Lights, Camera, Action!

I am continually disappointed how slowly the Corporate world catches onto cultural phenomena. Take YouTube for example. Hundreds of thousands of video clips, (mostly amateur) uploaded daily for all to peruse. This massively popular trend has been mostly ignored by business (unless your business is hosting web videos).

Getting your message across in interesting and effective ways has never been easier, but if you scan your company's Intranet, what do you see?

If your company is very progressive, perhaps your CEO has a blog. Most likely not. Maybe your Corporate Communications department has produced some video, but I bet they distribute it on CDs. Company news, by and large, is presented in text form only - possibly with cute graphics (if produced by HR).

If you think about it, most of us feel that the communication is "complete" as soon as we hit the "publish" button.

There are several flaws in this logic.

First, how do you know anyone has read your text? And secondly, how do you know they understood your message? We're all so busy, that publishing the message becomes the task, not communicating the message.

When one considers that most of America spends 4.5 hours per day watching TV and that on average Americans will purchase ONE book per year, it seems to me that publishing yet another long "how to" manual or boring corporate policy in written form (only), just won't cut it anymore.

IVT (Interactive Video Technologies) offers products to address several of these issues. They offer a simple to use video creation/editing tool that allows you to produce videos, in conjunction with PowerPoint presentations. Their software can track who has seen the video, how long they watched it and the video can be combined with screen captures. Add this to a blog, FAQ, surveys or tests to continue the dialog or to test whether your message was understood.

Think of how effective your message could be if it were to "come alive" in video format and be surrounded by all that collateral material?

All it takes is a little imagination, a web camera and a cheap monthly subscription and you're in business.

So give some thought to effectively communicating, not just publishing.