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What is Our Future With Apple?

First, a disclaimer, I’m an Apple fan boy. Always have been. I’ve used an Apple computer since I was in elementary school when they allowed each classroom a day with the computer playing Oregon Trail. Now, that’s going way back. Ever since then, I’ve been more comfortable doing whatever I needed to do with a computer on a MacIntosh. In fact, I’m typing this post on an iMac. Maybe, a bit of overkill, but it gets the job done.

Macs are made for the creatives.

7158_1477725337 When I started my career in television and video, everyone said that since I was a creative, that’s what having a Mac was best for. Creating video, doing animation, doctoring photos, etc. everyone assumed I used a Mac because I was in the creative field. They weren’t wrong, completely. I, and everyone, I worked with and my colleagues who were doing creative work was using a Mac. When Apple started developing professional video software like Final Cut Pro, it just seemed that I was destined to continue using this company that not only supported software in which I made my living, but also the hardware. I continued using Macs for when I started my business and the immense amount of software they developed. So even administratively, I switched to using their productivity apps and iCloud to run business.

So, when they developed for mobile, my staff went with iPhones, because of the ubiquity of the device to plug into our ecosystem. Even at home I have two Macs and 2 AppleTVs. It just seemed natural. I felt that I was on a roll with a company that has been a part of my success and growth for the past 20 years. I bought into their changes and upgrades and enjoyed the advancements in technology that has help ushered major changes in my industry over the last 10 years.

The confusing keynote

Then the last keynote came out. And it hit me. Is Apple, the company I know and loved changing enough that it is phasing itself out of what we are doing? I sat and thought about that for a minute. It hasn’t really upgraded any of its desktop hardware in years. We haven’t yet upgraded to the last two iterations of the OS due to legacy software that we still use. This is weird. The new keynote didn’t go into any new hardware upgrades aside from the laptop, and I’m not interested in that as a main editing machine. The highlight was the the reference to a new Final Cut update. That’s great, but what about machines to put around that new interface? I was dumbfounded. Do I have to look to another platform to continue on what we have built? Administratively, that’s easy. The Google platform would be easy to transition to. As well as the Pixel is an interesting mobile device. Creatively, I know Adobe makes software that is cross platform, but do we really want to support a Windows 10 environment? I don’t know how to troubleshoot that one as well as the Mac.

There are a lot of questions that need to be answered when we decide to do a full upgrade of our systems next year. Let’s hope that in those 12 months Apple has some better answers and solutions for going forward.

#BetterCallPaul – November 2016 Recap

2nd Brain Collective Podcast: Ryan Wert of the REO Town Commercial Association

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When Good Videos Go Bad

Videos do have a shelf life. You may be able to extend it every so often, but just have it in the back of your head that this video, may not be valid in two years.

Why? Personnel changes, location changes, website changes, service additions or subtractions, you name it. A lot can change in two years. And if you’re a non-profit, you know that turnover is an occupational hazard faced year after year.

youtube_fail However, for us, we can use the videos as promotional tools for quite awhile, until it really starts to look dated. Unless the unthinkable happens and we have to pull the video from any online accounts we have it as a part of.

This happened just the other day. I was at an event as an exhibitor, and when I do events in this capacity I tend to make a YouTube playlist for that specific audience to loop on a monitor. However, at the top of the list, was a video I was very proud of. But, included in a third of a video was a key interview who two days before was just indicted of some serious crimes in a very high profile, media heavy way.

Luckily I caught it before I rolled it out. I don’t want to be associated with that person or have them as part of any promotional tool for my company. It is unfortunate, because it’s a very good video and his interview really added the emphasis we needed for the story.

What is fortunate is that this situation happens very rarely. In fact in the last 15 years, we only had to pull one other video for the same reasons. But you should act quickly to distance any video that has a negative cloud over it and archive it and hope that you have more videos in your library that can fill that void.

#BetterCallPaul – Another Paul Blooper Reel

2nd Brain Collective Podcast: Julie Holton of Fraser Trebilcock

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The Real Return on Investment

return-on-investment Having a return on investment is very important. It’s good to know what the result is when you invest a certain part of your budget into something, you want to make it back, plus. I understand that and when I talk with a client I talk about how video will work for them and what’s the best way to use it that will have the most impact.
But while talking with a new client one day, the return on investment conversation was flipped a bit. We talked about how the actual return on investment doesn’t come from their budget, but actually their customer.

What I mean is, the customer invests in you as a business, in turn you create more products/or services and have more authority in your space to educate and engage with your community. Which your customer is already a part of.

So, where is the real return on investment when it comes to marketing? Is it within your budget? Or is it your customer investing in you to provide more material?

I know it’s a chicken and the egg conversation. But a good one when defining who is looking for the real return on investment.

#BetterCallPaul – Talking with Ben Hall of the Summer Solstice Jazz Festival

2nd Brain Collective Podcast – Doug Horne of EnPower Solutions

The 3 C’sof Video: Content, Context and Community

As a video producer, I want everyone to use video for their organization. However, having video and using video are two different things. You just can’t have video for video’s sake. You really need to make sure that you are using it to meet your goals. That is why I want you to think about the three C’s when developing your plan on using video.

Content: The adage right now is content is king. You do need something to put out there alongside your written blog posts, your photos and infographics. You need all of this content to push your message. Having video being part of a content marketing package helps visualize your organization in a different way and can be used to add that explanation point to the message you have been sending.

Context: I heard somewhere that if content is king, then context is queen. I really like that. You have to understand why you are using video and how to use it in your marketing and branding. Thinking about context allows you to fully describe the who and the why of your business and to develop a package that speaks to your audience.

Community: Speaking of audience, are they picking up what you are laying down? This is the group you need to be targeting so they can share and like and talk about what you have going on in your videos. Without a strong community, your videos may fall on deaf ears. But with a consistent content strategy you have the ability to build that audience and then sustain them.

So there you have it, think about these three things when adding video to the mix. If you already have content going, video will just enhance it, but only in the right context. Remember this. Video just for video sake is not going to work, because there is no strategy behind it. Your videos have to be purposeful, timely and engaging. That’s also how you build your community.