I'll be teaching two workshops on social media for Future Media Concepts. These are targeted at business folks of all types who want to learn social media in a practical way.

Description: When used correctly, social media tools can help you reach potential customers and keep your current clients engaged and interested. In this informative session you'll learn practical advice that can be implemented immediately, such as:

• Using Twitter to share your latest news & keep in touch with your best customers
• How to set up a corporate page on Facebook to share video, photos, & info
• Keeping your business leads up to date with LinkedIn
• Creating enjoyable blog posts and content for your readers

1. If you love Gmail.... you'll probably like it.
2. It seems to want to put Facebook and Picassa front and center.
3. I don't like that it tries to "help" you and automatically follows the people you email the most. Just because I email a client a lot does NOT mean I want to follow them (or them me). A lot of clients do socialize with me via Facebook, but that is a CHOICE. Do not make decisions for me.
4. It imports Twitter.... I wonder how they feel about that? Wouldn't be surprised if they blocked it. Same thing with flickr (a Yahoo property).
5. I love Facebook and Twitter... but they are VERY different. This seems to be trying to be "both and more." When is that a good thing?
6. "Buzz recommends interesting posts and weeds out ones you're likely to skip." Uh-huh... just like those incredibly effective Google Ads you sere up when I do a search that have little to NOTHING to do with what I'm interested in?
7. It seems to be Google Wave... take 2. Except Google Wave is still around. I got an invite... but only a few people I know use it. Unlike say Facebook.

1. Uploading Your Presentation – It can be a PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Keynote, or PDF file. Your presentation file should not be password protected and be sure to remove any macros. Not all fonts supported (but you can convert to PDF). Be sure the file is less than 100MB.
2. Converting Your Presentation – The second step is converting the file to SlideShare’s sharing format. Once uploaded, the file is placed in the conversion queue (this might take a while). You can leave the page and come back later... If there was an error you will need to go to the
   “My Slidespace/Edit All” to find the files that were not successfully converted.
3. Creating a Slidecast– Slidecasting is a multimedia format from SlideShare. Any slide deck can be synced with an audio file.
4. Put it all Together – Use the synchronization tools to mix audio and slides.
5. Publish the presentation.

• Four Days of Sessions in Multiple Tracks.
• Award-Winning Keynote Speakers.
• Daily Social Networking with Experts.
• Numerous Prizes.

• New Media Boot Camp – slides
• Facebook 101– Why all the Buzz? – slides
• Podcasting and Government – slides
• Blogging to Reach an Audience – Does Anyone Care What You Have to Say – slides
• It’s all About Mobility – Reaching Audiences on the Go – slides
• Producing Video for the Web – Best Practices for Big Results – slides

• Slides
• Book
• Website
• Podcast

• Book
• Website
• DVD
• Podcast

• Slides
• Book
• Website
• Podcast

• Standby Time – Up to 350 hours
• Talk Time – 6 additional hours on 3G | 12 hours on 2G
• Internet Use – 6 additional hours on 3G | 7 hours on Wi-Fi
• Audio Playback – 28 additional hours
• Video Playback – 8 additional hours

“The really great thing about this feature, from our perspective as designers and developers, is how simple it is to accomplish and manage. If the timing is out or a caption is wrong, you simply change a few words or numbers in the XML file.”

• "What is HD?"
• RAID

• Production
• Post-Production

• Distribution

#1 – Build It Right

#2 – Make a template

1. Have an empty document open sized for your editing system (see above).
2. Create a new (empty) layer, and name it Safe Title Area.
3. Select All by pressing Cmd+A (Ctrl+A).
4. Scale the active selection to 80% by choosing Select>Transform Selection, and then typing in 80% in the Options bar for width and height. Press Return (Enter).
5. Load red as the foreground color. Then choose Edit>Stroke and specify four pixels centered. This is the title safe area.
6. Lock the Safe Area Overlay layer by clicking on the Lock icon in the layer’s palette.
7. Save your work.

#3 – Pick a cool font

• SERIF vs SANS-SERIF: Serifs are the little hooks on type. Serifed type (think Times) uses thick and thin strokes. Sans-Serif (think Helvetica) uses even-weighted strokes. Sans Serif usually reads better for video. If using serifed fonts, look for a bold or black version and avoid lines thinner that 3-pixels.
• Style: Write 10 – 20 words down that describe your video. Get input from your client too. Use these words for guidance when looking at fonts.
• Free or Paid: Free fonts (and overly cheap) fonts often have partial character sets. This may be an issue if you need special symbols (such as & ™ © or • ). You get what you pay for, but don’t worry, several independent font foundries sell great fonts for less than $25 per font.
• Keep it in the Family: Some fonts belong to families (regular, bold, black, italic, etc). This is useful as you can use one font family and mix styles. This leads to a consistent design in your titles. If you want to mix fonts NEVER use more then two fonts in a title graphic.
• Format: Many fonts come in different formats. Macs have historically used Postscript while PCs have used TrueType. Macintosh OSX can now read many “PC” true type fonts with no problem. A new format OpenType is also starting to pop up for sale.
• Kerning: Some professional fonts have had the spacing between characters carefully tweaked. This balanciong is called pair kerning. If your type appears improperly balanced you will need to kern it. Move between characters using the left and right arrows. Hold down the Option key (Alt key) and press the left and right arrows to tighten or loosen pair-kerning.

#4 – Use good color

• Avoid highly saturated colors. Bright reds and yellows will cause problems in video.
• Use contrasting colors; if you were to use a color wheel, these would be colors opposite each other. If you want to use three colors, draw a triangle on the color wheel. Digital Anarchy sells a great product called ColorTheory that makes it easy to pick color combinations for two or more colors.
• Pick up the Pantone book on color trends. This book offers interesting color combinations that always seem to end up the latest fashion.
• Mix light and dark colors to maintain contrast. Dark on dark and light on light are VERY hard to read.
• Use a contrasting edge on your type (such as a shadow or glow). This will improve readability.

#5 – Make it layered

• Use photos of textures in your bars. I often take pictures of light, reflections, lighting, water waves, etc. and mix these in with my graphics to add a natural depth. Simply place the texture above your bar and press Cmd + G (Ctrl + G) to group it. The texture is now applied just to the bar area below.
• Use blending modes to achieve better looks. This is perhaps Photoshop’s coolest feature. While you can pick them from a list in the layer’s palette, I find it easier just to experiment. Highlight the layer you want to blend, pick the move tool (V), then press Shift + + or Shift + - to cycle through blend modes. Experiment, have fun, trust me it works!
• Use layer masks to blend layers together. Use black and white gradients on your layer masks to create smooth transitions in mixing layers.
• Fill an empty layer above your bar with a solid color or gradient. Tint your bar by setting this layer to the Color or Hue blending mode.

Project Scoping Document

• Project Name
• Executive Summary
• Background
• Project Scope (High Level)

• Project Objectives
• Deliverables
• Organizations
• Interfaces Required
• Assumptions
• Constraints
• Evaluation Criteria
• Risks
• Rewards
• Budgets
• Schedules (Due Dates)
• Project Team Readiness

• Key Roles

• Executive Sponsor
• Project Manager
• Business Experts
• Technical Experts

• Signature Lines - Sign Off “Charter”

Project Planning Sheet – Website

Objectives

Administrative

• Material that has already been captioned for TV viewing
• Live programming
• Video that is "generally considered to be comparable to programming provided by multichannel programming distributors."

Most video RSS aggregators will pull the most recent episodes of a show, which is great for news and magazine-style shows. But for story-based shows, viewers really want to start from the beginning, in order to follow the story arcs and character developments. When you subscribe to a show in Adobe Media Player, you can choose to either pull the N most recent episodes, or choose to pull N episodes starting with a specific episode, usually the first one. And of course you can change these settings, on a per-show basis, at any time.”
Be sure to check it out.

• Flash Video is getting really popular
• The Adobe Media Player will be easier for corporations, schools, and government to use due to Adobe's greater acceptance over Apple (and especially iTunes).
• The media player supports several models that are attractive to content creators
• The media player supports very rich statistics on media consumption
• The application is going to move onto all sorts of devices and platforms in the near future.
• If you are a podcaster... I predict the Adobe Media Player will have as great of an impact as iTunes did on podcast consumption.

• Related Links:
• http://www.walmartfacts.com/articles/5673.aspx
• http://tinyurl.com/2wn5fe (Hollywood Reporter)
• http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2008/02/15/wal-mart-drops-hd-dvd%3B-toshiba-expected-pull-plug

• Podfading seems to be a minor problem at the moment
• The European podosphere is commercially less ambitious
• Podcasting is not only attracting "techies"
• Podcasting is about identity and relationship management
• Most are interested in sharing information and expressing of opinions

• “Edit in the Camera.” Encourage short answers and come back to topics again. Better to focus on good, tight answers than trying to cobble together six takes to make your point.
• Avoid enumeration or the phrase “Like I said before.” It is highly likely that you will use only part of the answer (such as step three, without steps one and two).
• Ask leading, open-ended questions… being sure to ask a single question only.
• Don’t be afraid to stop and start over. Do not let an answer ramble on. Smiles and nods encourage subjects that they are ‘on-target’ and can stop trying to talk themselves out of a corner.