tldr; Spotlight guest speakers would be a cool addition to the channel. There are some obvious hurdles, but it would be a win win win for everyone.
So, don't get me wrong, the Aquarium coop channel is great. However, most of the videos are geared towards new or newish aquarists (again its great -we need new blood in the hobby and I realize that's the majority of the coops target demographic.) As a 30 year vet fish keeper, a lot if not most of the videos just aren't for me. I usually watch, like, and occasionally comment or reply to anyone with questions to help the channel with the algorithm. I understand that the coop has limited resources and time and that those resources must be used for the videos they already produce. I also know that focusing on new aquarists is less time consuming and more beneficial for the company to get new business. But, It would be really cool if maybe once a month there were an "advanced" or "deep dive" video for some of not-so-green aquarists.
About once a month or so we do get a video about Cory or Dean's fish rooms which are good examples for what new aquarists to strive for and for old timers to compare, contrast and glean ideas from. There also used to be fish room tours (pre-COVID) every so often that also filled that niche. But I think there's an opportunity to better the channel with minimal resources being diverted from the current channel's programming.
Now that the coop brand has more clout than ever in the hobby, I was wondering if aquarist spotlight videos would be a viable idea. This could be a monthly video in addition to the normal videos that would be posted to the channel, but not produced by it. Perhaps club speakers for that month could shoot a short introduction video to their fish room or some aspect of their hobby. EDIT: This could be a great way to get more people to join the membership so they could see the speakers talk after seeing their spotlight video/introduction. I realize this would put more work on speakers and many would not want to do it, but for those that did it could be a good way to get people to their channels if they have one. They may even want to share something that is adjacent or not related to the specific topic of their video talk for it.
If speakers don't have the time or desire to make a video, guest videos from other channels or people without channels, but still want to show what they're up to, would be great too. Imagine someone like Alex from The Secret History Living in Your Aquarium doing a guest spot. (He would be a great speaker too, btw) or someone doing something really cool from here on the forum could share. The channel gets something fresh for more advanced aquarist with minimum resources put into it, and the guest gets use of a larger platform. While a lot of us would probably be directed to these types of video by youtube, I believe there are still a lot of people out there doing incredible things that aren't getting the views they deserve or don't have the platform to share. This is especially true for people doing unique or more advanced things that aren't going to going to show up without fairly specific search keys. With a little curation from the coop team, there's a win win situation for everyone here.
I realize the biggest issue here would be quality control and finding these guests. I don't necessarily have any ideas about how to solve both issues. However, with modern smart phones, basically everyone has a good video camera in their pocket these days -- Audio and presentation skills are more challenging issues. In terms of finding guests, well a good place to start is here on the forum and some of the middle sized channels a lot of us fishtubers already know about - Secret History, Bob, Ryo Watanabe, Rachel O'Leary (God willing, when she's recovered and if she's feeling up to it), sheesh what the heck are Robert and Randy up to?
Sorry for the long post. I don't know why I thought this was a good use of my or anyone else's time, but here we are. Happy fishkeeping everyone! Enjoy nature daily!