People are always excited about building a new web site. In the early phases of site development, they dream of how the site will transform their organization leading to a golden era of publishing/selling/consulting/etc. Then, the site goes live, and it just sits there. This is true even when the site is "dynamic", and easy to update. Why is this?
The reason is that most staff think of adding web site content as an
extra task. The web site is not an integral part of how they do their
real work. It is an extra showcase, an after-thought. This web site avoidance is a difficult behavior to overcome, and simply telling staff that the web site is
important is not enough.
I have found that the only thing that works to change staff attitudes about the web site is to have the staff of your organization get their hands dirty on the "back-end" of the site. This can be accomplished, quite painlessly, with a Group Blog authored by any and all staff members. Once staff are comfortable with the Group Blog, adding and updating other parts of the web site naturally follows. The site, in general, feels more like a valuable tool, and less like a superfluous appendage.
Group Blogs provide a means for staff to share their thoughts and ideas. At best they are a perpetual brainstorming session, that is fully archived and interactive. The blog in which
this article appears, "Best Practices", contains posts that are more like "articles", and these types of postings take time and planning. This is not necessarily the type of post I would recommend for the Group Blog.
Rather, it is best to encourage staff to do the following:
- Publicize Discoveries: How often do we find ourselves browsing on the web and reading an article or visiting a web site that makes us think, "that is what we should be doing." Well, that is exactly the type of post that is perfect for the Group Blog. Each time any staff member stumbles upon anything of interest, why not take a moment to alert the rest of the group about the discovery? In a healthy organization, discovery alerts can be competitive (in a good way), leading to more and more content (and valuable ideas for your organization).
- Promote Your Work: The Group Blog is a great place to update others to what you are working on. This practice not only acts as a means of spreading knowledge, it also is helpful to the author of the blog post. As we all know, summarizing your work in writing helps to clarify sticking points, and exposes weak points.
- Ask Questions: Why not use the Group Blog as an internal support system? Have staff members write about the aspects of their work that are causing the most trouble. Allow the group to respond. You will be amazed how effective this technique can be.
The Group Blog can be public, private or semi-private. In some cases you may want the public to be able to read the posts, as this is a great way of attracting attention to your organization. In other words, let the world see how smart you are. In other cases, you may desire that the content of the blog remain completely private to your organization. Finally, you can apply a mixed-mode of security, allowing certain posts to be public and others to remain private.
Here are a few great examples of Group Blogs in action:
Multimedia clips have exploded on the web over the past two years, thanks mostly to the the Flash Video Format made popular on YouTube. This format is the first of its kind that is hassle-free for the web site user. There are no players or codecs to install; no cumbersome user agreements to negotiate with "Real Player", etc. It just works, and anytime that happens, technology becomes compelling.
I am very excited about the use of multimedia presentations for the academic publishing world, and in this post I want to discuss some strategies that might be employed to bring more of them into web sites that are traditionally text-heavy.
What is Multimedia?
If you have used PowerPoint over the past decade, then you have had a foray into multimedia presentations. These types of presentations tend to mix together text, images, video, audio, charts, figures, etc. They can be done well, and as we all know, they can be mind-numbingly bad. I hope to show how to approximate the former in this post.
When to Employ Multimedia
Multimedia presentations work well when...
- you want to convey broad themes. A traditional abstract or summary can be replaced with a 2- to 5-minute multimedia synopsis.
- you want to appeal to the novice. While other experts in your field will typically want to concentrate on the details of your work, outsiders and novice academics, will appreciate the broader themes and slick production. The fact that you have translated your ideas into a format other than pure text will give the impression that your work is approachable.
Still not convinced,
take a look at the success Al Gore had with this technique. He was able to translate complex scientific prose into attractive moving imagery, and it won him a Nobel Prize and an Oscar!
My favorite multimedia presentation,
The Story of Stuff is worth a view both for its content and as an example of this format. Keep in mind that this was done by professionals, and the quality is top-notch. What is important is to understandis the impact this format has on the viewer. Picture this same content presented in a research article, and you will quickly comprehend the difference.
How to Employ Multimedia
Making professional quality multimedia presentations is hard work. It is just as difficult to produce a compelling slide show as it is to write compelling text. The following are some broad guidelines that make the task a bit more approachable for the novice.
Storyboard Your Ideas
Before you begin using any of the tools mentioned below, you must have an outline of your presentation fully prepared. Too many people move directly into the slide show tool, without a plan as to what slides should appear in the presentation, and it what order.
This can be accomplished using Microsoft Word, or any similar program. Simply turn on bullets or auto-numbering, and begin to take notes on your presentation, outline each "slide" as follows:
- Slide 1: Introduction
- Slide Text
- Point number 1
- point number 2
- point number 3
- Slide Image
- Picture of earth from space
- Slide Audio
- Theme from Star Wars
- Notes
- Make sure we catch the attention of the audience -- see if we can make the image of the earth start small and gradually become larger.
- Slide 2: Your Home
For each slide, we plan the text, images, audio, special effects, etc. By the time we open the tool that will produce this presentation, we already know what items we need, and in what order they go together.
Tools that Make it Come Together
KeyNote: Let me make this as simple as I can. Get yourself access to a new Mac that has
the latest version of KeyNote installed. For an overview of how KeyNote works,
check the Mac website for easy-to-follow tutorials. This tool is intuitive and the results are beautiful. Best yet, your presentations can be saved in the Flash Video Format mentioned above, and easily shared over the web.
PowerPoint: especially the latest versions (2007) does get the job done, but the program is not as fun to use as KeyNote, and the built-in effects tend to be
hoaky and a bit staid. This tool seems to have been built to provide the year-end budget report, as opposed to a multimedia presentation that will excite your audience. Unless you are really good with PowerPoint, your presentations will look like the PC guy (right) as opposed to the Mac Guy (above). If that is your desired outcome, this is the tool for you!
Here is a great article in Forbes that compares the two programs, and here is
another from Wikipedia.
Getting Your Presentations on the Web
I have been experimenting with different third-party tools for hosting and organizing multimedia presentations, and the winner is...
BrightCove.
BrightCove will...
- host your videos and multimedia files (for free, although if your content is popular BrightCove may advertise before and after your presentations -- learn more about the free (ad-supported) model.
- Have your presentations play on a customized player, that looks very professional.
- Link multiple presentations together into "line-ups" that allow your viewers to quickly move from one presentation to another.
Examples of sites using BrightCove to distribute their multimedia Content:
As is the case with Slate V, the BrightCove player and lineup queue can be integrated into your site in a seamless manner.
Conclusion
Creating, producing, and publishing multimedia presentations has finally become easy enough that there are no longer any excuses for not using these multimedia formats.
If you want to get started with your own multimedia presentations, give us a call (401) 709-2462 to discuss the possibilities.