View of the Capitol, View of a Video

Cinema Hair Studio is on the Square as it's called. That would be the block made up of the WI State Capitol building. I like the Madison downtown, one end of which is the State Capitol and its many surroundings and the other end is the UW campus. I also like seeing a Quietwater video on a client home page. And that is what you see if you check out the Cinema Hair Studio website. Home page above the crease. Video. There is no one thing that rules the roost when it comes marketing and advertising a business. It seems to me that in this day and age we are seeing many people going to many places and using many different devices and media to receive or search for information on where they want to spend their hard earned dollars. I like the idea of a quiver, e.g. the Hunger Games Robin Hood kind of quiver, full of arrows. Each arrow is a piece of an overall marketing strategy. The quiver represents that strategy. Video is in their as one of those arrows. That video arrow, can also be used multiple times. It can go on a company Facebook page, it can go on a company Youtube channel, on the company blog, and it can go on the company home page. Each online location is used by different people and discovered in different ways. Yes there is some crossover, but each is also unique. All those online venues can host video and all of them can induce and persuade that viewer to become your next customer! P.S. I see Cinema Hair Studio is even called out in Google Maps! Yet one more facet of online marketing and discovery.

another video for Universal AET - business communication for industry

It's trade show season. Quietwater put together the video below for trade show purposes. It's a bit different from what we usually do. For starters it has no sound. But in a trade show environment, any audio, especially the spoken word is lost in the cavernous environs of the arena or hall where the trade show is happening. Context matters and in this case, not using the audio track makes sense since it would be very difficult to hear. This video is also a repurposing of existing content derived from projects over the past couple years, several of them overseas. This happens a fair amount in a project setting. Someone else is on site during the project, usually with a still camera. At some point, sometimes years later, this content is brought forward. Videos are not always moving pictures. A video can be a succession of still images, which is what you see below. It works for a trade show and it is Universal's content, in a real life setting showing their products. I think it works quite well, given that the alternative is nothing.

a video for the Stoughton School District

Here's a recent effort for the Stoughton School District.

ebook publishing - one more piece of the online media puzzle

So last week was a big week for Quietwater. The event that splashed into last week was the first publishing exercise for an ebook. As some know, back in the day Quietwater Media started up in sync with Quietwater Films. For me personally, producing the five projects for QW Films was especially nice because of my life long interest and enjoyment of paddlesports. Working with Darren Bush and other big names in the paddling world like Jimbo Meador, remain high points both personally and professionally.

Along with the enjoyment of paddling and the experience as a professional guide (again back in the day but a bit further) is one more piece. Paddlemaking. The wood and hand tools type of DIY making things. A few years back I decided that paddlemaking was something I wanted to do more of. One of the pieces of that was writing a book about paddle making. Last week was the culmination of that effort. Making a Bent Shaft Laminated Canoe Paddle is the first of three books, and like all the other firsts, remains a ground breaking eye opening effort and entry into the fast moving and evolving indie publishing world.

The content is driven by a personal interest, but the publishing effort is something I am keenly interested in on the business side. The world is rapidly becoming far more accepting of mobile devices. Pictures, video, and text are all now consumed via tablets and smart phones. Just look at some of the heaviest decisions that Microsoft's newest CEO has to make for a glimpse into how mobile devices are changing our content world. Books are affected by this as much as anything else. As a content company, one of the newer opportunities this brings up is taking the white paper or another marketing piece and making a version of the piece to fit on a tablet or on a smart phone as a book.

This publishing exercise for this first ebook involves pushing the ebook out to several platforms. It is up and going on the Kindle platform. It is up and going on Kobo. It is in process for the Apple ibook store via draft2digital and it is going into several overseas outlets via Xinxii. So, given the right content, an ebook can be deployed on a global scale. It is also going to be sold direct off of a website. This publishing exercise for a specialty content book clearly has some nice corollaries for business-centric content.

that'll do for now!

Universal's new facility in Beloit

I found myself in Beloit recently and for the first time. Universal was the client and they wanted footage of both their new facility and the governor's visit and tour of that facility. Universal has space in an old Beloit Ironworks warehouse on the edge of the Rock River. Great old space that Hendricks/ABC Building Supply is renovating and filling with new industrial tenants. Personally, I love seeing the insides of old giant buildings like this. Hard to imagine what went on back in the day in this building when the original tenant was at work. Today it is busy with Universal and the products that they are fabricating. This was an interesting day and an interesting shoot in Beloit.