Jargon

Dan Bailes: We're an impatient people. Time is money. So when we have something to say, we want to get it out there and out of the way. Jargon is quick. Jargon is in the know. Jargon is inside the box. Jargon is also stultifying.

When you throw it into the mix, it is a total idea stopper. When I hear jargon I'm suddenly more aware of the speaker than the words -- the flow of ideas smashes into a wall of questions. They keep on going but I'm asking myself, do I understand what that bit of jargon means? Jargon does not invite you in, it keeps you out.

When WSJ Business Tech blog writer Ben Worthen wrote about "Tech Terms We Hate" he used the example of the IT word "user." He was quite eloquent on the subject, so I'd like to quote him here:

Today, all the term does is emphasize technology at the expense of the task someone is trying to perform. To an IT person, you aren't writing a message, you're using email. To see how ridiculous this is, try applying 'user' to some routine activities. Someone who is grocery shopping becomes a supermarket user; a driver becomes a vehicle user.

See what I mean. It takes the person out of the experience. And Washington seems to be a city overflowing with jargon, government acronyms and pundit double speak. Whoops, I guess that's a bit of jargon, isn't it? Lifted that expression from Mr. Orwell's 1984.

Anyway, when I interview people for a video I'm always aware of how they answer. When I hear jargon, I'll ask the question again, usually acting like I didn't understand what they were telling me. That often makes them want to rephrase the answer, looking for words to help me understand what they are saying. And when I edit a person's interview for a video, I always try to edit out jargon from their comments. That way, the flow of ideas moving right along.

And after all, no one ever complained that someone's words were too easy to understand.

Whip It Into Shape

Dan Bailes: Horray for Blendtec blenders. Who knew product demo videos could be so much fun? In case you don't know Blendtec, they're the ones who created the wacky "Will It Blend?" series of videos now playing on their website, Youtube and elsewhere.

So what's the deal here? Well, what can be more mundane than a blender, right? We're talking whipped potatoes, purees, smoothies, maybe even carrot or spinach juice. Ah, then again, maybe not. But blenders: they chop stuff up. End of story. So if you were head of marketing for Blendtec, what would you do to whip up some enthusiasm for your product?

Here's their cool solution: instead of breathlessly showing us how to concoct the latest pineapple, pear and passion fruit frappe, they whipped up something weirdly goofy but effective. Their recipe? Take one boring product, mix in some mundane objects and blend it all together with a dash of some Dave Letterman style humor. And voila, a stroke-of-genius web video series is born, branded

with one silly but wonderful question, "Will it blend?"

The answer is a video series that's flamboyant, foolish and lots of fun. And what a great product demo! It shows so simply and elegantly what they're all about: chopping stuff up.

I've just skimmed the surface looking at some of their videos. But one favorite is their latest video feature on the iphone. There is something positively delicious watching what happens when the much-touted technological marvel, the iphone, meets another great piece of technology, the Blendtec Total Blender. A total mashup. You can check it out their site and the iphone video at http://www.willitblend.com/

Another favorite is their recipe for creating a debt-free lifestyle, which you can find at http://willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=safe&video=creditcards

What makes a great communications idea "great" is not just what you have to say but also how you go about saying it. And what makes Blendtec's approach so appealing and memorable is that instead of taking themselves and their product so seriously (hey, it's a blender) they're willing to let everyone in on the joke. The corny music and semi-serious presentation make it even funnier. And they open the door for viewers too, by inviting them to suggest other things to blend. So viewers become part of the process--which makes them more willing to buy into the message. A truly inspired campaign: it's clear, direct and elegantly simple.

Oh yeah, and according to their marketing director, they've had record sales for every month since the launch of their Will It Blend? video campaign.

Which should tell you there's a lot of sense in all this silliness.

Sometimes, the Best Things In Life Are Free

Dan Bailes: Technology can be a great tool or your worse nightmare. And unless you’re a techie, when you’re ready to buy a new piece of personal tech gear you’ve got to wade through the river of hype and hope that’s out there to find something that works for you. Or you can do what I and lots of other Wall Street Journal readers do, which is turn to Walter Mossberg and see what he has to say about it.

I’ve been reading and enjoying his columns for years. He writes clearly and effectively as he tackles complex tech and tech gear in language that anyone can understand. He also tells it like it is, unlike a lot of the blue sky type reviews that seem to populate so many trade magazines. He’s a strong consumer advocate and cares as much about ease of use as he does about what the gear actually does.

The only downside is that up until now, you pretty much had to subscribe to the WSJ or it’s website to have access to his wit and wisdom. But now you can just go to a new free website and not just read him, but some of his WSJ colleagues as well. The website’s called All Things Digital and there you’ll find “news, analysis and opinion about the digital revolution”.

It’s fun, informative and just the thing to check out before you plunk down your hard earned cash on the latest greatest tech wonder. Or you can just go to the site to get a heads up on what’s coming down the pike.

What You See Isn't Always What You Get

Dan Bailes: Someone once said “your view of the world is shaped by what you see when you wake up in the morning.”

Those words came back to me after yesterday’s screening of a rough edit with a client. This was one of those situations where we were working on a video project that had two mandates—1) introduce people to the organization’s programs and services 2) use the video as a fund raiser.

The client wanted both mandates to focus on the value the organization brings to patients and their families.

So… here’s the topic I’m really getting at: how do you go about making a video that has two different goals? What do you show and what do you see? In preliminary discussions with the client we decided to focus more on the first goal –introduction of services– with the assumption that if you do something that works well for patients and their families it will also work for fundraising. So I began creating a warm and welcoming piece for patients and their families about how to use the organization’s services for the first time. Our hope was the video would put people at ease and assist them to learn about how the organization had helped other patients (like themselves) in need.

As I worked with the editing, I tried to put myself in the place of someone in the audience. One thing I’ve learned from working on hundreds of political campaign and issue ads is to first understand the mindset of your audience and then hone your message to fall within that point of view.

I found we had a host of comments from people who had been helped by the organization—so there were a lot of moments to choose from. There was so much worthy material our first edit draft was way too long – given the large amount of quality comments it felt like the perfect moment to ask our client to help us decide what should stay and what should go. After watching the edit draft they made a decision. We should change direction and orient the program more to potential funders—if it worked well for them, it will also work well for the patient/family members. With that simple change in perspective, we now saw everything in a new light—our lengthy first edit became much easier to tackle; the new direction in thinking made it obvious what should stay and what should go.

Of course we would need to re-edit the piece—but that’s okay—because we knew where we were going; the content now had clarity. Knowing where a piece is “going” brings new energy into the edit room.

And once you clearly understand who your target audience is and what you want to tell them, everything else falls into place.

Dancing About Architecture

Bob Burnett: I was once kiddingly called an “Urban Planning Geek” while serving as a Planning Commissioner in my community. And I proudly admit to being one. I take great interest in observing traffic patterns and parking. I also like to chat about “floor area ratio” and “building fenestration”.

Excellent building fenestration!

Part of the reason I’ve become so planningcentric is because GVI has created video projects about planning, architecture, affordable housing, school design, green buildings, new urbanism, etc. for the American Architectural Foundation, The US Conference of Mayors and the National Association of REALTORS among others. I’ve been able to talk to incredible people and see fascinating places. Imagine my surprise when on a recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City I came across a video monitor that was playing a multimedia presentation called “Picture a City”.

It was amazing. Here among some of my favorite artwork in the world I found myself smitten by a planning video.

To make “Picture a City”, Squint/Opera, a group of urban design savvy filmmakers/animators out of London, merged together urban planning ideas with graphic design, music, video and still photography to make a short video-styled communication tool that advocates a new approach to thinking how the city of Bradford, England should redevelop in the future. That’s right—a less than 5 minute music-driven presentation without a narration track that made perfect sense and inspired action. And in addition to being used as an effective communication tool for Bradford I had to pinch myself because I was watching it in the Museum of Modern Art! I know the late Frank Zappa once snidely said, ”talking about music is like dancing about architecture” but he never saw visual dancing about architecture that is possible the way it is now. In a production idea dancing happens when you allow the visual elements to lead the way. Your viewer is able to absorb and interpret the content – and come to their own understanding of the information in new and interesting ways they may never have considered. No white paper, cluttered 25 bullet-item powerpoint or panel discussion video will ever capture that sort of fresh thinking.

We recently produced a video called “Schools Designed for Learning: The Denver School of Science and Technology”. Like the Bradford approach taken by Squint/Opera, the video lets the information unravel—driven by images of the school, music and the thoughts of the teachers, students and administrators of the school. I can proudly say the universal reaction has been “I wish I went to a school like that!” which is music to my architecturally dancing ears.

And best of all the video has been available not just as a DVD but as a streaming video on the American Architectural Foundation’s webpage and is on youtube where organizations and people around the world are linking their blogs and webpages to the video as an example of positive school design.

Dinosaurs

Okay, so they were big and lumbering, mean and nasty and almost nobody likes them after the age of 12. What does it mean to be a dinosaur? Stuck in the old ways, irrelevant and, oh yeah, bound for the bone yard.

So when Rich Silverstein, adman and image wizard (his agency did the “Got Milk?” campaign) says “no client wants an agency that’s a dinosaur” who could argue? Here’s what he said in last week’s WSJ, “No client wants an agency that’s a dinosaur, and you have to be relevant. To stay relevant, you have to do new work for different types of clients.”

Part of what Rich was talking about was the importance of working on different kinds of projects for different kinds of clients. I totally agree with that. One thing that makes working at GVI fun is the variety of clients and projects we deal with over the course of a year. A quick glance at the Portfolio page of our website will show you what I mean: http://www.g-v-i.com/pages/portfolio.asp

Practically speaking the videos you’ll see there come from working in many different styles. Some projects are fast-paced, zippy and fun. Others are more serene, with a touch of elegance. One is somber and perhaps a little surreal, another takes us back in time to the Gilded Age. There are educational pieces, profiles, explorations of art and the artist and people-centered documentaries. What you won’t see there is a typical “GVI style.”
The issues we confront may be similar, but the solutions are quite varied. So maybe we’re more like chameleons than dinosaurs.

Because how we approach each project is based on the audience and what we need to accomplish. That’s really the key. And then we work on shaping a program and message to meet those goals.

And that’s my second take on all this. Because I think many of the old dinosaur values still apply. People still respond to work that looks good and addresses their needs and interests. And I still begin each project the same old way: I listen, reflect and then offer my best judgment on the way forward. But when I do the work, I like coming up with a different approach or trying something I haven’t done before. And I look for ways to keep the piece fresh and vital.
So maybe being a dinosaur isn’t all bad — as long as you stay light on your toes.

The Moment

Short videos for the internet, ipods and cell phones are pretty popular at the moment. Their small image and file sizes suit the technology and their length matches our short attention spans. I think the reason we watch them is that they attempt to capture a “moment” and if they succeed, we’re drawn in and amused, intrigued or outraged. And, of course, we send them on to our friends, relatives and co-workers.

Capturing a moment – or a series of moments – is the key to creating any video. It’s how we engage the audience so they’ll be receptive to the larger messages we’re looking to get across. It’s something we spend a lot of time on when we produce our programs.

We also spend a lot of time sifting through the latest news, trends, techniques and possibilities for using, creating and distributing video. We’ve started this blog to share our ideas on these subjects and hope that the moments you spend with us are helpful to you.