The communications world has changed tremendously over the past five years.  There’s no arguing that.  But just how many ways has it changed for those of us in cause communications?  Social media, the evolving newspaper industry, “net neutrality” issues, personalized technology and mobile devices everywhere are just a few innovations and developments that come to mind.

Fenton Communication’s Chief Strategy Officer Lisa Witter has attempted to make sense of it all and delineate the major trends in a presentation titled “The New Normal: 12 Driving Forces in Communications.”

She has delivered this outline recently to groups such as the Skoll World Forum, the Conference Board, the National Association of Social Work Deans and Directors and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and most recently she spoke to a large group of communications professionals at a gathering at Philanthropy New York.

While her presentation and its core concepts were developed for purposes unrelated to the Communications Network annual conference, it is quite a nice quirk of timeliness that her 12 Driving Forces are being disseminated just before our annual meeting that starts on Wednesday

Many of these 12 forces, plus those on other people’s lists, will surely be discussed, dissected and debated at the conference.

The 12 Driving Forces Witter talked about had been identified through a scenario planning process lead by former MoveOn.org executive director Eli Pariser that drilled down on the question: “What is the future of media and how should cause communicators be preparing for the challenges and seizing the opportunities they present?” While the ideas she is presenting to audiences across the country come out of a learning process that occurred in Fall 2009, Witter is still refining and reorganizing the main points as the media world continues to see major shifts in short periods of time.

These are the most recent formulations of her 12 Driving Forces:

1. Mobile: Internet Everywhere
2. Globalized Net
3. Information Overload and Curation
4. Personalization and Filtering
5. Broadcast to Bi/Multi-Directional
6. The end of journalism?
7. Fragmentation by Affiliation
8. Convergence
9. Micro-Targeting and ROI Advertising
10. Transparency as a Value
11. Feedback is Instant
12. Authenticity/Voice/Uniqueness as a Value

As with many macro-level analyses, the areas of exploration here are not news to anyone who closely follows communications issues. Rather, it is the thoughtful explanation of how things are changing and what are the implications for practitioners around each of these driving forces that really has salience.  For example, it is not enough to know that consumers are using technological filters more and more to help manage the information coming at them. You have to know what filters they are using, how they work and how to design your communications to rise to the top. And it’s not enough to know that citizens are expecting greater transparency from all institutions, but exactly what that means for any foundation or nonprofit is different and requires a process of real soul searching delving into practical implications.  Witter’s presentation was a great prompt for my thinking on these topics.

I want to share with you what Witter says all this means for “cause communicators.” I will be keeping these implications in mind as I discuss communications trends with my colleagues in LA later this week.  She says that, while good storytelling will continue to be essential, how and where those stories are told and how they are passed along will change.  She says that to take advantage of the media evolution, you’ll need to develop these three new core competencies:

Content: Cause communicators must become their own media by creating original content that moves by being timely, emotion-driven and targeted.  Broadcast on multiple media platforms where you can engage audiences directly. Be part of the conversation by sharing and “remixing” content by others.

Calculate: Take advantage of digital metrics and the social web to “listen” online to who’s talking about your issues and how they’re talking about them.  Develop campaigns that join these conversations.  Take risks, experiment and refine.  Nurturing a culture of failure can lead to the best ideas.

Community: The media evolution has made it easier for people with the same passions to connect with each other.  Your role is to help them find each other and mobilize a community around your cause. This means putting your supporters, not your organization, at the center of your communications.  Catalyze ideas and encourage others to crowd-source and use their own creativity and networks to spread the word.

This is sage advice that communications professionals should take to heart and use to help their organizations navigate the new landscape. The 12 Driving Forces Witter has identified are important ones that we should all be thinking about as we evolve in our own communications work.  It’s rough terrain out there.  Better have as accurate a map as possible.

Several prominent foundations, to their great credit, are doing a good job of fostering public dialogue on how to support community journalism and international reporting. But a related concern has, at least to my understanding, gone largely unacknowledged.  That is, the uncertain future of independent documentary photography.  But interestingly, documentary photographers are coming to the aid of foundations and nonprofits.

“Documentary photography does face many great challenges because the media industry, which is changing so quickly, is not adequately supporting this important work,” The Magnum Foundation’s President Susan Meiselas told me.  As a leading photographer for nearly 40 years whose work has appeared on the front page of The New York Times, has been exhibited on the walls of The Whitney Museum of Art and was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, Meiselas speaks with authority.

“Even though photographers are accustomed to flexible work arrangements and producing work that they must convince outlets to distribute, the fundamental changes occurring in the media world are choking off funds for the development of documentary photography projects.  That’s why we created the Emergency Fund,” Meiselas says. “We are attempting to take up the challenge of creating a new economic model to support work that focuses on critical issues.”

Media organizations are cutting back and supporting far fewer photographers in projects where they go into the field and produce the images that powerfully illustrate the humanity, the messiness, and the beauty of our world.  Meiselas says that independent documentary photographers play a very special role, approaching social issues with an open mind and not trying to produce images that support specific foregone conclusions about the nature of an issue. But the fact that they are not tethered to organizations leaves them unsupported.  Which is where the Magnum Foundation comes in.

The Magnum Foundation is working with social purpose organizations through its BE SEEN initiative to pair them with exceptional documentary photographers to tell their own stories through images.  For example, in 2009, the Woodcock Foundation provided support for Ashoka, one of its grantees, to collaborate with photographers to begin documenting the projects of Ashoka Fellows through the use of photography, video and multimedia.  The plan is for their work will be showcased in “an exploratory web landscape populated with stories about individuals overcoming obstacles to improve their own lives and communities, inspired by the social entrepreneurs whose insights were a catalyst for social change.” The Woodcock Foundation’s support of the pilot produced two exceptionally engaging examples of multimedia storytelling, and Ashoka is currently seeking funding to complete the vision of documenting the work of 30 Fellows.

The Magnum Foundation has a particularly impressive history of working with human rights organizations. Meiselas’s own 30-year history of working with Human Rights Watch has included a series titled “In Silence: Maternal Mortality in India.” It is an arresting example of how stories can be told powerfully with strong documentary photography (the multi-media for the project was produced by Magnum in Motion, which assembles visual narratives for online and offline platforms, including screenings in museums, festivals, and workshops.).

The Foundation’s BE SEEN initiative additionally provides personalized service and advice on how organizations can optimize their visual communications efforts.

The Magnum Foundation has a brochure that makes a strong case that “powerful images can open minds.”  I asked Meiselas about the nature of documentary photography as it relates to the proliferation of photographic images that come from the cell phones of average citizens in African villages, the streets of Tehran and the hills of West Virginia, and which are being used by media outlets to show the “reality” of conditions on the ground.

“Images abound, surely. There are tons of images being uploaded every day and they are hard to perhaps distinguish at times, especially when they are so decontextualized… it’s sort of like noise, cacophonous noise with no clarity,” she said. “But documentary photography can produce a coherent story, a narrative structure with a progression of images that evokes deeper meaning. I very much welcome the accessibility of digital democracy and love that citizens are able to photograph their own experiences, but I think that professional documentary photography has an important role to play in modeling narrative story telling through visual images.”

The Magnum Foundation is closely associated with Magnum Photos, the collective of independent photographers founded sixty years ago by such luminaries as Henri Cartier-Bresson. One of the priorities of the foundation is to make the extraordinary and growing archives of Magnum Photos more accessible to foundations, nonprofits and other social purpose organizations.

Meiselas and I talked at length about how BE SEEN differs from the growing number of stock photo services available on the internet.  “BE SEEN is not a ‘click & buy’ process, we actually want to talk to you and find out what you are trying to accomplish, think about what kinds of images are available in the archive and work with you to find the right images.”  And, while service is one of the important differences, anyone can browse the Magnum Photos archives online unassisted.

Having used many of the stock photography services in my work as a director of communications, I was very curious to see the difference for myself.  As an experiment, I did a search on “religion” at Magnum Photos and then at iStockphoto.com. The resulting images told me everything I needed to know and definitely supported Meiselas’s case.

The stock photos are staged and clichéd.  They are Anglo-centric and explore very little of the unknown.  The Magnum Photos, on the other hand, are visually stunning.  They have texture and extraordinary vibrance. The variety of subject matter that came up on my Magnum search was vast and fascinating.  Each image seemed to tell a singular story that might lead to other related images that would tell a fuller story, and they made me want to learn more about the subjects in the photos.

Magnum Foundation has attracted supporters like Open Society Institute and The Atlantic Philanthropies, but still, there are many who are not yet aware of the state of independent documentary photography or what this kind of photography can accomplish for social purpose organizations.  Meiselas’s metaphor of “noise” versus “clarity” got me thinking about a parallel with foundation support for public radio. It seems to me that Magnum is to stock photography what National Public Radio is to talk radio.  Magnum and NPR both strive to demonstrate that investing in excellence produces insights and discoveries that commercial sources rarely do.

One of the Magnum Foundation’s most immediate objectives is simply to have more foundations and nonprofits know that the work of its photographers is available. So check out the Magnum Photos archive.  And think about whether or not pairing with a documentary photographer through Magnum Foundation might be a productive way of developing images that powerfully tell your organization’s story.

I recommend that you read the post in full, but here is a bit of it to give you a taste of what it contains:

Solutions Storytelling: Messaging to Mobilize Support for Children’s Issues, contains plenty of good news and it has lots of facts to back them up.  By way of background, this research was conducted on behalf of Child Advocacy 360, a group founded by Hershel Sarbin to close the gap that he says exists “between good work and the kind of communication from youth serving and child advocacy organizations that would underscore the power of good news journalism and success stories to effect community, state, and national change in social policy…The research, which was conducted by the Topos Partnership, working with Douglas Gould & Company, takes what’s been Sarbin’s long-held belief and backs it up with verifiable findings.  Although the data is focused on programs that serve kids, it doesn’t take much of a leap to see how some of the same insights the research provides could also help anyone involved in social change communications. From online survey interviews with 2,006 registered voters nationwide, six focus group sessions with voters in three states, and TalkBack Testing, in which 240 participants were tested on their ability to repeat the core of a message and pass it on to others, here’s some of the important findings about how to communicate effectively, including what to do and what to avoid…

Check out the full post for the specifics on how you should be telling your stories.  It is well worth the 10 minutes it will take to read the post, which also has links to the full research report.

This is another in an ongoing series of posts in partnership with The Communications Network.  It originally appeared on that site.

I have been to more book parties over the years than I can count.  Usually they are fairly tedious affairs and I spend my time looking at my watch trying to figure out how long I need to stay before slipping out inconspicuously.  But at the celebration for a new book “Zilch,” I wanted to stay until they kicked me out.  Here’s why…

“Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business” is, obviously, aimed at the business market. I agreed to go to the book party mostly because the event was taking place at One Beacon Court, one of NYC’s most coveted new apartment towers, so I could check out how the other half lives.  I’m human, I covet.  The building, which houses Bloomberg News on the lower levels, is an architectural gem and the apartments were reputed to be quite spectacular.

The apartment itself was gorgeous, but I barely paused to pick up a lavender-infused summery cocktail as I made a bee-line to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the view from the 54^th floor penthouse.  I was mesmerized.

So it is a testament to the power and importance of the book’s core messages that I actually forgot about the view as soon as author Nancy Lublin began to speak to the crowd.  Her message is all about nonprofit creativity and how to do more with less.

As the book’s introduction says, “After years of being told that we in the not-for-profit sector need to be more structured, more profitable, more strategic and more like organizations in the corporate world, the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction. Now we not-for-profits have much to offer organizations that are willing to listen and learn.”

I have long felt that the aggrandizement of the business sector needed to be brought into line with reality (AIG, BP, need I say more), so this is a rallying cry that I can really get behind.  She makes a very strong case that companies now strapped for cash can learn a lot from non-profits that have always had to do their marketing, branding and mission advancement on a shoestring budget.

Lublin has strong credentials to make this case.  As noted so eloquently on the book jacket: “As the founder of Dress for Success, which provides low-income women with interview suits and career development training, she turned a $5,000 inheritance into a global franchise.  Then, as CEO of DoSomething.org, she helped turn a struggling startup into one of the largest and most successful youth volunteer groups in the world. Now she draws on her experiences as well as interviews with other ‘rock star’ leaders of flourishing not-for-profits – including Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, Darell Hammond of KaBOOM! Greg Baldwin of VolunteerMatch.org, and John Lilly of Mozilla.”

Her chapters explore how creative people can do more with less cash to throw at people, comprehensive branding, utilizing external people, asking smart questions, focusing on customers, maximizing the board, empowering staff, using your organization’s story, realigning your finances, bartering with what you have and generally applying innovation to your work.

I talked to Nancy for a while, and she said this to me, “Not-for-profits and foundations don’t actually make anything. We sell a service or a feeling–and we’re usually selling it to one person (donor) while giving the benefit to another (client). Can you imagine selling a tube of toothpaste to one person–but another one takes it home? How AWESOME a salesperson is that?! Well, that is how not-for-profits have to communicate every day. Its about doing more with less…way less.”

At this point, you may be asking, if businesses have so much to learn from nonprofits and I am a nonprofit or foundation person reading this post, why should I be interested in this book?  Well frankly, while Lublin has done a great job of finding examples where business can learn a great deal from nonprofits, the vast majority of foundations and nonprofits still have much to learn on these topics from leaders in our field.

The book certainly got my creative wheels turning.  I especially liked the very first chapter about helping folks in your organization find inspiration in their work rather than motivation from a paycheck.  A later chapter on finances also had some very concrete advice that I will carry with me for a long time.

The party itself was a great example of Lublin’s premise of doing more with less. The fancy apartment isn’t hers, but she utilized her connections and convinced those who believe in her mission to help her out.  I came for the view, but stayed for the book’s important insights.  That’s the power of Zilch.

It is an interesting case for the concept of “naming and framing,” as the folks at PPC member Public Agenda might term it. Kristoff notes in his piece that wild dogs…

“…are a species that has become endangered without anyone raising an eyebrow. Until, that is, a globe-trotting adventurer named Greg Rasmussen began working with local villages to rebrand the dogs — and save them from extinction…

Central to Mr. Rasmussen’s effort to save the dogs has been a struggle to rename them, so that they sound exotic rather than feral.

Do-gooders usually have catastrophic marketing skills. Pepsi and Coke invest fortunes to promote their products over their rivals, while humanitarians aren’t nearly as savvy about marketing causes with far higher stakes — famine, disease, mass murder.

Mr. Rasmussen is an exception, and his effort to rebrand the species as “painted dogs” caught on. The name works because the animals’ spotted coats suggest that they ran through an artist’s studio.

Mr. Rasmussen runs the Painted Dog Conservation, a center that offers the animals a refuge from poachers and rehabilitation when they are injured. But most of all, he works with impoverished local villagers so that they feel a stake in preserving painted dogs.

Kristoff says that “If clever marketing and strategic thinking can take reviled varmints such as “wild dogs” and resurrect them (quite justly) as exotic “painted dogs” to be preserved, then no cause is hopeless.”  Well, I suppose that’s true. But I wish that he would look around and see the countless other examples of great marketing and issue framing being done by nonprofits and foundations around the world.

And on this topic, I want to recommend that folks who follow PPC-NYC consider adding to their RSS feeds a blog called On Social Marketing and Social Change. I’ve been reading it for the last several months and learning a lot from it.  They’ve been doing a lot of posts on health issues in particular.  There are three posts in particular I’d like to highlight.

In the first post I’m highlighting, “The Dragons of Behavior Change,” the author lays out some of the key concepts of behavior change related to health and takes on those whose communications have only the modest goal of “awareness.”

Behavior change is the hard part, and why people seem to be so comfortable with ‘just’ building awareness of problems and possible solutions. Advertising and public relations agencies have said for years “Hold us accountable for awareness or brand image, not sales.” Their rationale is that it is the sales people who need to ‘change the behavior’ of the consumer to make the purchase – advertising and promotions can get people into showrooms, stores and other places where you stock the product, in sufficient quantities, at the right place in an appealing way, but that last step… that’s someone else’s responsibility. Unfortunately social marketers don’t get to pass off to others the responsibility for behavior change.

That post provides a strong argument for the need for planning communications around behavior change and not just “awareness.” It also makes the case for being clear about budgeting for communications around behavior change — especially since the forces against good health behaviors often have massive budgets for influencing behavior (advertisers for cigarettes, junk food, etc.)

The second post I’m highlighting is “MINDSPACE for Behavior Change.” This post distills a report that details the specific elements of behavior change that we should all be clear on.

Messenger: We are heavily influenced by who communicates with us.
Incentives: Our responses to incentives are shaped by predictable mental shortcuts, such as strongly avoiding losses.
Norms: We are strongly influenced by what other people do.
Defaults: We tend to ‘go with the flow’ of pre-set options.
Salience: Our attention is drawn to what is novel and seems relevant for us.
Priming: Our actions are often influenced by sub-conscious clues.
Affect: Our emotional associations can powerfully shape our actions.
Commitments: We seek to be consistent with our public promises, and reciprocate acts.
Ego: We act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves.

That post differentiates between “rational” and “cognitive” approaches related to communications and behavior change.  Again, a very strong case is made for focusing resources on getting to the ultimate behavior change rather than necessarily trying to change people’s thinking.  You may think that it is impossible to change behavior without changing people’s thinking, but this post provides a lot of food for thought on that matter.

The third post, “National Objectives for Health Communication and Health Information Technology,” was written BEFORE the final health reform legislation was signed and details some of the actions around health communications that the Department of Health and Human Services was taking to change public behavior independent of the reform legislation. DHS’s newly adopted social marketing objectives are:

Increase social marketing in health promotion and disease prevention.

a: Increase the proportion of state health departments that report using social marketing in health promotion and disease prevention programs.

b: Increase the proportion of Schools of Public Health and accredited MPH programs that offer one or more courses in social marketing.

c: Increase the proportion of Schools of Public Health and accredited MPH programs that offer workforce development activities in social marketing for public health practitioners.

All three of these posts are worth reading in full to get your thinking going about the importance of behavior change in communications around health issues.  I want to make a strong case for the need to do a great deal of communications around what citizens need to know and do about health reform.  Just because the legislation has been passed and it has gotten a lot of press coverage doesn’t mean that people know what they’re supposed to do now.  When a person looses his job, no one tells him all of the benefits that he is eligible for and how to go about getting them. There are already lots of health benefits that families are eligible for that they don’t take advantage of because of the inadequacy of our nation’s outreach to vulnerable populations.  I am afraid that a similar situation will occur with the new benefits and requirements associated with health reform. We need to be investing in telling people what they need to know and do about the new healthcare system.  Yes, the legislation has passed and President Obama has signed it.  But it’s no time to sit back and celebrate.  It’s time to design a system for communicating to the American people — especially the most vulnerable — what they need to know and do to take full advantage of the new reforms.

The lessons are pretty basic (like giving your “fans” or constituencies a name that makes them feel special, developing shared symbols, and making your members feel like they are part of something bigger than just the organization itself).  But as I read the piece, I started thinking more about how I could apply the ideas to the organizations I work with.

And remember PPCers, when it comes to building loyalty and support among members and fans, it’s all about the LOVEGAME.

Nancy Schwartz has written a very good piece on this topic recently on her Getting Attention blog. While it is a short post and I am sure she would have a lot more to say in person, she gives a very nice overview of the basic information communications professionals should be tracking to get a handle on the success of their efforts.  She says:

Track these outputs: Articles placed, links added, online mentions of your organization, number of requests for public appearances, incoming press calls, etc. For example, two articles or one letter to the editor a month, three incoming press calls or 10% increase in daily unique visitors to your website generated by links on other sites. As always, look for trending (steady increases) rather than absolute numbers…I suggest you create a media log to record media relations activities and results. It will assist you in evaluating the contacts/relationships you have with specific media outlets and reporters, and help you identify concerns with particular outlets/reporters so that you can address them (e.g. always misquoted, description of organization incorrect, inappropriate language to explain issue, etc.)

Nancy has written extensively over the years on this topic and I hope she will join us at the next PPC meeting.

]]> http://www.ppcnyc.org/2010/02/starting-to-think-about-measuring-results/feed/ 0 http://www.ppcnyc.org/2010/01/what-we-learned-low-cost-multi-media/ http://www.ppcnyc.org/2010/01/what-we-learned-low-cost-multi-media/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:04:38 +0000 Michael Hamill Remaley http://www.ppcnyc.org/?p=105 The January 2010 meeting of Public Policy Communicators NYC at the Ford Foundation had a great turn-out.  As always, we started with half hour of informal networking meet-n-greet, and I was very happy to meet some of the new additions to the group.

The topic of the day was “How to Use Low-Cost Multi-Media to Maximal Effect,” which was chosen by members at the last PPC meeting before we went on hiatus. While many of our meetings rely simply on the experiences of our own members, this time we had an expert (even though she insisted that I not call her that) to help us think through the topic: Susan Herr, President of PhilanthroMedia.

Susan started with the core point that thinking about what is “low cost” should take a step back from the costs of relatively inexpensive items like video cameras and video editing software, and look more broadly at the many other cost elements associated with producing good multi-media.

Using the example of her work organizing the “Gorilla Engagement Squad” at The Communications Network annual conference, she talked about how inexperienced and experienced camerapersons using Flip Cams and Tweeters could use inexpensive technologies in combination to extend the reach of a conference outside those present, as well as develop relationships among those on-site. But she made clear that the real cost was not the video cameras, etc., but the human resources to plan the video capture strategy, corralling interviewers and interviewees, and putting the pieces together into a compelling story.  It takes a lot of time (and someone fairly experienced in pulling it all together). This link features some of the participants in that effort talking about how it worked: Gorilla Engagement Squad 2009 http://vimeo.com/8174186

Then she talked about Video Skype and using it to produce “Diavlogs,” which, for the uninitiated, are essentially synched video of two people doing an interview showing both on-screen (usually from separate remote locations). The point here was that doing interviews and putting them up online is exceptionally easy and a potentially great way to share ideas/information in a conversational format. But just like any other interview – it has to be interesting to the audience!  Two people talking is easy to produce, but to get people to watch, there has to be great content, on both the interview and interviewee sides.  Here is a link to some examples of diavlogs: Beyond Branding http://vimeo.com/8265230

Next, she explored an example where she herself was a one-person camera crew, working for the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, gathering footage for an effort to get Presidential candidates focused on urban issues.  As an admittedly only “moderately” experienced camera person and interviewer, but having access to a really well-connected producer and experienced logistical coordinator, she was able to interview 10 mayors of major American cities about the challenges facing urban centers and use that footage to produce a compelling, cohesive message, which was picked up by The Nation, netroots bloggers and many well-trafficked .org sites.  The point here was how key a well-connected producer and logistical-coordinator were, not the expense of the technology and other aspects of “video production.”

Finally, she showed a new website that she has created as an example of how easy it is to do man/woman-on-the-street interviews on a Flip Cam, along with Flickr to host picture slide shows.  She also talked about the social networking aspect (in this case Facebook) of quickly building an audience when you have simple but compelling content.  This is the site (which is based on a $69 template) that she used as an example: http://www.dapperq.com/

As we opened the conversation up to the group, I added a few thoughts of my own.  First, I made the point that, while everyone wants to produce a “message” video that is witty and gets people’s attention so much so that it goes VIRAL and everyone is convinced of your point, there are lots of other possible uses of video.

This is a classic example of a “message” video (we didn’t show it at the meeting because the video didn’t show well on the projection screen): Lost Generation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA&feature=player_embedded

But you can do lots of other stuff with videos and other forms of multi-media, like…

–Highlighting organizational programs showing the programs in action.  Here’s a great teaser from the Anaheim Ballet that meeting participants loved: Anaheim Ballet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2XmRzaCFFY&feature=player_embedded  This is obviously great for arts organizations, but you can do it with panel discussions and other events relevant to policy-related organizations.

–Using multi-media to extend the reach of conferences/panel discussions, etc. (i.e. Philanthromedia’s work on Comnet09, Public Agenda’s policy breakfast series online videos, TED Talks)  Here is one example of a Public Agenda video highlighting programming: America\’s Financial Future http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mapR6TK8_Fo&feature=player_embedded

– To tell an organization’s history (for fundraising purposes)

– To take on powerful interests, critique leaders in a witty way

This is one that participant Michael Falco of Pro-Media Communications offered: ABA Showdown http://www.youtube.com/user/ABAShowdown  It is a great example of “taking it to the streets” and then taking the street online to spread virally.  It got a lot of hits.

– “instructional” : telling people what you want them to do and how to do it, for example: The World Sucks: Help it Suck Less http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeAUQslfFP4&feature=player_embedded

– To recruit volunteers For example: Into Darfur: A Young American\’s Journey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BQcSyG7bOQ&feature=player_embedded

– To sell a policy direction For example: A New Sound: Green For All http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNszFwmSg2Y&feature=player_embedded

The conversation ranged over a lot of territory after that and people talked about their own experiences producing multi-media, including best ways to produce slideshows.  Fenton Communications’ Lisa Witter offered that the organization Duarte is amazing at producing such multi-media slide shows and maintains a blog called “Slide:ology” at http://blog.duarte.com/

She also shared this very inexpensive, provocative video called Milking Cancer http://vimeo.com/6675967 It was produced for $5,000 – which included the actors and editor.

It was noted by several participants that every organization should have a YouTube channel by now, but that Vimeo is also quite valuable because of the cleanliness of the presentation.

Lots of folks offered other examples.  I apologize that I didn’t catch who offered what.  This one is a good example of using lots of forms of media capture and putting it all together on one cohesive piece: MQ2 http://mq2.org/

The conversation ranged across many of the challenges of utilizing multi-media, but several themes kept reoccurring:

1. The importance of investing wisely in human resources, and knowing what you can do in-house and what you need to pay an expert for.

2. The ultimate fact that you need to start with interesting content or a compelling story.  You can throw lots of stuff up on a website, but if it isn’t witty or emotionally compelling, no one is going to watch it.

3. Dissemination is not to be overlooked.  We only touched on this topic, which should perhaps be revisited in a future session.  But we did talk about how the first step of getting something to “go viral” (after producing something interesting) is to start with your core audience and creating incentives for them to re-post and share through social networking sites.

I hope these notes are helpful.  They capture only a small part of what I learned from my colleagues at the session.  Another thing I learned is that I need to have someone dedicated to taking notes at the session.  Next time.