Do we love gifs because we know life repeats itself? We can all empathize with Sisyphus thinking he's going to get that rock up the hill. We know he won't. Endless repitition is what our days are like (sometimes). The loop of the gif reminds us that it's all a cycle.
Or do we love gifs because we like to be in the position of all-knowing. If we can still be entertained, shocked, amazed, and charmed - even when we know what's going to happen - that's a strange magic that is addictive.
Twitter allows gifs now. Make one. Make one. Make one. Make one.
WHY I GIVE - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;
I've written about Haiku Deck before. The app originated on the iPad and now it's available to anyone on the internet. It works the same way as before, but because you don't have to type on your iPad, it's a whole lot easier to compose your decks.
I made the above deck online in about 15 minutes from pictures from a video I produced and directed. It's a converstation starter to other parents on why I give to my kids' school Annual Fund.
The advantages of Haiku Deck vs PPT.
Themes (the font choice and how text is presented) are snazzy looking and make your presentations look instantly "designed."
You can choose their free Themes or purchase others.
Inserting text is easy and the lack of space for text -- makes me really focus on my message. Remember that Seth Godin post on how to make effective PPTs. In the post, he says never to put more than six words on a slide. I think rules are meant to be broken -- but I can see his point. The deck is just to wake people up and make the "emotional sale" (Godin's words). There's always more information (a webpage, a handout, pdf) that explains in detail your deck.
Inserting pictures. Haiku Deck has done something brilliant here. You can use pictures to illustrate your points from your hard drive, dropbox, facebook, Google+, etc. Or, you can do a quick search through hundreds of creative commons licensed photos based on word searches. I used the CC search on this deck.
Because Haiku Deck is now on your computer, you can easily take stills from videos (I make stills from video through Mpeg Streamclip (free app), screen grabs, or your iphoto stash. Make sure you have the rights!
You can work on your decks on the iPad and the online portal.
When you're done, take the deck and embed it with HTML code or send to social media sites. And, you can even make a PDF or even export into PPT file.
I've used Haiku Decks when I've presented talks to schools, as an opening teaser when bidding on projects and it's also a great way to get your team on the same page at the start of a project.
Next from Haiku Deck, I would like to see hypertext links on URLS.
Many times, but not all, the difference between what is interesting and what is boring in any media is that the good stuff plays with your expectations.
You think things will go one way and you're surprised when it goes down a different road that is so ingenious that you just have to sit up and take notice.
You can help your storytelling by creating an expectation with genre and then tweaking it or turning it on its head.
I've posted this video before that has a wonderful surprise in the middle but at the start it looks like a "This is another white text on black background" video.
Nearly ten million hits later it's easy to see why this alarmingly simple video has reached viral nirvana.
* * *
The hardest thing we do as video producers is to create video pieces that are original. Everything has been done with budgets far larger then what you have.
But, there is usually a way to go that will make people hold their mouse in check and not click to something else.
Recently, Wheelhouse (I am a Principal) was hired to promote a new book.
I asked the client what kind of storytelling did she like. Not just from her company but any company. She showed me this.
I like it too. Why? The story telling is simple and there's a surprise. You don't expect the nice shot of Bermuda (or where ever it is) to be a landing pad for dripping blood. The video plays with your expectations of a television ad for something incredibly relaxing.
With that in mind, we pitched and produced this piece for a new murder mystery.
Just finished reading the ever so smart and on-target Mitch Joel in his book Six Pixels of Separation. If you're on twitter and you're getting something out of it, or if you're a blogger, or if you are an avid reader of blogs, the book was not written for you - except for one chapter on mobility.
According to Joel, we're all going mobile. And if you're not starting to think mobile in regards to your content and your audience - you should. Now.
One year of blogging. Here's what I learned so that you can repeat the good stuff and avoid the bad. As always, I hope this helps you in your social media career and add to the comments if I've sparked your imagination.
On Blogging
Posting two to three times a week is about the minimum of posts if you want to gain some momentum.
Posting once a week keeps you on a plateau.
Finding, attracting and getting a dozen or so fellow bloggers hooked to your content is the best way to get the word out about your posts.
No one person is going to make or break your blogging career. For the longest time, I thought if I could just get Chris Brogan to tweet out one of my posts, I'd be set! Well he did tweet one out (see here). Did it change my life? Nope. Did I get some good traffic that hour. Yep.
Use Backtype to find what others are writing about on your same
subjects. Then, write an insightful comment on those blogs that cover
your particular niche. Add a link to your post if you think what
you've written adds to the conversation. See what I did here. (hat
tip to Khuram Malik on suggesting I use Backtype).
Room for improvement: 1) Post at least twice a week. 2) Create content that leads the reader into wanting more (Problogger is a master at this). 3) Create more video pieces for the blog.
On Twitter
Twitter is the best place to meet people who will sneeze out your content. But you knew that.
Tweet out stuff that is in your niche. I'm not tweeting out sales at Zappos, or what I'm listening to on the radio, or the latest news about the Octomom. Stay focused on what makes you unique. It's actually a great way not to waste time.
Find like minded people through Twitter search. "Video" is one my Seesmic searches.
I am always suspicious of people who have tweeted out say 135 tweets and have 12000 followers. I just don't follow these people. I don't want noise in my stream. That's not twitter. That's a spam machine.
Things I could do better: 1) Weed out people in my list who are not relevant. 2) Be more of a champion of others - RT more. 3) Utilize Seesmic more often to follow people important to me.
On The Social Part
Social media is really about being social. I'm amazed at the people I've met on-line who have been willing to create a relationship through sharing bits and bytes of data. Here's a list of great people that I've been fortunate enough to have shared and learned from this year:
For some reason RSS hasn't been taken hold over the web. A few days ago Read, Write, Web tried to make sense of it all and confused me even more. The truth is that only a small portion of web users use RSS to aggregate web content to a single source. I'm thinking that Facebook has solved this issue for many people.
I'm a big believer in using RSS feeds in a Google Reader or iReader. I wrote about it here last year. But now there is an easier solution (though it is a bit of a walled in garden).
Alltop calls itself a magazine rack of the best content on the web.
You can go to alltop.com and do a search for a subject. Alltop will point you to the best blogs and sites on that subject. Even better, you can make your own Alltop page filled with headlines from blogs and sites that are automatically updated hourly.
You are welcome to make my page your home page, but it's just as easy to make your own by going here: http://my.alltop.com/
Fill it up with the best the web has to offer and don't forget to pick up my blog over at http://video.alltop.com/The Way We Watch was accepted into Alltop on Christmas day.
If you are like me you get a lot of links that come from friends to see this or that video. I've collected the ten that I still go to again and again for inspiration or that just make me smile. Enjoy! 1. Her Morning Elegance I've seen this 10 times and I still get a kick out of it.
I'm cheating. This is from 2007, but I learned of it from a terrific 2009 post by Web Designer Depot. There are lots of Kinetic Typography videos but this was a real pioneer and it's still so inventive.
5. Michael Jackson Vs. Mr. Bean Every video Patrick Boivin makes is better than the last one. I don't know how he does it. I'm just glad he's making these wonderful witty artful films for us. (Couldn't embed. But click the pic).
6. Be Amazing Maybe the most expensive book trailer, I've ever seen. But it's so SPOT ON. Funny and terrifying if it came to be...
Some really neat narrative possibilities are explored in this cool demo that HBO has put together that shows four different views of the same action. Most impressive is the sleek cubed housing that the video plays in. On the coolness meter this is an 11.
Can't embed this one, so click the picture or here.
The Vlog brothers, Hank and John Green, started a video meme last year. They decided to forgo text based communication in favor of creating video messages to each other. Lo and behold what they said was informative, funny and hit a nerve with the massive Young Adult literature audience.
They've continued making YouTube videos. Simple ones - talking into the camera - but using jump cuts to keep the message crisp and highly watchable.
Their YouTube Channel is here http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers
9. The Long Haul Sylvain Dumais was featured here on my post earlier in the year. I like this video a lot but more than that I like how he used social media to pull in demand for his services. Using his own money, Sylvain created this video (with a team of talented producers, designers, production crew and actors). He uploaded to vimeo and the blogoshpere went wild as did mainstream media.
I recently asked Sylvain on Facebook how what he working on and if he was busy. He said, "Many
things! I shot 3 spots for a US client and I'm now trying to sell a
viral to a big corporation... I think it could be wicked - stay tuned!"
10. Your Video Here. Yep. This spot is reserved for your video. Make it with still camera, a filp, a computer laptop camera, your cell phone.... Just keep making it. Shoot. Edit. Post it on the web. Tweet me. I'm looking forward to watching. This post is part of a group writing project from the Daily Blog Tips community to put together the best of 2009 on the web - find out how you canjoin here.
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