In ProCom (Finnish Web, Swedish page) there are 1800 professionals from the field of communication and PR. ProCom have been the leading organisation for the Finnish communications professionals for 61 years. For over 30 years ProCom members have gathered together for one day for a high-profile seminar called the ProCom -day. This year the organizers plan to concentrate on the future and innovations. The communications directors, consultants and information officers – almost everyone – feel a bit frustrated with all the demands and possibilities this day presents – oth in the private and the public sector.
To this years event, called X-FAKTORI, I have been invited to make a key note presentation under the headline Social Media – promises and perils. I am truly looking forward to again meet Finnish marketing pro’s.
(Afterwards I will meet with Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, for an informal conversation on how to solve societal problems by doing things together by the power of we.)
This post will be updated/supplemented within a few days, because the content is really not ready. But VIDBlaster, the software in question, is released within a few minutes and I want to share our experiences in concert with that event. In this preliminary video I try (lat and tired ;) the video below I explain what we did and how the gear we used looked like. I actually created the video with VIDBlaster in one single recording! That is, no editing – just talking while mixing me with clips and images. See below for a backgrounder.
VIDBlaster is ”a powerful, economical way to record, stream and produce high quality video”, developed by Mike Versteeg. (Early podcasting fans might recognize him as the creator of CastBlaster). In my view his creation opens up for everyone to own a nano version of an Outside Broadcasting Bus. Resutling in something I call an ”OB-case”.
About a month ago my brother Henrik and I used VIDBlaster to stream and document a lecture held for teachers in Botkyrka. At that time we used a VIDBlaster on a laptop, two cameras, one mike, an animated vignette, and some pre-made graphis to mix and send a live video stream over Bambuser. You can see the result at Stjärnkikarna (in Swedish, but roll the video and you will get the point).
Last week we made our second experiment, streaming from a Breakfast seminar arranged by SIME and Sun. This time we had a more powerful laptop and a better mike solution. Please note that on both occasions we did not have much time for much preparation or training. We went there with an idea, and it worked pretty well. You may see the archived results at Bambuser.com/channel/sunsime.
If you have any questions I will try to answer them in a follow up post. Special thanks to Mike (for VIDBlaster), Ewa at Sun and Ola at SIME (for being brave enough to let us do the expirement), and of course to the entrepreneurs at Bambuser (who extend the mobile video frontier).
[Update after the gig] Thank you all for a fantastic morning! I have embedded my slides here (or download pdf 6 slides/page, 6.8 Mb). Here is a link to The Ideabook that the author Fredrik Härén generously gave to some of you.
Really, there are a lot of things I do not know. And a good question is if I need to know that I do not know what I know. But I know ”we” know more than I do. And we will soon know what I will do in mid June.
Well, that intro is just a better way to say that the exact title and content of my keynote presentation at eTwinning UK National Conference 2009. A terrific event, with sharing and award giving arranged by the British Council, taking place in Nottingham June 12-14. I am so honored, glad, and proud to have been invited. Not only to share my ideas, but also (rather more so) to take the opportunity to converse with the most interesting people in the UK. That is, those who work together with young humans and are interested in new forms of communication, conversations, and mediation.
Pretty soon the event planners will contact me so that we can co-create the details regarding my contribution. Will they do it here in the open? Will you do it before them? I do not know. But as always, I am looking forward to the future – which is inhabited by your children(s children(s children…))
Almost a year ago I noted that Encyclopaedia Britannica Online (how’s that for a spelling excercise ;) became more social (post in Swedish). Now they sent me an e-mail (sorry, can’t find ANY info on their site) that opens up with:
”Encyclopaedia Britannica Online has just introduced a new program that makes it possible for you as a reader and subscriber to contribute edits, revisions, and suggestions to the encyclopedia”.
Sounds cool, so I decided to give it a try. Surfed as they suggest to britannica.com and chose ”conversation” as an entry in need of an update. First impression – this is not an encyclopedia, it’s an advermedia. The only thing I saw was ads, ads, and ads.
Then I spotted some entries, clicked one and found the promised ”Suggest edit” button. When I clicked it some kind of edit screen appeared, but it did not seem to work. So I gave up. Sorry, got more important things to do.
In sum, they sent me an e-mail and I gave them my attention for a few minutes. The only thing I learned is that I won’t return. Too many ads, and I can only edit what they think is important. And ”conversation” as something we do is nothing I can do anything about – at britannica.com.
Today I made a short visit (to mingle :-) at Internetworld’s two day conference Webbdagarna 2009 in Stockholm. And the event was/is of course live video recorded and streamed – thanks to Björn Falkevik. In the Swedish social media bubble Björn is widely known as ”Mr Bambuser”, because of his frequent use of Bambuser at all kinds of occasions. And the result is, especially compared to my rant yesterday, really good!
Of course the video stream was live. Beyond that, the recordings were immediately available in Internetworlds section in the Bambuser site after each break in the programme. Björn used two cameras and a feed from the presenter’s computers so that he could insert their stuff in the stream whenever useful. True, the video quality (resolution and smoothness) could be better. But that is less important if you take budget and value into consideration. In any case, Björn was recording everything locally in full HD resolution.
Here is an example of the value. In the morning Creuna’s delivered a really cool presentation of how a bank like Swedbank could look like in the Web 2.0 future. (Internetworld’s story about that, in Swedish). During their talk I sent an e-mail about this to one of my clients within Swedbank. While he missed the live event, he was able to watch the video soon afterwards. So can you, right here (and my story continues below):
Before I did a key note at Webbdagarna 2007, I spent a couple of hours (my initiative and sole responsibility) to mock up wiki around that event. Afterwards I shared my experiences from that experiment, but most of the back channel support crashed when the wiki provider recently upgraded their platform. This year a much nicer and richer service was set up by Incentive. It integrates wiki, forums, help, instructions, conference programme, blogs, and more – including of course the live video.
That is what a small group of clever people, together with Web 2.0 services and the social media crowd, creates. Fantastic!
Inlägg (RSS)