DISCLAIMER: This post is mega-long and not "proper blog length". Got that. Get yourself a nice cup of tea first.
It's important to me that nobody in the future has to go through what I did with this on the frustration side, and that everyone can have a happy experience with this course from the get-go. Doable.
If you want to cut to the chase, just "Scan" the RED parts and don't attempt to actually read this.
First of all, I'd like to get this spit out right at the start: I spent most of the quarter being frustrated as hell and behind in most of my work in this class.
For me personally, a High Anxiety state of mind does NOT lead to effective learning or to a restful night's sleep. This course was unexpectedly challenging for me on the technical side, and for whatever reason, the diffculty caught me very off guard.
In spite of that, I have learned more from taking this course than from any other course I have taken in the past 3 years, which is saying a whole lot. I cannot imagine my life or my brain or my future as a businessperson WITHOUT this course, frankly, which is also saying a lot.
I cannot recall an experience quite like this one in my higher educational history (this is my 7th college and/or university experience) of putting in more time with less to show for it that I can think of, maybe ever.
I realize from many years of studying cognitive processes and taking a barrage of personality tests and from my own experiences teaching in both undergraduate and MBA programs, that some people are actually motivated to drive harder when they have lots of obstacles to overcome. I also know that they are not the majority. Most people -- including me -- do not learn all that well when they feel constantly blocked or stuck -- and the reason why does not matter in terms of learning. Frustrated is frustrated and in general it is not conducive to effective learning.
I'm not totally sure what to think about that, except that I'm getting more OK with the lack of tangible results as I think "Beyond the Course" into my future.
For me, the level of constant frustration from a variety pack of technology shortcomings (=no prior knowledge whatsoever + wrong equipment + 2 major stints of low or no internet connectivity) was fairly crippling, to the point where I almost dropped this course twice, even with the known consequence of not being able to graduate.
Pretty serious decision for me to choose quitting (I am NOT a quitter by nature -- really seriously). The good news is that I feel that there are solutions to most of this for others who might be in future classes.
I have given this a lot of thought. Knowing what I know now AND leaving aside for the moment my other thoughts about workload and balance between our 4 courses AND time expectatons for working professional people at BGI who are enrolled in the 2-year program AND everything else (worthy conversations, but not right here right now) that have been on my mind about this MBA program, I will give it my very best shot at sticking to the AI way with a problem/SOLUTION sort of a format:
What worked? How might my experience be of benefit to this course in the future?
1. Christopher Allen: I was signed up for a different DLM section and I requested to be switched into this one after meeting Christopher through Libba & Gif in August. I am magnetically attracted to really smart people who want to share what they know with others. I cannot even express how grateful I am for this experience and for the incredible level of personal attention I received from Christopher. I have taken plenty of BGI courses where a question posted on the Channel took days to get a reponse -- or was never responded to at all. Thank you for being so available and for being so responsive so quickly. Also highly appreciated was the polling for student feedback during class times, and the resulting changes that were made along the way to the course content and flow. Even though most of the time I was clearly at the back of the herd, I still felt "heard".
Future: TA's? Mentors? Teams? The inclusion of TA's would (obviously!) really help people like me AND help keep some long emails out of Christopher's Inbox. Win/Win. I realize that the logical tendency will be to have Mac and Social Media Whiz Kids in those TA spots, but I would really encourage some use of at least one TA who has some strong background in explaining technology to people who do NOT have this background in their back pockets already. A different skill set than being lightning fast at doing it for themselves. What seems very elementary to those of you who know these terms and tools was really NOT even remotely obvious or intuitive to me. Tasks that took others 20 minutes took me 4 hours or 8 hours or even more. I think a lot of that was avoidable.
For example - I did not even know to look for the multitude of most excellent tutorials that are available for free on YouTube -- I had no idea that there were so many instructive pieces on YouTube (no joke -- I had no clue). Over the winter break I plan on rereading and redoing all of the info on Delicious and bookmarking and tagging, which I do not totally understand how to use effectively yet, and which I also realize is all vital as a foundation.
I realize that the student demographic at BGI has migrated significantly since I applied in Spring 2008 to a MUCH younger demographic (in 2007 it was median age 37-38 with a large % with previous higher education and several years of professional work experience), so maybe this issue will solve itself. As BGI students become younger and younger, maybe everyone will come with a Mac and already have accounts and working knowledge of Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, tagging, bookmarking, blogging, video shooting and editing, iMovie tools, and all of the "Basics" that were so totally foreign (and very time-consuming to learn all at once) for me.
Might it be possible to balance the courseload and/or assignments to take into account the fact that not everyone is starting from the same place -- but in a way that does not drag down the learning for those who know what they are doing already? I would love to see this course be a bit more user-freindly for people like me (who REALLY desperately need to take this course!), and at the same time also take into account that with 4 courses and a full time job that includes travel, there are only so many waking hours in a day to do all of this stuff.
Maybe this would be a worthy topic for a BGI "Creative Session"?
Another solution might be to assign one-on-one "mentors" or 3 person teams with one advanced user, one social media "dinosaur" (like me!) and/or relative Social Media newbie, and maybe one person in between, who can be a team for the whole course. The question then is how to have that happen without placing undue burden on the more experienced person...? I realize that my lack of knowledge and corresponding onslaught of questions would have worn out anyone carrying a 2-year course load who works who maybe has friends or family or a life. I would not have survived this course at all were it not for the incredible time-generosity of Christopher and of a few students who willingly gave me literally hours and hours of their personal time to walk me through the series of obstacles I encountered -- but should hours of mentoring time and energy really be "expected" from fellow students?
Sending out round after round of "please help me" pleas to my classmates hoping someone would have time for me did not feel good. I would have felt vastly more comfortable with a "go to" person for my continuous rounds of questions about Delicious, video mechanics, blogging, iMovie. Could there be optional "How to" interactive tutorial resources or Elluminates for beginnners for each new tool? Or maybe for each area there could be a few volunteer "Class Experts" who are willing to help others but only some of the time on one designated topic so they don't become overburdened -- for example specific students might volunteer to help others based on topics -- specifically on working with Delicious, sound editing, or shooting video footage, or setting up WordPress blogs, etc.
YES - the readings and resources were excellent, but I think it's also possible to add some more personal or in-person tools to help bridge the gap between reading/seeing/studying something and actually doing it, while also respecting real world time constraints.
2. Technology and Tools: What worked was I bought a Mac the day before the last Intensive. I had to get on my PC to look up how to turn on my Mac (for real). Even knowing NOTHING about my Mac and never having used one in my life before that day, it still saved me time, additional frustration, and I believe was the single deciding factor in my ability to deliver any deliverable at all for the final Social Change video assignment. I know Bonnie would agree with me on this - she got her Mac the same time that I got mine.
Everything for me about my course experience changed for the better from that second on. I happened to find an iMovie beginner's class at my local Apple store and I took it at 9am the day the last Intensive started, 24 hours after I got my Mac. Crazy? Kind of, yes. Is there a better way? Most probably. It is what it is, but I know that I would have and could have benefited infinitely more from this course - and contributed to it more - had I started out on a Mac and not attempted to do this with a PC.
To be clear: The Personal Learning Journal blog and some of the other tools were completely workable on a PC, and I get that. The video portion of the course -- which as it turns out was quite signficant -- is where I feel having personal use of a Mac is not really optional.
The future -- Macs: I believe should simply be a required tool for this class, if video is going to be as major a component as it was this time. Either students should already own one, or at bare minimum, get their hands on one and learn their way around the OS and iMovie a few weeks BEFORE the start of the course. Possibly BGI can work something out for student access to Macs for this class so it does not turn into one more additional or unexpected major expense for students.
Frankly, it is NOT cheap to rent a Mac from a professional service ($500 a month or so) which was my original intent -- it turned out to make more financial sense for me to just buy one. This was not exactly in my financial plan for this month, and this course and these tools are so vital to business success that I feel this really is worth solving in an affordable way for ALL students. Buying or renting a Mac should not be a [financial] "requirement" for students to take this course, but I feel very strongly that finding a way to provide PERSONAL ACCESS to a Mac for EACH student to use for this course should be taken into consideration as a "must solve" issue, not as a "nice to have" issue.
From my point of view, I understand the idea of sharing or of pairing people up, but my learning would have been greatly diminished if I were not the "operator" of the Mac and had instead been peering over someone's shoulder or somehow grabbing 1/2 hour here or there on someone else's. I did have access to people who own Macs, but by the time I figured out I really needed one, borrowing a Mac was not possible (I really tried) -- everyone needs theirs to do what they do, and the number of people in my local network who have multiple Macs and were free to loan one out to me on short notice was nil.
One other solution would be to simply remove the video requirements from the course content and make sure that anyone on a PC can easily do all the assignments with no disadvantage over the Mac users.
Interestingly, in spite of the magnitude of my frustration and complaints about this PC vs. Mac situation, I do not believe that I would learned half as much as I did if I were assigned to a team with Mac users and I had stuck with my PC and never had the hands-on experience of having to muddle together my own video on a Mac. It was valuable and a key learning area, but it is super-clear to me that over 100 hours struggling into the wee hours of the night with MovieMaker on a PC was indeed an avoidable sunk cost this quarter.
Maybe the compromise of assigning the PC People to teams with Mac People is the practical interim solution, but I strongly recommend searching for a solution based on the premise of "Access to Macs for All" for the duration of this particular course.
3. Course Integration: What worked was that I was able to use some of my tools from this course in CRL (and for Marketing as well) and vice versa. My final presentation for CRL was a short spoken summary of what I learned plus a slide show that I was able to VERY QUICKLY put together in iMovie with my one-day-old Mac. Magical!
Future - Cross-pollinization: I do realize that big ideas on how to integrate Social Media tools into the other courses and into BGI life in general are under major discussion right now. Excellent!
For me, this was an incredibly time-intensive course. In order to try to keep my chin above the quicksand in this course (iffy, very frankly), all 3 of my other courses at various times were totally placed in the back seat. As a result I was faced with a cumulative end-of-the-quarter mess of being behind not just in this course but in all 4 courses.
I realize that compared to most of my classmates my situation is an anomaly, and I don't really have much perspective on how much my experience even applies to other students who might take this course in the future.
Either way, it seems like the integration of Social Media tools into the BGI experience in an intentional and applied manner has great value to our overall experience.
4. Personal Learning Journal on Blogger: Worked! Blogger was simple, good, mostly happy (inserting images - slightly painful) and I was able to keep up on postings. Harder for me was keeping track of everyone else's postings and all of the responses. I still feel that the Personal Learning Journal was the one thing that really kept me anchored and saved me from feeling totally lost in space.
Future - skill level reality check, time check, and Blogger: My "Beat" should have been on Blogger and I most likely should not have attempted a professional WordPress public blog.
Catch-22 AGAIN: I have learned more from taking on a professional innovation blog on WordPress than I did from almost anything else in this course. It is amazing. I would not take it back.
The experience (sugggested by CA) of contacting innovation blogger Drew Boyd, interviewing him, and then posting about it provided a huge learning leap for me. So did the exercise of my "research post" on innovaton taxonomy, which I have since discovered is a major hot topic on innovation experts' blogs -- who knew? Very cool. (Much more to come in the next 2 weeks: http://www.dellaforma.com/)
However.... because of my lack of technical know-how, I fell 2+ months behind on the Beat assignment, got totally stressed out, and was not able to be a valuable contributor to the overall "Beat" conversation between students. I missed a lot and I know it.
Today, on December 13th 2009, I am not sorry that I chose what I chose to do in the big scheme of things (having a public professional blog was encouraged in more than one class by Christopher - it sounded good!), but it was not a wise choice for someone who was already in over my head with the most basic tools.
In the past 2 weeks I have become totally immersed in the professional innovation strategist blogosphere and have read, commented, tweeted and RT'd on this topic, and more. It's all good, but I know that my super-steep learning curve on the professional blogging scene did not fit the expectations or timing or the intent of the Beat assignment.
Because my professional/public blog could have a DIRECT effect on my professional career, I became concerned about making sure it was done properly - for good reason. This was invaluable, but the time "opportunity cost" was too big of a tradeoff in the framework of a one-term course in my case.
Bottom line: Blogger is a FANTASTIC playing field for people like me. Possibly stressing that a public professional blog is for "advanced users only" might be enough to avoid overcommiting timewise in order to just get up to speed.
Time: I was left wondering if the actual time it takes to read and to craft a thoughtful response to multiple postings on multiple topics each week (on the Learning Journals and then later adding the Beat postings as well) might be time-tracked by students somehow during the actual course for future reference in course planning hours.
5. Elluminates, readings, links, course information on the Channel AND class effectiveness at Intensives: ALL WORKED in a really big way. The care and consideration and thoughtful planning by Christopher was supremely evident. It is impossible to express how much of a difference this made to me and to everyone else taking this course. Thank you.
Future: I gave up on the Suggested resources completely after a while once I figured out that I could barely keep up with the Required ones. I don't think there is anything at all "Wrong" with how this was all done, but for me, it really took me quite a while to get my arms around the fact that as a 2-year student with a more-than-full-time job, I was just going to need to be happy with my own level of learning.
What took me so long was really understanding that I was not going get the same type of learning experience as 3-year students OR students who had some prior experience with these tools OR students with no job or a part-time job OR students with Macs OR students who have reliable 24/7 access to high-speed internet connections. Not sure what the solution to this is, but I did get it finally, which is good.
Possibly the suggestion for the Creative Session on how to balance different student experience levels with the course content might bubble up some solutions to this as well. The thing that helped me the most in this area was all of the simple words and posts of encouragement from fellow students and from Christopher. Appreciated.
6. "SHIP EARLY AND OFTEN": Worked. I cannot possibly describe how much the repetition of this phrase (endlessly; often; in every Elluminate and at every Intensive!) saved my life in this course.
Thank you.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Social Media: Lessons from Travel & Pirates
I am happy to be back in Seattle after 10+ days of virtually no [or snail slow at the best of times] Internet connection while I was out of town/out of the USA. Being unexpectedly “unplugged” was maddening, frustrating, educational, enlightening.
The educational and enlightening part came out of the same thing that most of my learning in this class is springing from: being totally out of my comfort zone and simply letting go of my plan and using whatever I can grab or do that is at hand.
I had not realized quite how dependent I have become on my technology devices until they became useless dead weight in my backpack. It was a jolt waiting 15 minutes to log into the Internet just to get kicked off, sitting waiting 20 minutes for one short text email to send itself, seeing that good ol’ error message 404 “Page not Found” thousands of times.
I have come to deeply appreciate exactly what I am doing right now – sitting on my couch with 6 different windows open wallowing in high speed connectivity. It feels like how a nice long hot shower feels after a long sweaty August camping trip. Aaaaaaaah!
I returned to the US on a Saturday and I could not WAIT to get into the hotel Internet connection.
Which was down, as it happened. Incredible.
For lack of any other ideas on how to be productive for the next few hours, I decided to go out walking in New Orleans with my digital camera and my video camera. I went in search of footage for our Social Video. I captured some video footage of metal water utility covers in the sidewalks, and was shooting water bottles in refrigerated coolers in tourist shops. Nothing seems odd in the French Quarter.
Meet my new friend Captain Stephen Twist, “New Orleans’ French Quarter’s only full time Pirate”. I literally almost bumped into him with my camera as he was hailing a taxi for some tourists outside an Irish bar.
I asked if I could take his photo, bought him a shot and a beer in that most excellent Irish bar, and we talked about Social Media. What I learned that night about the Pirates is they are VERY connected. They are some of Social Media’s Kings and Queens and they are relatively new at all of this technology stuff.
It’s a long story that I’ll skip here, but Pirates are one of my newly identified target customer segments for a cultural/music event I am doing in Louisiana in November 2010.
As it turns out, all I need to do it turn on the “On” switch to the Pirates social network, and I’m at least halfway done.
They will do nearly all the rest for me marketing-wise once I provide them with a destination/website, and I engage some more of the key Pirate and Wench personalities in New Orleans.
A Google search of the 4 term string pirates pyrates wenches blog returned 26,300 results. These people are seriously dialed in. My new pirate pal, Cap’n Twist, told me that the normal weekend Pirate routine in New Orleans is to stay up late, mingle and socialize with other Pirates and/or Wenches (who are VERY organized and social – they have formal Krewes, similar to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Krewes) and then sleep as late as possible. Captain Twist’s afternoons are spent online as much as possible, chatting, building connections, commenting on the activities and writings of fellow Pirates and/or Wenches, and preparing for the next evening’s activities.
VERY online. VERY organized. VERY connected. VERY interactive.
I now own a new Twitter account, Facebook username, and a new web domain, all designed to make it easy for socially networked Pirates like the elegant Captain Twist or my other new friend, The Diamond Queen (aka Susan – see the Wenches' brand new website at www.nolawenches.com) to spread news of my event and to rally their local/actual friends and their virtual social connections to come along with them to my event.
These Krewes are highly sophisticated Social Clubs with an embedded service/charitable function. Krewes have been around long before there was the internet, but they take full advantage of Social Media now that it’s here. I have a whole lot to learn from my Pirates and Wenches, in all seriousness.
Last summer when I came up with this Pirate idea, I read Pirate websites for several days and found out that “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” (September 19th) was granted to 2 very creative guys from Portland who wrote a software program that automatically converts normal writing into “Pirate talk”. They own the rights to the incredibly popular software, and they wrote 2 best selling Pirate-themed books on how to talk like a pirate -- then they both quit their day jobs. Something to think about.
Would any of this exist without Social Media? Maybe. But not like THIS.
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, are all at the heart of the success and strength of the Pirates and Wenches feeling of belonging and connection to each other, along with fueling their charitable efforts and successes with one of my pet causes: post-Katrina rebuilding efforts.
Just one more crystal clear example of a powerful niche market that is almost completely fueled by that magical combination of heart and social media.
Good lesson for me that I never quite know where my teachers will pop up -- always a good idea to be paying attention, watching, listening.
Aaaaaaargh!
The educational and enlightening part came out of the same thing that most of my learning in this class is springing from: being totally out of my comfort zone and simply letting go of my plan and using whatever I can grab or do that is at hand.
I had not realized quite how dependent I have become on my technology devices until they became useless dead weight in my backpack. It was a jolt waiting 15 minutes to log into the Internet just to get kicked off, sitting waiting 20 minutes for one short text email to send itself, seeing that good ol’ error message 404 “Page not Found” thousands of times.
I have come to deeply appreciate exactly what I am doing right now – sitting on my couch with 6 different windows open wallowing in high speed connectivity. It feels like how a nice long hot shower feels after a long sweaty August camping trip. Aaaaaaaah!
I returned to the US on a Saturday and I could not WAIT to get into the hotel Internet connection.
Which was down, as it happened. Incredible.
For lack of any other ideas on how to be productive for the next few hours, I decided to go out walking in New Orleans with my digital camera and my video camera. I went in search of footage for our Social Video. I captured some video footage of metal water utility covers in the sidewalks, and was shooting water bottles in refrigerated coolers in tourist shops. Nothing seems odd in the French Quarter.
Meet my new friend Captain Stephen Twist, “New Orleans’ French Quarter’s only full time Pirate”. I literally almost bumped into him with my camera as he was hailing a taxi for some tourists outside an Irish bar.
I asked if I could take his photo, bought him a shot and a beer in that most excellent Irish bar, and we talked about Social Media. What I learned that night about the Pirates is they are VERY connected. They are some of Social Media’s Kings and Queens and they are relatively new at all of this technology stuff.
It’s a long story that I’ll skip here, but Pirates are one of my newly identified target customer segments for a cultural/music event I am doing in Louisiana in November 2010.
As it turns out, all I need to do it turn on the “On” switch to the Pirates social network, and I’m at least halfway done.
They will do nearly all the rest for me marketing-wise once I provide them with a destination/website, and I engage some more of the key Pirate and Wench personalities in New Orleans.
A Google search of the 4 term string pirates pyrates wenches blog returned 26,300 results. These people are seriously dialed in. My new pirate pal, Cap’n Twist, told me that the normal weekend Pirate routine in New Orleans is to stay up late, mingle and socialize with other Pirates and/or Wenches (who are VERY organized and social – they have formal Krewes, similar to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Krewes) and then sleep as late as possible. Captain Twist’s afternoons are spent online as much as possible, chatting, building connections, commenting on the activities and writings of fellow Pirates and/or Wenches, and preparing for the next evening’s activities.
VERY online. VERY organized. VERY connected. VERY interactive.
I now own a new Twitter account, Facebook username, and a new web domain, all designed to make it easy for socially networked Pirates like the elegant Captain Twist or my other new friend, The Diamond Queen (aka Susan – see the Wenches' brand new website at www.nolawenches.com) to spread news of my event and to rally their local/actual friends and their virtual social connections to come along with them to my event.
These Krewes are highly sophisticated Social Clubs with an embedded service/charitable function. Krewes have been around long before there was the internet, but they take full advantage of Social Media now that it’s here. I have a whole lot to learn from my Pirates and Wenches, in all seriousness.
Last summer when I came up with this Pirate idea, I read Pirate websites for several days and found out that “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” (September 19th) was granted to 2 very creative guys from Portland who wrote a software program that automatically converts normal writing into “Pirate talk”. They own the rights to the incredibly popular software, and they wrote 2 best selling Pirate-themed books on how to talk like a pirate -- then they both quit their day jobs. Something to think about.
Would any of this exist without Social Media? Maybe. But not like THIS.
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, are all at the heart of the success and strength of the Pirates and Wenches feeling of belonging and connection to each other, along with fueling their charitable efforts and successes with one of my pet causes: post-Katrina rebuilding efforts.
Just one more crystal clear example of a powerful niche market that is almost completely fueled by that magical combination of heart and social media.
Good lesson for me that I never quite know where my teachers will pop up -- always a good idea to be paying attention, watching, listening.
Aaaaaaargh!
Monday, November 23, 2009
11/23/09 Slideshow Link
Thanks, Beth, for pointing me to Slideshare.
Here is my slideshow (Ocean, Nassau, New Orleans) of random obvervations.
http://www.slideshare.net/CSchreitmueller/carols-learning-journal-11-22-09
This is a simple slide-a-logue set to move at 2 seconds per slide, but it seems to play slower than that (at least from my house!) so sorry about that. See what happens from your place!
I tried adding some mood music and that did not work (...next time!) since for some reason it stopped the slides from advancing (?), so I took it back out. One trick at a time for now, I suppose.......
Thanks for walking with me.
Here is my slideshow (Ocean, Nassau, New Orleans) of random obvervations.
http://www.slideshare.net/CSchreitmueller/carols-learning-journal-11-22-09
This is a simple slide-a-logue set to move at 2 seconds per slide, but it seems to play slower than that (at least from my house!) so sorry about that. See what happens from your place!
I tried adding some mood music and that did not work (...next time!) since for some reason it stopped the slides from advancing (?), so I took it back out. One trick at a time for now, I suppose.......
Thanks for walking with me.
Perspective: looking down, up, and more closely
Hello fellow bloggers!
I have just gotten back from traveling with a seriously awful internet connection situation.
I switched modes from typing and posting to visual documentation and photo-taking. Interesting!
What I focused in on were all sorts of details that I usually pass over -- corners, ceilings, floors, one object or detail in a very large noisy space. Lots of looking UP and looking DOWN which I had forgotten how to do.
This photo exercise has changed my brain.
I am home now and everything looks slightly different to me - my brain is taking more in.
Somehow (maybe just too much information) I realized that I have been averaging or generalizing things in order to to get by. By refocusing on the beauty in the details, the whole looks more rich and intense -- in the good way -- to me all of a sudden. My view has been enhanced.
I created a first-ever (for me) ppt slide show of my observations to post for your viewing pleasure...once I figure out how to do that. Tonight, if possible.
I have no idea how to upload a slide show but hopefully it will show up on here very soon. Working on that ... New tricks all the time; this class.
I have just gotten back from traveling with a seriously awful internet connection situation.
I switched modes from typing and posting to visual documentation and photo-taking. Interesting!
What I focused in on were all sorts of details that I usually pass over -- corners, ceilings, floors, one object or detail in a very large noisy space. Lots of looking UP and looking DOWN which I had forgotten how to do.
This photo exercise has changed my brain.
I am home now and everything looks slightly different to me - my brain is taking more in.
Somehow (maybe just too much information) I realized that I have been averaging or generalizing things in order to to get by. By refocusing on the beauty in the details, the whole looks more rich and intense -- in the good way -- to me all of a sudden. My view has been enhanced.
I created a first-ever (for me) ppt slide show of my observations to post for your viewing pleasure...once I figure out how to do that. Tonight, if possible.
I have no idea how to upload a slide show but hopefully it will show up on here very soon. Working on that ... New tricks all the time; this class.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Adventures in Video Land
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=4v_FvuVWrU8
That should be the link to my YouTube 1 minute intro.
NO IDEA WHERE THE SOUND WENT and nobody else seems to be able to tell me.
It's super quiet and we don't know why - sorry about that.
[LOWER THE BAR, PEOPLE! It's the Basics. Think Basics.]
What a week! How do all you soccer Moms do this? You people with kids and dogs have been videoing and camcordering for all these years but somehow I escaped the whole thing. Until now.
The bottom line here is that it took me maybe 35 hours to make a one minute video that is seriously terrible. Note to self: "No 6am footage before coffee!" But... I am way smarter than BEFORE I attempted this trick, and I liked what I learned. Especially once I progressed past the "hit my laptop with a hammer and throw the camera in Puget Sound" phase. All uphill from there, pretty much.
About 6 years ago I was both an attendee and a presenter at huge multiple conferences - consumer trends, product/industry trade shows, that sort of thing. I was (and still am) pretty darn surprised in many instances at the level of presentation given by some of the hot shot names on the roster. Have they ever SEEN the presentation before...? Did they have the girl next to them on the plane put it together....? Is it from 5 years ago and they just picked it off a stack?! Really! Some pretty unimpressive stuff at times.
Conversely, I have had my socks blown off by sleepy little companies with kick ass presentations.
Guess what the most memorable ones A L W A Y S had in them.......? That's right -- V I D E O.
No surprise. Very attention-getting and there is no way around their multisensory ability to capture my imagination and attention over Death By Bullets on those ppt templates we all know and love far too well.
That should be the link to my YouTube 1 minute intro.
NO IDEA WHERE THE SOUND WENT and nobody else seems to be able to tell me.
It's super quiet and we don't know why - sorry about that.
[LOWER THE BAR, PEOPLE! It's the Basics. Think Basics.]
What a week! How do all you soccer Moms do this? You people with kids and dogs have been videoing and camcordering for all these years but somehow I escaped the whole thing. Until now.
The bottom line here is that it took me maybe 35 hours to make a one minute video that is seriously terrible. Note to self: "No 6am footage before coffee!" But... I am way smarter than BEFORE I attempted this trick, and I liked what I learned. Especially once I progressed past the "hit my laptop with a hammer and throw the camera in Puget Sound" phase. All uphill from there, pretty much.
About 6 years ago I was both an attendee and a presenter at huge multiple conferences - consumer trends, product/industry trade shows, that sort of thing. I was (and still am) pretty darn surprised in many instances at the level of presentation given by some of the hot shot names on the roster. Have they ever SEEN the presentation before...? Did they have the girl next to them on the plane put it together....? Is it from 5 years ago and they just picked it off a stack?! Really! Some pretty unimpressive stuff at times.
Conversely, I have had my socks blown off by sleepy little companies with kick ass presentations.
Guess what the most memorable ones A L W A Y S had in them.......? That's right -- V I D E O.
No surprise. Very attention-getting and there is no way around their multisensory ability to capture my imagination and attention over Death By Bullets on those ppt templates we all know and love far too well.
My solution at the time was to move toward multimedia presentations immediately, and I did for a few years. I was working with a mega-talented film and video production house in Seattle called Mineral. Amazing. But I never did the shooting or editing or sound myself. (LOL: Now I know why!)
So the general report out from here is that I feel like I just fell down yet another Rabbit Hole - another time and space dimension and something interesting to me -- and I knew I was in a Rabbit Hole ALREADY. Is there a way up or out of here, I wonder?
The other thing to report out clearly is that I really like video - Love it. I like watching it, and if I learn how, I think I'd like creating it, and also I like people's responses watching it. It's just more fun and more engaging than stills. Period.
Thanks to Chris and to all for the ongoing pep talks. It was a scary couple of weeks there. Better now. Not sure yet what the outlook is for completing the list of lists for this course, but I do feel like I persisted and was able to learn new things in spite of massive frustration factors. Progress for me since conflict and frustration are often very demotivating in my case. Looking forward to finding out what's next!
Thanks to Chris and to all for the ongoing pep talks. It was a scary couple of weeks there. Better now. Not sure yet what the outlook is for completing the list of lists for this course, but I do feel like I persisted and was able to learn new things in spite of massive frustration factors. Progress for me since conflict and frustration are often very demotivating in my case. Looking forward to finding out what's next!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Alignment and more alignment: work is life is school is my personal brand is my future
Topic: Working toward turning “overwhelmed” into “positive growth”.
Point: Still behind! There is hope with asking questions and accepting help.
Note to self: This is what I do, who I am, where I am going.
Well hell, I am STILL behind with these assignments. I don’t like how it feels to be lagging – it’s disorienting for me. I am a very “on time/on budget/exceed expectations” sort of a person professionally. I am not usually mediocre.
The learning curve for me in this class (beginning with a big Zero in September in the Social Media arena) has been humbling and/or frustrating to the point of being demoralizing some days. Lots of days.
I considered dropping this course a few days ago (seriously) because after last week’s Elluminate I felt that terribly overwhelmed about November’s expectations.
Christopher's Elluminate statement, “If you fail your team in November, then I will fail YOU” kind of got to me; not in a good way. I don’t respond all that well to threats as a general rule, and the idea of letting others down is far more distasteful to me than letting myself down.
I am out of town and/or out of the country for ½ of November, a crucial time period for the social change video project.
So yeah, I am severely worried. I haven’t even gotten up to speed with October’s assignments yet and it’s Halloween already.
Christopher talked me down off the ledge in terms of dropping the class – at least for now. He suggested that I work with what I CAN do (ideation, scripting storyboarding) and leave the shooting and editing to someone with a camera and a Mac. Good advice, no doubt.
I am not sure what to do with these video projects. Is it just me? Is anyone else taking hours to learn one little task by trial and error that seems like others just whip out in 5 minutes?
I am clinging by a thread to Tomas’ suggestion to me a few weeks ago that I align everything to one topic of focus – which for me is Innovation. It’s interesting enough for me to stay engaged, to be curious even when I feel like giving up, to look up one more blog or post or article or to Tweet about at midnight.
Today I bought a video camera. Not a good one but a good enough one. I have no clue how to use it AND no clue how to do anything with the footage (once I get some), but it feels good to own it.
Tomorrow Justin Tilson has very generously offered me an hour of his time to walk me through WordPress 101. (Thank you, Christopher, for that suggestion).
If I need help, I will allow myself to ask for it, more than I have been.
I know that the way innovation bubbles up and turns into tangible results is shifting and changing, along with a lot of other things in this world. The intersection of social media and innovation is unmistakably loud. I know deep down that I need to be here, in this course, learning these tools.
How to do the assigned work and feel even “OK” this quarter, not fail anything -- this one OR any of my other 3 classes -- and simultaneously keep my employer happy between now and December 11th is all just feeling more than a bit overwhelming for me at the moment.
This week in talking with various people about what I do and what I WANT to do, I have zeroed in on the innovation subtopic of “realizing innovation” – meaning – the process of getting innovative products or services delivered to a paying customer.
The term “product realization” comes from a set of process criteria and controls that are part of the ISO 9000 standard which I had not remembered in any detail until this week when I looked it up. Lots there – ISO standards don’t miss a detail, ever. The one section defining the elements of product realization covers a LOT of ground. http://bit.ly/product_realization_summary
My Creativity Session is going to be on this topic and I am actually really excited about it. All “Bell cows” accepted my invite and it is all set for November 11th. The topic is Innovation: Improving Product Realization. I am using a slightly less technical definition of Product Realization for my purposes: "Delivering innovation to market."
I will do my best to think positive thoughts, enjoy my extra hour of sleep tonight, and somehow come up with a 30 second video tomorrow AND do many many many other assignments for 3 other classes.
It is after midnight. All good little trick-or-treaters are tucked in. Now it is November 1st, The Day of the Dead, which in a number of cultures is a day of celebration based on rememberance, reverence and respect. Nice parting thought: November can feel different than October, starting right NOW.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead
Point: Still behind! There is hope with asking questions and accepting help.
Note to self: This is what I do, who I am, where I am going.
Well hell, I am STILL behind with these assignments. I don’t like how it feels to be lagging – it’s disorienting for me. I am a very “on time/on budget/exceed expectations” sort of a person professionally. I am not usually mediocre.
The learning curve for me in this class (beginning with a big Zero in September in the Social Media arena) has been humbling and/or frustrating to the point of being demoralizing some days. Lots of days.
I considered dropping this course a few days ago (seriously) because after last week’s Elluminate I felt that terribly overwhelmed about November’s expectations.
Christopher's Elluminate statement, “If you fail your team in November, then I will fail YOU” kind of got to me; not in a good way. I don’t respond all that well to threats as a general rule, and the idea of letting others down is far more distasteful to me than letting myself down.
I am out of town and/or out of the country for ½ of November, a crucial time period for the social change video project.
So yeah, I am severely worried. I haven’t even gotten up to speed with October’s assignments yet and it’s Halloween already.
Christopher talked me down off the ledge in terms of dropping the class – at least for now. He suggested that I work with what I CAN do (ideation, scripting storyboarding) and leave the shooting and editing to someone with a camera and a Mac. Good advice, no doubt.
I am not sure what to do with these video projects. Is it just me? Is anyone else taking hours to learn one little task by trial and error that seems like others just whip out in 5 minutes?
I am clinging by a thread to Tomas’ suggestion to me a few weeks ago that I align everything to one topic of focus – which for me is Innovation. It’s interesting enough for me to stay engaged, to be curious even when I feel like giving up, to look up one more blog or post or article or to Tweet about at midnight.
Today I bought a video camera. Not a good one but a good enough one. I have no clue how to use it AND no clue how to do anything with the footage (once I get some), but it feels good to own it.
Tomorrow Justin Tilson has very generously offered me an hour of his time to walk me through WordPress 101. (Thank you, Christopher, for that suggestion).
If I need help, I will allow myself to ask for it, more than I have been.
I know that the way innovation bubbles up and turns into tangible results is shifting and changing, along with a lot of other things in this world. The intersection of social media and innovation is unmistakably loud. I know deep down that I need to be here, in this course, learning these tools.
How to do the assigned work and feel even “OK” this quarter, not fail anything -- this one OR any of my other 3 classes -- and simultaneously keep my employer happy between now and December 11th is all just feeling more than a bit overwhelming for me at the moment.
This week in talking with various people about what I do and what I WANT to do, I have zeroed in on the innovation subtopic of “realizing innovation” – meaning – the process of getting innovative products or services delivered to a paying customer.
The term “product realization” comes from a set of process criteria and controls that are part of the ISO 9000 standard which I had not remembered in any detail until this week when I looked it up. Lots there – ISO standards don’t miss a detail, ever. The one section defining the elements of product realization covers a LOT of ground. http://bit.ly/product_realization_summary
My Creativity Session is going to be on this topic and I am actually really excited about it. All “Bell cows” accepted my invite and it is all set for November 11th. The topic is Innovation: Improving Product Realization. I am using a slightly less technical definition of Product Realization for my purposes: "Delivering innovation to market."
I will do my best to think positive thoughts, enjoy my extra hour of sleep tonight, and somehow come up with a 30 second video tomorrow AND do many many many other assignments for 3 other classes.
It is after midnight. All good little trick-or-treaters are tucked in. Now it is November 1st, The Day of the Dead, which in a number of cultures is a day of celebration based on rememberance, reverence and respect. Nice parting thought: November can feel different than October, starting right NOW.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Journey to the Land of Names, aka 2009: A Web Space Odyssey
Alrighty – A Name Has Been Chosen.
Ridiculously simple as it may sound to choose a new business name and web domain name – it wasn’t.
All of the super-coolest memorable names were gobbled up long ago by smart people with $10, porn producers, bands with no good songs yet, and software visionaries. Windows? Python? Apple? Oracle? Not exactly rocket science, but whoever gets there first, wins.
I started with a suggestion from Gif to call my innovation consulting biz The Oracle. His thinking on that was that I have a very high level of predicting the future and people come to me for advice having to do with things that have not happened yet – the exact job description of the Oracle of Delphi, who was relied upon to give advice and make decisions under the ancient Greek God Apollo.
Good idea but a name snarl. I tried. Then I went to The Pythia, which was her nickname. Thank you to everyone who tried hard to get me off of that direction – it took a couple of weeks but I did finally get it that it sounds like someone is lisping no matter what you do with Pyth. Thank you. Sorry for the delay on that one.
NEXT I went back to the Delphi idea which of course is totally taken, as is everything having to do with the Greek Alphabet or anything simple to say or spell that is related to the ancient world.
It was my Dad who finally cracked the code by suggesting I make up a word like Verizon. He does a kajillion crossword puzzles, so I enlisted him as a last resort.
He started with Del from Delphi and noodled around and came up with Delform. I countered with Delforma since Delform is too close to Deform. It doesn’t mean anything really, which is good. Easy to say and spell, so that’s good too. No major web hits. Still good. Del loosely means of or about in Italian. Forma means shape or form or mold or appearance. Still OK.
Then I called a close friend who is fluent in Italian and ran it by her to make sure it didn’t mean something awful. She is the one who told me that forma is feminine and it should be DellaForma.
So there you go. $10 later, I am now DellaForma and I own www.DellaForma.com
Blogging will happen!
Along the way, I ran into www.wordreference.com – an amazing site to play with words, definitions, word extensions, and more. In multiple languages. Really fun!
Now I am looking back through Christopher’s archives of the instructions from weeks ago on what to do next so that I can move through the time warp and get up to speed on my Beat.
I am snooping at others’ websites and blogs and asking people for blogs that they like the look and feel of.
Here are a few nicely organized EASY TO READ ones – what I want:
www.innovationinpractice.com (recommended by ChristopherA who had a lot to do with why it’s so clean)
http://www.robinavni.com/lifestyle-insights-blog/ (recommended by my colleague Celeste Tell, who is considering changing her actual name because of issues around Google porn-related hits!). This blog is done by a group of women and they have a STRICT 300 word posting limit. SMART. This post is 664 words. Too long. Noted.
http://www.livestrong.com/lance-armstrong/blog/ Lance’s most recent Tweets are all right there on the top right. Nice. The amount of traffic to various OTHER Tweets and blogs being driven by one word from Lance is staggering. Really amazing. I like the little Tools menu at the bottom.
http://www.ideo.com/ A little surprised to find this site LESS elegant looking than it used to be, but it’s still darn good looking and of course really interesting no matter how you slice it. Will keep an eye on it to see if it shifts again aesthetically.
What do you like the look and feel of blog-wise? What makes a “good blog”?
Ridiculously simple as it may sound to choose a new business name and web domain name – it wasn’t.
All of the super-coolest memorable names were gobbled up long ago by smart people with $10, porn producers, bands with no good songs yet, and software visionaries. Windows? Python? Apple? Oracle? Not exactly rocket science, but whoever gets there first, wins.
I started with a suggestion from Gif to call my innovation consulting biz The Oracle. His thinking on that was that I have a very high level of predicting the future and people come to me for advice having to do with things that have not happened yet – the exact job description of the Oracle of Delphi, who was relied upon to give advice and make decisions under the ancient Greek God Apollo.
Good idea but a name snarl. I tried. Then I went to The Pythia, which was her nickname. Thank you to everyone who tried hard to get me off of that direction – it took a couple of weeks but I did finally get it that it sounds like someone is lisping no matter what you do with Pyth. Thank you. Sorry for the delay on that one.
NEXT I went back to the Delphi idea which of course is totally taken, as is everything having to do with the Greek Alphabet or anything simple to say or spell that is related to the ancient world.
It was my Dad who finally cracked the code by suggesting I make up a word like Verizon. He does a kajillion crossword puzzles, so I enlisted him as a last resort.
He started with Del from Delphi and noodled around and came up with Delform. I countered with Delforma since Delform is too close to Deform. It doesn’t mean anything really, which is good. Easy to say and spell, so that’s good too. No major web hits. Still good. Del loosely means of or about in Italian. Forma means shape or form or mold or appearance. Still OK.
Then I called a close friend who is fluent in Italian and ran it by her to make sure it didn’t mean something awful. She is the one who told me that forma is feminine and it should be DellaForma.
So there you go. $10 later, I am now DellaForma and I own www.DellaForma.com
Blogging will happen!
Along the way, I ran into www.wordreference.com – an amazing site to play with words, definitions, word extensions, and more. In multiple languages. Really fun!
Now I am looking back through Christopher’s archives of the instructions from weeks ago on what to do next so that I can move through the time warp and get up to speed on my Beat.
I am snooping at others’ websites and blogs and asking people for blogs that they like the look and feel of.
Here are a few nicely organized EASY TO READ ones – what I want:
www.innovationinpractice.com (recommended by ChristopherA who had a lot to do with why it’s so clean)
http://www.robinavni.com/lifestyle-insights-blog/ (recommended by my colleague Celeste Tell, who is considering changing her actual name because of issues around Google porn-related hits!). This blog is done by a group of women and they have a STRICT 300 word posting limit. SMART. This post is 664 words. Too long. Noted.
http://www.livestrong.com/lance-armstrong/blog/ Lance’s most recent Tweets are all right there on the top right. Nice. The amount of traffic to various OTHER Tweets and blogs being driven by one word from Lance is staggering. Really amazing. I like the little Tools menu at the bottom.
http://www.ideo.com/ A little surprised to find this site LESS elegant looking than it used to be, but it’s still darn good looking and of course really interesting no matter how you slice it. Will keep an eye on it to see if it shifts again aesthetically.
What do you like the look and feel of blog-wise? What makes a “good blog”?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
