Friday, February 14, 2014

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.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

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!