Why Today’s Students are Primed For the Conceptual Age

I’m reading Daniel H. Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future”. In it, Pink presents some really compelling reasons why we are moving out of the Information Age of the last half of the 20th century and into the Conceptual Age, where success is going to be less based on “book smarts” or left-brained thinking and more based on high concept, high touch right-brained skills like design and creative writing.

This excellent book ties in nicely to some recent observations I’ve made.

We have three co-op students working with us right now, they attend Algonquin College’s Interactive Multimedia Developer program. In addition, we have a video editor/shooter freelancing with us, he is a recent grad of the Television Broadcasting Program at Loyalist College. Coincidentally, I am a graduate of both programs. I graduated in 1990 from the TV Broadcasting Program and 1997 from the Multimedia Program. Aside from tremendously dating myself with that claim, the comparison between where I was at upon graduation from these courses and where these guys are at is quite remarkable.

The work that these recent grads are able to produce is impressive, to say the least. They design, shoot and edit like people who have been in the business for years, and their work ethic is terrific. They take initiative and are excellent problem solvers. I would have no issue with leaving them in a room full of clients to represent us.

I’ve been wondering what is so different about these guys. Why did I seem so unprepared when I graduated from college? And the other day it dawned on me. These young guys were born in the late 1980s. When computers and the internet started to get popular in 1996-98, these kids were only about 10 years old. That means that they have been using computers and the Internet for a large portion of their lives. They are of the generation that learned about web site design in high school. And, they have probably always had access to some sort of video recording equipment, be it their parents’ Handycam or a camera at their high school.

By comparison, my first computer course was offered when I was in 10th grade, and it was pretty useless (BASIC programming and WordPerfect version 1.2). Personal video cameras in those days cost about $2000 and weren’t really marketed to the average consumer. Serious hobbyists like my Dad were the only ones that bought them, which was fortunate for me as a budding TV producer at the ripe old age of 15. My brother first showed me the Internet in 1996, when I was 26 years old and had already had 1 career under my belt.

My point is, young people today are FAR more experienced with technology by the time they hit college because they have been dealing with it their whole lives. These days, college really only serves to streamline their knowledge, give them some practice and issue them a piece of paper – still good things to have, but definitely a different spin than when I was in college.

What does this mean as an employer? When I graduated from TV school there was NO WAY I would have gotten any more than a gofer job at a network TV station. Nowadays, students are graduating from college and jumping right in to decent entry level jobs at good agencies doing real design, development and production work. Why? Because the average college graduate, at 22 years of age, probably already has 10 or 12 years of experience working with computers, designing their own web sites and making their own videos. As time goes on, this trend will become even more obvious. Why? because I expect my 7 year old nephew to start making his own web site any day – and he’s already a better cameraperson than me.

It’s not just the Conceptual Age, people…it’s the Conceptual Generation.

Techniques for Giving a Good Interview

This is a great article from mediacollege.com containing tips and techniques on how to interview people well. A good resource for anyone doing interviews for podcasts, documentaries or other media projects.

If there’s anything I’ve learned after 18 years of producing media in various forms, it’s that a good interview can make or break a piece. I’ve worked with some super-talented on-air people over the years and I learned almost everything I know about interviewing from them. Why? Because they were able to quickly establish a rapport with their subjects and draw out precisely the information that was needed for the piece.

These techniques are not difficult to learn, but they are crucial to the success of your projects.

Anyone have a great interviewing tip they want to share? Please comment!

First Kick At the Cat Productions

My brother, Mike has been making amateur videos for quite some time and uploading them to the Internet. He’s into antique restoration and has done a series on restoring an antique radio, and has also done some fun stuff using his two boys as subjects. They are pretty good little actors, too! You can check out his stuff on YouTube . I am trying to convince him to set u a blog to showcase his work, as these days YouTube only gets you so far, and the quality is pretty lousy, compared to Viddler. or blip.tv.

His latest production is a video that he put together for my parents’ Square Dancing Troupe, The Village Squares.

We’ve decided to post it not only on YouTube, but on blip.tv and Viddler as well. It’s a great little promotional piece about Square Dancing in general, which is a great social and physical activity. The Village Squares attract mostly the senior set, but I’ve noticed since working on this project and checking out other square dance groups that it’s definitely catching on in the younger set too. However, you will not catch me dosado-ing any time soon, I am WAY too uncoordinated. I’ll stick to videography, thanks.

The Village Squares approached Mike about doing a little promotional video for them, and he enlisted my help to do some of the videography. It was a fancy, two camcorder shoot! But my bro gets all the credit for the editing and directing. I think he’s done a terrific job of it! So here is the debut of the Village Squares on the Internet, done by First Kick At the Cat Productions.

Ok I can’t get the video embed to work, if anyone has any suggestions let me know, but you can see the actual video here on Viddler.

Just a note about my folks. In addition to the square dancing, they are definitely web-savvy seniors. A few years ago I taught my Dad HTML and Dreamweaver and he picked it up quick! He is now the webmaster for the Village Squares web site. My Dad is a webmaster, digital photographer and a madman in Paint Shop Pro (he knows more about how to use it than I do, for sure). My Mom is an expert Facebooker and Instant Messager. They are a great example of seniors making the most of the Internet.

Making a Brand for Yourself

Here’s a guy that totally gets it. Gary Vaynerchuk, of winelibrary.tv didn’t just throw up a little web site with a few videos on it and then sit back and wait for it to go viral. He didn’t think – “gosh, nobody else is talking about wine on the Web”, because he KNEW that lots of people are out there talking about wine on the Web. Instead, he developed a brand – HIMSELF.

10,000 of the people who watch his show don’t know or care anything about wine. But they are interested in Gary. Why? I think it’s because he is not at all the kind of personality that is normally associated with a wine expert. He’s loud, bold, and cusses a lot. His abundant enthusiasm for the subject of wine is enough to draw you in, and his personality gets you hooked. The implementation of his site is fantastic. First, he’s using Viddler, my favourite new video app. Second, his site is all about how you can link up and connect with him. I follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Viddler , I subscribe to the RSS feed for his show so it’s in my Google Reader, and if I wanted to I could follow him on LinkedIN, Pownce and Cork’d too. What does this mean? He’s EVERYWHERE! I can’t go a day without seeing some sort of update from the guy. And that doesn’t even count all of the other blog posts he’s appearing in these days.

Here’s what I find really interesting about the success he’s had with the Gary Vaynerchuk brand (besides the fact that now just about everyone can spell “Vaynerchuk”). He’s had to get an agent. Mainstream media is noticing him and putting him on their shows (Ellen, Nightline, Conan, to name a few). Hollywood is calling about doing reality TV shows. As he says, mainstream media is beginning to source its new talent from the web.

It’s like an open casting call out here on the Internet right now. You can be sure that the talent scouts are spending more time surfing YouTube and vlog posts than ever before. But I don’t think they are necessarily looking for the next big talent. They are looking for people who are making a brand for themselves and building their audience based on that brand.

What does it mean to content producers? The time to start building your brand is NOW. Quick, before someone else does it.

Watch what Gary has to say about this here:

Give Choices to your Users

I am trying to sign up for a LinkedIn account and I’m already frustrated.

I hate it when you try to sign up for something, and they ask you about your business, what you do, and then give you a pre-populated list of jobs or industries to choose from, and the thing you do is not on the list.

Here is what my company, Jester Creative (web site under construction, come back and click next week!) does:

Broadcast Television Production
Corporate Videos
TV Commercials
Wedding and Celebration Videos
Real Estate Videos
Web Site Design
Graphic Design
Promotions and Publicity
Interactive DVD/CD-ROM Production
Presentations
Training Development

It’s a long, diverse list. But that’s what sets us apart. We are more than just video production. We provide the full package for our clients.

But if I’m expected to try to find a way to fit my list into some list of jobs that are typical (medical, construction, travel, blah blah blah) then I’m sunk. There isn’t even a category for New Media on the list, and this is supposed to be Web 2.0?

If you are designing a site and want information from your users, then give them the right options. If you don’t want a list of 200 industries, I totally understand. But give the option to choose “Other” and then let me decide what I do for a living.

Oh, and if you are populating a list of colleges – make sure you include them all. One of the colleges I attended is not on the list either!

Okay so I’m not going to boycott LinkedIn or anything – I hear from lots of people it’s a worthwhile thing to do. But I just had to vent on this one, it happens to me all the time.

Passions

After a somewhat marathon session of editing, I am home, feeling contented, relaxed and confident.

I had forgotten how much I love editing video. It’s been a few years since I’ve edited anything of substance. And it’s definitely a new experience for me using this new-fangled computer equipment.

You see, I’m an old timer. Back in my TV days, I used to edit tape to tape, in a bare bones environment. I was lucky if I had a video switcher somewhere in the middle to do a dissolve or a fade to black. I only had 2 channels of audio at the best of times. It was pretty hard work, but I am still very proud of the stuff I created back then. Even won some awards doing it. Someday I will digitize all those old Betacam SP tapes sitting on my bookshelf and show it off.

Digital video is a relatively new concept to me. Funny, when most people I know now who do video have only ever done it in the digital sphere. What I am learning, though, as I start to get used to my Final Cut Express software, is that the basics are still the same.

Back in the day, I was really good at making a 1 camera shoot look like it was shot with 3 cameras. Today, I learned that I haven’t lost my touch. (It’s all in the way you shoot it, by the way). I also used to have a great sense of flow and timing. Again, that has not gone away with my transition to the non-linear editing realm.

I guess that’s what it’s like when you are passionate about something. No matter how long you are away from it, you never really forget it. You can just pick it up, like it was yesterday, and get back in the groove. And, I have to say, I’m pretty damn happy that I’m getting my groove back.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is, when you find that thing you are passionate about, hang onto it. I lost my passion for a time, but I think it was because there were other things I had to learn in order to turn my passion into a successful business. Now that I’ve learned that bit, I’m very much looking forward to living the passion. And I’m definitely looking forward to all the new things I’m going to learn in the process.