So I had a chance to hang out with a Samsung Galaxy Tab…thanks to my friends at JDPR and Verizon Wireless. No…they are not paying me for my words, but wanting to know my thoughts! So if you watch the video below…here are my first impressions.
As you know I am a big fan of the iPad and iPhone. I have both and found the Galaxy an interesting change from the beaten path. I am wondering if I would purchase one, but here are some honest thoughts based on my initial impression.
As you notice, to me it feels like a larger DroidX without the phone built in. It does have a microphone, so I am sure it can be “rooted” and converted into a phone device. But, bottomline I am wondering about the price point. I have checked online and it looks like the Tablet is $499.99 and is just a bit larger than the DroidX, which is $199.99 with a two year contract. Both run on the same Android OS offering the same mobile apps. I am wondering if people would be willing to make the $300.00 price jump for a little larger device that is not a phone? Now I know the same has been said about the iPhone and iPad, but there is a sizable difference in screen size.
Now…I realize I have some biases given that I am an Apple person. But here are some of the reason I like the Samsung Galaxy Tab:
1 – The size! Yes, I like the fact it rests in my palm. Bigger than a phone and smaller than the iPad. 2 – The Mobile 3G Hotspot! Nuff Said! 3 – It is a cool gadget. 4 – Opportunity to play with a different OS. 5 – Supports Flash Content via the browser. 6 – The front and back cameras.
Now…I did notice the browser was sketchy at times, lagging in load times with faced paced surfing. I also noticed that the Android Marketplace is still not full with as many apps as Apple’s App store, but time will change that. Also, waiting for Skype to support the cameras on the Galaxy.
Just a few initial thoughts. I will be having another post come with more impressions! Enjoy!
Here are a few reviews by some other folks that have a little more credibility than I do!
1 – Engadget’s Review – CLICK HERE
2 – Gizmodo Review – CLICK HERE
3 – ZDnet Review – CLICK HERE
4 – PCWorld Review – CLICK HERE
Storytelling is probably the oldest craft alive: the ability to tell stories so others can see a point-of-view and repeat for others to enjoy. Journalism is one facet of storytelling, being able to provide an objective: an un-biased point-of-view of “news” for others to consume.
I have been closely watching the incidents, like the rest of the free world, in Tucson, AZ that began with the shooting of many innocent American’s on January 8th. This story has been the epicenter of local, regional, and national topics from gun control, free-speech, political transparency, and even defining what it means to be American.
As Sarah and I were having lunch, she asked me…”Why do you think so much focus has been on Gabrielle Gifford’s story and not as much on those who have been wounded and died, including the little girl” Well, it is my belief that the story of Congresswoman Gifford is the true pinnacle of this whole incident. As stated by the surgeon’s, this is a case of miracles.
It was the first time Giffords had opened her eye since the shooting. Kelly told Giffords to give him a thumbs-up if she could hear him. Instead, she slowly raised her left arm.
“The doctor said this is amazing what she’s doing right now and beyond our greatest hopes,” Gillibrand said.
“It felt like we were watching a miracle,” Wasserman Schultz said. “The strength that you could see flowing out of her, it was like she was trying to will her eyes open.”
On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday, Gillibrand added, “Everything that we love about Gabby was all there at that moment.”
Kelly told the president and first lady about the development as they drove from the hospital to the University of Arizona’s McKale Center, where Obama would speak at a memorial service. Kelly gave the president permission to tell the crowd about his wife’s progress.
“Gabby opened her eyes,” Obama told the cheering crowd. “So I can tell you: She knows we are here, she knows we love her, and she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey.”
This miracle has broken down so many conventions and pre-dispositions, bridging gaps of communities and bringing together an American story right before our eyes.
Yet, there are so many stories that are untold, those left for us to understand. We are still trying to understand why a young man would use a gun to shoot so many a point blank range. In some of the pictures, he looks like just another person, another American, someone that could be buying groceries in the next aisle. We are trying to understand why, understand his fundamental Truth that made him make the decisions he made that day.
We are also trying to understand a small church in Topeka, Kansas and their motives for protesting during funeral services of those who perished during this event. Life Magazine did a photoessay of this group, and if you look at their faces and remove the picket signs…they look like you and I. Who are they and what are their truths? What provides them the voice to shout so loudly that it is necessary to bring another opposing view-point to this volatile discussion. I do not have the answers…but I have some thoughts.
Dr. Johnny McKinney of Boulevard Baptist Church has been guiding us through a discussion and examination of the Book of Genesis, a interesting text with many points-of-view. So literalist look at this text as the true faith based creation, and others look at it as a metaphor for how to live a good christian life. We all have a point-of-view. During the discussion, he told a story of the holocaust and the trial of the architect of the holocaust in the 1960’s.
Dr. McKinney tells us that during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, as one of the holocaust survivors walked in to testify, that person collapsed upon seeing Eichmann for the first time. He did not collapse because he was so mad or overwhelmed with emotion from the events of the holocaust, or even what they had to go through in the concentration camps; but that Adolf Eichmann looked just like you and I. He looked “human.” This man thought the Jews were an evil group of people, and wanted to separate them from the rest of the human race.
So here is my question, why are we trying to protest the evil ones? Who are the evil ones? Did Jared Laughner see Gabrielle Gifford as evil? Does Westboro Baptist Church see those who they are protesting as evil? What is their poinit-of-view and what drives them to passionately advocate for their message. Or maybe they are driven by fear as well, not willing to take part in mutual discourse. Maybe their message is a one-way avenue to impose their truth. I am in search to understand and see their point-of-view, not to accept…but to understand. To take part in mutual discourse, open conversation, one of understanding.
As I was sitting and listening to Dr. McKinney speaking, I wrote the following. It was in response to this past week and the words of his talk this morning.
To understand ones truth does not mean you accept ones truth.
Examining and exploring another truth is a path to understanding, to see and hear another point of view.
Our truth is our reference point, our ethos. It is the foundation that makes cry, scream, laugh…our lens.
When we listen to other truths….it sometime takes out of our comfort zone both intellectually and emotionally.
When we begin to understand another truth, we put away our emotions and allow our logic step ahead and process anothers’ point-of-view.
We can dissect another’s truth and allow our emotions to express our acceptance or rejection.
We choose to not hear another point of view or truth because of fear of the unknown. Fear of what we are not certain how our logic will interpret and how our emotions can to take control.
Fear sometime drives the resistance to understand and listen to truth.
Our truth is powerful.
As storytellers, it is important to seek and understand the other point-of-view. It does not mean we must agree, but to seek and understand is the path to quality discourse that bridges gaps. As humans…quality discourse leads to healthy conversations.
Why do I write about something this political and personal on this blog, because our stories are stories of truths. We tell stories from many different points-of-view. They are full of messages and ideologies that shape the way audiences perceive a message and form the truths that shape their lives, and the lives they influence. We must be cognizant of our messages…and understand the opposing point-of-view and the people it will influence. Mutual discourse is a beautiful thing.
Do you have thoughts? I invite you to let me know! I am open for thoughts and discussion.
Welcome my friends! Welcome to your new name and your new place.
For most of my friends out there, over the last year I have been working with an organization called the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management in Columbia, SC. You say who??? Yes, it is a long name for a big initiative.
A few years ago, Lonnie Emard of BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS) of South Carolina recognized the need to energize and empower the next wave of IT talent. He inspired Steve Wiggins the CIO of BCBS of South Carolina to perform a comprehensive study of the needs of the future IT Workforce not only internally, but across the industry. What they found was alarming and instrumental in today’s initiative now call IT-oLogy.
Did you know BCBS of South Carolina is more than just and insurance provider, they are data management/transaction group. Yes, in-order to allow insurance claims to happen…it takes servers exchanging lots of data. These servers require people to manage not only the hardware but the software that supports these transactions. Cobol is is the software that runs these servers and it takes people that know this software to support the servers and the infrastructure to facilitate these transactions. BCBS of South Carolina began realizing that the people who are managing this infrastructure were retiring and not many people to replace them. Many of the universities and higher education institutions were not teaching Cobol and the server knowledge to run the systems at BCBS. Houston…we have a problem.
So…with this problem, Lonnie Emard had the vision to bring together a “Consortium” of partners to find a solution. The solution: begin educating and empowering students in K-12 about the value of IT as a career path. Currently, to tell people the world is like telling kids it is ok to be a “geek.” IT is in everything we do, from turning on a light switch to connecting to a Wifi hotspot. It is everything we do. We have become a connected society and surrounded in world of IT….Information Technology.
So….why and I telling you this? This initiative came to fruition over a year ago with a legal name “Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management”. Well…they have re-branded their name to IT-oLogy. Yes…at little more edgy and appropriate given the audiences….young students and young professionals. Congratulations IT-oLogy…you have come so far. You have a new name and a new building. Lonnie Emard, the Executive Director of IT-oLogy, does not look at as a new building but more of a hub, a community, a place to join forces. The University of South Carolina will be teaching classes in this new facility, there will be an Open-Source Lab, a 200 person auditorium, tons of meeting space…all right across the street from the State House in Columbia, SC.
I have been really thinking why we as marketers been so focused on a discussion of Social Media(s) return. In 2010, the Social Space experienced an un-precentented number of professionals fighting for the same space…the space for marketing dollars and jobs. That is why we heard so much conversation on placing a numerical value on the media that captures social exchange. The two reasons for the term Social Media ROI…the economy and job lose.
When the economy declined dramatically late 2008 and in 2009, we felt the ripple effects in the world of business in 2010. Especially in the business of banking, real estate, academics, and even healthcare. People were loosing jobs and marketing budgets slashed. Advertising and PR Companies including departments were laying off and closing doors. Many more “entrepreneurs” were forcibly born looking for ways to connect in new ways.
As outlets like Twitter and Facebook gained lots of traction…and professional outlets like LinkedIn carried those resumes; relationships began to become key in finding work. As we built more and more online communities, marketers realized that there was a space to find communities to share brand conversations.
Why bring this up and re-kindle the unwanted conversation around the great American depression that effected so many individuals. Because, I was a part of this movement. As I watched a business I help build crumble, I was seeking to find new business opportunities and new relationships. But what I found was more than the ability to speak credibly about a digital, social space…I found relationships with people. Most of these people I have yet to meet, but these people are ones that I share conversations with daily…online
So why must we measure this space. Why must we measure the conversations that were fostered during a time of new connections. Yes…we can count the “Likes” and the “Followers”. We can look at the clicks to the blogs. We can aggregate the impressions created for brand recognition. But it is really my honest opinion, from a corporate marketing perspective, this space leads to credibility and connections between kindred souls.
I was meeting with a Land Investment Group talking about how they could use the Social Space to benefit their business and their initiatives when raising capital. The social space I believe will not 100% guarantee a deal for someone to invest. But what I do think is that it will help the conversation. Any business deal is about relationships…especially when it comes to investing money. But after the meetings and the “pitch” is done, those individuals interested do what we all do…they do some due-diligence. They go home, open the laptop and do a little searching and investigating. What the social space provides is the SEO to guide the person searching back to content the group has created. They start Google”ing”. This space provides conversations that have taken place around that brand. It provides the reinforcement to a potential decision.
I am not saying that having a “social strategy” is for the birds…what I am saying there is more than just spending time trying to measure conversations wrapped around relationships. The space is getting more and more flooded with these conversations, these blog posts, these “thought leaders”, all fighting for the same space. The velocity of conversations online is ever increasing and just as fast as the technologies that are connecting these conversations.
What this velocity has provided…more and more access to real time information and content. On the day when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson, AZ…real time streams of information from common folks were competing with “credible” news sources. Most of all the outlets were reporting that she had past away, while “social” outlets provided platforms of people surrounding the scene to share information. Imagine the burden on news outlets competing for space with fact hungry, online socialites. We have all become news journalists trying to find and share information. We are all competing for that space…we want to be heard.
Now…there are billions of listeners. It all comes back to connecting with like minded individuals.
**Picture is from Hunting Island in 2006 right before the erosion destroyed our beach house.
As I am sitting here looking at the 7 inches of snow outside, I am scanning Tweets in my Social Media Favorites List. I noticed one from Mack Collier @MackCollier.
So I clicked the link and I have to agree with Mack…this is a smart lady! Here is the response from Margie Clayman (@margeclayman).
Margie, you have got me thinking about this crazy world in this social space. You said: “There are a lot of people who are out there solely to rake in the big bucks and get famous, and it kind of makes me mad that their methodologies work. I try to do things the slow, more engaging/interactive way, which I find extremely rewarding, but it’s not the kind of work that gets you accolades in the industry.”
This quote really struck home for me and made me think a little more. It is people like you who are out there helping people build quality initiatives, and if your motives are in the right place and the initiative works…you should not be in the fore-front. You are helping people understand the social space and build communities with your guidance. If you were in the middle of the initiative, then you would be the whole campaign and it would be just that…a campaign.
Helping organizations build quality social initiatives is about teaching and guiding. It is not about doing it all for them, thus you completely speak on their behalf in the social space. Community building is about helping people connect around an organizations’ initiatives, not around out own personal agenda’s. We help organizations we believe in…and we have relationships with these groups – they are important to us. It is our ethics that drive us to make sure their interests are always put first. This is just my humble little opinion and thanks for making me think on this snowy day in South Carolina! Thanks Mack for sharing this via a Tweet…it got me thinking.
I have a good friend that is a Chief Meteorologist in North Carolina at a station I used to work, WCNC-TV in Charlotte. It is the NBC Affiliate and we worked together for close to 3 years. While I was there, he was the weekend weather guy and since I left, he was promoted to Chief Meteorologist.
Why am I telling you about my friend Brad Panovich, well…he is a weather nerd! He has a passion for weather and understanding how weather effects our daily lives. He also has a passion for the science of weather study. I would imagine Brad probably would fit well with the many of the weather and storm chasers in the midwest. You know those people that chase tornados. He would not chase them just to document their relative activity for the thrill. He would chase a tornado to document the pattern to understand the science.
His passion is shown in his use of technology…he uses it to tell his story and the story of the weather that interests him daily. If you are local to Charlotte, NC…you can watch his “stories” on WCNC-TV. You can also check him out on WCNC.com. But, if you go to his house…he has more computers in his office than I do. He uses them to track weather patterns and share his findings. He uses the power of the web and the social space to keep people informed. He has realized that there is a group of people that wants to understand weather, but do not live in the Charlotte DMA. The television signal does not reach the people he feels like can be informed by his understanding of weather knowledge.
He uses a blog, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to share his knowledge and findings for others to watch and understand. I do not watch local weather and meteorologist here in the Upstate of South Carolina, I follow those whom I have a relationship. So when Brad started reporting the weather via his blog, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
Just today, most of the Southeast is complete holding pattern waiting to see if this latest winter weather storm is actually going to materialize. Most of us South Carolinians are sometimes skeptical of the prospect of winter weather. It is often reported to expect snow, everyone goes and cleans out local grocery stores of bread and milk, then nothing happens. We have this thing called the Blue Ridge Mountains…sometimes it gets in the way.
So what do I do while I am waiting to see if the white stuff blesses us with its presence, I pull out my iPad to look at the radar on the Weather Channel App, and see what Brad is posting on Twitter, Facebook, and his blog. I do not turn on the local channels here…they seem like talking heads. Brad, I know him! I know his passion. I have sat through hurricanes with him, chased tornados with him, stood in freezing rain with him…this guy knows his stuff.
The social space is a natural fit for him. Television limits his reach. He doesn’t just work his weather reporting shift at WCNC-TV, five days a week. He is sitting at home, in front of his massive computers, tracking. He is studying the weather system. He is using his blog as his weather notebook, jotting notes for us to see what is happening. He is recording the computer screen as a video, showing us what he is finding. He posts it to his blog, Tweets and updates his Facebook with the link. People like me ask questions via Tweets and Facebook, and he answers. He has created a touch point to audiences beyond the reach of WCNC-TV’s digital transmitter. The social space is his natural place to blog, chat, update, and engage with people concerning what he is most passionate about…weather.
Why am I telling you about? Because he is telling his story everyday with the use of technology. How neat would it be for people like Brad to sit on a panel, and talk about how they use new media and the social space to tell their story. We marketers could learn so much.
You want to follow Brad and his passion, check him out here at the following places:
I am always amazed with the stories when I start working on a new project. There are so many stories all over. I am not sure if you have taken the time to visit Duke University’s campus, but it is absolutely beautiful. But in the heart of the campus is the chapel. “A magnificent Gothic sanctuary with a landmark tower located at the most prominent point on an impressive university campus.” It reminded me of touring Europe and some of the beautiful chapels in Rome and France. But what makes this trip so special is the story of Clergy Health.
The Duke Endowment states, “Studies indicate that clergy are among the nation’s most overworked people, and that the long hours and constant stress of the job weigh on their health and lead to many pastors failing to take care of themselves. Another factor: The average age of clergy is rising, which brings with it more health issues.”
We met with Robin Swift who is with the Duke Divinity’s School Clergy Health Initiative, and she talked on camera about the overall importance of this initiative and the broadening effects.
Bottomline, “The Duke Endowment has awarded $12 million for the creation of a Clergy Health Initiative administered by Duke Divinity School and focusing on helping United Methodist ministers in North Carolina tend to their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.” That is a huge investment for the Duke Endowment, not only in financial resources, but in the foresight to see and understand the need for health initiatives to better serve future congregations and their clergy.
New York Times wrote an article in August, 2010 talking about this very issue of Clergy Health, specifically in the New York Region. “Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.”
Robin Swift said during our conversation that it is a challenge for ministers given their “job description.” Many travel, go into congregations’ homes, sometimes offered un-healthy dinner options, and little time to exercise. Also, the United Methodist Church require clergy to constantly move, changing churches between every 7 years and sometimes every 2 years. As they serve their flock, it is harder and harder to pay attention to their own health, because they are trained to put their congregations first.
The Duke Divinity School is researching this issue and working with Clergy to find better ways to create a healthy lifestyle. The one thing that really stood out to me, this initiative is not just telling Clergy what they think they need to do; they are spending more time asking how they can help. Listening is a major part of this initiative, searching for ways to help each Clergy and meet the needs where they exist.
Over the next month or so, I will be working with the Duke Endowment to tell the stories of the Clergy Health Initiative and how it is helping create change in the lives of the Clergy in North Carolina.
These are the type of impactful stories I like to tell, stories that are creating change in lives of people around us!
To learn more about the Clergy Health Initiative, here are some links below:
Duke Divinity’s School Clergy Health Initiative Blog – CLICK HERE
The Duke Endowment’s Commitment to Clergy Health – CLICK HERE NY Times Article: Taking a break from the Lord’s Work – CLICK HERE
It all began with the legacy of my grandmother…she is my creative, genetic inspiration.
When I started working for myself, I was in search of stories. I was in search of stories that I could capture with my cameras, with my ears, and my heart. I wanted to tell rich stories, those that touched a certain group of people to create some sense of change.
I have always been influenced by stories and not sure where this all began…but I do know a few things. I grew up as a creative soul inside the body of person who was “supposed to be an engineer.” I was always told that I had my grandmothers creative gift, one that was only transfered to a few kind souls…my aunt Vicki and my cousin Lisa.
My grandmother’s name was Addie Belle Wilson Rettew and she passed away when I was eight months old. She was my father’s mom and lost her battle to colin cancer, passing a legacy of creative spirit through her passion of painting. My grandfather built her a beach house with his bare hands on the coast of South Carolina in Hunting Island State Park. She taught painting and art at North Greenville College and Furman University. For some strange reason, I still remember her holding me.
I gained my creative voice through years and years of art lessons. I took private art lessons after school all the way through high-school. I had athletic skills playing JV Basketball and running Cross-Country, yet I loved drawing and painting. I found my true calling, my medium in the 6th Grade when I was selected to go to a summer program for gifted students called Governor’s School. I spent all summer learning the basics of photography …then my voice was sparked. I built my first pin-hole camera and from there on I was a shutter bug. Everywhere I went, I was taking pictures.
I remember my first camera was a Canon T90 and it was beautiful. My dad bought it for me in junior high school but would not let me touch it until I read the instruction book. Not the operation manual, but the book that talked about the medium. A photojournalist was born.
Capturing images became my life’s mission..capturing stories became my life’s calling. There are two things that I love to capture…they are faces and and sounds that sourroung. I found this when I learned how to use a video camera. I did not not learn the video medium with a home video camera. My grandfather was the only one that had one and I was not allowed to touch it. I learned with a broadcast betacam at Clemson University. Since I was the school photographer at Daniel High School, I was chose by Clemson Athletics to work in Video Services on scholarship to capture football practices for the coaches. Game film is what makes college football such a competitive sport…the art of understanding and grading the movement of players.
Clemson Football Coach Danny Ford was the coach that had the vision to purchase the best video equipment, to not only grade his team but to grade his opponent. I remember hearing that the cameras were worth $40,000 and it was a privilege to be one of the three people to shoot video with one of those three cameras. I learned the craft, the technical skill of operating these cameras. What I found was my next medium…using this medium to capture motion and sound.
This technical skill gave visual life to my brain…my heart. The ability to capture moments in time that inspired change. Having a visual communication tool to not only record the image but the sound, rebroadcast for others to view…and create a sense of passion filled momentum to see life through a different “lens.”
Capturing stories is more than just having a camera and pointing it in the right direction to acquire an image. It takes heart, soul, and ears. It takes the understanding of the context and the understanding of the audience. We can have the best technical skills, but we have to understand the language to translate this medium for a community of people to comprehend…to invoke change.
I think back to my years as an engineering student…I remember Newton’s Third Law of Motion with the basic premise that for every action…there is a equal and opposite reaction. This is commonly know as Law of Conservation of Energy. So thinking of this in human terms, for every human action…there will be a equal and opposite reaction.
If we look at this through the view-point of Dissoi Logoi, we will also learn to understand that there are two sides to any “argument.” This is commonly taught in rhetoric classes along with the legal profession. From a communication view-point, we must see another’s point-of-view.
I began comparing this two very important texts after graduate school. This is where I found my voice. I studied mathematical sciences in undergraduate and communications in graduate school. This brought all my technical skill to one critical path, turned the technical skill into more of a practitioner based skill…no longer seeing the camera as tool but merely a way to capture and interpret reality for those to consume and enjoy.
It is my belief that we will see more mini-documentaries this year than in years past. Why, because the “Social Space” has provided a bigger platform to distribute content and a focus on the community voice is ever so prevalent.
In 2010, AT&T launched a campaign to educate consumers about the dangers of texting while driving. This video was shot as a short documentary, capturing the stories of those most effected by this social concern. What better way to bring the consumer to a place to see right into the heart of the issue than a documentary style video.
With YouTube being one of the Top Three search engines along with the platform to deliver high quality content, this video has been viewed over 570K times. That is an amazing touch point to so many consumers of information, people are embedding this video in Facebook, their blogs, and numerous other places.
Documentary style storytelling is a way to provide a journalistic approach to content delivery, providing a view-point directly from those whom are most effected by the mission of the video. Many traditional ad firms shy away from this approach, becuase it is harder to control the message…supposedly. You can’t script responses, you can’t shot-sheet and storyboard real life action and reaction. The ethical approach to telling this type of story has a whole new approach. Most documentary style storytellers shy away from script writing, not using “voice over” to connect the micro messages of the soundbites. Most try to take a more extreme position allowing the people in the documentary to completely tell the story. The only way to guide the message is do a good job of asking the appropriate questions to find the best responses, weaving them together to tell the story.
Look at ESPN’s 30 for 30 Series. It has empowered 30 storytellers to bring a passion to the screen by telling 30 stories. As stated by ESPN, “An unprecedented documentary series featuring thirty films from some of today’s finest storytellers. Each filmmaker will bring their passion and personal point of view to their film detailing the issues, trends, athletes, teams, rivalries, games and events that transformed the sports landscape from 1979 to 2009.”
This series can be seen on ESPN, but also online not only at the 30 for 30 website. Consumers can share the videos by links and embed codes, empowering consumers to take part in the storytelling process. A community of messages sharing by a community of consumer advocates. But what is even greater, each one is produced by a different documentary storyteller with complete creative enterprise…empowering the documentary approach to the collective story. Each one has a different style, a different approach, a different story…communities telling rich stories.
Think back to 2002 when Michael Moore released Bowling for Columbine attacking one issue that is near and dear to the hearts of Americans…guns. This documentary not only inspired many Americans to think about the horrible tragedy of Columbine but attribute a national conversation wrapped around the influence of gun laws in the American fabric. But the other thing this documentary inspired, that anyone with a camera, a vision, and a passion to tell a story can achieve the national spotlight with a powerful message.
By the way, Bowling for Columbine won the 55th Anniversary Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 and an Oscar at the Academy Awards for Best Documentary in 2003. Talk about taking a message to a national spot light. It not only influenced millions of viewers/consumers but also the critics at large. You can see all the other awards that Bowling for Columbine won here on IMDb’s website.
So why will 2011 be a year of documentaries, well more and more cameras and technology have become affordable, compound that with the distribution platofrms like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and the list goes on. The critical point of content creation and content delivery is coming to it’s true apex providing the means and opportunity to touch more hearts and minds than CBS’s 60 Minutes. BTW, that is one of my all time favorite storytelling, magazine shows still in existence!
We are seeing more and more content created with the iPhone4, Flip Cameras, Canon EOS Cameras…quality content that is being integrated into bigger productions. If you look at the video below, this was shot with a Canon EOS 7D DSLR…yes, a camera for photos!
But what makes this even more a reason why we will see more documentaries this coming year, we as a community of advocates have truely found and understood the social space. This social space has began to break down traditional means to tell stories, providing more community voices to tell big brand messages. This is the heart of the documentary approach, many voices in one story told conhesively for the consumers at large to watch and derive, project, and discuss their own point of view.
This past October my mother was married in the Charleston Harbor in Charleston, SC. The following pictures were a select few that I took some time to touch-up then enlarge to give to my mom for Christmas this year.
If you look above, this is majority of the wedding party and family with my mom, she is the one in the white dress, slightly off-centered to the right. Steve is the hugging her just to the left. My sister Jennifer is is the one in the blue dress to the left. I took this picture at the last second, and luckily had my 11 mm wide angle lens on the camera. We are on a old-timey cruise boat with this main area that had us packed in like sardines. I took this picture and had it enlarged. I did not do much to it other than removing some dust particles that appeared in the image from the lens and also giving it a hint of a vignette. I think this image captures the moment of happiness right after mom and Steve cut the cake.
Here is the boat we set sail on named Innisfail, it was built in the 1930’s. Click Here to learn more about the boat. The picture above I took of the yacht right before departing for the ceremony in the Charleston Harbor. Steve loved this boat and thought it looked vintage…so I thought I would give it more of a vintage look with the black and white effect. We were only allowed to bring 65 people on the boat, that is including wedding party, family, and guests. Needless to say that if you did not RSVP, you did not get on the boat, unless someone dropped out at the last second. One of my cousins was not able to take the cruise, he forgot to send in his RSVP card. Big dummy!
This final image is my favorite. I had it enlarged and put on canvas with the wooden backing. We cruised under the new Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, the bridge that replaced the two older Cooper River Bridges. This is my favorite image of the bunch, with a slight sepia effect (outside of converting to black and white). As we were going under the bridge, I ran to the front deck and and held the shutter button down. I had just putting my 11 mm lens on the camera and some dust was trapped inside on the back of the lens. It actually produced a very cool grainy effect on the image giving it a vintage look. Mom loved this when she opened it, and now it is hanging in their living room.
If you want to see all the images from the big ole wedding day and the cruise on the harbor, CLICK HERE for the Facebook Page.
So the other day, I posted this one Twitter. I wish I could find the Tweet that prompted this response, but you can read above. Yes, I have been thinking. My brain does work sometimes outside the online world of mindless 140 characters…my synapses are in full brain activity.
So I have been thinking…there is definitely a difference between the one who is telling your story and the one who is capturing that story that is being told. Big difference. So my friend Gregg Morris (@greggvm) askes:
Good question Gregg! And I responded with this Tweet:
We are just proxies…we are displaying what we see, hear, feel, smell, understand, and comprehend through our point of views!
Thanks Mike (Mike Bell @ProformaGuy)! You are talking about delivery and how people view those who are delivering.
So here is my real thought to this little Tweet and Blog combo explanation. Coming from a journalist background, I always felt that our views were skewed. Even though we were supposed to tell a story with an unbiased position, they are always going to be skewed. There was only hope that we could get closer and closer to the purest position in the way we tell stories, with each piece we produced or story we told. We were always looking through the lens, a bias based on news of the week, the politics of the organization, the financial potential from ratings/readership. So who can really tell our story from an unbiased position.
Storytellers are proxies, delivery mechanisms for the story we are telling…those we are trying to re-create for others to view. Now I am staying away from the advertising world, becuase here we can create the realities we want audiences to view. This is more of a PR position or even a journalistic/documentary position.
Each time I pick-up the camera and work with a client, I try to maintain the message of the story and organization. When I write a story, I stay away from supposition and try to stay as close to fact as I can…or interpretation of fact. So why should we care who is telling our story? Because it is important to understand the lens they are looking through. You have to see how they might perceive the story, even your story before they even begin the project. Do you want them to create a reality that does not properly represent your message…ultimately divesting time spent in a message.
These biases can be considered conflicts of interest. But is storytelling one of Fiction or Non-Fiction, and can we create that dichotomy so simply? And if we are paid to tell stories, document those stories, provide a proxy view-point of those stories…how should handle and disclose our view-point.
Now that Social Media has entered the picture…more and more individuals are providing view-points, telling stories, and using these outlets as means to reach audiences. As proxies of these stories, we should disclose our pre-dispositions, our conflicts, our view-points that are statement of fact.
In October of 2009, “FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials” where “Changes Affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements.” FTC states, “Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect.”
Should we as storytellers be subject to these guidelines? Yes, I say. But to what capacity? Everytime I work with an organization to help tell a story, I should disclose to the organization my viewpoints and conflicts. Everytime I finish producing a story for an organization and post the link to my Facebook wall or even Tweet about it, I should have to disclose my relationship to the organization.
In an article by NPR, Laura Syndell looks at bloggers and disclosure of paid endorsements. Laura writes, “Kelly McBride, of the nonprofit Poynter Institute for journalism, says this is an important step: While many consumers can tell a commercial from a program on television, she says they can be naive when their Facebook friends say they’re a fan of McDonald’s.”
This is why when I work with organizations to create and establish a Social Media or New Media plan/strategy…it is my position that I do not Tweet, update a status, or communicate on behalf of the organization. I talked about this in a recent post. I typically do not follow those who are Tweeting, Blogging, Facebook”ing” on behalf of an organization without disclosure.
Social Media is such a progressive new area of digital publishing, should it held to the same professional standards as traditional marketing/pr/news outlets? Why, because it is “Social Media.” It is place for people to speak freely socially, to interact, and to build relationships. Why is this an issue, because organizations have been abusing this idea, acting on behalf of “a brand’s message” to influence a decision. Thus, de-socializing “Social Media(s)”.
So is the WikiLeaks idea/site privy to these types of ethics? The whole concept is that they are publishing information that typically not disclosed to the public in an open-source mentality. Many of the individuals providing information for WikiLeaks are not disclosing who they are and there relationships.
The Poynter Institute recently posted a link to their website that “Stars and Stripes Journalists are barred from viewing WikiLeaks documents.” In the article, Mark Prendergrast from Stars and Stripes writes, “Journalists are supposed to report before they write. That means gathering as much information as they can – in breadth and depth – and consulting primary sources whenever feasible. That might mean an editor clicking on Wikileaks to verify information in a wire story. Or an art director doing a screen grab to illustrate that story. Or a reporter reading a document in full for context in assessing a statement about it.”
Bottom-line, journalists need to know where the information came from, the source of the information. How do they know in this “public domain”? How do they know where the information has come from and if it is truly accurate. This primal thought process should be the same as the we work we as “marketers do” for our clients everyday…we should disclose relationships, our predispositions, and why we are working with an organization when telling our stories.
I have recently joined WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Organization and been reading through lots of the resources offered not only to it’s membership but also to the public. I find this information a great guide for people like myself when navigating this world of client based work that leads us to tell stories on their behalf.
So where do we go from here? Well…I know that we must question our intentions each time we “Write” or “Produce” a story on behalf of a “client” or organization. We must also question or intentions when we distribute these “stories” and what message we are sending when we distribute. The intention of distribution is just as much a part of the storytelling process as is the actual story itself.
Hello friends, here are my links for the week. As you can see…they include storytelling, Medicaid budget cuts, Facebook, Yahoo, and Del.icio.us. I hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts about any of these articles!
Storytelling is not a Conversation Nathan Ford
“Markets are Conversations.” Ten years after the Cluetrain left the station spouting these words, many advertisers are still left behind, desperately clinging to the romantic notion that they are storytellers. On the net, though, such ideas are fast becoming anachronisms. For the last fifty years or so, there were a few ways for a person to be influenced by the outside world (radio, television, printed materials, actually leaving the house) and advertisers had every base covered with their brand-related stories: a billboard with a smile, a commercial alluding to Orwell’s 1984, an ad that talked about cars like normal people do… each expertly tuned to play on our emotions. CLICK HERE to read more. Budget: Medicaid, DSS, prisons hope to run deficits
$264 million-in-the-red proposals to be discussed today by board December 14, 2010 | GINA SMITH
Three state agencies will ask a state budget panel today to run deficits totaling $264 million. With the state facing a mountain of unprecedented financial woes, Gov.-elect Nikki Haley and the state’s congressional delegation met behind closed doors Monday and discussed some of those urgent budget needs, including shortfalls for education and the state’s exploding Medicaid program. CLICK HERE to read more.
The 2011 Listening Platform Landscape December 15, 2010 | Zach Hofer-Shall
After an entire month without any acquisitions in the social media data space, there is no excuse but to get back to normal blogging. I assume I’ll be back to posting on M&A again soon, but in the meantime I’ve been busy working on some big research and now it’s finally ready to show off. Today we’ve published “The 2011 Listening Platform Landscape,” a report aimed at helping Marketing and Customer Intelligence professionals navigate a crowded and fragmented array of social media data tools and technologies. CLICK HERE to read more.
December 16, 2010 | Jennifer Van Grove Facebook accidentally went live with a handful of prototype features earlier today, including a site-wide yet short-lived overhaul of Pages. Roughly 45 minutes after the mistaken update, Facebook disabled the site, reverted back to its previous state and then tweeted apologetically about the downtime. But that brief span of time was enough for Facebook members and Page admins to get a sneak peak at new features in the works. CLICK HERE to read more.
December 16, 2010 | Alexia Tsotsis For a couple of days now, we’ve been hearing rumors that the Yahoo layoffs included the entire Delicious team. Now Former Yahoo employee and Upcoming founder Andy Baio has tweeted out the above Yahoo! product team meeting slide that seems to show that Yahoo! is either closing or merging the social bookmarking service as well as Upcoming, Fire Eagle, MyBlogLog and others. CLICK HERE to read more.
What inspired you to start blogging? What was it? What made you that one day, sit down and set-up your first blog. Can you remember. I sure can!
It was my wife…and maybe I am a little bit biased. But what inspired me about her that made me start a blog. For starters, I had nothing to say. Really, nothing at all. She…on the other hand. It is September 2006 and Sarah had just accepted a new job here in the area. We were living in Charlotte both with good jobs. We were starting to find ourselves professionally when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. So, we felt this pull to get closer to home. She was the first to find a job and was hired as a strategic buyer at a large manufacturing group. Life was getting ready to flip upside down.
We had been living the high life for the first three years of marriage, fresh out of graduate school. We wanted to move back home, closer to family and pay off debt. So we sold our house, sold our expensive cars, moved into a crappy apartment, and used those good jobs to pay off debt. At the same time, Sarah’s mom was fighting breast cancer. That new job she started, well she hated it…but it was a good paying job. So, she started a journal. It was in a Word Document that started as a stream of consciousness. After a while, the document got so long, she moved it to a blog on Blogger.com. In 2006, she started blogging…journaling about life. Life with her mother fighting breast cancer, paying off debt, working a shitty job, living in a town that did not feel like home.
Over the next year, her mother got sicker and she wrote more. In the Fall of 2007, her mother lost her battle to Triple Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer…her blog was her coping mechanism. Her writing was raw and honest. This whole time we had been trying to get pregnant with little success. A year after her mother died, we got pregnant and life was great. Then we had our first miscarriage. After three miscarriages, she wrote plenty. She wrote about research, her experiences, doctors she found, and the list goes on. Sarah’s blog is our families journal.
We have family dinners and someone asks what happened last year and we know we can go to her blog to find the answer. Her focus of her blog has been her life struggles and life’s passions. She writes about her family, her mother, infertility, and cause marketing. She is not a big fan of those who benefit financially by exploiting those fighting breast cancer. She writes with passion.
A year after her mother passed away, she quit her job. She was tired of working for something she did not believe in…now works for a daycare taking care of two year olds. She loves it. The people in the daycare have no idea she has a Masters Degree, graduate top of her class in both undergraduate and graduate school, was homecoming queen in undergrad, and was her high-school’s valedictorian. She is one smart cookie and one hell of a writer.
She has yet to spend any money on her blog using the free platform of WordPress. She does all the design work. She does not use social media and other outlets to promote her blog. She does not have it professionally optimized with targeted SEO. She does not Tweet or Facebook her blog posts. She writes passionately…and people read! She has a few notable children’s book authors reading her blog on a regular basis. How does she know, well she password protects some of her posts. She does this because she knows family members read her blog, and she writes like it is her journal. So she only let’s certain people read password protected blog posts. Those author’s make a request for the password. Trust me, she gets lots of requests for the password.
Her blog is semi-private…meaning she does not use her last name on her blog yet has our picture posted. Some knows that it is her, but some have no idea who “Sarah” is right here in Anderson, SC.
She has a tremendous community. She calls them her “Bloggy Friends” and they all read each others’ blogs like clockwork. Each of them have come together because of a circumstance in their lives. One may write about breast cancer, one may write about her infertility story, or some just find each other because they are just funny. Regardless, they have found each other and they share with each other on their blogs. They write with each other…and they check on each other. If one has not posted in a while, they drop an email to check on each other. Sarah’s blog is her community and she always feels the need to write not only for her creative enterprise but to keep her “Bloggy Friends” in the loop.
Sarah’s blogging is an extension of her life, she is writing her story as she lives it. She writes straight from the heart. She writes with passion. Her blog has caused many family disputes, where she will write about a situation and someone will read her interpretation of the situation. They sometimes are not happy, but what they do not realize…her writing is her coping mechanism. She has thought about taking it down or going totally anonymous, but I have told her I support her writing 100%. The only thing I ask is that she not write about our personal marriage topics and also refrain from discussing the private part of my business.
Sarah is also a reader. She likes to read others’ blogs because she is genuinely interested. She treats this like and in-person conversation. She reads to learn and this reading turns into reciprocation. She is passionate about the blogs she reads and believes in her community.
Sarah is my inspiration. Her writing has inspired others. People read her blog when dealing with breast cancer, infertility, paying off debt, or just to read. She has had more people thank her for her writing…helping them deal/cope with a particular life situation. She is not writing for a mass market…she is writing to write. Her focus is her life and her passion is her family.
There is not perfect formula for blogging. You can read all the “experts” about blogging, SEO, neccessary technology…BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! But I do know this…you do not need a beautiful layout design, you do not need the best SEO expert, you do not need to pay for a blog! What you need is to write passionately. You have something in your heart that you are most passionate about…write about it. Sarah writes on a consistent basis, uses pictures, and puts her whole heart into each and every post.
Each time I start working with a client, I do not even allow them to set-up a blog until a few things have happened. First, they have a focus for their writing. I ask them to write a mission statement for the blog. Second, I ask them to write ten posts on a Word document based on this mission statement. Then I ask them, who do you think will read your blog…who are you writing for in every post. Blogging is not about the platform, the SEO, the distribution…it is about the writing, and the technology is just the platform to present your writing. Write passionately! BTW…I used Sarah as an example with each corporate client I work with. The example I explain…write passionately.
Here are some of the blogs I have helped start:
South Carolina Hospital Association’s President & CEO Thornton Kirby’s Blog: http://scha.org/thornton-blog/
It is certain, that if you want to have control over your web presence, then you cannot depend on Facebook. Why, because it will always be changing and it has complete control over the interface, look, and user interaction. With the recent Facebook Personal Profile update, this gave business a first hand look at what is to come with their Pages for business.
Today, I noticed a Tweet come across citing that Facebook made an “accidental” update that allowed business to see what their Pages will look like with this new integration. Mashable.com has a complete write-up about the temporary release, and from this article…this is what I gather. The first thing I noticed, just like the new personal profiles, no Tabs. Yes, the tabs are gone moving the navigation to the left hand column. So those of you using the FBML application, it is definitely noticed with the FBML icon next to the Tab name. BLAH. Many organizations have spent tons of time and money working on the creation of their Tabs and the interface that is revealed once you click a Tab.
It also looks like you can “Login” to the Page which brings the questions about how Administrators will manage the page. Along with this, it looks like a “Lightbox” feature will be added to the photos area for a slick way to flip through pictures in a “Slide Show” mode.
Regardless of these updates, that either enhance the experience or change the design for businesses, it is proof that business do not have control over the platform. The platform was built to provide a place for people to connect and share with an interactive experience. But with this comes the same experience as a new update from Microsoft Windows, Office, or any of their other products. You receive the update and the whole interface changes. But the difference, you pay for those Microsoft updates where Facebook is a free, online experience for individuals and businesses to engage in a single platform.
Would businesses be willing to pay for an more “Enterprise” level experience with their Facebook presence? Considering how much they spend in other areas of their online marketing message, I would assume they would consider paying…given the audiences that are interacting within the platform. Imagine the opportunity to have control of some of the rich code to create a more interactive experience within the framework. The same idea as WordPress and Joomla yet inside a platform where audience already exist. But this “Enterprise” level system could swing the balance away from the community driven roots of Facebook. This could give marketing engines a more controlling atmosphere where the experience is more about the marketing message and not the community experience.
So bottom-line…if you are an organization and you want to have “control” over the platform that contains your brand and your message, Facebook should not be your only outlet. But, really…Facebook is not really a “Website” for a company. Facebook is a community driven platform and if used correctly, can engage and connect people of like minds. So who cares if they keep on changing it…the people will stay hang out as long as they can connect; and business will just have to deal with it.
All of this is hypothetical, because the real release has not been made yet!
How do we make information for our communities creative, usable, and easy to access? Thinking back to my academic days of User-Centered Design and Usability Testing Methodologies…it is all about AUDIENCE.
We have to find a focus! Seriously, we have to have a mission statement for the information we are trying to communicate. It takes a some time to sit down and write out a mission statement. The one thing that helps me frame this initiative is to identify three points.
1 – Who is the audience
2 – What is the purpose of this communication effort?
3 – How are we trying to reach this audience with this piece(s) of communication?
Not hard, but sit down and do this simple analysis. Take time to break down the audiences, list them all. Then, write out the purpose of the effort/initiative when communicating to these audience(s). next, how are you going to get this information to the audience. Take a few moments and see how each of these are inter-dependent. The method of distribution might differ from audience to audience and might even change your purpose.
Now use this research to write a mission statement for your overall initiative. Explain it to yourself and say it out loud, imagine if you have to pitch this to your client.
OK…to make it usable, you have to know your audience. You have to live, breath, eat, sleep, smell, taste, etc…just like your audience. You have to know their pre-dispositions before your can communicate with them .So, take that little analysis above and list out each audience. Then for each one, write a complete description for each audience. Describe them in a way that you can paint a picture for your mother who knows nothing about these people. You want to paint that picture so you can almost see everything through their eyes.
Once you have done this little exercise, you should have a better understanding of your audience. Now, begin creating your piece of communication. Go through the creative process iteratively. Create static drafts of the design, rough drafts of the copy, story boards of the video, etc. Put together the first look.
Now, pull out that audience analysis you created previously, and ask yourself if you think they can see/understand this information. Use this as a litmus test. Then, conduct a simple usability test, invite individuals that represent each audience and let them interact with these “static” designs. You think of this as a focus group, but to me you are conducting a simple usability test. Let them play, ask questions, but do not predispose them .Do this on a global basis, looking at the overall communication initiative; and also do this very micro with a small part of the communication piece. RECORD THIER THOUGHTS. DO this either with note taking, audio recording, or video recording. Then…make changes based on the mission statement.
Now…create the piece of communication in a dynamic form. This means make the website, the Facebook page, the Blog, the Video, etc. Pull out the mission statement and audience analysis and compare the final dynamic piece and with this initial research. Find another group of individuals to come to review. Let them watch, interact, etc. with the dynamic piece of communication. Watch them as the interact. See where they engage and disengage. What their faces, their eyes, and their body language.
Does this make any sense. Is it too methodical. Well, you can make this as big or as small a process as you want. But ultimately, it is the purpose to come up with a creative idea, understand the audience, test with the audience, adapt, and launch. This empowers a community of creatives and audiences to engage in a process to learn and come up with a wonderful piece of creative!
Be passionate…communicate passionately…engage with your audience(s) passionately!
I recently read an article from a 16 year old about why teenagers choose Facebook over Twitter. The article is titled “Why Teenagers Don’t And Won’t Tweet.” It was rather fascinating to hear this teenager’s perspective. The one thing that I took away from this article is this…teenagers are social creatures and picky about their online friends. Facebook gives them the opportunity to interact exclusively with their friends. They can manage who sees what, who reads what, and how they interact with others. Teenagers are finicky little creatures. But what they want is real relationships. Twitter is so nebulous to their world, it is hard for them to grasp the mass audience of Twitter.
I know that each time I start a new semester at Clemson, I ask my new students…”What social networks do you use?” All use Facebook, and at a most two students per class (of 20) say they are using Twitter. The same amount that use Twitter have a blog. Teenagers just have a hard time with talking with a mass audience. They want to feel connected. They also have a limited attention span, thus not wanting to invest in another social network that does not bring immediate results. Facebook to them is easy, because they meet someone new, look them up on Facebook, look at their pictures, make an assessment, then decide whether to ask to become friends. They can keep in touch with friends when they move away or when everyone splits up to go to college.
Teenagers are picky. They do not want to share with lots of random people, they enjoy their networks. They enjoy interacting people that they have met in person and regularly interact with in physical space and not just a digital space. They understand the power of human contact. They look at relationships based on some level of trust, trust that begins in-person and extends to the digital space.
Lately, I have been feeling the need to trim down my list of people I “Follow” on Twitter and who I consider “Friends” on Facebook. I talked about this in my post “Fall cleaning, raking leaves, and cleaning-up the social space.” I think a lot of the social complexity and anxiety has come from the Twitter platform. I know I opened my account in the Fall of 2008. I had no idea how to get started? The Twitter “handles” or usernames were so weird to me. It was hard to find people you knew because people were creating weird usernames. I just used my real name @BobbyRettew. So, you started following people based on who your “New” friends were following. You would find someone, then go through the list of who they were following, and clicked “Follow”, “Follow”, and “Follow”.
The terminology of Twitter led to this whole idea of “Thought Leadership.” I will “Follow” you and what you say. Then terms like “Social Media Rockstars” started emerging, placing significance on those who had the most followers. So the natural thought was to go out, follow as many people as possible in the hopes they would follow you back. No real relationship building, just choosing to run through a huge mass of people like walking through the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport during the holidays. You could pass someone, but had no idea if you were following them. Why would a teenager want to sign up for something like this? I challenge each of you to go into a room of 20 plus teenagers and convince them that they need a Twitter account. It is like talking to a room of crickets…and fingers clicking as they tune-out and look at Facebook.
I have also been noticing many people mentioning that they are trimming back who they “Follow” and see as “Friends” online. We are not finding the “relationships” but rather noise. Why did we fall for the idea of friending and following people we did not know, all in the hopes to be followed back. Were we trying to build a sphere of influence or real relationships? Or are we just “push” marketers at heart spraying our information? Regardless…we have lots to learn from teenagers and why they choose Facebook…engaging with exclusive relationships.
