Aligned Marketing Blog

Fun post: Here is a long list of websites that have thousands of video lectures from universities and scholars. Browsing through them is a good way to spark your imagination, peak inside the heads of some of the smartest people on earth, learn a foreign language or learn more about something that interests you, like medicine or physics.

• http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/av/index.htm
• 

http://worldlibrary.net/Collections.htm 


• http://freevideolectures.com/ 


• http://videolectures.net/ 


• http://lecturefox.com 

• http://www.youtube.com/user/Harvard 


• http://www.youtube.com/user/stanforduniversity 


• http://www.youtube.com/user/ncstate 


• http://www.youtube.com/user/carnegiemellonu
• 

http://www.youtube.com/user/georgiatech 


• http://www.youtube.com/user/UniversityofMinn 


• http://www.youtube.com/user/pennstate
• 

http://www.youtube.com/user/wesleyan
• http://OCW.ND.edu 


• http://OCW.Tufts.edu
• http://www.learnerstv.com/
• http://oedb.org/library/features/236-open-courseware-collections 


• http://www.careervoyages.gov/education-videos.cfm 


• http://www.sba.gov/tools/audiovideo/deliveringsuccess/index.html 


• http://www.sba.gov/training/index.html 


• http://www.sba.gov/tools/audiovideo/Podcasts/index.html 


• http://www.openculture.com/2007/07/freeonlinecourses.html
• 

http://www.videomd.com/featured_videos.aspx 


• http://www.freesciencelectures.com/ 


• http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/ 


• http://www.nachi.org/advancedcourses.htm 


• http://education-portal.com/video_library/index.html
• http://www.ocwconsortium.org/use/use-dynamic.html
• 

http://www.oercommons.org/ 


• http://selfmadescholar.com/b/self-education-resource-list/
• 

http://www.missiontolearn.com/2009/12/learn-foreign-language-online/ 



Now go learn something!

Steve
800-707-9150

This is the second of two posts on ways to find information and inspiration for creating new marketing video and blog posts. Any one of these activities, we use them all at Aligned Marketing, will produce new ideas to play with, new interests to explore, and new fodder for your marketing videos and blogs.

1. Movies and Books. The formula for a good movie or book is the same. They introduce a likable or sympathetic lead character, introduce danger or threat, which can be in the form of a person, a situation, or both, and then resolve the conflict just when you think all is lost. Use books and movies as an inspiration to write and shoot your own video. What would you do different if you were the lead character? What did you learn about management from watching The Godfather?
2. Traveling is one of the best ways to find your muse. Changing your location changes your thought patterns. New places and new people can alter and refresh the way you see the world.
3. YouTube and Flickr are both loaded with visual stimulation. You can quickly find amazing images of people doing extraordinary things, or just dumb stuff, to tickle your imagination into producing your next great video or blog.
4. If you like technology visit websites like CNET's, Fast Company's, Wired Magazine's or the TechCrunch blog and write or create a video about what you found interesting. If you like current events, visit The Wall Street Journal, CNN or USA Today's websites. Every subject has a few sites that do a great job of compiling and reporting current trends and noteworthy topics.
5. Speaking of trends: Trends are posted automatically on Yahoo and Twitter. See what all the hubbub is about, do a little research and then shoot a video or write a blog post adding your (informed) two-cents to the conversation.
6. Look in the mirror. I know, it sounds strange. It works. Sit in front of the mirror for a few minutes and let the self-reflection bring you to deeper thoughts than most of us have as we sit in front of our computers or ramble through our days. Then write about those thoughts.

I hope these short exercises and tips helps get your imagination brewing and makes the process of creating new, entertaining and insightful videos and blogs a more enjoyable experience.

Steve
800-707-9150

In this two-part series I’ll give you specific ways to find information and inspiration for new video and blog posts. Here are the first six.

1. How do you find anything? If you’re like a billion other people, you “Google” it. Do the same thing for topics you want to shoot a video about or blog about. You can type anything into Google and get more than 1,000,000 results, all pertaining to your topic. Scan through the results until you find something that sparks your imagination.
2. Delicious is one of the post popular sites on the web. Delicious describes itself as the “world’s leading social bookmarking service.” It’s packed full of the most popular bookmarks and blogs on the web as selected by its members. If you want to know what people are talking about, what they’re interested in, then visit Delicious the next time you’re looking for video or blog ideas.
3. Blogs. There are blogs about seemingly everything. I particularly like to read about video production and blogging. I incorporate the tips I pick up into the work I do and, then, if it works well, shoot a short video or write a blog post about my experience.
4. People. I’ve always been a people watcher. At Starbucks, at the mall, at the airport, it doesn’t matter, I watch people because they fascinate me. Observe parents, waiters, firemen practicing their craft long enough and I guarantee you an idea for a video or a blog will pop into your head.
5. Exercise. When I feel like something is brewing inside my head but just doesn’t seem to want to come out, or I find myself not taking decisive action, I take my dog for a long walk. You’ll be surprised how 30-45 minutes of exercise will relax your mind and release your creativity.
6. I have a couple books that list Quotes by topic and by author, there’s also several websites that do the same. Read through the quotes by topic or author and soon you’ll have all the inspiration you need to produce a new video or write an insightful blog post.

That's it for now.

Call if I can be of service.

Steve
800-707-9150

In early May I attended the 2010 Industrial Supply Association Conference and Tradeshow. It was a great event and much more upbeat than last year, as you can imagine.

Here are some highlights:

(If you like the video, give me a call and we'll make one for you! 800-707-9150)

Creating an ad like the professionals is not easy but it's not as hard as you might imagine. To learn how watch this video:


For more information or to discuss your video or ad needs, call me at 800-707-9150.
Steve

Thank you all for your emails and comments. Here's a consolidated statement of your major point:

• Use the medium (video) to deliver the message!

It's a great point. Instead of putting my top 12 tips into 500+/- words I should have just shot a video. You're right, so that's what I did.

It's rough but I think it gets the message across. What do you think?

Steve
800-707-9150

We've all heard about YouTube and the massive number of visitors it's collecting. The driving forces are easy to comprehend. Watching an entertaining video and learning something at the same time is simply more fun than reading. As the availability of low-cost video production technologies continues to decline, bandwidth expands, desktop editing tools become easier to use, and new sites are built to attract and share videos with the masses, video marketing, in my judgement, will only grow.

If you're still publishing hard-copy epistles to your products, you may want to rethink your approach. Video can help you share  information about your company, your products, your ideas and YOU in a quick and entertaining fashion.  Video is an excellent way to promote your profile online that everyone should be using.  

If this all sounds great to you then you need to check out Tubemogul, a relatively new player but already a powerful force in the video sharing arena.


Tubemogel is one of those great sites that allow you to make one post and have it automatically shared with other social media sites,such as VImeo, Viddler, Break, MetaCafe, iTunes, Dailymotion, Hulu, and, of course, Google and Yahoo Video (There are hundreds). The reason we love these kinds of sites is because they save us time. Right? We make post once on Tubemogul and it posts our video to multiple sites. With one click you can have an enormous online presence and, potentially, dominate the search engines.

What's super-cool about Tubemogul are the analytics. You can quickly see how many times your video was viewed, how long it was watched, when people stopped watching, streaming quality, viewership by geography, new versus returning viewers, time of day your video was viewed, and much more.

If you're interested in video I encourage you to go over to check out Tubemogul. Oh, and of course, they have a free version if you'd like to take them for a test drive.

If you need help producing a video, well, then you can call me. ;)

Steve
800-707-9150

Over the coming weeks I'll be writing about online video and posting more videos. I'll offer tips, product insights and how-to techniques to help you begin using one of the fastest growing tool in social media. YouTube is the second most searched site online and other video platforms, such as TubeMogul, Vimeo and Viddler (and others) offer unique functionality that I'll help you understand and leverage for your business.

My first tip, however, is for Pure Digital Technologies (www.theflip.com), the makers of the Flip family of video cameras. Sorry readers. I have the Flip Ultra HD. It's great little HD camera, I get about 2 hours worth of video of one battery charge and it's easy to use. Shoot the video, plug the camera into my computer via the USB port, and begin editing. Smooth, like butter.


But "easy to use" doesn't mean the camera operates itself or that its user don't need some tips of shooting quality videos. Most Flip purchasers need some education, some coaching. Like everyone else, one of the first things I did after buying my Flip was visit YouTube. I watched videos on operation, editing, lighting and sharing videos online. Some were good but most were poor. That's when I found myself deeply disappointed in Pure Digital and my Flip camera.Why didn't it come with pre-loaded videos on operating the camera and editing videos?

Why were they making me scramble around the web searching for instructional videos? They must have professional quality video's and great "use" tips? Right? I mean they invented this great little camera so everyone can shoot great videos. Alas, there was nothing on their website, little high-quality stuff on YouTube or the other video sites! It's a darn video camera, put some "how to" support (training) on the camera.

There must be some great reason for not including instructional videos with the cameras but, for the life of me, I can't think of any justification. It probably is just a matter of cost and profits but, boy, what a chance they had to really impress their customers, enhance their brand, and show people why they want to shoot more video.

Pure Digital is a good company and they make an excellent product, I just think they stopped short of their potential. Am I being fair? What do you think?

Steve
800-707-9150

I was at the Industrial Supply Association's annual Conference and Tradeshow the past few days. They've redone the format and it's much better.

The meetings were crisper, attendance was up 100% (100%!) from 2009, the guest speaker, Jason Jennings, was fantastic, only the manufacturers have booths this year, fees are down, and the energy was through the roof. What a difference a year makes!

This isn't all about a better economy either, the leadership, Philip Hanson, Kathleen Durbin, Michael Carr, Derek Yurgaitis and many others did a great job.

Here's what I'm doing different.

    1.   I brought my Flip HD camera and will shooting some videos of my meetings, some of the new products I see and the event.
    2.   I'm going to post the raw footage and, then
    3.   After a few quick edits, I'll post the edited video, maybe several, here on my blog.
    4.   Since one of my goals in life is to get hard core industrial companies to embrace cool marketing, I'm going to promote the heck out of the video to the ISA members while demonstrating my video editing capabilities.

New subject: Luck & Relationships
On my plane ride I just happened to be seated next to one of my old work-mates, who is now a Vice President of Marketing. By the time we landed, we were outlining a project he's going to have me do. That happened for two reasons, one he was thinking about it anyway so our "chance encounter" (luck!) simply accelerated his thinking. The other reason is we've both expended time and effort to keep our relationship solid. So when the time came to discuss business we were able to get "right to it." There's a lesson in that last sentence for those paying attention...okay, I'll spell it out. If you have a good relationship the sales cycle and ramp up to doing productive work is compressed. Work on your relationships.

Final thought: More Praise; Less Blame
It's really great to see everyone at ISA. As a lone wolf (Consultant) I don't get a lot of time with my industry friends. These are the wonderful people working behind the scenes that make this country work. From screwdrivers to drill bits, wrenches and expensive pieces of super-sophisticated equipment, these are the folks that make, sell and install the tools that make the US the world leader in advanced manufacturing. Here's an example: Whatever progress we make in minimizing the damage from the Gulf oil spill and the ultimate "solution," will in large part be the result of the good work done by these people. You'll only hear about who to blame on the news and that will be politicized. You won't hear about the people to thank, such as Derek Yurgaitis at Brady-SPC - see above, anywhere else but here.

Thanks, Derek, 3M, and all the other ISA members who make this country run. I'm proud to be a part of the team.

Steve
800-707-9150

In case you want your message exposed to millions of people, Aligned Marketing does social media and video.

Steve
803-810-3180
800-707-9150