First, let me say, I’m a reader and always have been. I read and comprehend very quickly, and for my average news and information consumption, I’d much rather read a web page than listen to audio or video. I can get the essential news from a quick scan much faster than listening to someone speak. Then if the story really interests me or I want to see associated footage, I can always watch video after.

That said, there are times when the information I want to absorb is better conveyed through images, or at any rate, video can help me understand a concept more quickly. Many “how to” videos, for example, can let you visualize how to do something much more easily than reading text and looking at static images. I recently looked up videos on specific aspects of gardening, composting, and cooking. With the proliferation of inexpensive equipment and free video hosting services, you can find good video (and plenty of bad) on just about any topic.

I love that people associated with the nonprofit I work with, The Weston A. Price Foundation, are making videos to help them market their books, DVDs, lectures, appearances, cottage industries, and products. Here are a few examples of good videos on some of my pet topics (nutrient-dense foods, sustainable agriculture):

• Fermenting Vegetables with Sandor Katz
• Real Protein Cookies by the Healthy Home Economist
• Broccoli, Cheese, and Bacon Frittata by Maureen Diaz
• Raised on Grass: Pasture Fed Animals
• The Weston A. Price Foundation

“Rapid” is a hot word in the e-learning industry. The speed and ease with which you can create an online course is the big selling point for many software developers. Ease of use is always good, but for me and my clients, speed to audience is rarely the most critical factor. Over the years I’ve been developing e-learning courses the big ticket item our clients want is ability to easily edit content after the product is originally delivered. A lot of our work is for government agencies and once a contract ends, it doesn’t matter if that agency needs to change one word of a product, if the contract is over it’s a huge headache to get the work done. That’s why so many statements of work that come to us require use of non-proprietary products, and/or the requirement that said agency will have the ability to make edits to a deliverable at a later date.

To that end we often develop using off-the-shelf products with which our clients have the ability to update facts or figures in their training products without having to recontract. They may need some training, just as when they first opened Word or PowerPoint, but the ability is there, and the effort is similar to working in either of those programs.

One challenge that comes from keeping e-learning course content that easily editable is that it can be prohibitive to integrate other media, like video—and I’m talking professionally produced video, not webcam footage which I recognize is becoming more readily available to e-learning authors—into the course. For example we’re working with clients for which we’d like to have an actual presenter as part of their online course. For another we’re producing short, personal video stories, and for yet another, we’re capturing brief personal interviews. The purpose of each course is different, as is the audience and tone, but for all three projects we’re keeping one thing in common among the videos—they won’t include content—or even key personnel—that are likely to need to be updated. Our host will stick to generic content like the welcome, section transitions and historical examples. Our interviewees will be telling personal stories and sharing opinions. We shy away from including agency leadership in video (particularly not in an election year!).

We let the video do what it does best, add story or personality to support the facts or techniques being conveyed via the training course. By keeping the video elements evergreen we limit the likelihood of costly revisions, and give our clients a product that will better stand the test of time.

Before the iPad launched this month, video was already an increasing component in persuasive communication. Most traditional media – like newspapers – have some on-demand video component while other new media entities eschew text all together for video monologues and dialogues. While the iPad is certainly the newest, and biggest, mobile device on which to view video content, mobile devices like smart phones and portable media players have been available for a number of years.

Both the devices and the networks that serve data to them are maturing and soon they will catch up to the superior wireless networks in Europe and Asia. Then it will be a race to corner that market for the institutions that want eyeballs on their training, awareness, and recruiting media. If you can manage that workflow now you will be in an envious position. Right now, I would say that the newspaper industry and the social media industry best understand how to serve their content simultaneously to the web and the mobile markets. More and more people will look towards their mobile devices for educational, training, and recruiting content as untethered devices become the norm.

Image Courtesy: globwon-online

Given the near ubiquity of video today, it seems almost incomprehensible that just ten years ago the medium was circumscribed by the four walls of a television set.  Today, video has become unmoored from the confines of both the television industry AND set top boxes, and it has done so by the very same route that print and radio have taken—by breaking away from the limits of analog technology.

So what does this mean to you?

As a consumer, it means that you have more choice than ever.  With the advent of TiVo and Hulu, you can watch your favorite television shows whenever you want because appointment television is now a thing of the past.  You can go to YouTube and watch millions of short-form videos: snippets of political speeches, commercials that you actually WANT to watch and almost anything else that you can imagine, from dancing cats to videos of your niece.  iTunes is quickly becoming a destination for music videos and movies, just as it previously became a destination for single hits.  And Wi-Fi capable devices like laptops, smart phones, iPods, and Apple’s iPad are making it easy to consume video on the go.  Video is everywhere and available via multiple devices…freeing it up from the tyranny of the set top box.

But what if you or your organization wants to communicate via video?  What if you have a marketing, public relations, or branding campaign you want to disseminate?  Depending on the message, it means that you have a lot more delivery choices available to you than ever before – delivery choices that can help you reach your target audience via a very powerful and persuasive medium.  No longer dependent on an expensive broadcast medium that threw a wide net in hopes of reaching a small percentage of viewers, you can now target your audience and reach them via a multiplicity of channels and devices.

It also means that you have to do a little more homework before embarking on that marketing, branding, or public relations campaign.  But no worries, over the next few weeks we’ll be helping you think through this new set of challenges

Declining readership, unsustainable business models and the proliferation of free online news sites are challenging the viability of traditional journalism channels, especially print (newspapers and news magazines) and radio. Reeling from the speed and no-cost access of online sites such as The Huffington Post and Craigslist (which took away one of the most profitable centers for newspapers, classified ads), journalism is redefining itself for the 21st Century. It has to. Although the recent changes have been most obviously devastating for print journalism, radio and television news are also starting to feel the effects.

Although it’s difficult to predict with any certitude what journalism will ultimately look like, it will probably be defined by the following:

1. The Internet: More and more news will be consumed online. Although still lagging behind local and national television news, according to a 2010 Pew Internet and American Life Project report, the internet is now the third most popular news platform…a trend that continues to accelerate, so look for it to overtake television in the near future just as it has overtaken print and radio.
2. “Anytime, Anywhere” Access: News will be accessed via a multiple number of traditional and new media platforms. Consumers will access news when they want it and will do so multiple times a day via multiple platforms.
3. Blended: More and more news online will be a blend of print, video and multimedia. Well underway, this trend will continue to gain momentum and consumers will come to expect high levels of media interactivity when accessing news content, especially when dealing with particularly complex issues.
4. Mobile: Pew also reports that “33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.” With the recent introduction of other mobile devices, such as Apple’s iPad, you can expect those numbers to continue to rise.
5. Video-centric: Video is playing an increasingly important role in the development of news online and on mobile devices, and video news content draws higher advertising dollars than any other kind of news. This is one of the trends that will affect television news in the same way that blogs and other online news sites affected print journalism.
6. Participatory: Increasingly, more and more news content is being generated by users. According to the same Pew report cited above, “37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news.” Although the largest proportion of user generated news content is text based, the increased penetration of broadband into the household as well as the increasing number of consumer devices that now include built-in cameras (laptop webcams, cell phones and other mobile devices) will make it easier for consumers to participate in the creation of video news content.
7. Shareable: Also according to the cited Pew report, social networks as well as social networking technology will play an important role in the sharing and filtering of news content. Internet users have already become accustomed to sharing news via email as “more than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in emails.” As more of those users also become accustomed to using Facebook, Digg, Linked In, and the like to share news, social networks will play an increasingly important role in the dissemination of news.

Here at Mind & Media we are conscious of these trends and take them into account as we help our clients communicate in this evolving media landscape. We are in the midst of producing an online, interactive video series on health care reform for UPI.com. The new approach uses webcam technology to encourage participation by experts, pundits, other reporters, and viewers and helps to delve deeper into this complex issue than would otherwise be possible.

Customer reviews of your products or services are very important to your online brand. Obviously, reviews may range from very satisfied to very dissatisfied.  , and everyone is entitled to an opinion. So  when and how should you  respond to negative reviews?

Generally, you should respond to reviews/opinions when:

Your organization is genuinely at fault

• The opinion/review gives  false information
• The opinion/review takes on a life of its own and snowballs

A carefully crafted response can go a long way to mitigating the damaging effect of a negative review. The content and tone of your response are important:

Apologize if your organization was at fault

• Actively address the issue at hand (i.e., do not dismiss or ignore it)
• Be calm, non-defensive, and honest
• Use plain, simple language  (i.e., limit use of industry jargon and big words)

Never underestimate the power reviewers have over one’s online brand! Monitor customer feedback and reviews and respond when necessary.

Online learning can take many forms, from simply reading a page to interactively participating in virtual classrooms or simulations. Also widely variable is how training is produced, the production time, price, and in the end, its effectiveness. Are you choosing the right method for teaching? Sometimes you can tell information to your learners, but other times you may see better results if you show.

Mind & Media recently launched a training community website for therapists helping couples deal with the challenges of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Learners attend a classroom session and then are granted access to the online community where they can expand on the one-time classroom experience. Sure the site will include manuals, and a discussion forum, where information is told, but also in the works is the development of role-play videos that will show great examples of how to conduct the therapy. They’re very real and relevant scenarios, too, created by the experts. No scripts, no actors, and no big bucks. Here’s why role-plays by experts beat scripted, acted scenes just about any day of the week when it comes to effective, affordable training.

For this training project we videotaped eight role-play scenarios in one day, ranging from 8- to 25-minutes. Pre-production was virtually non-existent—no locations to scout, no scripts to write, and no actors to find, screen, hire, and prepare to play doctor or patient. Mind & Media has a beautiful brainstorming room that served as our therapy office so that was kind of a lucky break, but the decisions about script and actors were as much about efficacy as about budget.

The trainers, who served as the actors, loosely developed the scenarios during their travel to our office. That was all the prep time they needed because they knew the content, techniques, and even typical patient behaviors like the back of their hands. The familiarity with the subject made the acting all the more realistic. While we were shooting one trainer told us of at time they had used professional actors for a similar project and they ended up with bad overacting by folks more interested in their careers than the task at hand. Not to say all actors would derail the project, but if your luck does happen to go bad on shoot day, how would you recover?

The production itself went fast, too. Quality assurance for each scenario happened on the fly since all “actors” were subject matters experts. They could prep a scene in a few minutes and complete it in one take. We rolled two cameras to capture the whole scene in real-time whenever possible. We did use a production assistant to keep track of details during any multi-take scenes to make sure we kept continuity, since there was no script or storyboard, but in general the group of trainers and production staff at Mind & Media, just worked smartly and kept things rolling. The scenes were so real that at times I felt uncomfortable watching the fictional husband and wife spar in front of their therapist!

While the trainers may conduct some role-plays during the classroom training, having video role-plays online may be even more effective. They’re not limited to just that one classroom, and if need be the learner just clicks rewind and watches it again, any time of day, any place with an Internet connection. And the bonus, since the videos will be rolled into the larger community learning site, is that viewers can watch the scenarios and then discuss them with peers and the trainers in the forum to keep the learning environment current and ever-growing.

UPI – Taking the Pulse of Health Care Trailer from Mind & Media, Inc. on Vimeo.

On March 22^nd, United Press International will be launching a video journalism series produced by Mind & Media called “Taking the Pulse of Health Care.”  These documentary style interviews will focus on individuals affected by the shortcomings of America’s health care system.

This isn’t a standard news editorial piece, but rather, it is an interactive news feature.  Viewers will be able to post video feedback on the piece using a standard computer webcam and microphone using an interface that is as simple as clicking one button!  Countless news sites allow text responses following articles, so we’re taking that idea one step further.

Health care reform is an emotional topic for many. We’re aiming to let participants in the discussion communicate their emotion by sharing their voice, body language, and eye contact with the audience, instead of just posting text.

At Mind & Media, we’re always looking for new and creative ways to inspire action in our audience.

See the trailer here: http://www.vimeo.com/9507346 and check out the series on www.UPI.com on March 22

I’m really excited to be supporting some of the leading minds in the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Mind & Media has always strived to work on projects that affect positive change in this world, and the project with which we’ve been engaged over the past year has probably been the most positively impactful of any I’ve worked on. We’ve helped disseminate information to families dealing with PTSD, to therapists treating PTSD, and most recently to therapists helping couples cope when one partner is struggling with PTSD. Each project has been different in its own way, but they have all been equally rewarding to me personally.

Make no mistake; it’s not just the end goal I’m passionate about. I’m a geek for the technology and aesthetics of the communications in general, but to apply my years of geeking to efforts like the treatment of PTSD is amazing. Sure marketers or designers everywhere worry about web usability or word choice in when trying to sell a product or push an agenda, but all the same communications best practices hold true no matter what communication effort you undertake. It doesn’t have to be sexy, but it has to be clear, easy to use, and it must give the audience what they need.

For a public-facing presentation about reuniting with family members returning from a war zone, we got to put ourselves in the shoes of stressed out, nervous family members waiting at home. How could we write this content so it’s easy to understand? What questions could we answer, via video interviews with other families, that would show these folks they are not alone? What images would connect them to the material, and what, ultimately, do they want from this presentation? Not cool animation, not a widget, not a text message, nothing from the bag of new communications technology. They just want to know what to expect, what to look out for, and where to turn if things are not going well. Our work moves them from anxious to reassured, from unsure to confident. Positive change I remember long after the work ends. It was a pleasure to bring Returning From the War Zone: A Guide for Families to life for all the families that need it.

Is your organization offering “online courses” that are merely PowerPoint presentations, with or without audio? Are they slow to download? Do they lack interactivity? Veterans Affairs’ National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder had such a series, called PTSD 101, offering web-based refresher training for clinicians. However, the courses were PowerPoints with audio that were extremely slow to download, and lacked interactivity and visual interest.

Rather than simply revise the PowerPoints as the government’s solicitation requested, we proposed to develop all courses in a Section 508-compliant Flash-based player that allows download of audio on a slide-by-slide basis for near instant playback from any point in the presentation. An interactive table of contents allows the user to watch straight through or click to a section of interest so that material can be reviewed at any time. The unified series now has a visually appealing interface as well, and interactive exercises to provide checks on learning and enhance the learning experience.

The PTSD 101 series is a great example of how easily clunky legacy training can be reformatted to provide just-in-time learning to an organization’s customers or stakeholders. See one of the courses here.