A few people have suggested it would be a great idea if I started a youtube channel focusing on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Development.
I remember when I first started CRM development it was all a bit hit and miss and I there is not a great deal of resources to help. Well that isn’t totally correct there is some excellent information in the CRM SDK but when first starting out this isn’t straight forward to getting working.
I also want to start doing some CRM 2013 development because I am currently working on a CRM 2011 project but I would like to get a bit of experience with CRM 2013 and so whilst I am doing this it would be a good idea to document this with a youtube screen recording.
I have created a Linkedin group – Hosk’s Microsoft Dynamic CRM Development so if you are interested please join up, I thought a group would be useful because it’s an easy way to raise discussions etc. Currently there is an impressive 13 members.
I’m not really sure how this is going to work, if many people will find it interesting or what to include, I am not totally how to do it technically, I have been mucking around with some screen recording software and have had my face looking odd at the bottom right, fidgeting and looking like a bit of a muppet. My main goal is to use screen recordings because I want people to see what I am doing and follow it rather than talking a bit and then showing a “here’s one I made earlier”.
Based on my current investigation the videos will be informal and scruffy (like a lot of developers) and to begin they will be short videos, at least until I get the hang of it.
My initial thoughts on what to include are (roughly) general CRM development
For this to be useful I think feedback from people who are interested will be important, so you can either join the LinkedIn group, leave a comment here or I have created a new page which you should be able to see at the top of the blog
https://crmbusiness.wordpress.com/hosks-microsoft-dynamic-crm-development/
I will probably use my youtube channel rather than creating a new channel
Who know’s where it will go from here but I will need suggestions and help (send me some code you think is useful to everyone or even create you own video’s) because a group of people is always going to create something more useful than just one Hosk.
stay tuned to the blog and hopefully I will make a few baby steps next week
Hosk's Dynamic Blog 
I think this is a great idea, but only the writing plugin bit. There are already vast amounts of information on Javascript/Customisations etc on Youtube and there is already a CRM customisation kit on Channel 9. I would really like more information or a video series on writing plugins.
There was a guy on Youtube that started writing plugins and was about to release a video series/training kit on dynamics CRM plugin development on Youtube but KPMG bought the series off him for a 100K or something like that and then the plugin development community went downhill. There are literally no good resources to learn plugin development.
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There was actually two cases where someone started a Dynamics CRM Plugin development Youtube series but then it was shortly purchased by a larger corporation for internal training; as a result the content was pulled off Youtube. It seems that when anyone with any sort of experience in .NET starts a Dynamics CRM Plugin series – it gets purchased and pulled off Youtube. I think this is one of the major reasons you don’t see video tutorials on writing plugins in Dynamics CRM on Youtube which is a shame.
Ben, if you grab any sort of screen recording software you can easily record your screen whilst talking about the code you’re writing. I’m not sure what your thoughts are on how you’ll run the channel, but before the other channels shut they had a popular suggestions series; I would like to see a suggestions box return again, where we suggest plugin ideas and you walk us through it. For instance; on the MSDN forums there have been multiple discussions on creating an editable grid using the sample supplied in the SDK called Contact (or something) – maybe you can show us how to start with customising that for custom entities.
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The videos weren’t “pulled off” Youtube – KPMG purchased all the tutorials for internal training but I think it was more that $100,000 they paid.
Anyway, great idea Ben, I want to see the video lessons return and want to get back into learning to write plugins.
I definitely want to see you write up that editable grid from the crm sdk sample. I think that’s a good start.
Where is your youtube channel? Couldn’t find it anywhere.
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Thanks for your comments so far. It’s interesting, I often wondered why there were not many developer videos on youtube, maybe they get snapped up
My channel is not going to be a fancy presentation, just screen recording and talking about what I’m doing, so I don’t think anyone is going to want to purchase that.
I fear I may disappoint you initially because I am going to start to blog about the basics of development to begin with, Setting up visual studio and connecting the development toolkit and plugin registration. Then getting a simple hello world type plugin to work.
Then after this I will take on board some of the suggestions
I’m not sure whether to put the development it’s own channel – Hosks CRM Development
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV8aOR9xXC8WMvKNLMRf9pA
or in my channel Ben Hosking
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV8aOR9xXC8WMvKNLMRf9pA
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Ben firstly, please just open a Youtube channel because commenting on wordpress can be a pain especially on mobile devices; I suspect this is the reason people are not commenting here – it’s just not mobile friendly at all.
I think your idea to start off with foundation level stuff is good, you can explain the body of a plugin, the contexts the execution pipelines, stages, messages, earlybounds,latebounds, query expressions, linq… etc etc, but I wouldn’t spend too long on it since your audience will definitely be people that work in the Dynamics CRM industry and quite familiar with basics already. Secondly, I wouldn’t get too preoccupied with having the best possible setting in place before you start recording videos; there is someone on Youtube already that just started several random videos on writing plugin and he grew immensely popular within a space of a month, BEFORE he got signed up by a larger company as well so now he rarely has the chance to make the videos anymore.
Good luck mate.
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Hey all, if Ben is busy I would be happy to start a weekly session myself to teach people how to write basic/intermediate/advanced plugins on Youtube. Videos would be uploaded at least once every week with new material. Let me know 🙂
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Hello Hiren
I would say the more CRM Plugin youtube videos the better. I’m sure people would find it very useful. If you let me know your channel after you have put a video up I can link to it.
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Hey Ben, is your channel going to be one of those 1 video every month channels?? lol, i hope not. i’m getting my hopes up because there are no videos on writing plugins at all and i’ve been eager to start but hope it’s not like 1 video every month.
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Hello Sam
I would like to get a video on a weekly basis but I have only started it yesterday so I am just starting to get things together
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The two people that got their videos purchased from larger corporations were rewarded for their efforts IMHO. They were the only people producing XRM videos nearly every week on their own free time. I know that KPMG purchased the set from one Youtuber in 2012, but these guys took the time out to teach the community to write xrm plugins. It’s not really a presumption but a guarantee that Ben will most likely either 1, get the videos purchased for internal training by a larger entity, or 2, get contracted himself to fly around the globe teaching at business sites. It just happened again recently on Youtube where someone got signed up by a company to teach xrm development.
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The reason I am starting a youtube channel and will be blogging about CRM development is because a few people suggested it because there isn’t a great deal out there at the moment.
I also remember starting out my CRM development and finding a lot of gotcha’s which you easily navigate once you have got the experience but when I was starting development it could be very frustrating.
I want to create some useful resources for people doing CRM development.
it will take a bit of time to get in the swing of things but will hopefully be a good learning process for myself and others.
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THIS. 100% agree with Josh, it’s only a matter of time before some large corporation picks up Ben and the channel. It’s happened too many times in the past which makes me think why isn’t everyone doing this? But hey if I had the skills and time to make videos every week I would love an easy 100k to put down for a mortgage.
Came here from Twitter, I work at Deloitte. Someone tweeted Ben had the 6th most certifications at Microsoft? Anyway good luck Ben!
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I would wait to see what the videos are like, they might be rubbish and then maybe someone would pay to stop me doing them 🙂
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Lol, 6th best in the UK and a shit ton of certification – you have been waiting for this moment Ben, you didn’t go through all that hard work for nothing!
I wish you the best of luck Ben.
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hey can someone give me the link to the youtube channel u are all talking about?
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Hello Sir
read this
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