I’ve been working on my documentary for four months now, and I’ll tell you – I’ve learned a lot. I sound like a broken record when I say that this is not a one person job. I’ll also say that I’ve had some good help along the way, I’m not always alone. Since the beginning I’ve had a basic plan for writing, filming, marketing, etc. Part of the marketing is online/social marketing, which I feel I have a good grasp of. However, new to me is email campaigns, of which I’ve officially launched my first.

Speaking of first, first things second; if you would like to sign up for my email campaign – you’re crazy. But I like crazy people. Click your mouse on the word “here”, here.

Who are email campaigns for? They’re for you, silly. And to answer your second question, why you should start one? You should start one to be less annoying, to give people information that they’re actually interested in, and to help you stay connected with your friends, family and fans. Email campaigns are nice because they are auto-managed by a service like Mail Chimp. You don’t have to decide who is going to be on the list, people decide if they’re going to be on your list. And it’s simple, you just tell people that you have a list, that they should click “here” and then they sign up. When you bore them, they cancel their subscription.

Your scenario. You’re going to travel around the world for 8 months and you’ve decided you’re going to take photos and do a little writing. Before email services like Mail Chimp you were deciding who was going to be on your list and managing that list yourself, taking people off of it when they didn’t want to be bothered with your updates about the best cupcake you ate in Melbourne (but seriously it was good and it’s worth reading about).

But wait, there’s more. Mail Chimp has a ton of templates for you to use so your emails can be pretty, and you can paste your photos from Australia right into the email. You can also get stats on how many people opened your email and how many links they clicked on within it. Super sweet, I know.

How have I started to use the service? Good question Alan. Two days ago I sent my first email out to the 62 people who signed up (thanks again to those of you who signed up). I also played with some settings making the first email auto-send one day after anyone new signs up for the list. This email list is important to me because it allows me to communicate to the people who want to be a part of the film-making process with me. There is so much work to be done and so much content to spread. As a single person, my message can only travel so far before dies out. I can only reach my friends on Facebook and Twitter, but with a group of active friends and fans I can send my message out to my list and ask for them for help.

Don’t understand? Here is my scenario. Let’s say I have a trailer for my film, and I want thousands of people to see it. I have about 1,000 friends on Facebook and 1,500 “Followers” on Twitter – of whom maybe only 200 are online at any given time I Tweet. I post my trailer on Facebook, which then filters my trailer so maybe only 100 people on Facebook see it. But then I send an email to my list asking people to, “Like”, “Share” and “Repost” my trailer. Facebook takes this data and says “Oh, people like this, I’m going to send it to more walls” (that’s how Facebook talks), and the video hits more eyeballs. On top of that, I ask politely for the people on my list to go a step further and ask two or three more friends to do the same for them, as a favor, for a friend. If my trailer is any good, then people will like it. When people like something online it naturally spreads – but with a little push from 62 people, it has a much higher chance of success.

This is why I am excited about my email campaign. If you made it this far, and you want to sign up to be on my list (silly you), and you don’t feel like scrolling back up to where you could have clicked here earlier – then for you I will put the link here so you can click it there.

Also, not so long ago I produced this video with the king of everything online, Loic Le Meur, specifically about this topic. Below is said video.

My sister recently became interested in sustainable farming and edible landscapes. She’s been searching for a path to walk down for the last few years, as many of us have. In deciding that farming was going to be her new focus, I have encouraged her to start harnessing the powers of social networks and the internet as a whole. This is something that I’ve seen working in action, and have been a student of for the last three years. I’m passionate about the subject: thus talking her ear off.

In these conversations I had two main messages. First, find your voice but make sure it’s yours, for you. I say this so easily but more often than not find myself writing as if others are going to read. But seriously, do it for you, and do it often. Practicing will help you find your voice more quickly.

Second, find your community. This doesn’t mean you have to find a forum or a fanpage on Facebook, though those are both fine options. Just follow all the people you enjoy and interact with them. Leave messages on their blogs, videos, and photos. Mention them in your blog.

With that said, I’d like to share with you all the people that I’ve come across online, as well as introduce you to some of the talented friends that I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with, past and present.

My most recent follows on Twitter
Vinny Minton (@VinnyMinton) is based out of the Bay Area and has some pretty killer skate videos. Vinny offered some advice on equipment in a tweet he recently sent to me. I’ll certainly be watching what this guy is up to.

Matt Shane (@mattdshane), based out of NYC, is an audio engineer and has worked on several awesome songs, including a few by Flight of the Conchords. You can find more about Matt at his site mshane.com. Matt and I have connected; he kindly verified the type of hard drives that I should be using. Thanks, Matt.

Spencer Jensen (@SJJproductions) lives in Indiana. I first came across him from a tutorial he posted on his YouTube account. I then started watching his videos and became very interested in a camera and mount he was using – Spencer has got some creative stuff going on.

Collaborators
You’ll hear me talking about some of these people over the next few months as they are an incredible asset to me and my project.

The first are Jeremey and Abby Lavoi from Team Jaded Productions. I worked with Jeremey for a year at Seesmic and have recently started working with the two of them filming in LA. That’s Los Angeles not Louisiana for those Team Jaded fans out there.

Finally I’ll leave off with a shout out to Forrest Pound who has been helping me through much of the process over the last few months. His feedback is invaluable. Forrest helped me with several of my projects in college and will hopefully be one of those guys I work with for many years to come.

Building a community

Looking back on this advice makes me realize the time and effort it takes. The last real community I was involved in online was with “early adopters.” These are people who love trying out new sites and technologies. It’s easy to regularly converse with people who are spending most of their day online. Now it’s different.

Now I’ll be looking to communicate with people who spend their time behind cameras as well as computers. My instinct tells me to ask the people I know in person where they spend their time online, what blogs to read, and what forums to become involved in. My other instinct is to just tell the world that I’m looking to connect with talented people in the film world. This includes, but is not limited to, sound, graphics, visual effects, editors, etc. If this is you, or you know someone who is awesome whom I can connect with, I would very much appreciate an introduction.

Almost lastly, I’d like to leave you with links to my sisters blog “Wet Nose Garden” caitscott.com and of course her Twitter account, @caitscott

Again, if you want to follow the project I’m working on via e-mail updates, please do not hesitate to sign up for my harmless e-mail “newsletter”, the newsletter that has not been updated once. I told you that you have nothing to be afraid of.

I’ve been excited recently to do some more creative projects of my own. Every now and then I come across some music or a video that really lights that fire again. What I like about this video is the combination of Theatre with video – so well executed. Here is a video by Tim Halperin – She Runs

The YouTube pages reads “Official music video for She Runs, song available on iTunes here: http://bit.ly/bsBYaE Taken from Tim’s album Make Or Break. Video directed by Jonathan Combs and Joe Childress. Set designed by Sarah Rogers and Brent Richardson. “She Runs” produced and mixed by Brian Kieta. This is a Continuous Shot, One Single Take Music Video”

I’m having a hard time writing a review on “The LXD” (“The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers”). I hate the show because it’s horribly written, and the acting is awful. But – I try not to scrutinize too much because my reviews are awful too, yet you’re reading this one. This must mean there is value in it somehow. Which brings me back to why I can’t stop watching “The LXD”.

“The LXD” is proof of the changing landscape of online entertainment. You no longer have to have ridiculously huge budgets, amazing actors, or even a good script to produce a good show. Something has to be amazing though, and in this case it’s the dancing. The dancing is stupid; stupid in a good way. No human should be able to move the way these people move. Except me, because that would be awesome.

The only reason I can think they’d even have a plot is to make you hope that there will be some point in the end. I’d watch the show for the dancing but the plot makes me wonder. Really that’s all it does.

Because the episodes are so short, waiting for one to come out is kinda like someone sending you one page of a comic book by mail every five days – you just want to wait for it all to get there but you read it anyway because it’s so easy to consume. I hate when people do that. Seriously, stop.

It’s not likely that you’ll make it through the first episode or even the second if you just sit down and watch it after reading this review. In fact, it took a good friend of mine to sit me down and help me plow through the first few while explaining along the way that they don’t get better, and that she couldn’t believe anyone got her to watch so many of them. Sorry I’m not there for you like Maren was for me, but you’re going to have to trust me on this one; turn off your TV, turn on Hulu, and watch at least the first three episodes of “The LXD” – then come back here and thank me in the comments.

A little explanation by Loic about why I’ve been so busy recently.

Alright, I hope I get this right, there are a lot of names going on here. Ad agency Mother in conjunction with Stella Artois brings old school advertising online. Then The Ritual Project sponsored by Stella Artois brings the ad to life with a documentary about the process. The Ritual Project describes the project on their website:

“Step by step, a group of painters brought the perfect Stella Artois to life as a 20 x 50 foot stop-frame animation high over the New York City streets. And in the process, they revealed an untold story of tradition, sacrifice, and an industry dangling preciously on the brink of extinction.”

This first video is the project from start to finish, shot in time-lapse.

The Ritual Project – final timelapse from The Ritual Project on Vimeo.

This second video is the documentary about the painters and the dying art of huge mural advertising as vinyl becomes cheaper in rough economic times.

UP THERE from Jon on Vimeo.

The effort put into this campaign should not be overlooked. I don’t live in NYC, so there is no way I would have seen this project taking form other than the documentation of it via “The Ritual Project”. I suppose Stella wanted the project to documented and thus sponsored “Up There”.

While we’re here talking about Stella you may as well check their homepage, where you can win a trip to Cannes. This is the first time I’ve seen a webpage like this ask you to connect to Facebook upon entry. Normally this is something I wouldn’t do before really understanding what I was connecting to, but because I’ve been looking at all these Stella ads I thought I would take a chance. When you get into the site after connecting with Facebook, a video starts showing a bunch of rich people looking for the person who is going to attend Cannes. The cool part is when they start going through photos of people, you see images of your friends, and then they finally end up on a picture of you. They got me at first. I wondered how my friends had been put onto the webpage, then remembered the Facebook connect.

Well played Stella, I’ll cheers to that.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been inspired by Jamie Oliver and his ambitious campaign that I first discovered through his TED Talk. Every year TED awards one person the TED prize of $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World” – which is basically the tools and connections that a conference like TED can provide. Jamie Oliver’s wish as quoted on the conference page reads “I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.” Jamie’s talk inspires for a few reasons. First you are blindsided by some serious statistics about obesity. Then you realize just how passionate he is about trying to fix the problem. The talk is quite moving and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you take a look.

The campaign begins. In January, Jamie joined Twitter and started getting the word out. Now he’s trying to get one million people to sign an online petition that he plans on taking to the White House to present to the President. The word is out, the Tweets are being retweeted, the Facebook page points to the petition and his site which has everything you’d need to know about Jamie’s Food Revolution.

I also enjoyed this Mashable interview by Brenna Ehrlich where Jamie explains exactly what the food revolution is. Interviews like this just go to show how much of an effort the guy really is putting into his campaign.

I don’t have kids but some day I hope to, and when I do I’d like them to be served good food by the school system. I could write a whole post about the importance of eating healthy food, and how feeding kids properly not only benefits them, but all of us. Instead I’d like to support the movement by signing the petition and posting this for all of you to read in hopes that you’ll do the same.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen or thought about the idea of clickable videos. I remember two or three years ago, before I worked for Seesmic, seeing a company working on this. After connecting with my good friend Liz Gannes, an editor for NewTeeVee.com, I was pointed to videoclix.tv who has built this very technology.

Though the idea is simple, it seems the technology is a bit complicated. A consumer comes to a video and is able to click on various objects which then causes a link or some sort of display change within the video. This is exactly what Diesel has done. The photo shown below is a screen capture of what happens when you roll your mouse over their ad. The video stops and arrows start to point at everything that is available to be purchased through Diesel. As you move the cursor around, you discover different items that you can buy (as seen below). You can then click on any item and a little box will appear within the player asking if you’d like to buy, or get more info.

I wouldn’t argue that this is the best way to shop, but I would say that it’s an interesting way to discover clothes that maybe you wouldn’t have seen by just browsing their web page. It’s also interesting to see how the clothes fit moving people rather than just sitting on models. Again, I’m not sure that will convince you to buy something, but it might. The reason this is so spectacular though is the fact that you can shop while you’re watching a commercial. It seems that this is any brands dream. Imagine if you were at home watching television and you could pause a commercial, or even a show, click on a item, and buy it right there. That would eliminate several steps including pulling out your computer, searching for the item all over the web, then buying it.

The technology for this on television may be pretty far away, but I see no reason for a show not to start making some serious money off labeling everything in their show, contacting the brands and taking a cut of all items sold through the show. It would definitely change the viewing experience, but it would be totally controlled by the consumer, stopping the show when they wanted to know more about a product. Online you may even be able to take away the repetitive commercials this way. I think this is the wave of the television and consumerism future and whoever gets on it first wins.

To watch Diesel’s video, click here.

I was recently introduced to a company called 37 Signals by my boss Loic. I had heard of a couple of their products and although I do not use any, I know several people who use Basecamp and Ruby on Rails. In fact, because I’m not a coder working in a coder’s world, I find myself making jokes about how “I did that in Ruby on Rails” or “really, you don’t think that could be done? Well have you tried it in Ruby on Rails?”. I mainly make these jokes because Ruby on Rails is a good name that I can remember and RSS jokes are just getting outdated now. But I digress.

What I was looking for when I headed over to 37 Signals’ homepage was the format of their web pages. I’m working on a new project at work that will bring a new perspective to our company – the idea is to create an atmosphere that brings people back to our site for other reasons than to see what our products are about. Basically we don’t want our webpage to be totally static, so we’re looking to create more content – like we used to do with “Seesmic du Jour“. 37 Signals does this quite well – even stepping outside of their digital presence into the print world.

They have a book! It’s called “REWORK“. I’d like to make a few points here:

37 Signals is a company that makes easy-to-use web apps for businesses. They say on their site “Every day the world’s most respected brands, small businesses, non-profits, and entrepreneurs depend on our products to make their businesses run smoothly. Safe, secure, and reliable. Since 2004.”
So you could go to their site to download software, or to see what people who use their products think about it, but you can also keep up with their “daily thoughts and opinions” on their Signal vs Noise blog. Or, you could get their book “REWORK” which they have made a very clever video advertisement for and posted on YouTube.

So let’s look at this business construct that they’ve designed – it’s awesome. First they’ve made a several products that people love. Second, they’ve designed a web page that is welcoming and informative. When you show up to it you can find figure out what they do – without information overload. They’ve made a blog that they regularly update and therefore bring people back on a constant basis. They’ve written a book. If you read the book, it may lead you to the company – as it did for me. If you go to the blog, it may lead you to the YouTube video, which will lead you to the book. The web page advertises the book. Everything links back to them, their brand, their company. I’m not sure if they’d prefer you use their products, read their book, or follow their blog – but I’m sure they’d be happy if you did any of those. The point is – their reach is massive, now spreading beyond their own web page and into pages that you physically flip in your hand – a book that our boss wants his employees to read.

This is a salute to 37 Signals and their awesome brand presence.

GEICO Careers looks like a pretty cool company to work for. I don’t know that I would necessarily want to work as an employee answering phones anywhere, but whoever has the job of social media marketing for GEICO has a pretty cool job. What makes this particular video really smart is that it highlights the good qualities about it’s employees. They’re cool enough to learn choreography, a song, and take some time to make a video. Yes, the video is made with actual GEICO employees, which just goes to show that they’re normal people, not drones behind phones (I just made that up, I think it’s pretty good).

Not only does this video make GEICO look like a “good” (in the “not evil” sense) company filled with “good” people, it makes it look like a fun place to work. I’m telling you, if your company has the money to hire someone to make videos about how awesome you are, you should. If done right, the video will grab viewer’s attention and remind them about how cool you are. Could you imagine if Coke suddenly started posting videos about the crazy hi-jinks that happen at Coke Corporate? I’m telling you – people would watch it, love it, and think that Coke was the best company on earth. Well played GEICO.