Lately I have been thinking a bit about “The Grid”…you know that thing that keeps us all connected! Imagine waking up one day and you are in Little House on the Prairie…no grid, no iPhone, no iPad, no Internet, no Twitter, no Facebook, no telephones, no television…NO ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY! What would we do as a society? Think for a second…the headlines in North Korea have been exposing us to that possibility…and E-Bomb. Something that could potentially knock out even the most un-assuming pieces of technology that we depend on…even fuel injection cars.

No this post is not a conspiracy theorist type of post..just one to think, what if all of this electronic technology was GONE? I think of the Allstate Commercial addressing the economy with the message about getting back to basics. But what if that message had a bigger meaning…basics beyond electronic technology.

What has Social Media taught us that could translate into the Little House on the Prairie scenerio? Think for a second…hmm, it has taught me how to use innovation to build relationships. It has taught us that communities are important for so many reasons..but most importantly how to communicate using new innovation.

So, if right this second someone took an eraser and starting erasing the laptop sitting infront of me, the iPhone in my hand, the telephone at my desk, the server in the closet, the electrcity in the walls…and on and on. I would want to know how my friends I have built connections with on Facebook, Twitter, email, blogs, etc. are doing. I would want to reconnect in a more basic manner. I would want to figure out how to communicate with my grandparents, my friends I established on Twitter who are all over the world, etc.

We would innovate and create new forms of communication or step back and rely on traditional forms of communication to find ways to gather, communicate, share ideas, have a drink, and so on. We might even start writing letters again, you know those good ole fashion hand written letters that might be delivered via a horse or a person driving a car that only uses a carburetor.

We would probably value face-to-face interaction because we cannot quickly get our fix on Twitter where we communicate like someone watching a tennis match. Do we depend too much on electronic communication and forget how to establish and maintain relationships outside of the grid? Have we evolved too much with the grid where we can only create a thought through a keyboard which restricts our critical communication skills necessary in a face to face interaction?

HMM…I wonder. I wonder where we are going? I wonder who will be able to evolve without the grid? Will I be able to or am I conditioned to depend on the iPhone?

When I left broadcast television news back in 2000 to return to graduate school, one thing I did was step back from the grid. I got rid of a cell phone and tried to re-evaluate how I communicate. It was nice not to depend on that device that followed me around… tying me to the grid.

Now…I am dependent upon the grid! This powerful pieces of connectivity that i get thoroughly pissed off when i drive through a “DEAD ZONE” or when my cable modem drops connectivity for ONLY A FEW MINUTES. Oh no, I can’t write a blog, I can’t tweet, I can’t upload a photo….I JUST CAN”T EXPRESS MYSELF…what has the world come to?

But hold on…I am breathing…I can talk…I can shake a hand…I can communicate with my mouth…with my handwriting. I can still express myself.

Have you ever caught yourself saying…what did we do before the Internet? What did we do? Really…what did you do? Maybe we did actually Tweet, maybe using a different method?

I have always explained my conversations in Twitter using this scenario. Imagine showing up for a big conference and you walk into a room filled with close to a thousand people. As you walk through the crowd, you ware walking in and out of conversations…listening to comments as you make you way through. You might stop for a second to chat…then keep on walking, in and out of conversations….until you reach a group you are ultimately there to see. You might still mingle after finding that group, walking in and out of conversations…but ultimately you are there to talk to certain groups…as you are listening to different conversations.

Did I just describe Twitter in a different context…a different paradigm…different physicality? Is Social Media just a technology or a communication method regardless of technology? What is the grid?

The idea behind video editing is half passion and half technique. Video editing is more than just editing…it is creating a story, creating a vision that forces the audience to forget they have peripheral vision.

How do we do that…well, let me say that it has taken me years and years of editing tape-to-tape and non-linear editing. You have to understand the technical constraints in-order to manipulate the editor to make it produce what your mind is envisioning.

How do I edit…well, I work first with technique…then passion!

1) I like to build sequences. What do I mean by sequences? Well, a series of shots that creates a series of visual images that shows the action. An example would be if you are getting out of a car and closing the door. The first shot would be a wide shot of the car as you get out of the car, to the tight shot of your hand opening the handle, leading to the next medium shot of the door opening, etc. One of the best directors I think uses sequences very well is M. Knight Shyamalan. He likes to use a series of shots brought together where they lead from wide shot to tight shots in sequences. This technique is allows the audience to engage with the visual story without even realizing it has happened.

2) I like to let sound drive the edit. I LOVE SOUND EDITING. I may not be the best technical sound editor, but I love to use sound to predispose the audience to what shot is about to come. If I am getting ready to show you the train is going by, I like to slowly bring the sound up from the train in the preceding shot to get you mind thinking train and then BAM…there is the train. An since I like to edit in sequences (wide to tight shots), and there is a “jump cut”, you can use sound to blend the edit to fake out the mind. You basically make the eye forget the visual mistake by nailing it with some sound that distracts the eyes. I also like crisp sound to edit. If the hammer is nailing the nail, I want to hear that crisp sound and make sure it matches!

3) WIDE, MEDIUM, TIGHT, SUPER TIGHT…TELL THE STORY! That is my motto…my mantra. I am somewhat a purest when it comes to my editing style. Now, I can get flashy with those fast, graphical edits…but I like to tell the story as I would visually see it with my eyes. Our eyes do not pan, they do not zoom…so why should we edit that way? You will not see me edit pans or zooms unless it reveals something. So, I search for the opportunity to edit from a wide to tights. Especially in interviews where I want to create pacing…start with a wide shot on a comment, then cut to the tight shot comment for emphasis. This creates pacing and visual interest!

4) I edit in a Non-Linear Paradigm (Final Cut & Avid) using Linear methods. I am in the zone when I have two BetaSP Decks side by side, manipulating the four channels of audio and one video track to tell a story. It is my opinion that most editor these days are sloppy allowing the non-linear editing software just create a dissolve or effect when there is nothing else to do. Linear editing is a tremendous exercise forcing one to think two shots ahead and three shots behind. You have to know what shots you are going to use next and how they blend with the previous shots. YOU ARE TELLING A VISUAL STORY…not just creating visual overload.

5) I like to evaluate a sequence or the final product in a couple ways…mainly to see if I gained success. I like to watch the video with my ears closed, eyes open; then watch again with eyes closed and ears open. This is to see of the sound and the visuals tell the same story. I also like to get others to watch the the final product and watch them as they watch the story. I like to see where they loose interest, where they have emotion, basically to see if the purpose matched the reaction.

6) I like telling stories! I like to be able to throw out all the rules and sacrifice the technique in order to achieve a better story. If there is a great moment captured and it needs to breathe…no fast edits, no sequences, no fancy effect…then let it breathe! Your audience will thank you for it and come back for more!!!!

Editing Food For Thought! Do you have any thoughts?

Times are changing faster and faster everyday. As technology evolves faster  than we can breathe…and as it evolves, we need people to help us with it, understand it, and sell us a strategy to implement.

Web strategy of 2010 has evolved into business communication strategy. Creating and monitoring revenue streams as we create and monitor conversations…well actually the technology that distributes these conversations and messages.

I think back to when I was in undergrad at Clemson. My freshman year (1992), no email and the only knowledge of the World Wide Web was this thing called Gopher. I remember I could use it to find my girlfriend’s class buildings at Appalachian State University. By my sophomore year, I had email and the WWW became a new idea on Clemson’s campus. By my junior year, Clemson was teaching web design and development classes. While I was in college, major AD & PR agencies were building strategic communication strategies and the computer geeks were creating webpages.

Now…here we sit in 2010, the new age AD Firm is the web/new media agency: building business models around web strategy as a communication plan that drives revenue. It started out as going paperless to save money, but now communication strategies are sold to drive revenue not only for the organizations that buy the plan but for the firms that are selling the strategy.

Why the discussion…I have been studying and trying to understand the evolution of the new media business models. Watching and researching the retainer models for web and new media firms that are not only creating an updated web presence but also building relationships with C-Level executives for long term ROI.

I have been talking and visiting with companies everyday who are caught in similar positions. They are staffed with creative professionals that handle all the graphic design and communication planning for their communication strategies. These companies are staffed with “traditional” media execution but scrambling to create and implement web and new media strategies. Many companies staffed with seasoned professionals trying desperately to get up-to-date with these web, social, and new media concepts. These same companies are staffed with interns that are training professionals how to evolve and adapt practitioner concepts into new technology.

Web strategy companies come in with big retainers and big ideas…visions of solving problems capitalizing on the current deficits in knowledge in many mid to large size organizations…”how can we make our web presence better and drive traffic to our message.” The new age AD Firm is today’s Web Firm….staffed with Presidents/CEOs, project managers, business development professionals, designers, developers and a board of directors. These board of directors made up of investors and visionaries capitalizing on the new wave of messaging.

It is a new world order…we are buying iPad’s and Androids as fast as we consume information. We sit and watch HDTV on our couches while we sit and surf the Internet with our Mac Book Pros and posh laptops. We are texting as we drive down the road while answering phone calls and listening to Pandora. Information velocity has a new derivative…information velocity. It is a new world order. And what is the next evolution? Hmm…Mobile Media Firms will take over and create the new strategies as business communication strategies with brick and mortar offices in every city.

How will we as practitioners stay relevant though this accelerated evolution of business and technology strategies. Hmm…maybe just keep on telling stories. BTW…I realize I might be one of these groups I am talking about…taking part in the new world order.

New media is a great new tool that has helped political candidates reach out beyond the traditional outlets, and tell their story. We witnessed history as the first African American ran for the highest political office in America, and he used the power of new media to reach his target audiences…his masses.

He engaged with YouTube, email blasts, Twitter, and other means to distribute his message. He coordinated this video message with television advertising. Then he used all of this connection points to bring the masses to watch a one hour television special from the eyes of his audience, telling their story. He was the host.

The one thing I have noticed when he used online video messaging, it always came from him looking directly at his audience. It was not these taped interviews where he was looking off camera, submitting to q&a from media outlets and pre-produced interview sessions. He had a script, it was well crafted, short and obtainable in one sitting, it was phrased in active voice, and he looked at his audience directly eye to eye, face to face.

He distributed these video messages with that same strategy that they were crafted. He used email blasts with embedded images that gave the illusion that someone was going to click the video and it opened up a landing page where the video would rest. Lots of times it was a place to sign-up to donate, sign-up for a newsletter, or commit to attending a rally or function.  He made this process easy…his team programmed and planned for the user interface to be easy and mindless.

He drove traffic to his YouTube site which housed all of his messages, this done by embedding the YouTube video within the landing page. This helped with SEO and creating digital connection points so that the keywords (the issues) where found easily when people used Google to find information. He created the illusion of the digital conversation.

We as business owners can learn a lot from this campaign, this practice, this initiative. People want to here from us, our story! They want to see us say it. They want to know what we look like, our expressions, our emotions, our passionate delivery. If you have listened to the critical analysis’s of his presidency, they spend a lot of time talking about his expressions. This conversation comes from digital penetration…he has made all of his emotions available but showcasing them on a regular basis for the world to see. Wouldn’t we be so lucky to have the same effect? These tools are out there for us to use! What is your story?

When I worked for KPHO-TV in Phoenix, Arizona…I never knew what story I might be covering on a day-to-day basis. It could be anywhere in Arizona, Mexico, California, or even across the US. We were the flagship station for Meredith Corporation and you never know where the story would take us.

I remember it vividly. I worked Sunday to Thursday…so the page would come at 10am Sunday morning preparing me for my 2:30 – 11pm shift. At that time, we communicated using alpha numeric two-way pagers and mobile phones. As I would wake up to the bright Arizona sun, the pager would hum across the bedside table bearing my assignment for the day or even for the week.

It was required for me to keep a week’s worth of clothes in my full size blazer along with enough video tape, cable, and water to cover the story. I have been in an FBI standoff in the middle of the Arizona desert heat that reached 120 degrees. Dehydration was a reality. As photojournalists based out of Phoenix, we were also required to be trained by Phoenix Fire Department…how to cover stories in the heat, wildfire blazes, and structure fires. Covering stories was more than collecting sound bites and broll, edit, then put up the dish and get on air by 5pm…it was about understanding and adapting to our environments. It was about making the most of what we had and finding ways to work smart and efficient to collect, complete, and distribute compelling stories effectively and efficiently.

This hot morning, the buzzing pager gives me the message…heading to western Arizona to find a town underwater. Not sure when I will return. Hmm…I am in the middle of the freaking desert. A town under water? Is the assignment desk speaking in tongues or are they playing CYA since we have burned all of our helicopter hours for the month and they want to know if what the scanners are saying are true.

Out of the shower (better take one since this sounds like I might not get one for a few days), grab the camera and batteries, and off to Wenden, Arizona. When I get there…this what I found. Needless to say, I was out there for four days, slept in the Blazer and captured and produced dozens of stories of destruction and loss. I worked closely with a great writer and reporter Laurie Raymond.

So many stories, so many visuals, so many lives changed…including mine. I never thought I would see a desert town underwater.

So it is my goal this year to look beyond the my current universe and begin to find other avenues beyond Flash video. Yes….for the past two and half years, I have been using Flash Video (FLV) to compress and distribute video content. Why did I start using it?

Well, at one time we were using WMV (Windows Media) as the primary platform, our current Director of IT had us on a windows platform and it made sense. It was clean, flexible yet we were missing a major target audience, the Mac World. From a user standpoint, Flash Video had a bigger penetration rate plus it looked real clean with HDV content. So off we moved to Flash video. The downside, the compression time TAKES FOREVER! WOW! But, it was flexible and had many robust player options, and every developer under the sun was creating so many options for Flash Video.

With the advent of the iPhone and other mobile computing devices (including the upcoming release of the iPad), Flash video is barely supported. It is funny, I moved to Flash to reach the Apple users, now those same Apple users are going to force me away from Flash video. So, now it is my goal to deliver high-quality video outside of  Flash Video…for the sole reason of reaching mobile audiences.

How are we currently reaching mobile audiences, well there is this great new place called YouTube. Yes, god bless these souls. They are the work around. Upload the video content to your YouTube channel, then grab the readily available embed code for your web page, and SHIZAM….you can have most of the mobile devices access your video content. Yes it is a Flash player, but since they have contracts with major mobile platforms like the iPhone, you can play video embedded into your website if it is hosted on YouTube. The problem, once you upload the content…it is no longer your content, it is owned and operated by YouTube. Yes, this free distribution channel doesn’t want to be liable if their servers take a big ole hiccup and your audience can’t watch your favorite video of Uncle Al busting his ass coming down the stairs or your corporate video that needs to play in front of investors.

So really, this year is dedicated to more than just moving away from my technological dependency of Flash video, but also my hosting/contract dependency of YouTube. I want to find a place to store my content, distribute it to the targeted audiences, and maximize the quality my clients pay me dearly to provide. Now, thanks to H264 codecs…this is possible.

So far, I have only found one place that makes sense….I think, Sorenson360. I have looked at Brightcove, Ooyala, Veeple, and Kaltura….but Sorenson360 has my vote right now. This is why…pretty simple. I set-up a trial account, uploaded an H264 Quicktime (.mov), it asked me if I wanted to distribute to the web and mobile (I said yes), it gave me a simple embed code, I dropped it into my blog, pulled out my iPhone, and behold…my video play instantly on my iPhone. ***Side note, Brightcove and Ooyala have harassed the snot out of me since i signed up to check out their trial area. Actually Brightcove was very nice, but not Ooyala.***

I am looking forward to HTML5 and the opportunities it will bring. But I am a one man type of show. I can hire some developers to create a platform to upload, compress, and distribute content for my clients…but Sorenson360 did this within a matter of minutes.

Video distribution should not be what limits us to provide a message to an audience, it should enable us to reach larger audiences. It should provide a pathway to reach groups of individuals regardless of the “technology” they use to access information. It is my goal to embrace technologies to reach these groups. The same is true for Social Media technologies, they are a tool and it is up to us as practitioners to use them if it meets the needs of the audience.  We have a story to tell!

BTW…I already know how to host, compress, and distribute video content on dedicated or virtual servers. I understand the ROI for the use CDN’s and the Amazon’s Cloud to encode and distribute video content. But, I am one man that likes to focus on telling stories, not managing a server network. It is time focus on my core competency…telling rich stories.

I want to thank the peeps over at Pixelmeld, LLC (Dave Lee and Andy Macdonald) for making this happen! We spent lots of time working on the video player for the main website using HTML5 technology compressing multiple flavors of video so that the front page could play in many different browsers and the iPhone. Bottom-line, we want to avoid using Flash video.

The site was designed using ModX CMS along with a Wordpress Blog. The blog was styled with a custom template to match the branding of the main site. The part that took the most time was trying to get the background of the video as close to a true white to match the website. The video on the homepage was shot in HD on a green screen using both Final Cut Pro to edit and Avid Media Composer’s key capabilities to match colors for the background.

I also want to thank George Law for his technical expertise and direction while making this happen. He is one hell of a Linux Administrator! I am just a video guy and I like to surround myself with smart people, like George, Dave, and Andy. WOOT!

I have been thinking lately about how we get our stories to people…distribution points. The one thing that I consistently preach to my students and my clients:

1. Audience – Who are the audience(s) you are trying to reach..list them ALL!
2. Purpose – What is the sole reason you have something to say or tell.
3. Delivery – What are you going to use to get that message to those audience(s).

These points create context…context for the message. As you notice…they are intertwined. Well, you may have a great story, but if you do not know how the audience can access the message…then you might be creating the best Super Bowl message for an audience who does not have a television. You might be creating the most unbelievable email marketing campaign, and your target audience does not open emails.

We have to think about distribution…yes, it comes down to delivering the message. Here is a list of distribution methods:

1. Web
2. Blogs
3. Television
4. Home Phone
5. Mobile Phones
6. PDA’s
7. Text Messaging
8. Twitter
9. Facebook
10. Fax
11. Mail
12. Brochures
13. Business Cards
14. White Papers
15. Annual Reports
16. Online Video
17. Mobile Video
18. Newspaper
19. Radio
20. Satellite Radio

Now let’s look at major “Anchor” tools where stories can be told, the beginning of the food chain:

1. Web
2. Blogs
3. Newspapers
4. Brochures
5. White Papers
6. Annual Reports
7. Television
8. Radio
9. Satellite Radio

These places are where the stories are produced and created for audiences to eventually find themselves enjoying content. But, we have different distribution points to bring these audience back to the original source…teasing them with a hint of what’s to come:

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. Mail
4. Fax
5. Business Cards
6. Radio
7. Text Messaging
8. Mobile Video
9. Home Phones
10. Mobile Phones

The point here is when we create stories, we can use these “Anchor” tools to place our stories and use the distribution points to bring audiences back to this place…to learn more, read more, or hear more. The new face of our organizations is our “Web Property”… our main website.

Organizations are learning that they must invest just as much time, effort, energy, resources, and money into shaping their main web property as the major distribution point of information. The organization internally must support this new media and begin using the distribution tools necessary to funnel audiences back to this portal.

Organizations are also learning to re-shape marketing budgets, pr budgets, and IT budgets to allow resources necessary to create, provide, and drive traffic to a web portal and IT providers are learning to build robust systems to support this audience base.

Organizations are also starting to learn that Social Media Technologies are just as efficient as other distribution tools to gain audiences attention with “Teasers” of content, finding new ways to tell stories in a distributive method. This distributive method is now the online community building technologies. Providing portals of conversation where people can engage and connect…and allowing the “Tribe” mentality to shape the community which becomes the online cheerleading section.

So now that ealier way to analyze context of a story is starting to take new shape:

1. Audience(s) – Name all the audiences
2. Purposes(s) – What is the purpose of the over-arching message and for each distribution points
3. Delivery – What is the main point of delivery and what are the sub-distribution points that will tease audiences back to the mother ship.

To me…this is a game. How do we tell one story with multiple layers. Allow the audience to follow the “red-string” along the many paths of distribution points to ultimately get to the main story. What is your story, how are you telling that story, how are you reaching your audience(s), well…I am listening!

1931

not exactly a great year to start a business

but

that is when allstate opened it’s doors

and through the 12 recessions since

they noticed after the fear subside

a funny thing happens

people start enjoying the small things in life

a home cooked meal

time with loved ones

appreciating the things we do have

the things we can count on

it is back to basics

and the basics are good

protect them…

put them in

good hands

~ I can identify with these words…one of the best written spots I have seen…wonderful soft sell!

Organizations right now are having a real hard time telling there story…it is not because they do not have compelling stories to tell, it is because they are not properly equipped to craft and deliver the stories.

Over the past few months, I have been finding large to medium size organizations who are in a new media, operational conundrum. They have for so many years been staffed to handle lots of the traditional means to deliver stories. Now their organizational structure does not support the staff or resources necessary to keep up with the drastically changing movement of audiences to more new media outlets.

Let’s face it…a company/organizations ‘website’ or ‘web-portal’ is now the face of the organization. Now I say this just in the present tense…who knows where new media will take us, because as we know…everyday, new media is old media in this ever changing environment.

Large to medium size organizations are typically staffed (or outsource) with graphic designers, copy writers, and other organizational marketing and public relations professionals. They are trying to rapidly convert these resources to not only meet the demands of the new, mainstream media…but they are also still trying to keep up with their current tasks. We are finding that much of these professionals are not embracing the evolution and not translating their skills to new media standards. For example, the websites and online newsletters look like print publications and print newsletters and press releases.

Today’s audience wants engagement, a bi-direction path of communication.  Organizations can not longer just deliver information in a one way pattern, they must find ways to engage with the audiences and evolve with their needs. Traditional ad agencies are finding themselves caught up in this conundrum right along side with the organizations that they represent. FYI…I do find tremendous value in the combinations of use between traditional and new media(s). PRINT IS HERE TO STAY. Audiences still like to pick up a book or a magazine to read…but these publishers are learning to become lean and targeted with thier content.

So how do organizations learn to not only embrace new media strategies but also maintain the equity they have the traditional sources of delivery. IT IS ALL ABOUT AUDIENCE! We have lots to learn from news organizations. There is a new boss in town and they are now the CCO…the Chief Communication Officer! All information must flow through this person. They must create a new media strategy that funnels all of their information through web portals and use them to promote and support traditional means of delivery.

Organizations also need to re-evaluate their current personnel! They no longer can just be staffed with an IT professional, they need a communications group that supports new media designers & developers, content creators & distributors, community builders, and rich media creators (video/fluid media). Organizations also have to take control of their silos of information hoarders and create internal relationships of trust that allows them to control/regulate brand, and control/regulate release of content. Organizations also have to empower their members to become owners of a bigger plan, to take part in the tribe and be a part of the communication strategy.

So where are these silos formed, how are they created? This has to be understood and examined in-order to create synergies between silos within the organizations. These silos can be found in universities, hospitals, and other large organizations with many verticals under one roof. These silos are created based on these verticals, these internal groups which represent revenue streams. These particular verticals have level of communication strength and represent brands that are well supported financially.

So how do we begin to bridge these gaps of communication?  It is time to find new ways to realign, reposition, and repurpose experts within the organization. Leadership has to be cognizant that the bigger the silos, the more disjunct the umbrella brand becomes, and a smaller vertical becomes the focus of the organization. There is value of telling lots of little stories to reinforce the bigger brand as long as it meets the rhetorical position of the over-arching brand.