It’s all good and well to Tweet and Link And Face, but at Hunting With Pixels we still like having cups of coffee with our clients. Pop by and meet the people behind brand, or fill in your details below and the Magic Pixel Pigeons will deliver it to our inbox. It’s amazing. 
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As a professional speaker, what you sell is the fact that you can really engage your audience. Great speakers have this amazing ability to create a spark and inspire people to challenge their own ideas. The problem is that it’s really difficult that translate that to online video. When you do a presentation people in the audience have this great experience, but when you watch it back on a small video, it just doesn’t come across.
The reason for this is that the environment in which you present is conducive to live performance. The lighting, the audio and the background just aren’t right for video. You could do your presentation in a studio of course, but then you miss that interaction with the audience that really gets your presentation to that next level.
So when we recently talked to our friend Nigel Collin, who’s an awesome ‘on camera presenting’ coach, we thought it would be great if we could combine a live presentation for an audience with the controlled environment of a studio. Have a look at the video;
For $ 1495,- you get:
If you want, you can recoup some of the cost by selling tickets for the event! So get in touch now!
Our first Short Takes was such a success we decided to make this a monthly event! This Short Takes is about Clarity; how to create a compelling story around what your business does, so you can really connect to our target audience. Here’s the video for our next short takes, which is planned for the 18th of August: http://vimeo.com/26901322
By that we mean this is not just another evening seminar or networking event but rather a place where you can enjoy yourself and network, but also walk away with some practical learning and experiences about business communication and video.
This time we’re focussing on creating a clear message around your brand. How are you different from the rest, and are you making that clear to your target audience?
Here’s why: your target audience can instantly find all your competitors online; there will always be someone who can undercut, outperform or outmarket you because they have lower overheads, they’re bigger or they’ve been around longer.
Being good at what you do is expected now. People don’t hire you just for being competent; they hire you because:
We need to get good at creating a story around our brands, and then do a great job communicating that story. So this Short Takes is about finding answers to questions like:
This time Short Takes will feature three speakers that will give you three perspectives on clarity in communication. First up is the amazing Justin Cooper, the man behind the Brand Factory.
Justin Cooper has spent over 20 years in marketing – creating and telling stories about brands like Pledge, Finesse, Warner Brothers, and Penfolds – and being amazed that his customers actually believe him. 
Next up is Hunting With Pixels’ creative director Robert Moorman.Robert has created highly effective business video campaigns for almost 20 years now, working for brands like MTV, Diesel, Time Out, Ted.com and Westpac. Robert specialises in helping business to create a narrative around their brand and translating that into highly effective online video campaigns. 
Last but not least we have the grandmaster of ‘on camera’ presenting, author and creativity guru Nigel Collin who will share some invaluable tips on how to make sure your story really connects to your target audience through authentic but professional on camera presenting.
The main focus of the presentations is about creating a story around your brand that your target audience can relate to. Just having a list of features and benefits isn’t enough to cut through in our media saturated world. You need to define what it is that makes you different, and then communicate that in a clear, confident and concise way. Once the message is clear, Nigel Collin will give you another great tip on how to present well.
It’s nice to talk about theory, but how does that translate to real life? At Short Takes we’ll pick case studies from companies that are present and our panel of experts will look into the finer detail of what the brand can do to create a compelling narrative. Here’s a video of our previous Short Takes: http://www.vimeo.com/25950043/
Of course Short Takes isn’t all work; we’ll have drinks, catering and business networking going on too! We want to keep the group small so everyone gets the time they need, so we’re going to cap it at 25 seats. Don’t miss out.
Where: Hunting with Pixels HQ – 270 King St, Newtown When: Thur 18th August 2011, doors open at 18.00, we start at 19.00. How much: $85 or $60 Early Bird if purchased before Tuesday 7th August. Book Here: 
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Earlier this year, Hunting With Pixels caught up with Shay David from Kaltura on the New York leg of our epic interviewing spree. Kaltura are a leading open-source video platform, helping business and educational clients deliver top quality video solutions. In this video, Shay David examines how we define ‘good’ content in the realm of online video. In the broadest sense, good content is something that engages with an audience. However, we can only measure the effectiveness of video content if we define what aims we are hoping to achieve, and who our audience are. It could be that our online video is as simple as entertainment, in which case the obvious measure of quality is ratings: Does the watcher stay and view the entire video? Shay draws a distinction between “lean forward” and “lean back” entertainment, with the latter being passive entertainment such as television, and the former exemplified by user-selected short form content, such as YouTube. In the example of YouTube, the definition of quality goes beyond mere ratings and becomes: Does the watcher click on to watch more of the content? If the format of the online video is educational, then the desired outcome should be good learning results. For example, online video can be used as a learning object for students to get hands on experience, in the context of homework or distance learning. So then, our definition of quality is related to our measurement of learning results, generally grades. Finally, with Business-to-Business video or enterprise video, the business outcomes depend on the manner of business. If the video is a selling tool, then effective content would be measured in increased sales. If it is a customer support video, then the measure of quality would be customer satisfaction. In short, if you want to measure the effectiveness of online video content, you must carefully define what constitutes a success. To do this, you must ask: – what are the results that matter? – are these results occurring in the right places? http://www.vimeo.com/25697885
At Hunting With Pixels we’re big fans of fastBREAK; it’s a monthly breakfast event at the powerhouse museum where a number of speakers do five minute presentations on the same subject. So what turns you on? Last month Annie from Vibewire managed to get us to do one; the title was ‘What Turns You On’. The subject couldn’t have been more apt, since we just returned from the US doing shoots for our new video blog ‘Whatever Trips Your Trigger’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyChjr5dpYE
Here at Hunting With Pixels we are proud members of Business MasterMinds; a community of business people who share ideas, experiences and knowledge. Sharing your clients’ or members’ experiences and impressions in a client testimonial video can create powerful and authentic content. Business Master Minds is a great example of a business that generates real advocacy and video is the tool to share that advocacy with a wider audience Have a look at a video that we created for them that tells the story of the Business Mastermind experience, through the reflections of current members. http://vimeo.com/26301450
The inaugural Short Takes event held at Hunting With Pixels in Newtown was a great success. Video as a business communication tool was the focus and a workshop from business coach Hugh Todd kicked off the evenings program. Hugh tackled the subject of pitching your business effectively and was followed by Business Master Minds founder Angelique Milojevic who presented on the power of authenticity in your communication. Next up was Hunting With Pixels creative director Robert Moorman who talked about how to get the best results from your business video. The last speaker was presenting coach Nigel Collin who shared some simple yet very effective tools for tackling the sometimes daunting notion of presenting to camera. Short Takers were then given the opportunity to get some hands on experience and to practice what they had learned from the presentations. Willing participants were given the opportunity to deliver their pitches to camera in the studio and received some more personalised coaching from Nigel. This jam packed program was punctuated by plenty of great food and drinks and the opportunity to network with each other and the speakers. Check out this video for a brief look inside Short Takes and if you would like more information on the next Short Takes event then please check out http://businessvideomasters.com/ http://vimeo.com/25950043
At Hunting With Pixels we’re very passionate about people’s stories; why do they do what they do? What makes them different from others? How did they find what they love, and then managed to build a life and a career around it? Doing what you love means living a life that’s in line with your values; a very important part of being happy and essential for success in business. We just came back from the US shooting a series of online videos around the subject for a new website called Whatever Trips Your Trigger. It’s a video blog about people who love what they do. The website is going live in the next weeks, but we thought we’d show you the trailer already: http://www.vimeo.com/25438973/ We’re doing a presentation for the wonderful people from Fastbreak this Friday on the subject of ‘What Turns You On’, where we’ll be talking about the project; we’d love to see you there! http://vibewire.org/2011/06/fastbreak-june-what-turns-you-on/
In our last Flying Solo we talked about the content side of video, this time I’d like to share some technical do’s and don’ts that apply both to DIY video and working with production companies.
Creating good quality video content is an real investment in time and money, so you want to make sure you get a decent return on that investment. Unfortunately, a lot of online business videos don’t get results; people click away after 10 seconds or move on before even viewing. Read more