Denver 2009 was a great AAPG convention – too bad I missed it! Having joined AAPG’s staff as Web producer in late August, I have only had the chance to get acquainted with the event through the video footage that was shot during the meeting. It landed on my desk on day one of my AAPG duties, and I have been preparing it for release ever since.

The video material that you will see exists thanks to the volunteer efforts of graduate students and AAPG members Lauren Michel, Stephanie Thomas and Meredith Faber. They did a wonderful job tracking down and interviewing Scott Tinker, Bobby Ryan and many others, asking them questions about their school and job experiences, soliciting their advice for students and young professionals, probing their visions of the future of the oil and gas industry, to name a few.

The first series of videos deal with the interviewees’ first involvement in AAPG – and their answers are candid, witty and very insightful. In the future, as more segments are published, their availability will be announced in the this blog.

Given the ubiquity of YouTube coupled with the technological benefits it offers to webmasters, it was only logical to publish the videos on AAPG’s YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/aapgweb). The YouTube videos also are present in AAPG’s Video Vault (www.aapg.org/videos/) together with downloadable versions of the same videos in smaller sizes for both Windows and Macintosh platforms.

As some of you may have already noticed, the AAPG Video Vault page has been updated with a new collapsible panel design to reduce scrolling while showcasing the active video and hiding others. Technological progress demands sacrifice, and to use the new Video Vault you need to have a new-ish Web browser, Internet Explorer 7 or later; version 6 is no longer supported. So if you’re still stuck in the software past, it’s time to upgrade! AAPG is evolving and embracing the future.