How much do you really know about how the food you eat is produced?  If you’re like most Americans, it’d be safe to assume not too much.  This weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking about digital and social media to the Young Farmers of the Indiana Farm Bureau as part of their annual leadership gathering.

While animal activists and environmental groups have taken advantage of these tools, most family farmers are just becoming aware of them.  Because rural areas lag behind urban areas with their internet connectivity, broadband is not as prevalent for many farm families.  Not surprisingly, this has placed them at a disadvantage with far more content being produced by those with agendas at odds with the average farmer.  A simple search of YouTube or Google with phrases like “hog facility”, “pork farm”, and “factory farms” can verify this.

During my presentation, someone suggested I search for the YouTube video entitled “Truth about Modern Pork Production”, which was produced by Chris Chinn, a former national president of Young Farmers.  She and her husband made the video themselves to tell their side of the story.  With over 3,100 views, it came up second when I searched “pork farm” on YouTube.

What I love about the video is how Chris presents the family farmers’ perspective with a highly authentic production.  No cue cards, no fancy editing, no fancy graphics.  Just a real person talking with real passion about how her family and she take great care of their animals and farm.  

In searching YouTube, you can also find videos made by the Ohio Pork Producers Council on the Ohio Pork Tour channel.  These are most definitely professional productions and feature real people talking mostly from scripts.  While they have an air of authenticity, I didn’t find them to be as engaging of the home production.  You can see their website that contains the hi-res videos and other information. 

As we continued with my presentation, we found a number of great blogs written by farm families shedding light on daily life on a farm.  I recommend checking out Nature’s Harmony Farm, “a family owned, pasture-based, local-market sustainable farm.”  Also, you can work up a good appetite drooling over the recipes at Farmgirl Fare, as well as see plenty of cute animal photos.  Another fun one is Season Eatings Farm, which includes posts on their daily lives and has great photos.

My guess is that these blogs and videos are just the tip of the iceberg that’s possible once more family farms get rolling with the power of today’s internet.

What do you think are some good ways for family farms to tell their story using digital and social media?

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I had been wrestling with how to write about the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market for over a month.  Just a written blog entry would pale in comparison to the experience I had.  Ideally, I thought a sharp video piece would do the trick.  One hitch: I only had photos.

It was only when I watched a video posted by Fred Wilson at A VC blog of a bike ride he took in France that I knew what I needed to do.  His blog was the first time I found out about Animoto, a video production company based in New York and San Francisco that has created a software application capable of creating unique video productions using still photographs and a library of music.  

Wanna know the best thing?  It’s free for 30-second productions and just $3 for “full-length” (read: up to 3 minutes).  Even better, you can have unlimited remixes of each production without paying anything extra.  Here are three versions of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market:

Version 1 | Version 2 | Version 3

After I finished that, I made three versions of another video using photos I took on a trip thru Japan in 2005:

Version 1 | Version 2 | Version 3

So if you want to feel like a Hollywood director, but don’t have the technical skills to produce impressive video productions, I highly recommend Animoto.  Even if you do, it’s a great tool for creating great videos in a short amount of time with little work on your part.  

Not only do you get the videos, Animoto has done a great job of making it easy for you to share your full-length videos in a wide variety of social media spaces (Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, etc.)

Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think by posting a reply.

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My desk is a mess.

Once, in first grade, my teacher – can’t remember the nun’s name – put my entire desk in a box and sent me along with the box to the principal’s office. Then he called my parents in so we could talk about how messy my desk was.

Obviously, the teacher’s plan to shame me into cleaning my desk did not pay off because as I look around right now – I still sit amongst chaos.

Magazines and books that I want to read but haven’t gotten to. But I don’t want to shelve them because then I might forgot them. A calendar and dead lava lamp, tons of papers (not stacked but haphazardly thrown around), my “You’ve been bad jar” for myself and co-workers (it’s usually full of treats but is empty right now – I guess a lot of people have been bad), Chex mix, CDs, pens, pictures of the family, a box of client marketing collateral…any normal person would probably start cleaning it right away but not me.

My mother-in-law says her boss is the same way – that she’s never met anyone cluttered. She doesn’t know how he gets anything done.

I defended him by saying, “That’s how I work. I’ll clean it up and then it’ll be a mess again in a few hours so why bother. I know where mostly everything is. It just looks awful to you.”

In some ways, the web is just like this. There’s not much organization. You have to search for what you want and hope that Google or the other search engines find what you want. If not, you start the search over adding different terms to your search.

It can be frustrating when you can’t find what you are looking for but it can also be exciting when you find something that you never knew was there. And when you find it, you often share it with someone. Because what’s the use of finding something cool if no one knows you’ve found it.

This is another reason for why you should have a siteless web presence. The web isn’t organized. Heirarchies have been replaced. If all you have is one website, you are one against millions and millions of other sites.

You need to be in a lot of places all at once so when someone is doing a search, they may come across you. Maybe it’s not your main site but it can always redirect there.

And, when they do come across you, you have to be interesting enough that they might want to share you with a friend. Because it’s easy to share with friends on the web (del.icio.us, stumble upon, digg – there are lots of social bookmarking sites.)

In fact, you should put this on your site. It’s from Add this! It’s easy and free and can’t hurt unless your website is painful to use and ugly – then you might get some unexpected traffic from people making fun of you and your company.

Funny story about that. I was once sitting in a meeting when a client brought up the fact that their website actually cost them business. The prospect had pointed out that if they were such a wonderful technology software company then why did their website look like a grade school student had put it together. Ouch.

If you have problems like this, then come see us at Mediasauce.com. We’ll help you out.

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So how do you get a siteless web presence?

Your website is one place on the web. One place that Google can direct traffic. When a person does a search for your site then you’ll hopefully pop up. If you have the right kind of URL, Title Tags, Meta Tags, and enough relevant content about you on the home page.

Now I’m not saying you need to talk about yourself a lot – just the right keywords. And I’m never into talking about myself too much – you should be talking to your customers, telling your story, and explaining your unique benefits.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll post a blog on what kind of tags you should be using and how they work on a website. Anybody interested in that?

Anyway, back to siteless web presence, after your Google search on your website, other sites pop up. Are they your competitors or just useless information that Google pulls out of the web universe?

You should dominate that page, right? You don’t want a competitor sitting right below you or above you if they know what they are doing with search and you don’t.

You can with a siteless web presence. If you take your content and put it out on other websites that are consistently searched by Google then soon you will begin to dominate Google searches. Now this doesn’t work for all searches but when it comes to a search for you, you should be there.

Here’s what I’ve done for my company, MediaSauce. Now this isn’t guaranteed. It’s a work in progress all the time because Google is constantly updating its algorithm and indexing more and more sites.

Search for MediaSauce through Google.

We come up right away. Then there are links to some blogs where people mentioned us and then there’s a software company that sells a product named MediaSauce (they used to dominate our page but I’m trying to work them down off the front page) then there are our blogs and our Flickr account.

Now how is it that just a few mentions in an outside blog can drive a link in the middle of my search page. Well, it’s all about Google believing that the content is relevant to MediaSauce. Which it is. And I’m going to give the blogger, Jenny Lu, some Google love by pinging her back with this blog.

But our siteless presence that I can control deals more with putting our content on outside sites, putting the right information in about our company and tagging it appropriately so Google can see it and index it.

Now as far as I know there isn’t a set of steps you can do that will automatically work. It’s more trial and error and if anyone knows a set of steps, please fill me in. But what I’ve found that works is making sure you are constantly updating your external sites as much as you update your own website. By adding more and more relevant content.

Here’s what ad agency, Modernista, did. They took it to an extreme but I think it’s very powerful. Having a site like this is not for everyone and I am in no way saying you shouldn’t have a website.

I’m saying you need to also have a siteless web presence which means letting people take your stuff and put it wherever they feel like it on the web.

Take for example, you sell something in retail – maybe shoes. You have your little store in Broadripple and you are just getting into online selling. Some of your customers that are farther away are starting to buy online and you are promoting it as best you can.

What I would do to give myself a siteless web presence…I would take photos of all the shoes and put them up on Flickr or Photobucket or Smugmug with links back to my website for purchase.

I would take videos of models (my employees with good feet) walking around in my beautiful shoes. I would put them on many video sites using heyspread.com or just doing the standard youtube.com.

I would make a widget using Slide pulling from Flickr and then put that on my blog about shoes (you need a blog, just get over it and do it where I talk about shoes).

I would also allow people to take the slide widget off my website if they want so they can put it on their facebook or myspace profile or wherever they want.

I would get a cool technology company to build me a retail selling widget based on my store so if someone wanted to take my retail store and put it on their site, they could. I would take this widget and put it on my profile pages.

Then I would visit other people’s shoe blogs and talk (positively – no need to flame anyone here) about their shoes and leave behind my link or small slide widget on their forum or blog. I wouldn’t promote my own shoes but I would join the conversations and let people follow the links if they wanted.

Then I would be very careful to watch my conversions in my online presence. Is stuff working or is it not? I would watch my analytics to see if people were using the widgets or visiting the site. Then adjust.

And I would search myself on Google and make sure I was easy to find and I dominated my page…I would work on getting into other searches like basic shoe searches for the brand names I carry, etc… but that’s a blog for another time.

I feel like this blog isn’t finished. There’s so much more I would do but these are some of the basics. Siteless web presence is getting your name out on other sites instead of just trying to get them to come to you. Go where the people are.

What do you think?

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For the past ten years, I have devoured every book produced by The Gallup Organization and have been helping our team understand and leverage their powerful research and principles.  So it was with great excitement that I opened the latest Gallup Management Journal to see their top story – “Does Your Technology Engage Your Customers?“.

[I encourage you to click the link, since they usually archive these stories pretty quickly.]

After posting my reply, I thought I’d share it with you here:

We are passionate evangelists for the Gallup Organization’s principles and very pleased to see you explore the opportunities to drive greater engagement through the right understanding and use of technology.Without a doubt, we have moved out of the Industrial Age through the Information Age and into the Interconnected Age.  This new era, defined by the fundamental shift in how people can connect and engage with others, is redefining all aspects of our lives.  Our growing awareness of how we as individuals connect to the rest of the world is forcing us to reexamine the simple and complex parts of life.

To quote our company’s philosophy – “As long as we’ve occupied this little speck of universal dust called Earth, human beings have been trying to connect with one another.  First it was through grunts and gestures, then words and pictures, and now, networks and pixels.  While technology advances our abilities and our capacities, our human needs remain the same—to understand the world that surrounds us, and build meaningful relationships to share our findings with others.”

I think of Tom Rath’s book “Vital Friends” and the powerful idea that the greatest opportunity we have for growth is in the connection between ourselves and others.  Within each connection, we create a mosaic of experiences.  Those experiences shape the impressions that drive the emotional response that leads us to form our perception of the other.  For companies, we call that “the brand”.  Every point of interaction – in person, print, radio, TV, digital, etc. – shapes that mosaic.

Nothing can replace the robust impressions of face-to-face interactions.  But, how can you fill the spaces in between these interactions with other impressions far more robust than static brochures?  With the right strategy that incorporates the right mix of powerful storytelling and tools (sharp design interfaces, blogs, videos, animations, social networks, etc.), an organization can fill the space with meaningful interactions that drive greater engagement – for internal and external constituencies.  Better yet, these interactions can happen at the time and place of your audiences’ choosing.

Keep pursuing this concept and you can help the rest of the Gallup Organization community interweave your powerful principles in ways you would have only imagined ten years ago.

So what are your thoughts – is it the technology or the people driving engagement?

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Wow!!!!! Thanks to all for making our Social Media Mania event such a huge success. We had a packed house and even had to run out and get some extra chairs.

Mitch and I feel bad that we didn’t get to the end of the presentation but we were so pleased with the amount of questions and the excitement and passion you guys brought to the event.

You guys remember one lucky apple winner gets to spend a couple of hours with me on their problems. Just me and your team in a room figuring out what to do. It’ll be fun – and it’ll be FREE!

But in case you didn’t win, we have another thing that may help you. It’s called an RFP. Nope, it’s not what you think it is. It’s a REQUEST FOR PROBLEM.

We would like to know what is bothering your company. So just send me an email (no cost to you) with all the details of your issue (NDN here – we won’t share your email with anyone). Please include in the subject line – RFP.

As we said during the event, we were going to get you the links and information we presented. Well, here it is on Slideshare.

Social Media Mania – MediaSauce Powerpoint

We didn’t get to these things in the presentation but we built several items (very quickly – I might add because I just wanted you guys to see how easy this stuff is to put together) for our Apple Smushing Company including:

• Apple Smushers Blog – By Wordpress
• Apple Smushers Wiki – By Wetpaint
• Apple Smushers Video Channel – By YouTube

Then there were a ton of links that we talked about during the presentation.For Analytics:

• Google Analytics
• GetClicky.com
• Crazyegg.com

For Blogging and Mircoblogging:

• Blogger
• Wordpress
• Compendium Blogware
• Twitter
• Pownce
• Plurk

For Photos:

• Flickr
• SmugMug
• Photobucket

For Videos:

• Youtube
• HeySpread

For Social Communities:

• Facebook
• MySpace

For Social Communities you can build:

• Ning (We love Ning)
• A bunch more
• SmallerIndiana – you should join and friend Mitch and me

For Wikis:

• Wetpaint
• pbwiki

There’s a ton more. You saw all the logos…there are so many different technologies that it can be overwhelming to learn which ones are the best for your company. That’s where we come in. We can help you figure out your STORY (most important) and then your STRATEGY (almost but not quite as important). Then present your story in the easiest and most engaging way via 3D, animation, flash, html, print, radio and video. We can do quite a bit of stuff. We can also help with SEO, SEM, media planning, and strategic planning. Wow, even more stuff you could use.

Well, we hope you had fun the other day because we sure did and we look forward to seeing you at our future events. And feel free to pop by MediaSauce any time. It’s a fun place to hang out and share a coffee or some small talk. If you think we were crazy at the event, you should see where we work.

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Every revolution has its equivalent of Thomas Paine, the famous pamphleteer of the American Revolution who crystallized the thoughts and emotions of his fellow countrymen.  If he were alive today, would he choose the pen or the video camera?

As technology has evolved, the number of tools to create a revolution has increased.  While not everyone has access to their very own broadcast television network, anyone with a camera, laptop, and an internet connection can spread their manifesto globally using YouTube and many other video platforms.  Doubt me?  Go there now and search for any topic to see what comes up.

Understandably, it’s becoming more important to be “viderate” than well schooled in the art of writing in order to influence other people’s thoughts and actions.  I can’t claim the credit for coining the terms, but “viderate” and “videracy” are clever concepts.

Since I purchased my MacBook Pro and digital video camera a few months ago, I have churned out a few of my own videos, ranging from family events to call-to-action pieces for my neighborhood.  While I acknowledge they are nothing close to what our production teams create for our clients on a regular basis, I have to admit it was pretty cool to see what this novice pulled together (view here and here). 

Just imagine the big things you can pull off with a sound strategy and highly creative people driving the project.  

For a bit of enlightenment, view these samples I pulled from the web to show how different organizations are using internet videos to achieve their goals:

• Blendtec- increased sales of their high-end blenders by 800%
• Ad Council - is raising the awareness of cyberbullying (hat tip to Jenny Luca at Lucacept for sharing this) 

 What other great videos have you seen that made you think differently?

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With the Memorial Day weekend nearly behind us, I would feel remiss if I did not take a few moments to honor those who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of liberty.  Regardless of our personal feelings and political views, we can all remember and reflect on the lives of these men and women.

Having assumed the role of family historian, I am aware of how fortunate I am not to have witnessed firsthand the hardships, horrors, and rigors of combat.  The grief and anguish dealt by fate’s cruel hand can reverberate through the generations.

Growing up in Omaha, I visited numerous time Memorial Park and its classically inspired World WarII monument to see the names of two family members.  Though I never met them, I feel a strong connection to Carl Hubert Flodman and Louis Bryg.  The former was my paternal grandmother’s older brother who died in the Pacific theater, the latter was my maternal grandmother’s brother who died in the European theater.

Perhaps it’s because of the family stories that were told.  My paternal grandfather recounted the story many times of sitting on his father-in-law’s front porch with my grandmother when the Western Union delivered the telegram from the War Department.  The emotion of that moment was seared into my memories the time he and I watched the scene in Saving Private Ryan when the telegram is delivered.  

At that moment, my grandfather’s memories mixed with powerful storytelling to connect me to the profound loss felt that day in 1944.  

Because of human nature, war remains a part of our world.  As long as the memories of those fallen remain in our hearts and minds, Memorial Day will remain a time to reflect and turn our grief into gratitude for those we’ve lost.

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Fresh from the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500, I can’t help but turn it into a metaphor for the digital revolution.  After all, I think its tagline is one of the best – The Greatest Spectacle on Earth.  According to Princeton’s Wordnet database, a spectacle is “an elaborate and remarkable display on a lavish scale” and I have no doubt that’s worthy of our consideration.

For those who have never been, you just have to experience it in person to truly understand the sheer scale of this event.  Sitting 25 yards away from 33 cars driving 220 MPH is visceral.  The vibrations create a near out of body experience and the human drama that unfolds over 200 laps is breathtaking.  I will never again doubt that this a true sport.

As the largest single day sporting event in the world, the folks running the race are doing many things right.  Take a few moments to visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway website to see the fine job they’re doing off- and online.  What can we learn from them?  Let’s find out:

• Make it more than a one-time event.  The first thing I learned when we moved to Indy was that “the race” was a month long series of events – at the speedway and throughout town.  Between practice days, promotional events, qualifying days, a mini-marathon, a pet walk, community day (where you can drive your own car once around the track), a downtown parade, and the race itself, the Indianapolis 500 impacts pretty much everyone in the metropolitan area.  Plus, it attracts attendees from all over the country and across the globe.
• Preserve the core and encourage innovation.  I was impressed with the rich pageantry and traditions that come with the race – the winner drinking from the milk jug in Victor Circle, “Gentlemen and Ladies, start your engines”, and the one-yard width of bricks from the original race surface as the finish line.  And equally impressive is how all these things coexist with the indomitable spirit of innovation.  Millions of dollars and human hours are invested for the glory of winning the Borg-Warner Trophy.
• Create space for a wide variety of spectators.  Outside the fences, we saw all types of memorabilia stands, entertainment spots, and food booths.  Inside the speedway, you could party in the infield (oblivious to the race), cheer from the bleachers, or enjoy many creature comforts from inside a climate controlled box.  
• Give options on how to participate.  Watching from home (if you’re outside of Indy), listening on the radio, sitting in the speedway with ear plugs, listening into the scanners to follow the teams as they plot their strategies.  Each of these speak to the idea of an audience-focused mentality.  Bring your story to the person in the form they want.

Armed with these principles of success, it’s time to lead your business or organization to the next level and stake your claim at being the “Greatest Spectacle on Earth”.  

What 2 or 3 things can you do to make that dream a reality?  

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The Star Wars website is one of the more fascinating digital spaces I have visited.  Once you get done watching the trailer for the animated film coming out this summer, poke around the website and you’ll be amazed at how much has been created.  

Internet animated series, user generated fan film contests, blogs, film microsites, links to fan club websites, Imperial Senate polls, gaming, kids section, an enormous collectors’ database, internet store, discussion areas, event announcements, and a databank filled with any piece of information you want to find out about Star Wars.

Is there anyone who doesn’t know Star Wars? Seriously, I think it is one of most widely shared experiences of the modern world.  

That belief was born when I was with my wife and son at a grand opening of a new Borders.  As we browsed, there was a commotion in the back of the store and I looked up to see Darth Vader, three Stormtroopers, and two rebel fighters walking single file into the children’s section. 

I’d say about 90% of the store visitors rushed to the back with giddy excitement – no matter their age (yes, including my family and me).  Parents were barely holding themselves back, while the kids were mugging for the cameras.  I’m curious if anyone has done research on the pervasiveness of the Star Wars franchise.  What percentage of the world can tell you the basic story?

I can still remember when my family went to the movie theater to watch Star Wars: Episode IV for the first time.  We were on vacation in Augusta, Georgia, and my dad embarrassed us by saying, “We’ll need four tickets for Star Worlds.”  

Coincidentally, my wife and I watched it with our seven-year-old son for the first time the night before we ran into Darth Vader at Borders.  To those of us who watched the six episodes as they were made, that’s the only real way to start the saga, isn’t it?  

Let’s just say for a moment, you’ve never seen or heard about Star Wars.  You could spend hours in the Star Wars galaxy of websites probably know and understand more about it than someone who has just seen the six movies.  

Thirty years ago, everyone experienced Star Wars the same way – at the movie theater.  Now, you have thousands of ways to experience it.  

And, that’s the payoff for this post.  The same is true for your organization.  The digital revolution means people anywhere in the world can connect to your product and service in the way that they choose.  

Are you ready for them?

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