Field Notes Podcast by Brand Shepherd · 2026-06-27 · 7 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
24 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Dan Shepherd raises a counterintuitive observation: while video dominates consumer media consumption, it almost never appears in professional thought leadership sharing. He argues this reflects a fundamental mismatch between what video demands of audiences and what business communication requires. Video requires complete sensory surrender - fixed gaze, stillness, full attention, and cognitive processing - yet these demands don't align with how influential business ideas actually spread. Shepherd notes that across his 20+ years leading Brand Shepherd, and in conversations with other business leaders, videos are shared at a fraction of the rate of articles, LinkedIn posts, books, and other formats. He positions video as excellent for customer delight and reinforcement of existing beliefs, but inadequate for challenging assumptions or shifting thought leadership positioning. For B2B operators, Shepherd advocates using video strategically for brand storytelling and customer engagement through short-form and long-form formats, but recognizes it shouldn't carry the burden of thought influence - a role better filled by written media that invites reflection rather than passive consumption.
Video requires complete sensory surrender - fixed attention, stillness, and full cognitive load - which doesn't align with how influential business ideas are actually shared and absorbed; written formats like articles and books are better suited for challenging and expanding thought.
Video should be used primarily to delight and inform customers about products and services, and to tell brand stories through short-form or long-form formats, not to influence thought leadership or change business perspectives.
Yes, video is good at reinforcing thoughts people already have, but it's not powerful for introducing new ideas or challenging existing assumptions in business contexts.
According to Shepherd's experience, thought leaders and business executives share articles, book references, LinkedIn posts, and other written formats - but almost never videos - when trying to influence professional peers.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode presents one moderately interesting observation - that videos aren't shared for thought leadership the way articles and books are - but then repeats and elaborates on this single idea for 7 minutes without introducing secondary insights or concrete evidence to support the claim. The reasoning about sensory demands is surface-level and largely intuitive rather than novel.
I have never been sent a video by someone in a C suite or an influencer, or a friend, a peer colleague, client, uh, you name it, and told, hey, you need to watch this.
video requires of us to hand over most of our senses
The central claim that video is better for entertainment than thought leadership is intuitive and somewhat obvious; it lacks contrarian framing or first-principles reasoning. The speaker doesn't challenge their own assumption or offer surprising evidence. The framework of 'video for delight vs. thought leadership' is fairly conventional marketing wisdom.
I think that video is used to delight and inform heavily with a heavy emphasis on delight.
It's good for reinforcing thoughts you already have, but it's just not as powerful as an article, a post, a book, things like that
This is a solo monologue with no guest; the speaker is Dan, owner of Brand Shepherd. While he may be credible, the format eliminates any caliber assessment as there is no external practitioner or expert to evaluate. The solo format also removes the opportunity for push-back and deeper expertise testing.
Hey there. My name is Dan, and I own Brian shepherd here in the year 2026.
It's a very casual conversation. I like to envision that I'm sitting down talking with a, a good friend, but it is a lot of me yapping because you're not here to talk back.
The episode contains almost no concrete data, named examples, or metrics. The speaker offers anecdotal observation ('I've never been sent a video') but provides no numbers, case studies, or named companies to substantiate the claim. Even the reasoning about sensory demands lacks empirical support or research citations.
I have never been sent a video by someone in a C suite or an influencer, or a friend, a peer colleague, client, uh, you name it, and told, hey, you need to watch this.
as I've asked around, um, what I'm hearing is pretty much my experience
There is no conversation, push-back, or challenge in this episode. It is purely a solo speaker presenting an unchallenged thesis with no questions asked, no counter-arguments explored, and no one to probe deeper. The speaker even acknowledges this limitation ('it is a lot of me yapping because you're not here to talk back'), making the lack of conversational rigor a structural weakness rather than a strength.
It's a very casual conversation. I like to envision that I'm sitting down talking with a, a good friend, but it is a lot of me yapping because you're not here to talk back.
I would welcome you, though, to have a conversation with me if anything strikes your fancy.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Here is a strange observation: in over 30 years of doing this work, nobody has ever sent me a video and said “you need to watch this. It will challenge how you think about your business.” Articles, yes. Books, constantly. Posts on LinkedIn, all the time. But never a video. This week’s Field Notes explores why that is, and what it tells us about the mediums of influence in professional life. Video dominates almost everywhere except the one place where you might expect it most: B2B thought leadership. Dan’s theory is that video asks too much of the viewer to work for an audience whose time and attention are already maxed out. If your brand is making decisions about where to invest in video, this one is worth your time. Get full access to Brand Shepherd at brandshepherd.substack.com/subscribe
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: I have never been sent a video by someone in a C suite or an influencer, or a friend, a peer colleague, client, uh, you name it, and told, hey, you need to watch this. You need to watch this. It'll help. Brian Shepherd. Uh, I have been sent countless articles, book, uh, references. I've been sent a lot of, um, different types of, uh, physical media in the way, long, long gone, years. But I haven't been sent a video. And on today's episode of Field Notes, I want to talk about that. Hey there. My name is Dan, and I own Brian shepherd here in the year 2026. We are in our 20th year, believe it or not. It's kind of blowing my mind. Um, and I want to get into some of the things that have been crossing my mind recently as it relates to video, because I like video. And that's the kind of stuff we talk about on Field Notes. It's a very casual conversation. I like to envision that I'm sitting down talking with a, a good friend, but it is a lot of me yapping because you're not here to talk back. I would welcome you, though, to have a conversation with me if anything strikes your fancy. So get in touch. All right, so back to video. Video, uh, is something I adore. I'm. I watch, like most people, a ton of video every single day. Whether it's Reels, TikToks, YouTubes, whatever, whether it's Netflix or Amazon prime, video is part of everyday life. However, when it comes to the work of work, when it comes to the types of media that are sent my way by people in C suite positions, business owners, business managers, uh, trusted peers, thought leaders. If I'm preparing to be a guest speaker or a panelist or a podcast guest, the one thing that I am never sent, and I had to think long and hard before I recorded this episode, is I have never been sent a video and told, hey, watch this. And I have some thoughts as to why that is. Um, I think that it's because video requires of us to hand over most of our senses. Now, obviously, taste and smell are not, not part of the normal video experience, but the reason why movie theaters are so, uh, you know, uh, addictive is because they do involved those two senses of taste and smell, um, with popcorn and whatever, you know, the smell of the theater, the taste of the popcorn, the taste of the candy and the coke and things like that. But just as we're just kind of chilling and doom scrolling and things like that and watching whatever, the thing about video is that it asks of us to be arrested in our movement. So you're not moving unless you're on a treadmill or some kind of stationary equipment at the bike, at the uh, like a bike at a, at a gym. Um, so it requires us to stand still, it requires our full attention. Right? We have, we're going to watch a video with our eyeballs so our gaze is fixed. So we're handing over our bodies, we're handing over our attention and then we hand over our hearing. Those are three really big asks. Because then on top of that a lot of video is aimed at our thoughts and so we're going to be thinking about it afterwards. And that could be a TV show, that could be something culturally relevant, could be a good movie, could be a bad movie, you name it. The point is, is that video has a unique sense of demands that is not uh, complementary with the kind of materials that are sent out by thought leaders, by business leaders as a point of influence. Now I think that's ironic because video has given rise to the influencer as a career. Yet when it comes to B2B business, I have personally and maybe I'm the anomaly, maybe I'm, maybe I'm recording this entire episode and I'm getting a bunch of clapbacks saying Dan, you're just, you're just the odd man out. Why would get tons of video? I'm sure that person's out there. Maybe it's the norm, I don't know. But as I talk to other people, as I talk to other business leaders, um, you know, like before or after meetings, things like that. This has been something that's been on my mind for the last year. And as I've asked around, um, what I'm hearing is pretty much my experience which is that um, videos are just not shared anywhere even remotely. To the degree that books articles, um, posts non video posts on LinkedIn and other places, Twitter and X, whatever, um, and that I think that's very interesting. So when do we use video? Because video obviously is powerful. It's obviously part of everyday life. It obviously has something to say for our brand. So what do we do about that? I think that video is used to delight and inform heavily with a heavy emphasis on delight. I um, think that if we can, if we can frame video with the intent to delight our customers and would be customers with a secondary emphasis on inform by way of getting people equipped with the information they need to make a purchase or engagement, then I think that is that it's, that's where video is Today I do not think that video is there to influence thought leadership. I think video is, is not very, is not very um, good at that. It's good for reinforcing thoughts you already have, but it's just not as powerful as an article, a post, a book, things like that, which are media that is more conducive with um, with challenging one's thoughts, expanding one's thoughts, uh, things like that. So when it comes to using video, what, what, what's the brand shepherd philosophy? I, I always like to say that if we have a brand, we want to tell a brand story. And so we're going to use video as part of doing that. Could be short vertical video, could be long format video, could be a long format sliced up into vertical short videos, all the things. But what we're not going to do is we're not going to use video to change anyone's ideas on anything because that would be an inappropriate use of that media. But what say you? What's your experience with video? I would challenge you to not have a knee jerk reaction to this and share that but really give it some thought. Um, search back through your, your career memories and try and remember the last time a, ah, boss, a client, a mentor, someone sent you a video in a challenging way, in a non humorous way. That said you need to watch this because this, this is going to challenge you um, when it comes to business I just haven't and this, this goes back all the way to 94. I've never been sent a video by, by anyone. Lots uh, of other media but just not video. And it has me um, really thinking hard about just how powerful video is when it's used in the right context. That's been today's rather short field notes. Thanks for listening. Tune in for next time.
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