Initial Assessment:

Realizing the need that small and mid-size non-profit organizations have for quality fundraising counsel, a group of experienced fundraising professionals developed a business plan to provide their high-level services on a more economical fee structure using the Internet.  These visionary leaders chose MediaSauce as their strategic partner to bring their business plan to life. 

Strategic Recommendations:

• Develop a Strong, Cohesive Brand – We started with the fundamentals of company name, tag line, and visual identify. We helped them create an image that evoked the feelings and thoughts they wanted. This branding was implemented in all digital and print collateral.
• Build a Robust Platform to Drive Business – To provide their high-quality services at a lower cost, we created a website that could drive new business and serve as a portal for existing clients to access different levels of service. Video introduction, webinar announcements, and an easy-to-find event calendar.
• Focus on Usability - It is vital to create a strong user experience when visiting their main site. With usability as focus, we created a clean interface with highly intuitive navigation.
• Blog to Become a Thought Leader - Professional service providers depend on their knowledge. Blogging was a natural fit to help establish Achieve as the thought leader in the non-profit market.

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Screenshot of www.ifsa-butler.org

Initial Assessment:

IFSA-Butler found itself in a crowded market of study abroad programs and was not certain if its story was connecting with prospective students and those who shape their decisions. MediaSauce was tapped to create and execute a strategy for telling the story to its fullest potential and drive higher enrollment.

Strategic Recommendations:

• Create a Simple, Engaging Navigation – We identified the main audiences and reasons why each would visit the site. From that, we crafted a visually engaging interface with intuitive navigation.
• Hone the Message – Using a crisp, humorous animation, our team developed a sharply honed overview of their unique student-services process. The result was a clear, concise explanation of what makes IFSA-Butler a great choice for the students and their loved ones.
• Tell the Story in Videos and Photos – Who doesn’t take pictures and video when they travel? Bring these together in an easy to view forum helped convey the depth and breadth of the experience.
• Connect Prospective Students Directly to Current Students - Who wants to read what the marketing department has to say, when you can read what real-life customers have to say about their personal experiences? That’s why we integrated blogging and a social network to let individuals tell their own stories.
• Leverage Existing Technical Assets -Working closely with IFSA-Butler’s IT department, we integrated the new online presence with the CMS tool they were implementing to ensure all the puzzle pieces of over 800 pages of content came together as intended.

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During times of economic uncertainty, I like to think of my favorite quote from my fellow Omahan, Warren Buffett:

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. (Berkshire Hathaway 2001 Chairman’s Letter)

At MediaSauce, we believe the current economic situation provides an excellent opportunity to reassess your entire organizational strategy and consider how you can better integrate digital and social media into your business plan.   more

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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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Ever since Friday, I have been getting messages from Mars.  I’m not making this up and I’m not losing touch with reality.  

Through the wonders of technology, I have been receiving periodic Twitter messages from the Mars Phoenix mission.  You can even talk back and ask questions (thanks to someone at the NASA mission control, who’s playing the role of the landing craft).  See the conversation those of us on Twitter are having with it for yourself here.  You’ll see that I’m not delusional and that my fillings aren’t picking errant radio signals.

While I will always hold nostalgic childhood memories of Marvin the Martian from the epic Bugs Bunny cartoons, I feel a much stronger connection to the Mars Phoenix lander because of the robust presence it has on the internet.  NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has created a very robust website, featuring the latest photos, videos, computer animations, blogs, and much more.  

One of my favorite parts so far is the video of the mission control during the craft’s landing on Mars.  They spliced the video footage of the nervous/excited engineers with computer simulation of what was happening with the craft itself.  It is something that can make the hairs on the back of your neck standup.   

[Note to conspiracy theorists: this was not a test run of future fake space missions, like what some people believe was pulled off during the Apollo missions.]

As you meander around the Mars Phoenix website, just think how different it is from the Walter Cronkite coverage of the Apollo moon missions, the early Space Shuttle missions, and even the last time we had a Mars mission.  Thanks to the internet, you can learn all you want, when you want, and in the way you want.  It’s pretty cool.

What’s your favorite part about the Mars Phoenix website?

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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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Somewhere along the way I heard this observation:

People are shaped by the friendships they keep, books they read, television programs they watch, and audiotapes they listen to.  

Even though it’s a bit dated (what are audiotapes?), the core message remains the same.  Each of us are influenced by the connections we have with the rest of the world.

A few news items caught my attention this week that underscores this point. First, NPR ran a story on the declining importance of newspaper endorsements in the presidential election. Makes sense when you consider how the internet has created new avenues of news gathering and opinion sharing. That’s why the candidates are investing greatly into communicating their messages directly to the voters and grassroots volunteers. [See techpresident.com for more.]

The second news item was the New York Philharmonic’s performance in North Korea. Part of the agreement was that the performance had to be broadcast live and uninterrupted on the government radio network. That had to be something to go from isolation to hearing Gershwin’s American in Paris. To put it in context, take a moment to view a satellite photo of North Korea at night.

For those who understand the power of connections, digital media offers great opportunity. Let’s start by updating the original quote:

People are shaped by the Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections they accept, websites they frequent, YouTube channels they watch, and Podcasts and RSS feeds they subscribe to.

And, perhaps even more important, people are being defined by the contributions they make to the internet. My colleague, Sarah Robbins, spoke about this concept on Friday at our Social Media Mania event at IUPUI. Companies and organizations are no longer satisfied tracking how many people visit their website and open their emails. They are growing more interested in seeing who joins their social network groups, responds to blog postings, posts YouTube content, and engages with them in other ways.

With that in mind, what connections are important to you? What connections define people today?

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In journalism, as in life, it’s all about having credible sources and connections. Franklin College journalism students recently learned a lesson in connectedness via their professor, a digital marketing agency, and one of the world’s leading digital manufacturing companies.When Jeb Banner, consultant for Carmel-based digital marketing agency, MediaSauce, began teaching Media Technology classes at Franklin College this semester, he wanted to incorporate video technology into their journalistic endeavors. In this digital age, modern application and exposure to professional technology would provide the college students with the knowledge and skill set needed for entering the journalism field in the 21^st century. However, with just one linear tape camera for 50 students in two classes to share, Jeb needed to find a better way to incorporate technology. So, he approached Seth Jenkins, account executive on the MediaSauce/RCA account, about the cost of RCA’s Small Wonder camcorder. Seth knew of RCA’s philanthropic endeavors and asked RCA Internet Marketing Manager, Jeroen Smit, if the manufacturing company would be willing to donate 50 Small Wonder cameras to the Franklin College Journalism students. “I was excited about the opportunity,” commented Smit. “This is really like a pilot program for us to continue giving, and if anything, is the start of something much bigger.”  On November 7, Jeroen and Seth visited Banner’s Franklin College classes and presented and demonstrated the Small Wonder camcorders to the two journalism classes. The donation of the 50 camcorders is valued at $6,500. Over the next several weeks the students will be digitally capturing their story assignments with the Small Wonder and will be posting their work on www.youtube.com, the leading user-generated video website, as well as the social-networking site, NING, www.franklinpsj.ning.com. ”This is a marvelous gift not just for the Pulliam School of Journalism at Franklin College, but for all of the students that Thomson is going to help with this,” said John Krull, director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism. “Our students are at the start of what promises to be really fantastic careers. Your gift and generosity are an investment in their futures and in the future of quality journalism. I can’t tell you how grateful we are. We will strive to make you proud.”

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