Common Craft - Common Craft - Our Product is Explanation

Potential Confusion Avoided - rPath Video

leelefever — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:47:27 +0000

Yesterday, we posted about a video by a company called rPath with the title "Cloud Computing in Plain English." Read about it here.

The blog post came as a result of our unsuccessful efforts over six months to illustrate to rPath that their video, because of the combination of the "in Plain English" title and use of paper-cut outs on a whiteboard, was a source of confusion for Common Craft customers. Because rPath insisted on using legal means to communicate their stance, we chose to take a different route that didn't involve lawyers. We simply asked our fans to help us reduce confusion.

Over the course of the last 24 hours, we've learned a lot. First, let me say that we couldn't have imagined the level of your response. We are very lucky to have people around us who feel passionately about helping us protect our brand. Within a couple of hours of the blog post, the message to rPath was clear and as you'll see below, we have reached a resolution. We thank you.

Along the way we learned that it is possible to mobilize a community to seek a better outcome. However, it comes with risks. We have no control over what is said and it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. We are big fans of civility and reason and there is a chance for these kinds of campaigns to diverge from our strongly held values. We've learned to tread lightly.

Yesterday afternoon I received a note from Jake Sorofman, rPath's VP of Marketing and someone who was involved in creating the video. Jake's side of the story is that he was never aware of Common Craft or the "in Plain English" series of videos when the video was created. I will take Jake at his word and assume this is the case. For months, we were dealing with another VP, who made it clear a simple solution would not work. Today, Jake and I have discussed it and we both agree that this issue could have been avoided, had we been able to communicate with him early on.

Jake has agreed to change the title of the video on YouTube and display a link to commoncraft.com on the YouTube page. The video itself, which contains a watermark with the "in Plain English" title will remain online. We think this is a reasonable way to resolve the issue and avoid future confusion. Thank you, Jake.

I'm happy that we were able to resolve this reasonably and without lawyers. Thanks you for all your support! Cheers.

Help Common Craft Reduce Confusion - rPath's Cloud Computing Video UPDATED

leelefever — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:56:02 +0000

Updated: The issue described below has been resolved. You can read about it here.

While we are happy to be an inspiration for educators and individuals, sometimes we see examples of commercial organizations that choose to make videos that cause potential confusion. When a video uses paper cut-outs on a whiteboard and "in Plain English" in the title, people may mistake it for part of the Common Craft video series. This confusion compromises the hard work we've put into building the Common Craft brand of "in Plain English" videos.

When this happens, we often take a reasonable approach as a first step: we ask them to simply change the title to reduce confusion.

Unfortunately, one company has not been so reasonable. A tech company called rPath made a video called "Cloud Computing in Plain English" that uses animated versions of paper cut-outs on a white background. Despite our multiple requests, they (via their IP attorneys) refuse to change the title of the video.

So, aside from potential legal action, we're motivated to make sure that confusion is reduced. We have our own "Cloud Computing in Plain English" video in the works and we want to ensure that rPath's video is not confused with our video.

So our purpose is clear: The Cloud Computing video by rPath, despite the title and appearances, is in no way related to Common Craft. Common Craft did not work with rPath in any way.

If you would like to help us reduce this confusion (without linking to the rPath website) it would be appreciated. Might I suggest a comment on their video? Commenting has been turned off.

UPDATED: I knew this would happen. rPath is now hiding/deleting the comments on the YouTube video and has turned off commenting completely. That's OK, I managed to grab a few screenshots (below) because I figured they didn't really want to hear what people think about this issue. Thanks to everyone that has commented!

Update 2: The rPath folks have changed the description on the YouTube video page to say "**Not affiliated with Common Craft. If you're interested in Common Craft, visit: http://www.commoncraft.com**" I appreciate them making this change.

Update 3: Jake from rPath has left a comment on this blog post ("rPath Responds" below) and we have been in toch via email. I will take Jake at his word when he says he didin't know about Common Craft when the video was made. Of course, as I told him, knowing then and refusing to make a change to make it right now are two different things.

Explainer Tip: Make People Care

leelefever — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:05:55 +0000

The following post is a part of a series called "Explainer Tips" where we share lessons we've learned in crafting explanations.

Looking back on my education, one thing becomes clear: I was a not a good math student. What I've learned since then, is that I had the potential to enjoy math, but there was a mismatch between the way I needed to learn and the way I was taught. I wrote about this previously in a post called "Talkin Bout My Education." Math turned me off because it seemed like memorization and formulas with no context. I had a hard time seeing the big picture. Had someone been able to help me care about math, to see why it mattered, I might not have recurring math-related dreams to this day.

This brings us to one of the big things we've learned: Explanations should make the audience care. Without this focus, an explanation is more likely to fall on deaf or daydreaming ears. In my case, math classes seem to drone on and on because I never fully understood why it mattered.

When it comes to your explanations, remember to spend time on building context. Early on, give the audience a way to see why their time is well-spent listening to your points. If you go too quickly to the how-tos and click-heres, you're likely to lose some people.

Of course, we're believers that brevity is important as well. There's a balance - you may not be able to get into as many details if you focus on context. From our perspective - context wins. Here's why: making people care is the hard part. Time spent on making people care creates motivation that can last long after the explanation is over. Once someone believes that the subject matters to them, they're more likely to listen to the explanation and go looking for details. And that's what making people care is all about - helping people develop a new interest.

So, how do you make someone care? Future posts in this series will help to answer this question - it's one of the biggest. For now, I'll start with this tip:

Make a connection to a real world problem. For example, to explain a new mobile phone service, don't start with features or shortcuts. Instead, tell a story about a real world problem that everyday people experience. For example, you could start with "If you take the bus, you know how frustrating it can be. You never know when it will arrive." These words say nothing about a mobile phone, features or brands. Your introduction is focused on the context and the problem. By making statements that reflect real-world problems, the audience can quickly say "I know that feeling!" Helping them with this realization is the goal.

This way, your explanation has a hook - something that grabs the attention of the audience and helps them feel that the explanation could be worth their time. And ultimately, that's the value proposition - spend time with this explanation and you'll learn about something that applies to your life.

Next up in the series: Stop Talking About Technology

Video: Twitter Search in Plain English

leelefever — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:09:47 +0000

Today we released a new video called "Twitter Search in Plain English"

The video uses an metaphor of the small town of "Twitterville." The town has an election and the people use Twitter to track real-time news, a hashtag to organize discussions and trends to find new information.

While it wasn't our intention, the video matches closely with the events currently taking place in Iran, where people are using Twitter to organize and share news about their disputed election.

If you know people who get Twitter, but don't understand things like hashtags and trending topics, this video will help.

Watch Twitter Search in Plain English.

Twitter Search in Plain English

leelefever — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:59:13 +0000

Twitter Search in Plain English Twitter Search in Plain English

BarCamp Seattle is this Weekend! (June 13th & 14th)

leelefever — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:37:00 +0000

If you live in or near Seattle, try to make it BarCamp Seattle this weekend. Common Craft is a sponsor - I'll see you there.

What's BarCamp? I suppose you want an explanation in Plain English? I'll try, but here's the Wikipedia page.

People have gotten tired of the normal conference format. Speakers on a stage, everyone else quiet. Everyone knows the best stuff happens over lunch or in the hallways. BarCamp is an event that happens in cities around the world that offers a different, more open and free flowing take on conferences - known as an unconference. People (often geeks, entrepreneurs, artists, etc.) come together for 2 days. During that time, participants volunteer to contribute in some way. Often these are workshops, talks, demos, discussions, etc. BarCamp is all about having fun and doing what feels right.

Here are the details:

Sat Jun 13, 10am-5pm.
Sun Jun 14 10am-1pm.

Adobe Conference Center
801 North 34th Street
Seattle, WA 98103

Follow @barcampseattle on Twitter and use #bcs09 in your tweets.

A Better Way to Learn Chemistry

leelefever — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:42:59 +0000

If I could have learned chemistry this way, I might have discovered a career in science.

Via Daily Dish

Meet Us at NECC (National Educational Computing Conference)

leelefever — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:22:18 +0000

Sachi and I will be attending the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) later this month in Washington DC. This will be our first time attending the conference, so you may see us wandering around with lost looks on our faces.

Because it's such a huge conference, we're hosting a Tweetup [?] so that we can be sure to meet you. Come say hello!

Date: Monday June 29th, 2009

Time: 4:30-6pm

Location: Old Dominion Brew House - Convention Center (we've reserved a room in the back) Map

You can RSVP using Upcoming.org

We're @commoncraft, @leelefever, @sachilefever on Twitter.

Common Craft in Newsweek

leelefever — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:39:13 +0000

There a nice little blurb about Common Craft by Nick Summers in the June 1 edition of Newsweek - it's the one with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad on the cover.

It's so exciting to see my hand in mainstream media. :) Read the article here.

New Video: Preparing an Emergency Kit in Plain English

leelefever — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:11:58 +0000

Today we published a new video called "Preparing an Emergency Kit in Plain English."

This video represents a new kind of relationship for Common Craft. A while back, we were contacted by Public Safety Canada (PSC) about this subject and we saw a couple of opportunities. First, we could work on a video that has the potential to have a positive impact. Second, we saw an opportunity for a win-win in terms of the video's ownership - something we call a hybrid relationship.

Emergency kits are a widely accepted part of emergency preparedness and most agree on what a kit should contain. The opportunity we saw was to work with PSC to create an emergency kit video that would fit their needs and give us an opportunity to offer a similar video for licensing on commoncraft.com. So, PSC received a video built for their Canadian audience and we have a video with versions appropriate for our American audience. We see this as a win-win and enjoyed working with PSC to make it happen.

This video offers governments and organizations focusing on emergency preparedness a quick and effective way to help citizens get started on building their kits. It can be licensed and branded for use in training and education, or on public facing websites.

Watch the video here.

Preparing an Emergency Kit in Plain English

leelefever — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:43:26 +0000

Preparing an Emergency Kit in Plain English Preparing an Emergency Kit in Plain English

Introducing the New CommonCraft.com

leelefever — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:07:17 +0000

A few months back, we made re-thinking our web site a top priority. We needed a better way to organize, display and sell our videos. At the same time, we saw an opportunity for our website to feel like a Common Craft video. Today is the official launch of the new CommonCraft.com and we can barely contain ourselves.

A few things:

1. We need your help. As with anything new, bugs, typos, and issues of all sorts are expected. Please contact us, or leave a comment here if you see anything out of place, or have feedback of any sort.

2. We're using a video player that may require you to upgrade to Flash 10 (the technology that makes sure the videos load fast, etc.). Please let us know your experience with watching the videos.

3. Ten of our videos can now be viewed and purchased with audio in 5 languages, including English. If you're bi-lingual, we would love it if you could watch the videos and let us know what feedback you have.

4. We now offer a newsletter service called "Common Craft Video Updates." If you sign up, we'll send you a short email each time we publish a new video. We don't expect to send more then two per month. You can always sign up at the bottom of every page.

Overall, I hope you'll take a look at the site. It's truly a new way for us to present our work and business - something of which we're very proud (but not too proud to hear feedback!)

We'll talk more about them later, but we worked with two small companies to make it happen. Jay and Anastasia at Juxtaprose helped us re-imagine the site's design and structure while Lyal, Alexa and Vince at Outcome3 turned that design into a incredibly manageable, SEO friendly and purpose-built Drupal site. I can't say enough about the hard work and integrity of these folks - both companies are class-acts.

Social Media Pack

leelefever — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:38:04 +0000

Editors in Brief: Common Craft Article in Seattle Magazine

leelefever — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:11:00 +0000

A few months ago, we spent an afternoon with Jamie Friddle, a writer for Seattle Magazine, who was putting together a story on Common Craft. We were so excited. A few weeks later a photographer came to take pictures.

As Sachi will tell you, the process added a layer of anxiety to her day over the next few months. What would the article say? What photos would they use? I'm happy to report that the anxiety was all for naught. The 4 page feature appears in the May 2009 issue of Seattle Magazine and we love it. Jamie's writing captured, in a compelling and interesting way, what we're all about.

Read the article.

Chalkboard Animation: FireKites "Autumn Story"

leelefever — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:51:00 +0000

I really love the effect of shadow of the previous image that is left on the chalkboard. I wonder what would happen if we tried this on the whiteboard? I'm sure it wouldn't be nearly as cool.

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

via: Drawn.ca

Explanatory Accident Slings

leelefever — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:05:00 +0000

These slings by Bem Legaus are sure to start a conversation:

Via BoingBoing

Art from the Unexpected, June 16th, Toronto

leelefever — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:09:00 +0000

A few months ago I was contacted by AdLounge, an organization in Toronto, about an event they are hosting on June 16th called "Art from the Unexpected." The idea is to have 20 leaders, not formally known as artists, create pieces to be auctioned for charity. In this case, the charity is SKETCH, an organization that works with homeless and street-involved youth to engage in the arts.

The idea sounded fun and I was happy that I could contribute to a charity event. So, I began work on my "Unexpected Art" piece - something that came to be known as "the art project" here at Common Craft HQ. I had been thinking about a way to take the style of our videos and apply it to something static and came up with a way to use foam board to create depth and texture.

Here's my contribution to the event.

Toronto in Paper

It comes framed in a deep, 3 inch frame and is made from paper and layered foamboard.

I'm so excited to see how the piece does in the auction. If you live in Toronto, or plan to be there on June 16th, I hope that you'll attend the event and take something unexpected home with you.

The Story of Our First Video, 2 Years Ago Today

leelefever — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:34:29 +0000

It's true. Two years ago today, we posted our very first video, RSS in Plain English. We had no idea what we were doing, or how that video would transform our lives.

We had a tripod, camera and a whiteboard, and that was about. The video was lit with bedroom lamps and I was speaking directly into the microphone on the camera as I moved around the pieces of paper. The video was edited with Windows Movie Maker. It was inspired by a blog post from 2004 with the title "RSS Described in Plain English."

Of course, the technical quality of the video clearly shows that we had many, um, many opportunities to improve:

We posted it about 10pm on the night of the 23rd and by noon the next day it hit the front page of Digg, partially thanks to our first comment by Rob Cottingham, minutes after it was posted. We were both blown away by its popularity. Here are a couple of tweets from that day:

This blog post (which makes me smile) captured some of the initial buzz:

It's been 24 hours since the video was posted and we've seen 15,000+ page views, 800 Diggs , 350 Delicious bookmarks and 50 comments.

Of course, the big question for us became, can we do it again? Soon after we started work on our second video, Wikis in Plain English. Once that was complete, we started to feel confident that this was something we could do.

Looking back at the RSS video, it's a bit painful to see how rough it is compared to our work now. However, I'm struck that the roughness didn't matter. It was the message, the script, the communication that mattered far more than the bad lighting and sound. While we feel good about technical quality now, we still focus the majority of our attention on what made that first RSS video work: a simple and clear explanation.

5 Ways the New CommonCraft.com Will Be Different

leelefever — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:46:28 +0000

We've re-thought our website from the ground up and soon you'll see the all the changes we're making. For now though, I want to highlight a few things that make a big difference.

1. A Focus on the Business. This may be the best way to explain how the focus has changed:

The current Common Craft site says "WE HAVE A BLOG - and we sell videos"
The *new* Common Craft site says "WE SELL VIDEOS - and we have a blog"

It's true - the new site is more closely aligned with the goal of finding, viewing, purchasing and downloading videos.

2. Simplified Video Organization. Our videos used to appear in two places, depending on their version: "free" or "presentation quality." We've consolidated the display of videos one a single page. This means:

No More "Common Craft Store" - Instead of trying to attach a video store to the site, we're integrating the purchase experience into the pages where the videos appear.
No More "Common Craft Show"- The "Common Craft Show" was simply a way to organize the free versions of our videos. Now higher-quality versions of the videos will appear in a single place on the site.

3. Videos in 5 Languages

We're taking a big step to internationalize our videos. For the first time, 10 of our videos (including the Social Media 9 Pack) will be available with voice-overs in 5 languages (English, French, German, [Brazilian] Portuguese and Spanish.) These videos will be available for viewing, purchase and download.

4. Organization by Major Topics

Our video library will be organized into four major topics, which outline our direction in the future. The topics are: Green, Money, Society and Technology.

5. Overall Look and Feel

Our goal was to make the site look and feel like our videos. We've integrated our artwork, used a white background and tried to make the experience as focused as our videos.

Of course there are many more changes, but I think these points capture some of the big ideas that drive the new design. More soon...

CNN Money Uses Twitter in Plain English (With Permission)

leelefever — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:40:42 +0000

Thanks to the folks at CNN Money for contacting us and asking permission to use our video (with attribution) in the segment below:

Sachi is the PI's Geek of the Week!

leelefever — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:29:04 +0000

Our very own Sachi LeFever is the "Geek of the Week" on the Big Blog at the Seattle PI. The Geek of the Week is a series of short interviews that highlight local Seattle geeks. Last week's geek was Bryan Zug.

My favorite answer:

When did you first know you were a geek? Describe that moment: My first grade teacher scolded me for finishing too many Schoolhouse Math worksheets, so I began sneaking them until I finished the entire box.

I've been wanting to tell that story for a while. It's sooo Sachi. As it turns out, Sachi is a geek in some ways, but not the sci-fi-loving kind. Read the interview.

We're a Webby Award Honoree for Best Writing, Online Video

leelefever — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:26:14 +0000

This morning we learned that we're an official Webby Award Honoree in the category of Best Writing, Online Film and Video! Woohoo!

But what does that mean? Here's what it says on the Webby Award website:

As a result of the exceptional quality of submissions this year, the Academy has chosen to recognize work exhibiting remarkable achievement that was not selected as a Nominee. Out of the nearly 10,000 entries submitted to the 13th Annual Webby Awards, less than 15% are awarded the status of Official Honorees.

So, we made the short-list, but were not selected for a nomination. We're completely excited to be an honoree and congratulate the nominees and look forward to seeing who takes the prize.

Last year we were an honoree in the category of Technology, Online Film and Video.

Request for Testimonials or Quotes

leelefever — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:56:10 +0000

We're getting close to rolling out a new and improved version of
CommonCraft.com and I have a favor to ask. We're planning to include testimonials in the new design. These are short quotes that will display the names (and organization names, if desired) of the people providing the quotes.

While all testimonials are welcome, short quotes of 150 characters or less would be perfect (about the size of a Twitter update.) Just a few words about our videos, how they're used, results, etc. Here's an example:

"Common Craft videos have helped me save time by getting everyone on the same page"

I feel a little funny asking, but we
don't often know how the videos being used and by whom.

A couple of things to remember:

Honesty - we are looking for quotes from people with real experience with our vidoes
Contact Info - If you provide a quote, please include information for contacting you
Our focus is education and training, so quotes from professionals in this world are much desired

How to Share:

If you'd prefer to share a testimonial privately, please use our contact form.

If you don't mind sharing your experience with the world, that works too. A few ways:

Write a review on our Facebook Fan Page
Twitter It with #commoncraft
Leave a comment on this post.

Thanks so much for helping us with the new design!

Video: World Wide Web in Plain English

leelefever — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:37:43 +0000

World Wide Web in Plain English

leelefever — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:37:43 +0000

World Wide Web in Plain English World Wide Web in Plain English