Des Moines Business Record Piece on createWOWmedia
June 21, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I was very happy when I started receiving calls, emails, and tweets about an article that just hit the Des Moines Business Record titled “createWOWmedia Nurtures Online Findability“. I think author Joe Gardyasz did a great job synthesizing 1.5 hours of interview in a piece that highlighted how we leverage social and interactive tools…and more importantly how our clients use them and thrive with them.
The word “nuture” is something we take very seriously. Anyone who’s heard me speak knows that I represent a firm’s online efforts with a picture of cupped hands, holding a seedling in a mound of soil. That seedling represents your online world…and you must provide the proper elements like fresh content, participation in online community, multimedia, etc. to thrive and grow.
I’m also humbled by the comments from our clients highlight in the article Boesen the Florist and Nutrisport – Full Potential Training. Tom Boesen and Ryan Irwin said some very nice things about our work and I am sincerely humbled and grateful.
Take look for yourself if you’d like and thank you for making our work a sincere pleasure. http://bit.ly/bizrecord
Building a Better PowerPoint
April 22, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Are you ready to build a better PointPoint and absolutely make your audience gasp at your awesomeness? Well I’m not the guy to ask about the first part. I do pretty well with PowerPoint and Keynote in that I don’t use a lot of words. I have a formula for delivering more compelling presentations that breed engagement and interaction vs. note taking and word reading. If you want to know how to make unbelievable presentations regardless of context read the Rapid E Learning blog. But to get the audience thinking your’re awesome…here’s my formula.
- Script your entire presentation. (GASP!) “But what about spontaneity?” Don’t worry, you won’t read it verbatim when you give it…but I’ve found scripting as though I’m writing a book opens my mind and forces me to refine my message.
- Now, build imagery for your presentation around the refined and scripted document. You may riff for a paragraph on “The top 3 things to remember when using Twitter for Business”, but you don’t need to bullet point them and use lots of words, use a picture and a couple words to represent what you’re saying. This is fun and makes you think about how your viewers/participants/watchers will engage. This takes their mind off of writing and makes them more active listeners.
- Now the awesomeness – Record audio of the presentation using your script. Give the presentation behind the mic like you would in person! Inflect! It takes 5X the emotion behind the mic to equal you and body language so don’t slack.
- Use Apple iMovie or the PC equivalent of your choice to place your slides (exported as images) into the timeline along with your imported audio using clean and simple transitions. Export the entire presentation as a movie.
- Or, skip step 3 and use the narration function in your presentation software where you can talk and advance slides while it records the entire deal.
- Now, if this presentation is specific to an audience and you’ve done this specifically for them…in their context, upload this new movie to a hosting service like Viddler and make the video private and give out the TOP secret URL to the attendees only.
- Or, if you have a WordPress based site, you could protect the page and give out a password to the attendees (native functionality in WordPress).
- If you go a step further, you could use your membership based Interactive Learning Environment to capture emails to obtain the private video. This all depends on what you and the audience and your hosts are trying to accomplish. If it’s a public or more generic piece…then use your usual suspects for video/slide hosting.
Now you’ve provided the audience with a magical multimedia experience to go back to without worrying about note taking. This model works very well and people are typically impressed and blown away that you’d put such effort into making their lives easier. Let me know how it works for you.
ADDED EXTRA BONUS – If the information/content in your presentation is private post the doc on your scribd page, and put the audio up as a podcast, put the slide images in Flickr, perhaps video your actually presentation and upload it socially, embed your video/recorded presentation in a blog post…which feeds Facebook, Twitter…etc. Now you’ve hit at least 6-10 content outposts in additional to your personal speaking gig. Every chance to speak publicly is a chance to generate massive online organic findability. Don’t waste your chance!
Podcast with Daniel Shipton of Impromptu Studio
January 14, 2009 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
Here at create WOW media, we’re proud to have just moved into the shiny new studio at Impromptu Studio on SW 5th St. in Des Moines. The studio is taking shape and we now are fully operational in the audio booth with capacity for up to 5 simultaneous people. That means YOU can conduct your own company podcasts, you can interview clients for audio testimonials, or conduct multi-voice voice overs for presentations, etc. Additionally, we’ve perfected the art of recording calls via skype. You don’t need to know about the technology. Just think about having a client call a phone number, and you end up with a studio quality conversation produced into a high powered testimonial for your products/services. Photos and live streaming coming very shortly!
We invite you to email us or call us and come by for a quick tour. We appreciate your continued support and would like to again thank Daniel Shipton @ImpromptuStudio for his support and assistance.
Take a listen to a quick chat we had this morning about the studio and what it means to the Des Moines business community and beyond.
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Interview with Daniel Shipton of Impromptu Studio [9:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (203)Inaugural episode of new weekly podcast – “Managing the Edge” is now live
January 12, 2009 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
I’m blessed to have an amazing sphere of friends and talent orbiting the create WOW media mothership. One such uber dude is Andy Brudtkuhl (that’s BROOD-COOL). You won’t hear him correct me on that during the podcast…due to the magic of editing software! Look at how that name is spelled for goodness sake. Huh???
Andy runs 48Web, a Web Strategy consultancy in town. Among the zillions of things Andy does, one is to lay out excellent-tangible-actionable web strategy plans. Andy’s services are very complimentary to createWOWmedia’s and we often collaborate heavily on projects.
createWOWmedia focuses on deploying infrastructure, coaching the reasons why we need to organically grow our findability, and amplifying online brands through rich multimedia (walk on video + green screen video + podcasts + custom music). While 48Web lays out what we need to do each week to be successful, what technologies need to be deployed, and how much time we can expect to devote to each per week. (SEO + analytics + budgeting + hosting) etc.
Bottom line, this Podcast called Managing the Edge will be a weekly MEGA value informational powerhouse for the premium price of ZERO bucks.
I’d recommend subscribing to the Managing the Edge Podcast Feed so you’re in the know. As always, your comments, feedback, suggestions, and mojo are welcome. I’ve embedded the podcast below but please, subscribe to the Podcast feed to ensure delivery every time.
Thanks for listening.
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Doing less with more in 2009
December 17, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 5 Comments
We talk quite a bit about doing more with less. Our clients and potential clients are seeking higher return on investment, measurability, and increased Internet Findability. Online marketing/blogging/video provides all of these in one nicely wrapped package.
B2B Magazine just had a feature outlining some goals/strategies/deliverables they believe will be key for companies in 2009. It’s a great read. We especially like 2nd and 7th topics on the list.
Leveraging social marketing
However you define social marketing, this piece is critical. Start with a blogging foundation and build your social marketing strategy around that. Maybe for you Twitter and Facebook are where you need to be. Focus your efforts and get to providing value to the market. Join the conversation.
Video explosion
We couldn’t agree more. As Google begins to integrate video results into “normal search results” you want to be there! When someone searches on “Plumber Des Moines” and there’s a nicely produced video showing what it’s really like to do business with you, your odds just went up.
Let the other guys spend their money being a bigger part of that monstrosity that killed a bunch of trees and gathers dust we used to call a phone book.
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Maximizing email newsletter subscribers with aweber.com
December 16, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
So if you’ve visited us for the first time, you probably were confronted within 5 seconds with an “email subscribe” box and a grayed out site. This is a nifty feature in the email marketing system from aweber. (we are an affiliate and this is an affiliate link because we believe strongly in this product and recommend it heavily). Some people probably find this “insta-pop” annoying. We understand. We’re assuming that you have limited time so we’re giving you a quick out, in exchange for permission to market to you. Straight forward we think.
The proof is in the pudding. Email subscriptions up 500%. We hope you’ll subscribe too. There’s a box down by the comments of this post if you’d care to join our little small and medium sized business online branding revolution.
Leveraging an email marketing system is a MUST if you’re planning to amplify your brand. Aweber goes a long way to helping companies do this in a non-technical/non-threatening way.
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The future of news – the self sufficient multimedia reporter
December 15, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
We’re seeing television stations move to a model where the individual reporter shows up on scene, shoots footage, edits, produces, and delivers his or her content to the audience. We call this being multi-talented but if you read this article from the Washington Post on the topic, you’ll get a feel for how expensive the traditional field news report model has been in the past.
Here’s a quote from the TV station WUSA who’s executing this cost cutting business model.
“We believe strongly that [this change] will raise both the quality and quantity of the product we’re putting out” on TV and on the Internet, said Allan Horlick, the president and general manager of WUSA, in an interview yesterday. “The concept of a multimedia journalist, having his own beat, with an area of expertise, and a limitless virtual news desk is something we can get very excited about.”
Notice the positive tone and happiness. Now for a different take:
Veteran TV journalists say their concern isn’t the quantity of news that can be produced but the quality, because not all TV journalists are skilled enough to do a job formerly handled by specialists.
“There are some people who will be very good at this, and some not as much,” said Bill Lord, WJLA’s news director. “If you’re forcing everyone to do things against their skill levels and desire, your product suffers.”
Another veteran reporter says:
“It takes a lot of time to shoot and edit and write and prepare a story, and if you have one person doing all that, something has to give,” he said yesterday. “For those people who want to take the challenge of adding all that to their workload, my hat’s off to them. But it’s not something at my ripe old age that I care to venture into.”
I pose the question, when will stations pare back further and include freelance multimedia journalists who produce excellent content and get paid on a per story basis? Maybe someone can cut the reporting staff by 50% and produce more/better/relevant/engaging/and well produced content for half the investment?
Perhaps this is the ultimate destination of the hyperlocal news stream concept?
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Audio and Video of Doug Mitchell’s “Increasing Your Internet Findability Factor” Session
December 2, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 2 Comments
I was honored to speak in front of the New Iowa Entrepreneurs Meetup group last Wednesday evening. The group had some great questions and was totally engaged. The small room format lent itself to an intimate setting where I could connect with everyone close up.
Below I’ve posted the audio file of the discussion (with most of the QA) and the video of the entire session. The video is broken into smaller chunks for easier digestion. Sorry for the “back to the camera” angle. I was in the center of the room managing my slides and was engrossed in the moment!
The headline of the seminar, “Help My Company Is Invisible!: Increasing Your Internet Findability Factor” really resonated and I’ve received 3 word of mouth referrals from this talk. Thank you all so much for honoring me with your evangelism. The create WOW media team is out there trying new things every day to help our findability online and those experiments are translating into results for client partners. Thanks again and please let us know if you have any questions.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Small business owner Ryan Irwin on working with create WOW media
November 21, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
It has been so pleasurable to work with Ryan and the team at Nutrisport Full Potential Training. We asked Ryan to share his thoughts on our journey together. You know it’s a big decision for a small family owned independent business to embark on a journey into blogging, video, and social media to really ramp up its Internet Findability Factor.
We’re humbled and honored that he agreed to talk with us on film. Take a moment to watch this short video. We think it conveys some of the mojo that we like to generate for small and medium sized companies.
Ignite Des Moines Video Experience
November 11, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Thanks again to Daniel Shipton and the crew at Impromptu Studio for putting on the super successful Ignite Des Moines.
Ignite Des Moines was a huge success with over 75 people in attendance. It was such a great time that Impromptu has decided to offer up Free Co-Working during November! So head on down and see what the buzz is all about.
The announcement can be found at:
http://impromptustudio.com/blog/november-is-an-open-coworking-month/
Ignite Des Moines Video
The createWOWmedia team put together video that we hope captures the excitement and energy of Ignite Des Moines. Please share the video as far and wide as you can and encourage your friends, associates, twitter followers, and blog subscribers to attend. Thanks again for a great night Daniel. Enjoy.
