Gregory Heller Get in touch

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December 2011

6 posts

  1. Using Live Video To Reach Your Audience With Google+ Or UStream

    I think that most organizations are a little bit afraid of video. And if they are a little bit afraid of video they are even more afraid of live video. Video, the conventional wisdom goes, is expensive and hard to produce. Your chances of doing it wrong are higher than of doing it right, and either way the cost and time involved is probably out of reach. Live video, well that is just crazy talk! Anything could happen! As we all know, the cost of video cameras has come way down, the once much heralded inexpensive Flip camera is now obsolute because of smartphones with high quality video cameras! And editing technology has also become cheaper and easier. For years now every Mac has shipped with iMovie, but today you can edit video with a range of online services including YouTube . Video engages people . How many times a day do you want a few minutes of video on the web? That clip from the Daily Show, a segment from the local news, something on YouTube (perhaps involving a cute animal) a friend posted to Facebook? Or maybe you were glued to live streaming of the #occupy demonstrations this fall? How can nonprofit organizations make use of video easily, and without great expense, to connect with their audiences? My, perhaps counter intuitive answer, is through live streaming. Yes, jump in on the deep end. With live streaming video there is no post production necessary, just a camera and an internet connection. UStream has garnered much press because of the #occupy movements and it is a great platform, scales well, offers some good tools, but it also requires a bit more setup than, say, Google+ Hangouts .

  2. Process Vs Knowledge

    I recently saw the wonderful documentary, Eames: The Architect & The Painter , and if you are a fan of the furniture, films or other design of Ray and Charles Eames like I am, you have to see this film when it comes to your town, or becomes available via DVD or some streaming service. Even if you are not obsessed with the work of the amazing couple, you have certainly been exposed to it, and I think we all can learn from the example they set.

  4. Unplugging and Improving Productivity As A Result

    Perhaps it is just the end of the year approaching, and we are all getting a bit reflective, and thinking ahead to New Year’s Resolutions, or maybe something larger is happening.

  5. Should Nonprofit Organizations Hire Zero-Gravity Thinkers?

    Yesterday I wrote about a recent study suggesting that millions of baby boomers want to start their own nonprofit organizations or social ventures . This morning I returned to a tab opened in my browser a day or two ago, an article on the Harvard Business Review blog, “ Don’t let What You Know Limit What You Imagine. ” I’d highly encourage reading it, but for now I will draw some connections between it and my post yesterday. The author, Bill Taylor, references a book by Cynthia Barton Rabe, The Innovation Killer , in which she talks about how experience in a field can become a detriment to innovation and success. Her answer is that organizations should hire “zero-gravity thinkers,” innovators “who are not weighed down by the expertise of a team, its politics, or ‘the way things have always been done.'”

  6. Lessons Of The Dancing Guy, When To Lead And When To Follow

    Today I was reminded of the Derek Sivers TED talk “How To Start A Movement” in which he analyzes a popular YouTube video of a guy dancing on a hillside at music festival. What reminded me of this video, and its lessons was an opinion piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Calling All Boomers: Don’t Start More Nonprofits” .