While writing continues to be the standard UI of our profession, we're quite past the point where the average professional communicator — rather than a specialist or resident nerd — needs to know the basics of audio/video production.
Here's a sample of some of the items I carry in my laptop bag. Left-to-right, that's an Olympus solid-state dictaphone (recommended by to me by Michael O'Connor Clarke), a Pure Digital FlipTV camera (introduced to me by our West Coast consumer head, Gerry Tschopp), and a SanDisk memory card reader (never be caught without one). I shot this, of course, with my Treo 700w smartphone*, which is why it's not in the shot. (I left my 12-megapixel digital camera at home today.)
I carry all of these items for three principal reasons:
- I like gadgets.
- It's often necessary for me to capture things on-the-fly.
- To serve as an example.
This is nothing new to a lot of folks, sure, but the point is:
There is no reason whatsoever why the contents of my laptop bag can't be standard issue for PR pros.Auburn's Robert French certainly groks this — the relatively inexpensive FlipTV cameras are as standard for his students as a textbook. UGA's Kaye Sweetser is a believer as well — she recently started uploading FlipTV-recorded vids onto YouTube.
In short, communications teams should start looking at basic multimedia production as a required skill, not a nice-to-have.
* Palm, manufacturers of the Treo line, is a client of A&R Edelman.
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Comments (2)
Yea this looks like my laptop bag. I have a video camera/camera (Sanyo HD1a), tripod, cell phone, iPod, and electrical power supplies and USB's for everything too. Sometimes it becomes a pain.
Yea I agree. Why doesn't everyone just make that a standard!!
If you need some help about video editing and etc. I know a lot about that...Plus other user generated content, uploading, and marketing..
Nick
Posted by Nick Schmidt | April 14, 2008 6:38 PM
Posted on April 14, 2008 18:38
The art of digital storytelling is an untapped resource for companies and organizations. From inter-organizational communications to marketing and pr ventures, telling stories through narration, images, and video is a powerful and cost-effective tool. I am glad to see that these skills are being taught outside of elective classes at colleges and universities.
Personally, I use digital storytelling to help clients tell their stories to the world in dynamic and inexpensive ways. A great example is some work I did for a religious historical society http://www.discipleshistory.org/news/news_archive/homepage_feature_2.htm . I hope more organizations pick up on the power of digital storytelling.
Have you checked out JumpCut from Yahoo? It is a free web-based video editing solution that is pretty easy for the extreme novice to learn. http://www.jumpcut.com/
Posted by Will Boyd | April 26, 2008 5:18 PM
Posted on April 26, 2008 17:18