I suppose we are supposed to start everything positive we say these days with disclaimers.

• Susan Murphy let me look at a free early edition of her free ebook.
• Susan Murphy has encouraged my video production
• Susan Murphy has given me Tim Hortons coffee.
• Susan and Greg at lunch with Nancy and I once.

So now you know that my thinking could be colored by friendship. But I still love the new ebook that Susan just published. Creating video for the web is available today. This ebook takes an approach to video that is for people who know how to record video and now want to tell stories with moving images.

Susan’s starting point is with the story. (This comes from her years of experience in media, from shooting to advertising). Before shooting, she says, think about the story, about what you are wanting people to know and experience and understand. Think it through, talk it through, sketch it out. (She reinforces the importance of preproduction by illustrating this page with pencils.)

She moves to the production process, identifying the basic tools. Her basic video kit, which includes duct tape, grows from actually working (rather than some textbook).

In the post-production process, Susan acknowledges the power of Windows Movie Maker (as well as editing products actually costing money). As a MovieMaker user (who has also used AVID PC-based editing software), I know how much can be done with this software IF you start with the story rather than the features.

Throughout the book, Susan is relaxed, factual, and helpful. It could be because she teaches production.

I have done several video projects and know basics of production. What this ebook does for me is challenges me to move to a new level of caring how well I do.

Download it for yourself: Creating video for the web

A year ago, George Johnson didn’t have a job.

I’m not sure he as a job yet.

He looked, I know that. But when you live in rural Indiana and the thing you know best is how to shoot video, there aren’t lots of jobs. And when you have four kids and family around, moving to the coast isn’t exactly an option.

On the other hand, George has a feature-length movie which, a year ago, wasn’t even on his mind.

It wasn’t on his mind while the weather got colder last fall. Other movies were on his mind, movies close to financing, movies that fell apart when the economy fell apart. It wasn’t on his mind while his family was finding out that they could pretend that they were camping, in their house, in the cold.

I knew George was looking for work. I didn’t know how tight things were.

A couple weeks before Christmas 2008, I was talking with George after church. I knew that some people had helped him out. He was being George, positive thoughtful. He was talking about how things were really tight, about learning to sing in a dark house, and about how much he appreciated help.

Somewhat out of the blue, I said “What’s the movie?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s the movie?”

“I don’t know. Which one are you thinking of?”

“What is the movie you are writing out of this?”

George looked at me and got all energized. “I’m eight pages into a script. I want to get it done by next Christmas. It’s called Homeless for the Holidays.”

A couple weeks later, he had a copy for me.

A week later he said, “don’t bother finishing that one, I’ve already rewritten it a couple times and have a draft out for companies to look at.”

A couple weeks later he said, “We decided to just do it. We realized if waited til we got money, we’d wait for years, so we decided to it. And since then, money has come to pay our bills. And a friend has a RED camera that he wants to use for a project.” I loaned him a Flip for vlogging.

There were casting calls and location shots ar our church and a $1.000,000 movie being shot for $20,000. There were stories about George editing all night and all day. And then the sneak preview was scheduled for a Monday in October, two weeks before the opening. Early Saturday morning, two days before, George posted a video saying that in the conversation from standard definition to high def, the movie had become “discombobulated.” I believe it’s a technical term. He had to start editing again. On Sunday morning, as we were playing a trailer for the movie, I looked in front of me and saw George, movie discombobulated, sitting in church. We saw each other for a minute afterward. He smiled.

That Monday night they showed the standard def version. On October 16, the final edit opened in Auburn, IN. On the 17th, it opened in Fort Wayne. It ran a couple weeks both places. It’s being screened some other places as well. George is working with marketing to chains as much as he can.

Homeless for the Holidays is about a advertising guy (and family) who loses his job, is blackballed, and approaches Christmas by watching his power be shut off. As happens by the end of most movies,  the dad finds a job, but not until the family has lost their house, accepted charity from an 8-year-old, and wrestled with Christmas.

It could be a completely fictional story, made in his spare time, by an unemployed camera guy and some friends. Or this all could be a completely True story about a guy who did what he thought God wanted him to do.

I just know that a year ago, George didn’t have a job. And a couple weeks ago I sat in a theatre and watched his movie. It looked like a real movie. And I cried. And wondered about leaps of faith. The ones George took because he had nothing to lose. The ones I don’t.

—

If, of course, you happen to run a theater chain, George might like to hear from you.

Homeless for the Holidays (IMDB)

Breathemotionpictures.com

I work at a church. Today, a bunch of people set up displays to talk about what they do and to invite other people to support them. As I was providing tech support, I realized that I needed to offer some suggestions for those of you who might be working in similar environments, places where non-tech people are trying to tell stories with technology.

• If you are going to set up a display somewhere, take an extension cord. And maybe a block plug so you can share power.
• If you are going to have someone show a presentation for you, clearly explain (in writing) what is on the disk.
• If you say that you are going to need a DVD player, please send a DVD recorded to play as a DVD, as opposed to a DVD used as a way to store several kinds of media.
• If you are sending a PowerPoint, compress the images so that someone doesn’t have to try to load a PowerPoint that is 268M.  (I recorded these tutorials a year ago for PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007. Oddly, the whole world has not paid attention.)
• If you are wanting people walking by your table to watch what you are showing, use a DVD player with a screen larger than 4″ by 6″.
• If there will be a lot of noise in the room, don’t make the sound track be the only place you are telling the story.
• If you are putting titles on a slide, be sure that when your show is on a video monitor, the words are visible at the edges of the screen (because what you see on your computer screen isn’t the same as on a TV screen.)
• If you are putting titles on a slide or movie, use a clear simple large font.
• If you are wanting involvement with people walking by: large pictures, large font, simple story. Then, when they stop, you can talk with them.
• If you are really excited about what you do, have someone who isn’t help you with your project. You know too much of the inside story. You will skip the ideas that are important to people who don’t care yet. I promise.
• Smile.
• Figure out how to get part of your display off a table, higher than the crowd.
• Figure out how to get part of your display off a table, low enough for the people for whom table height is eye level.
• If you don’t understand technology, don’t assume that someone will. I’m not everywhere.
• Remember that the point is not the display. The point is how you are trying to change the world. The display needs to help others understand how they can do that, too.

…and remember, in the middle of all the important, huge, significant, life-changing work you are doing…take an extension cord.

A parable for Friday morning

Nancy and I were talking about a choir friend.

He directs a college-level choir. A singer has missed 20 rehearsals. He wants to sing at the concert.

His claim? “I know the music better than anyone else.”

He won’t be singing in the concert.

It got me thinking: what counts for singing in a choir? Knowing the music as it is on the page is an important part. Others things matter, too.

• Knowing how the director interprets those notes.
• Knowing how your voice sounds when you are in the middle of 16 or 80 or 300 other voices.
• Knowing how to hold your part when mixing with three other parts.
• Knowing how to take turns breathing so a note sounds seamless.
• Knowing how the director indicates starting and stopping (so you don’t stick out).

A solo act doesn’t worry about these things. A solo act can stand out, can be distinctive.

To be a choir, however, means knows as much about the community of singers as you know about the notes on the page. And to be willing, for the heart-stopping beauty of blended voices, to submit yourself to not standing out, to find joy in alignment.

This kind of submitting doesn’t mean ceasing to be you. Not at all. You are fully aware of how you are making adjustments all the time. And the more you practice, the more you know how to make your contribution to the best possible blend.

But developing a rich understanding of choral music takes practice. It takes presence. It means understanding that a choir isn’t an event, it’s a community.

This is the first in an occasional series expanding on the 8 ways to get invited back post. I talked about several things to give audiences that will let you have another chance to speak.

Lots of people really like Ikea. Good design. Functional products. When people buy from Ikea, they often get boxes. Several boxes. These boxes don’t look like what they see in the store. They look like boxes full of boards and bags.You get a kit. A very simple kit.

Many of us grew up building cars. Small cars. From Revell. We could never afford a real Mustang, but we could build one. Paint it. Keep it on our shelf.  We got a kit. A more complicated, less expensive kit than the Ikea.

Whether we want the look of fine furniture or the delight of owning a model of a dream, lots of people want kits.

Lots of people want life kits, too. They go to a presentation wanting to learn how to build their own success, their own model of your project, your story, your company. They attend a workshop promising that they will “walk away with a website/book idea/practical hand-on applications.” They take a class to learn math formulas or programming shortcuts. They want to build a resume.

They don’t want to do all the hard work of measuring and cutting and drilling and stamping from scratch. They know that they will still look like you, but that’s fine. They want something that works.

(Lest you think this is something I am ridiculing, one of my best examples is what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father.” Jesus, in the middle of a longer teaching, says “here’s a prayer model.” It can be used as is. It can be expanded on. It has proved to be pretty durable.)

If you are doing that for people, you are giving them a kit. To make that kind of presentation successful, whether it lasts 15 minutes or a day or a semester, here are 8 guidelines:

1. Provide all the necessary pieces.

Every board. Every screw. Every necessary idea or relationship or reference or example or theorem needs to be included in your presentation to give to your listeners. Whatever you want them to be able to build, whether it’s a plastic car or a business plan or a dream, has to made available to them.

2. Include adequate directions.

This is a linear kind of presentation. First you find this piece, then you add this piece. You aren’t trying to be creative, you are trying to be clear. So please be clear.

3. Make sure they are in the language of the kitbuilder, not the designer.

Ever read translated directions? They make us laugh. Then they make us cry. Use words that your audience knows. This isn’t the time to impress, it’s the time to not lose anyone.

4. Provide spare parts of the kind most likely to get lost.

A good kit always has some spare bolts or nuts or washers. A speaker giving a kit gives repetition.  At those points where people are most likely to be confused, repeat. If they are likely to drop the line of thinking, pick it up for them with a clarification, a reconnection to your theme.

5. Have someone who understands test the kit.

Many of us hate to do a presentation more than once. I understand. But you’re trying to give away understanding. You are trying to give success. So have someone who knows what you are talking about listen and critique.

6. Have someone who doesn’t understand test the kit.

What? Present again? Exactly. If you are going to help 30 people build this kit, this model, you need to have someone who is like them in ignorance test it. Otherwise you will frustrate 30 people.

7. Include a picture of the completed kit.

There are some jigsaw puzzles that come in plain white boxes. The challenge is the point. In most cases, however, you want to give your audience a picture of what the business plan or the prayer or the lifeplan will look like, sound like. That way, they can see whether they are getting it right.

8. Show how it can be customized.

Once you have clearly shown how to assemble the kit, show them how to make it their own. What kind of paint works best? What wears out? What do you with the geometry when you are measuring a lot rather than a piece of paper? How does this scale?

——-

Do you give people kits when you speak or teach? How do you make sure the audience understands? What kind of kits are you giving?

I used to read business stuff. Fortune, Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, management books. I gave up on that habit a few years back.

Last night, however, I saw a picture from by friend Shashi Bellamkonda. It showed several magazine covers, including the latest Harvard Business Review. On the cover, a picture of Peter Drucker.

I looked online for the issue.

In this post about the issue, Ellen Peebles reports on a conversation by business executives in celebration what would be Drucker’s 100th birthday. The leaders discussed four functions of a CEO. After discussing each function, the facilitator asked a Drucker-inspired question: “What will you differently on Monday?”

The question slapped me. I’ve taught a couple times this weekend. I’ve written. I’ve talked with Nancy. I’ve slept. I’ve seen a movie that made me cry and at least one TV show that did, too.

In this middle of all that direction and emotion and clarification and resolve, I desperately need that question. What will I do differently?

Notice, by the way, that this isn’t necessarily a question about my todo list. The question is not just about what  I will do. There are many things that are on the list because they belong there. They are part of my responsibility, my calling, my life.

However, as I look at what I am doing, how will I do it differently?

How will I respond to challenges to love, care, balance, simplify, focus, listen, go, stay? How will I take the Monday that has been handed me this week and live it differently? What, exactly (precisely, intentionally, concretely, specifically), will I do differently today?

Or won’t anything I heard or said matter?

(It can, by the way. Matter, I mean. It’s up to me to remember (and you, too).)

If someone sent you a blank notebook, what would you do with it?

• Would you write a diary?
• Would you write a presentation?
• Would you tear out the pages and have a group of people write one-page diaries?
• Would you hand it to your most thoughtful friend and say, “What advice can you give me for life?”
• Would you make small posters saying  “think about what is next. thenextsentence.com” and hang them with gum on mirrors?
• Would you give it to your daughter with a crayon and refrigerator magnet?
• Would you put it on your desk with all the other blank paper?

If someone sent you 5 blank CDs to use and pass on what would you do?

• Would you make five copies or five originals?
• Would you tell stories?
• Would you create a mix of your favorite music?
• Would you create a mix of their favorite music?
• Would you save the best writing you’ve done?
• Would you read a favorite book?
• Would you create a record or a tool?
• Would you document your life or their life or your life together?

What if someone sent you a day?

• Would you thank them?
• Would you curse them?
• Would laugh or make someone else laugh.
• Would you spend it or invest it?
• Would you read or write or sing or listen?
• Would you run or sit?
• Would you critique or create?

What if someone sent you five minutes?

Well?

Everything has already been said.

That’s how it seems sometimes. And there are some people who are just stuck explaining. It’s not terrible creative, they think, to explain what a policy means. It’s simple (and nothing to celebrate) to explain why a rule exists or how to apply someone else’s story to your life.

The self-denial is not at all admirable, however.

Think for a moment of an interpreter, standing between heads of state, helping each understand the other, bringing a sense of peace and understanding. A critical role, right? Think of a translator, taking a peace treaty written in one language and painstakingly finding the right word, the right nuance so it says the same thing in another language. Incredibly sensitive, right?

Though we usually think of translators and interpreters as moving between languages, sometimes we find them in business and church and organizations moving between the language of formal structure and the language of real people, the language of board and the language of client, the language of “Thus saith” and “you know how when you feel ___ and you want to ___? We’re helping with that.”)

When you are an organizational translator, a customer service interpreter, you are removing confusion and adding humanity to the rules and stories of an organization.

Looking at the confusion on someone’s face, a translator starts with a simple question: “Would you like to know what that means?” Then the translator connects what the person knows with what the organization or text says.

Not everyone can be an interpreter or a translator. Good translators have lived in both worlds. They are able to find equivalent words, yes, but they are also able to find equivalent stories, similar experiences, metaphors than illuminate the intent as well as the technical meaning. They aren’t trying to change anything about the rules or the policy or the guidelines. They are trying to remove the misunderstanding.

(However, a good translator may go back to the policymaker and say “this isn’t at all clear to anyone, even me.”)

Recently it worked for a wise saying I shared with a friend: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy” became “Think flattery before the knife in the ribs vs an elbow in the ribs from your wife.”

Occasionally it’s “Jane, can I talk for a minute? Jim, here’s what she means.”

There will always be people who speak the language of stuffy, of legal, of technical, of formal, of structure (and if you think that everyone understands what you say or that “this is self-evident” or “that’s obvious”, you are one of these people.) There will always be people who don’t understand. And there will always be opportunities for interpreters to help the latter stay alive long enough to connect to the organizations they need.

Including your business. Including your church. Including you.

You may remember that I started a series of 5 questions posts awhile back. I haven’t put one up for awhile. The last one, a conversation with Kay Ballard, has such an atrocious introduction that I couldn’t put up a new one without ap0logizing publicly (I’ve already taken care of that privately), and I couldn’t figure out quite what to say.

However, the best way you do what you don’t know how to do, Tim Walker would probably say, is to do it.

So know that Kay is a good friend, all the more evident because of her graciousness in private as well as in public. We have known each other through twitter for a year or so, we tease each other, and talk by email. Sometime we might actually talk by phone. She encourages me more than you know (and likely more than she knows).

Now, go back and read 5 questions with Kay Ballard and then come back and read my conversation with the aforementioned Tim Walker.

——

Tim Walker lives in Austin and is working on a doctorate in history at The University of Texas (“hook ‘em Horns”).  (He has a really cool day-job with Hoovers, too.)  We started talking because I was intrigued with the Austin connection (having a degree from there myself) and because he introduced me to the concept of “deliberate practice.”  That concept has shaped my thinking for the last year in remarkable ways.

Tim also keeps pushing me (and all of us) on getting rid of multitasking and just working. He’s really annoying that way. Which is, of course, why I wanted to ask him five questions.

1. You are, by training, an historian. Your writing for Hoovers is about the present. What aspects of being an historian shape how you write about (and think about) now (in contrast to the occasional delightful historical presentations you do (the Gutenberg one, for example)? (How much is the way of thinking, how much is the training of just being a scholar, how much is the long view, how much is ___)

I hope that my historical training brings me two things: (1) a long-view perspective, and (2) a critical eye for evidence. The second point should be common to all scholars, whether they’re in the humanities, the social sciences, the hard sciences, or a professional field like business or law. Good scholars constantly ask “But how do we know?” — and, when evidence is presented to answer that question, they then ask, “But how do we know this evidence is valid?”

Bringing that back to my work, I see many assertions about business — Twitter, for one, is full of them — that link causes to effects in ways that a scholar couldn’t support. Yes, I see that A happened and that B happened, but how do we know that A caused B? What if B caused A? What if A and B both arose from C? What if A and B arose one after the other by pure coincidence? Or by some much more complicated string of causes and effects? It pains me when people draw a straight line from A to B based on their own ideological leanings or their own shortsighted self-interest. So I try to provide a corrective for that.

Getting back to my first point about long-view perspective, it also pains me when people make assertions that are uninformed by historical knowledge — and especially when they make glib assertions about how something (poster child: social media) “is totally unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” Well, no, it isn’t totally unlike anything we’ve ever seen — and the parallels between Thing X and what’s gone before are actually quite instructive. So I try to instruct a bit, but always with a spoonful of sugar (humor, stories) to help the medicine go down.

2. You write against multitasking. I’ve been thinking about why we do bits of so many things at once. I’m wondering if, for pleasers in particular, it’s a way of keeping as many people partially happy as possible. Because there are so many “I can do that for you” commitments on the todo list, the pleaser does a little bit of every one of them to keep people happy. The result, of course, is that everything falls behind. Does this make sense?

It makes perfect sense, and in fact it’s common for extroverted ADD-ers (ahem) to be pleasers. We make sense of the world by relating to people, we have interests in a large number of things, we get frustrated or bored when we have to stick to any one thing for too long, and if we’re lucky we may even have talents that span many areas. So we try to do it all and please everyone.

The reason this is categorically unwise is that every single one of us is going to die.

Here’s what I mean: our time is finite. To make the most impact, we must — absolutely, incontrovertibly must — focus our attention on just a few areas if not on one. (You can be the exception to this rule if you’re Schweitzer or Goethe. I’m not.) Multitasking is a lazy, fearful, and death-aversive response to this reality.

(Aversion to thoughts of death, by the way, is a major problem for most people in our culture — but maybe that’s a topic for a separate discussion.)

3. You make your Hoovers writing have a very personal voice. However, it isn’t Tim the whole person because it is a business blog. You have, I think, struggled with keeping a personal blog going. When we write so personally for work, does that complicate the private blogging? (and does that question make sense?)

The question makes sense, but I don’t think that’s the logic that has hampered my personal blog. My lack of time- and priority-management has hampered my personal blog.

And, by the way, I think you’ll see a much higher output — on both blogs — in the months to come.

4. “Have you been working out?” You tweeted about someone saying that. Why are you going back to fitness (and what triggered it?)

We’re ridiculously spoiled in this country. We’re fat and lazy. This is not an effort to channel the colonel from Dr. Strangelove (“precious bodily fluids”), but just an observation about the ailments — physical and otherwise — that waylay us.

I figure I have several mutually reinforcing obligations to keep myself in good health:

• Our bodies are a blessing to us, and we’re beholden to be good stewards of them.
• As a father and husband, I’m intent on modeling healthy behaviors for my family.
• As a friend to many, I’m intent on modeling healthy behaviors for those around me.
• Being fit is important to me psychologically, to the point that if I don’t do it I feel like I’ve betrayed myself. That’s not a good spot to be in.

On top of all of this, lifting weights and running are fun and meditative activities for me.

5. Do I remember correctly that you grew up in a pastor’s family? What should we not assume about kids that grow up that way (including my own two kids)?

We shouldn’t assume that they’re fundamentally different from other kids, just that they grow up under more scrutiny for their behavior. And, to put it mildly, sometimes it’s the scrutiny itself that leads to adverse behavior.

I have been away from writing time for the past few days. I feel like I’m missing something.

I know what Chris says about how he writes almost every day. That’s not the problem.

The “problem” is that I’ve been involved in lots of wonderful reflective conversations and meetings during the past few days and have done some traveling. I’ve been making notes and answering questions and listening and asking questions.

I can look at it as time away from the keyboard. And feel frustrated. Or I can look at it as time with some wonderful people, hearts writing and being written on. And feel delightfully exhausted.

Some of those thoughts may find their way here. Most won’t. Because sometimes living words once is enough. In the conversation, they accomplished their purpose.