You can’t get to wonderful without passing through all right.

-       Bill Withers

I love this quote.

The thought works on both a macro and micro scale.

Over their lifetimes our great artists, writers, musicians, and designers all went through “all right” before they came into their genius.   The arcs of their careers contain at least one or two periods that aren’t as good as others.  The important thing is that they did the work.  They got it out there.  They kept going.

On a smaller scale a well-executed project typically goes through multiple iterations – it never pops out fully formed, perfect, “wonderful”.  Impactful creative people all sketch, prototype, and make drafts.  Their individual works travel through the land of “all right” on their way to wonderful.  The rough drafts and requisite wrong turns help create the happy accidents and intuitive leaps that make something great.

So – do the work. Then make it better. Travel through that land of all right on your way to wonderful.

I don’t have a bank account because I don’t know my mother’s maiden name.
Paula Poundstone

OK – so I feel a little weird with this one, very much like an old grumpy dad giving his kids unsolicited financial advice. I can feel the virtual eyes rolling even now, knock it off.

ArcStone has a 401K plan.  We don’t do any matching, but the vehicle is there for saving if anyone wants to participate.  I was reviewing our quarterly report and I realized that the level of staff participation is barely over what we pay each month to have the plan in place.

I’m going to try a few things to see if I can get participation up – I hate paying for a benefit that people don’t use.

Anyone have any reasonable ideas?

I’ll post what we came up with as a follow-up to this.

Now off to my bully pulpit to lecture…..

I did something new when we ran an ad for an administrative assistant last week.  I asked three questions;

1. If you could have a super hero power what would it be?
2. What was the last book you read?
3. If everything went according to plan in your life, what would you be doing 10 years from now?

I will forevermore ask questions like this in every job post we do.  I was very pleased with the outcome.

Asking the questions did a number of things….

1.  I was able to weed out the people who didn’t answer the questions.  They didn’t follow the directions.
2.  I was able to see a genuine, off-the-cuff writing sample.  Clear and concise written communication is vital in our business.  This was an effective, simple test.
3.  I was able to see if they had spelling or grammatical errors in their answers – indicating to me a lack of attention to detail.
4.  I could check for personality fit and sense of humor.
5.  I could insure for myself that their personal longer term vision of themselves fit within ArcStone’s longer term vision.
6.  The questions enabled candidates to get a feel for us before responding.

If you’re tasked with hiring for your organization, ask some questions like these up front.  This is a wonderful way to begin a hiring dialogue.  Let me know how it goes….

One of the great achievements during the dawn of history was the religious text called the Rigveda.  Passed via oral tradition from father to son in the ancient Indus Valley, the Vedas contained a collection of the earliest recorded religious wisdom.  Large portions of the Rigveda are dedicated to the mysterious drink Soma.

Scholars today disagree about what Soma was, but we do know a few things.

It was derived from a plant, it gave power and energy to those that drank it, it was highly recommended that one consume it before battle, and it was considered the drink that created the gods.

From the Rigveda’s Ninth Mandala:

We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered.

Now what may foeman’s malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, mortal man’s deception?

Is coffee America’s soma?

-

No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee’s frothy goodness.  ~Sheik Abd-al-Kadir

Over second and third cups flow matters of high finance, high state, common gossip and low comedy.  [Coffee] is a social binder, a warmer of tongues, a soberer of minds, a stimulant of wit, a foiler of sleep if you want it so.  From roadside mugs to the classic demi-tasse, it is the perfect democrat.  ~Author Unknown

Way too much coffee.  But if it weren’t for the coffee, I’d have no identifiable personality whatsoever.  ~David Letterman

I believe humans get a lot done, not because we’re smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee.  ~Flash Rosenberg

You will always return to your dark master.  ~Nick Longtin

Health Benefits of Coffee:

• Coffee contains antioxidants that help prevent cancer and heart disease.
• Studies indicate that regular coffee drinkers are up to 80% less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.
• Drinking two cups daily could reduce the risk of colon cancer by 25% and halve the risk of gallstones.
• Emerging evidence suggests that coffee may help manage asthma, stop a headache, boost mood, and even prevent cavities.
• Decaf coffee has been found to provide the same stimulative effect as regular coffee, without the caffeine.

So consume coffee my friends – unashamedly with vigor and gusto.

And check out our newest robo-staff member the Jura Z7 – sweet!

Since the iPad was starting to (mostly) live up to it’s incredible hype I decided to start throwing more challenging tasks it’s way. Another major paper waster I had in my sights was sketching. I love sketching. I sketching all kinds of things, and I love to present my clients with concept sketches for video designs before we put ideas into pixels.

Since I try to give clients exceptional bang for their buck I hate to waste time redoing complicated graphics and animations that might not ever be used. I have found doing sketches with the client is a great way to do preliminary design work and deliver a first draft that is very close to the mark on what the client is expecting.

Success!

I found a fantastic app for simple sketching called Penultimate. At two bucks it’s a bargain, and filled my need of a sketchpad replacement. Even with just my finger I’ve been able to explore and sketch concepts with clients that later end up turning into refined Photoshop mockups.

The Sketch

The Refined Mockup

Failure!

A little while ago Google added video support to Google docs. This my friends, was a great day. It gave me a FREE and easy way to share in-production video drafts with clients in a secure and simple fashion. It also appeared to be based on YouTube technology which meant pretty much anyone with a modern browser and Flash could view the video. Gone were the days of having clients download Quicktime player and large video files.

Google Docs Video Sharing

Unfortunately Apple has developed a strong stance against Flash, and therefore the Google docs video features are useless on my iPad. This is a real shame, and something Apple should remedy immediately. In fact, I would go so far as to say Apple is blatantly misleading people when they call the iPad “the best way to browse the web”. It clearly is not, at least to anyone who has used an actual computer to browse the web (and use Google docs).

A side note fail you may want to know about if you plan on using the Google docs video features is that it doesn’t seem to understand Apple ProRes videos. Most professional editors using Apple Final Cut studio probably do a fair amount of work in the fantastic ProRes file format. If you plan on uploading your videos to Google docs for conversion and sharing be forewarned your ProRes files won’t convert. Opt for H264 instead, which works fine.

Stay tuned for more trials and tribulations exploring the usefulness of the iPad in video production. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

The first day with a shiny new gizmo in my video production kit is usually a mixed bag, and the iPad was no exception. Since I have never had an iPad before I decided to start simple and give it only a couple tasks to accomplish.

Success!

One thing that has always driven me nutty is the excessive use of paper in video production. Scripts, storyboards, release forms, it’s a never ending tree massacre. I never understood why we can put microchips in our pets and help the blind see again but we still store information on dead trees? The iPad seems to be the device that may change this, and I found an inexpensive app to get me on my way to a paper free production.

Form Tools PDF is a fantastic, simple application, that lets you take PDF files and turn them into data capturing forms. Setting up my video release form was dead simple and I was capturing digital signature in minutes. Once a form is filled out and signed, I can also add a photo with the iPad’s built-in camera and then email it off to anyone who needs the completed PDF. This is not only a paper saver, but a time saver and easy way to manage my growing pile of forms.

Here is what my filled out form looks like after having our new intern Taylor sign away the rights to her image and voice recordings:

Double Failure!

On most video shoots I capture HD 1080i60 video with a Sony camera. Even though these video files are large and beautiful looking, most modern computers have no problem playing back the video. Although the iPad’s built-in video player doesn’t understand this format, (even though Quicktime on the Mac does?) the free VLC Player for the iPad will play it.

I was hoping to be able to dump video straight onto the iPad for review in the field or on the go but despite it’s dual core processing power, the iPad 2 can’t reliably play back 1080i60 HDV video. I have played back HD video before with VLC but not the HDV format, which must be too robust for the iPad’s video processor.

Day one of using the iPad 2 is a very sad double failure because Apple has removed the incredibly useful and popular VLC application from the app store. I downloaded it when it first came out for the iPhone so luckily I was still able to install it on my iPad.

I’ve got loads of shoots coming up so check back soon for more posts on using the iPad 2 in video production. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

I just got an iPad 2, and yes I’m giddy as a school boy. I didn’t just get it for fun and games though, I plan on putting it to work. Specifically, in my video production work flow.

At ArcStone we produce lots of video content for our clients, specifically geared to a web audience. We frequently have a fast-paced production schedule that many times requires us to go from shoot, to edit, to distribution in a single, manic day. With such an aggressive work flow any tool that saves us time, expense, and headaches is very welcome.

I see incredible potential in the iPad, and especially the iPad 2, which in addition to a camera has two new excellent multimedia applications. In a series of blog posts I will share my experiences, the successes and the failures, and how I employ the iPad 2 in my daily video production.

I love this video – his exuberant delivery and hopeful message are inspiring. Throw in some well done statistical animations / info graphics and Hans Rosling has masterfully turned what could be a boring topic into a viral video with over 3 million views.

I recently had a beer with a client of ours and the subject turned to Groupon.  We didn’t talk about how they turned down Google’s $6 billion dollar offer.  Nor did we discuss how they started 2010 doing business in one country and ended the year having expanded to thirty-five countries.

With beer inspired hubris, my friend and I talked about how we’d make it better (as if they weren’t doing well enough) and what we would do to improve their service.

So I did a little research – what would it take to build a system like Groupon?  In typical web programmer style I did some sleuthing to find out if the wheel had already been invented – sure enough it has.

I ran across three different systems which will enable you to roll your own Groupon, relatively quickly and easily.

Chompon.com – appears to be more oriented for publishers looking to run their own Groupon like sites and sales.

Tippr.com – has white label “Powered by Tippr” widgets to embed within existing sites and they’ll also bring deals to the table.

En Masse (www.matamko.com) – is a Joomla plugin that adds a social buying widget to the popular open source content management system.

Groupon has had amazing growth, but will they be able to maintain it given the intense competition from LivingSocial, EverSave, Google and dozens of others like the ones above?

2011 will be an interesting year for group buying – I’m gonna go get my deal on!

I just ran across this and had to share it – even though it is old news, I figured maybe there are a few others out there who hadn’t heard about it either.

Here’s the story.  In 2005 a young Englishman named Alex Tew was trying to figure out how he was going to pay for college.  He came up with the idea of creating a 1000 x 1000 pixel web page and selling links at $1 per pixel – 1,000,000 pixels – $1,000,000 bucks.  As part of the deal he guaranteed that the link would stay up for 5 years.   In true crazy viral Internet fashion – he sold out within six months – actually auctioning off the final 1000 pixel block and netting $1,037,100 in gross income.

Ain’t technology wonderful?