See What’s Out There

I am here at the Yearly Kos Convention which is being held in Chicago, home of See3 Communications. For the uninitiated, Yearly Kos is a gathering of what’s called the Netroots - liberal/left bloggers who have changed the face of American politics. Kos comes from the website DailyKos, which is the top rated left/liberal blog and one of the most trafficked blogs online. Last year, the bloggers and community around the website DailyKos decided to meet in person. And because all the bloggers were coming, so came the politicians and the organizations wanting to get this community writing about these issues.

Right now I am in a session called Video for Change. Of course this is what we do here at See3. The people on the panel are all talking about hour-long or feature length documentaries. Interesting, but honestly not something that is really in the grasp of most organizations or individuals. Two of the panelists are from Robert Greenwald’s shop, Brave New Films. They do hard-hitting documentaries designed to make change - against Fox News or Wal-Mart.

I spoke at a conference with Robert Greenwald — the Make Your Documentary Matter conference from American University’s Center for Social Media. And one thing he said was that he does not believe you can make a film to be great — as in Oscar great — and make a film designed to make change. According to Greenwald, these things require different sets of choices that are not compatible.

In the session right now, Adam Chapnick from DocWorkers.com is speaking about talking to the organizations that are interested in the issue before you make the film — rather than simply making the film you want to make and then seeking an organization that can help you distribute it. In contrast, our focus at See3 is on empowering the organizations to make the films that advance their mission themselves.

Jim Gilliam is speaking now about the Wal-Mart film they did. He is saying that the research was a mix of what they got themselves and what the organizations — such as the unions — had done over time. They are talking about how the film was distributed in more than 7,000 screenings - school groups, unions, home screenings, church groups, etc.

Tracy Fleischman from Brave New Theaters is talking now about online marketing of the films. First, set up a website. She is saying that the site should be as much of a resource as possible, so people interested in the issue can use the site for research. Made short ads, had people vote on the title of the film, had people voting on different covers for the film — lots of ways to get people involved.

Adam is saying that you need to have people feel ownership — send us your videos or photos, vote on something, the more time people sign something or click the more likely they are to go the next step. He is also saying what we know from all internet marketing — create landing pages that are specific for specific types of groups and audiences.

Tracy now talking about how Brave New Films is focusing on short-form video and not the feature length pieces as they did in the past. For example, they have a site called FoxAttacks.com which is using short pieces to advocate for specific issues — for example trying to get the Nevada Democratic Party to not have a debate on Fox News.

More to come later.

We are proud to add NARAL Pro-Choice America to our client list.

Sign the petition here.

The first Community Media Summit was held in Chicago on June 15th.

The purpose of this event was to explore what is “community media” and how new media and technology impact how we work with communities.

Among many others, the event included:

Alyce Myatt, Managing Director – Grantmakers in Film & Electronic Media
Richard Somerset-Ward, Media Consultant
Catherine Settanni, Digital Inclusion Task Force
Scot Rouke, President – One Community
Julia Stasch, Vice President, Human & Community Development – The MacArthur Foundation;
Alexandra Close, Executive Director – New America Media

What’s a Community Media Summit without media? We (See3 Communications) partnered with the Benton Foundation, CAN TV, Chicago Community Trust and the host, the Community Media Workshop to develop a 4-part video on What is Community Media. You can see this at the Community Media Workshop’s site and at DoGooderTV.

This effort was made possible by the vision and pushing of Charles Benton, the financial support of the Community Trust and the hard work of many people, including Thom Clark and his staff at the Community Media Workshop.

Here’s one of the four videos:

We made some terrific videos for CCAP - the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College. This one was originally part of a longer piece but I wanted to pull out this story to show you. I just love this story. It gives you a sense of how the arts can really change kids’ lives.

All of our clients are very interested in the number of visitors to their website or the number of views of their videos. Makes sense right. I want to know whether the investment I made in this marketing is paying off. But what we tell clients is that in addition to basic tracking you need to define what you mean by payoff. If you are trying to raise money, count the money. If you are trying to educate people, you have to define a successful educational interaction before you can count it.

When we talk “viral videos” we tell the clients the who is as important as the how many. I can guarantee your video to get tons of views if you let us do Jacksss-style stunts or not-so-subtly incorporate busty models into our concept — but is this the engaged audience you are looking for? Probably not. Will a list acquired this way perform well later when you ask them to do something else? Surely not.

The issue of website traffic is big in the commercial world because it relates directly to ad revenue. Counting site traffic — hits, visitors, “uniques” — have been mired in controversy since the early days of the web. The problem is that my server keeps logs. Those logs only show a kind of raw data about page loads, image loads and the like. To translate that into a number of visitors I have to make some assumptions. For example, someone surfing my site from the same IP address (a unique number that corresponds to the access point of the Internet) who accesses specific pages (based on the logs) over a contiguous period of time represents a visit. Problem is, every program that parses my server logs does this a little differently. So the best use of the numbers is to show trends and growth.

There is an even bigger problem for companies such as comScore, Nielson/NetRatings and Alexa that are trying to tell us how many people went to a site when they don’t even have access to the server logs. So they are using a variety of methods from surveys to panels. comScore, for example, says they have “2 million participants under continuous measurement.” And then they extrapolate.

The big news in this area is that Nielson/NetRatings, recognizing that Web 2.0 is changing behavior, thought they needed a different way to measure. Here’s the issue: On many new website pages, you can see lots of content without reloading the page. For example, my Google home page has RSS feeds from many different news and blog sources. I can click on those feeds and expand them, without reloading the page. I could read all day on the same page.

So Nielson/NetRatings did a new calculation where they added time spent as a factor. Guess what happened? All hell broke loose when their new calculation showed that AOL was on top — above MySpace and Yahoo and Google and MSN. Read more about it at CNET’s News.com.

We just finished doing post-production on a public service announcement (PSA) for PlayPumps International using footage they had of tennis player Nicole Vaidisova (currently ranked 10th in the world) talking about her support.

“The PlayPump water system is a child’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump that provides clean drinking water and powerful educational messages to children and families in schools and communities in rural and peri-urban communities in Africa.”

The PSA is currently the featured video on DoGooderTV.

Our client One Economy just put a video we made for them on their home page. It’s an example of doing something without a lot of production. This is a piece where there was a single interview and then the use of photos and our post-production magic.

View the One Economy video by See3 Communications here on the One Economy home page.

Wednesday evening I was joined by 900 other folks at Jazz at Lincoln Center to support the American Jewish World Service and honor President Clinton. It was an amazing event.

First, the setting is spectacular. The Time Warner building and the big glass windows overlooking Columbus Circle are super classy. (You have Whole Foods in the basement, and the home of Wynton Marsalis upstairs…)

We started off with buffet and cocktails and schmoozing. Then we went into the theater. Ruth Messinger made some introductory remarks and then we watched the video that we produced here at See3. You can see the video right now on the home page of DoGooderTV.

After the video, James Wolfensohn got up to talk about AJWS and introduce President Clinton. Wolfensohn was engaging and interesting and certainly a contrast from the most recent past president of the World Bank.

Then Clinton spoke. That guy is good. A mix of wonkish policy speak, amazing knowledge of his subjects, and compelling stories of meeting people all over the world.

After Clinton spoke we heard from Ann Curry from NBC news who was honored for her coverage of Darfur. Unlike 99% of her news colleagues, Ann has actually gone to Darfur, and more than once. She said that outside of the Times (which has Nicholas Kristof), no one is doing enough to cover this story.

The program ended with a South African woman named Mama G, who thanked AJWS and its supporters for helping fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. And she sang a thank you song that was moving and beautiful and upbeat.

Stay tuned for some video from the event.

We are presenting at several upcoming conferences and that has me thinking about PowerPoint. What exactly are we going to show? How do we keep it interesting for 90 minutes?

There is nothing worse than a bad PowerPoint presentation. And there are lots of folks who talk about it. Guy Kawasaki has some great ideas about PowerPoint. Called his 10-20-30 rule, he says you should use no more than 10 slides, take no more than 20 minutes, and use at least 30-point type (or the font size of the oldest person in the room divided by 2.) Good advice!

Andy Goodman has become somewhat famous around these parts for his treatise “Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes“. If you haven’t heard him talk about it or seen it, you should.

I saw a comedian do a riff on PowerPoint that fits perfectly into these other ideas. Have a look:

Life After Death by PowerPoint

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Next week I will be in New York with my wife to attend the American Jewish World Service’s evening honoring President Clinton for his work on HIV/AIDS and helping in the aftermath of the tsunami. This is a BIG DEAL event for AJWS and it will feature a short film by our team here at See3. The event will be held in the amazing Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. There is some room, so if you are in NY or could be next week join us and support this great cause. Here are the details:

Dear Michael,

I am writing to you, a supporter of AJWS, to let you know about an event you won’t want to miss. Next Wednesday evening, AJWS will recognize President Clinton for his efforts on behalf of those affected by HIV/AIDS in the developing world and victims of the South Asian tsunami. We are deeply honored that he has acknowledged the critical work of AJWS in these areas as well. This dinner is a milestone in the life of AJWS and I hope you will be able to celebrate with us.

There are still a few seats available. Please consider joining us. To purchase tickets, please contact Kim Kubert in our benefit office (212.675.9474, ext. 12 or kkubert@sualtd.com) as soon as possible.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Dinner buffet 6:00 p.m.
Program 7:30 p.m.

Frederick P. Rose Hall
Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center
Broadway at 60th Street
New York City

Special Guest, Ann Curry
Co-Anchor, “Dateline NBC”
News Anchor, “Today”

Please click here to view the invitation.

I look forward to seeing you on June 13th.

Warm regards,

Ruth Messinger
President, AJWS