There are many flexible video booth solutions available in the market-place and are often used at exhibitions and for personal events such as  Weddings and Christenings.

We recently spoke to some clients who consider Video Booth technology as an essential way to capture opinions, especially during for example, workshop breakout sessions or public meetings.

A recent project at Knowledge Hemispheres involved the set-up of a manual video booth. A council was conducting an campaign against the expansion of a transport station. They wanted to gather opinions that were both pro and con the central issues. Dates were booked for a video booth to be made available firstly after a public meeting and then for up to 3 weeks at local libraries. NB An essential  consent form was also completed before any video opinion was recorded. The final consolidated video was delivered to the client including a full recording of the public hearing.

The content was then re-purposed by being compiled into a series of Video podcasts that were time released. In addition, content was re-used internally.

There are many advantages for using a dedicated video booth especially through some wonderful automated stand systems, for example:

• Branding and Professional capture
• Focused questions through a survey mechanism
• Automated consent
• Forming part of the entire story.
• High Quality recordings
• Collection and moderation post event

With regard to the latter, an integrated approach is facilitated using such technologies, i.e: It encourages dialogue, captures views from people who may be shy to speak in public and in many ways is a enabling technology of democracy.

Other ways of capuring opinions, e.g: You Tube Direct
Youtube have recently released Youtube Direct. Combined with video booths, further content can be captured from personal camera mobile phone and video footage. The interface using an open source approach and includes a moderation panel. Once content is moderated it can be published on an Intranet or on a public website. One of the benefits of this virtual video collection mechanism is that the Bandwidth is YouTube’s with built in navigation!

It is a wonderful tool for Citizen Journalism, for example if you run a news-site, for example: BizBuzzzz you can ask for citizen reporting. Non profit organisations can call-out for support videos around social campaigns. From a commercial perspective businesses can ask users to submit promotional videos about your brand.

NB We consider Youtube Direct as a complementary service to reach an blended New Media solution -  just as outlined in the example above. i.e: Recording conventional footage, virtual/adhoc video from mobile devices and providing a mechanism to readily access opinions through dedicated video booths. The latter as previously stated will produce higher quality recordings.

In addition, in conference voting can also provide another way to capture opinons and feedback:

There has been an ongoing interesting question in “cyber world” that I recently picked up while browsing through various pages.

Who invented podcasting? Never thought to ask, but now that the question has been raised, Lets address the issue.
The idea of providing episodic media content, was developed initially by two persons, Dave Winer and Adam Curry. Both are said to have worked together on the concept and the programming to follow. However due to personal issues the two drifted and there is a now ongoing debate as to who owns the right of being named the “Podfather”, colleagues in both camps have taken sides, and there seems to be a line drawn right in the middle of both. There is also the speculation of data being given over the internet, as to who should be the rightful owner.

So I guess this will still remain an unsolved mystery.

However what is not a mystery is the ingenious idea of what Podcasting really is, what is has done and the future in store for such a creative New media technology.

According to KHL:

Consider Pocasting as a free subscription to a speciality audio magazine.

In the busy world we live in it is getting harder for business to ensure its messages are heard. Modern consumers, especially the young, have become adept at filtering out advertising, making traditional methods less and less effective. The advantage of a podcast is it can be listened to however the user likes.

Whether or not Podcasting is claimed by the rightful father, there is no doubt about it that by using this technology there are numerous media developments and engaging communication that can be incorporated into your website, blogs, business/organization and even home. This not only includes audio Podcasts but also video Podcasts!

To read more about how Podcasting can help you Click Here.

Or tune into our Smooth Groovers Podcast show Here.

Although it suggests surveys. How can you build a bulk of listeners?

My experience has shown that surprisingly, Corporate podcasting is as passive as conventional content viewing, i.e: Although the listeners or viewer is offered a TIVO style experience, a multi-faceted approach must be adopted. This can take the form of complementary support tools, for example:

• Offer a download option minus a pod-catcher site, for example offering a download function to remove dependancy on particular devices
• Offer Listen on-line option on the associated posting for the podcast
• Register at as many podcatcher sites you can.
• Set-up a form of analytics and understand audience behaviour
• Use effective techniques for engaging the audience, for example: breaks, pauses, timing and recordings using good quality equipment.
• Include subscription options for supportive newsletters

Although the posting suggests a survey – good if you can get respondents, the podcast producer has to take a chance on the format and be flexible enough to change it. The survey option would probably work better for internal audience communities.

1. Ensure you are at least 2 episodes ahead of yourself – Therefore, when you plan to launch or relaunch you won’t disappoint
2. Its easy to lose listeners / viewers – Therefore, stay close to release date as much as possible – There is a lot we can learn from traditional broadcast disciplines.
3. Ensure that your podcast is accessible from more than one podcatching source, or offer a download link – giving freedom for more mp3 / mp4 devices
4. Burn a feed if your show is not supported by a website or blog – Feedburner is great – This can certainly help track behaviour – If one day your podcast is very popular to the extent that you could monetize it, you will need vital stats
5. Develop a media kit for the latter
6. Respect copyright and ensure that you have the right license
7. Segments are helpful to structure your podcast and help it become more engaging.
8. Use tools that work – Garage band on Apple is good. In addition, Goldwave and Audacity. Other multi-tracking software is available.
9. Run your first productions by friends to capture vital feedback and development strategies
10. Use a newsletter to keep pod-catchers aware of developments and access to exclusive / complementary content
11. Establish an online forum to capture thoughts, feedback and improvement suggestions.
12. If you have a website / blog, install Analytics to understand issues such as bounce rate and popular content (inc: top landing pages).
13. Build a complementary website / blog that is regularly updated
14. Consider organic growth for your web presence, for example linking to complementary and relevant sites or content.
15. Develop a consistent script- There are lots of online tools that you can use to help you develop a great structure to your episode
16. Listen to lots of shows of different types – to get a feeling of the type of style that works well
17. Read articles on podcast techniques for corporate and non-commercial casts
18. Understand quality components, for example – Equipment and Software components
19. Get Support and
20. Have fun

The latter two have to be big drivers – getting more people to help you can help a podcast project really exciting and engaging as a life experience.

Read more at: Broadcast your business – Corporate Podcasting and
Why use new Media – a guide for business

Interestingly, the following article: http://web.mit.edu/ist/podcasts/podcasting_user_guide.pdf
focuses more on tagging.
In the opening paragraph it states:

Many websites contain links to audio and video, but mere links do not a podcast make. Podcasts require metadata that describes and organizes the audio and video files. Librarians or other information professionals often supply this metadata for large-scale podcasting projects. But podcasts are not only for projects with massive resources. Individuals can podcast and are encouraged to do so. Individuals can and must become familiar with the idea of producing their own metadata, a process often called “tagging.” Fortunately, tagging is easy to do. Tags are user-supplied labels that record certain pieces of information about the audio and video files—(librarians call these pieces of information “properties”). Librarians call the sum of all the tags about a video or audio file its metadata, since the file is a piece of data and its tags are data about it. Metadata means “data about data.

The suggestion is that tagging is related to Metadata. To a certain extent this is true as metadata is defined as information about information. In my article I suggested that metadata as related to podcasting has to include the attributes of the content in question rather than by subject.

Tagging in my view is concerned with labelling rather than detailed archiving. From a social booking marking perspective, tagging is fine.

However, feed tags look a lot more like what I call metadata, for example:

• Identifier = <id>
• Copyright = <rights>
• Title = <title>
• Link = <link>
• Contributor = <author>
• Description = <subtitle>
• Subject = <category>
• Language = <dc:language>
• Date = <updated>

Media RSS, is a new variety of RSS 2.0 that was developed by Yahoo and Google for use in their audio and video podcast search services – it has defined it’s own tag to capture contributor information. In Media RSS, multiple tags are allowed, one for each contributor. Also in Media RSS, you are required to be more specific in defining the nature of each individual’s contribution. An interesting example is the media:credit tag, it requires you to specify a role for the contributor. Now that is even more detail.

What happened to Elements 5 and 6? Well for some reason (probably to make it easier to package with the new Photoshop release of the same name) the good people at Adobe decided they were superfluous and have gone straight to 7. I am an avid user of Elements 4 and have always found it to be a very simple and easy to use piece of editing software. Anybody that has used a editing program before should have no trouble at all in transfering their skill set. It is first and foremost aimed at the home user but the software itself is actually very powerful and can be used in a professional enviroment. We have been using Elements 3 and 4 for creating Podcasts for our corporate clients for the last few years and have found to be a very flexible program. We often combine the original film recordings with Camtasia (Techsmith) for a polished and finalised product.

I have been keeping an eye on the development of this software for the last few months for a personal reason. I recently purchased a Canon HD camcorder after doing my usual amount of in depth research I somehow managed to miss that Premiere (or any other editing program for that matter) will not import AVCHD. This is one of the newer formats of HD and i found almost immediately after plugging the Canon into my PC that it had no idea what to do with the footage. Fortunately it was just holiday footage and not work footage. There were workarounds but this would have involved buying a separate piece of software, importing the footage into it from the camera, converting it into a format Premiere understood and then re-importing it into Premiere 4. A real pain in the proverbial not to mention an unwanted expense.

There are other new features in this release, notably ‘InstantMovie’ feature which takes your video clips and puts together your movie for you, including titles, transitions, credits, etc, but in my opinion that kind of takes away the whole point of the ‘editing’ software. There are a few other bells and whistles but fundamentally it is not much different from the previous release.

If you already have Elements 4 and a older camcorder then in my personal opinion I wouldn’t bother with the upgrade, (£64.62 for the Upgrade or £76.38 for the full version) but if you are new to the world of video editing or have just purchased a HD Camcorder then this is a highly recommended piece of software, easy to use and quietly very powerful.

For more information visit Adobe.

In terms of tools we have been using Adobe, imac and Camptasia.
Kitwise: 2x 3CCD based DV Cams and 1x single channel wireless mic + 1x wired mic.

It is important to brief the speaker on the following areas:

• Articulation of words, including gaps between long speaking sections
• Ensuring what we call, ‘in range’ shots. We use a cover cam that records from a wide angle and in parallel the main camera that focuses on the speaker. The wide angle cover cam includes capturing any slides/powerpoint activity to assure post production timings.
• We have it on good authority that the attention span for viewers is approx 45 seconds, therefore, the camera person may ask for selective shots after a conference to create subtle interludes between the session. NB In addition, avoid panning in and out too much.
• When recording an audience it is best to get a disclaimer signed that also authorises the permission for recording them.
• For video podcasting it is likely that the final images/output will be small, therefore, selective recording of close-ups is recommended.
• Sound quality is important – an external mic on a long cable is recommended (safely positioned) for audience questions.
• In a conference situation a variety of seating arrangements are possible – a personal preference is what we describe as workshop style, i.e: lay out tables in a clustered diamond shape with 4-5 seats – again with safe access.
• Take stills of specific exhibits for inclusion at a later date.
• Test all equipment, keep spare batteries & audit pre+post packing.
• Agree a high-level structure of the session but allowing the speaker/facilitator to be creative.

At the end of the day it is all about creating a valuable experience even if a 3 hour session becomes 12mins of video.
In terms of educational seminars – Video Screencasting / latter inclusion within an online education seminar agreeing core
subject areas, fading between each one with a good intro, flags to each section and a good summary can all help to make a worthwhile refresher and engaging viewing experience.

- Developing an effective Podcast for business (inc: The many Ps of Corporate Podcasting)
- Key Production techniques (inc: getting the right equipment, cost of ownership, archiving standards and effective engagement techniques).
- Corporate Communication Strategies (inc: Boundary scanning and lobbying techniques)
- Phonecast and Monetizing your Podcast
- Utilising the Power of Web 2.0 for business
- The benefits of Open source solutions
- eLearning & eInduction Integration Strategies (learning how standards like SCORM actually function and why many organisations adopt an Learning Management system).

It is worth reviewing their catalogue for an initial outline and outcomes specification for each course.

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