons and developing someone into a media professional. And let me also say this one thing, avoid using the word media on everything and start using the term storytelling. Right away, you'll begin to look at the process differently. Storytelling cannot be assembled from a checklist. You can streamline it a little bit, but everything in storytelling must be custom, just like every hole on a golf course requires a different club. So give your company a great set of clubs in your storytelling department. Thanks for watching today. Find out more about my media, my storytelling consulting agency by going to ondomedia.com. Your download for today is complete.

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