The timing’s perfect — we just experimented with a new twist on the game a couple of weeks ago. The results were very good, and I’ll be sharing that story here, too!

Looking at a bunch of examples of these hybrid video-slideshows, I was surprised at 1) how powerful a story-telling tool they can be and 2) how little uniformity there is in format. Here’s a selection that show the broad range of formats, strengths and weaknesses.

Example 1: Amazing Story. But — Give Me Control!

This is the most powerful opening to a consulting site that I’ve ever seen (hat tip to Progessive Exchange). It does so many things right:

• Nothing gets in the way of the story. It’s stripped down. Every word and frame moves the story ahead.
• The text is the main focus, letting one element carry you through the whole story. You never lose track of your anchor.
• The images and music supplement the text and set the mood without distracting. Because of them, I actually forgot I was reading — I felt like I knew what the guy’s voice sounded like.

And it’s a good thing, because the ONLY control they give me is a mute button. There’s no way to pause the video, go back if you miss something, or even see how long it is. And, if this is your hundredth visit to the Empax web site, there’s no way to skip this intro. (I have to imagine this drives the staff nuts!)

Those complaints are major ones, and especially vexing because they shouldn’t be hard to fix.

That said, I’ve watched this at least six times (not always intentionally), and I’m still blown away by it.

Update 3/9: My compliments to the team at Empax, who in very short order added controls to the slideshow. See their comment below for more details. Thanks for the thoughtful response!

Example 2: Never-Ending Slideshow – Where Am I?

This is an example from our allies over at the Nature Conservancy. This slideshow shows off stunning photography of an expedition to an oyster bed. It makes great sense to use audio to bring the photos even more to life.

Unfortunately, the player suffers from a fatal flaw: it has no indicator of how long the slideshow is. Worse, I’ve started it three times now, and I’ve had to start from the beginning each time. I’ve watched at least three minutes each time (an eternity in online video) and I have no idea if I’m still at the beginning or a few seconds from the end.

If you watch this one all the way through, leave a comment — I’d love to know how long it is!

Example 3: I Don’t Need Quite This Much Control…

This New York Times feature uses photos from Bolivia’s glaciers to show the human costs of climate change. Unlike the previous slideshows, it offers complete control over where you are and lets you to jump wherever you want. Unfortunately, this isn’t quite successful, either.

Here’s how this one works:

• Each photo has a soundtrack. You can see at the bottom how long it is and control where you are (yay!).
• If you do nothing, when you reach the end of a photo’s soundtrack, it automatically loads the next photo and starts playing that track.
• You can also click on any of the thumbnails at any time, which loads that photo and its soundtrack.

The problem here is that it looks more like a photo gallery than a video — the thumbnails are in your face and the video controls are subtle. This cue puts you in click-around mode, not sit-back-and-watch mode. It’s like the designers were whispering, “You’re probably getting fidgety…here are seven other things to click on.”

The narration here is good, yet the interface encourages people to skip it. If you’re going to take the time to build a thoughtful soundtrack, trust it to guide people through. If you think it’s too long and people will get bored, go back and watch example number one for inspiration.

Example 4: Ah, Yes, Like This!

Such a relief to find this slideshow about San Francisco’s Farrallone Islands narrated by Lauren Sommer of KQED. (She’s a former colleague from Environmental Defense Fund, so I’m sure that’s why it came out so nicely.)

The audio narration is top-notch, just as you’d expect from a public radio station. The photos match up nicely and add a depth to the story that the even the constant gull cries in the audio can’t quite convey.

But, best of all, it has all the controls we are used to from video players:

• Pause/play
• Progress indicator showing the length of the show and where you are
• Full screen option
• Embed code

One minor complaint — the controls to jump forward and back a picture are a little inscrutable, as is the one open a thumbnail gallery. If you’re brave enough to click on them, they stop the audio, which is a little weird. But it’s easy enough to get it started again with the trusty play button, and those functions aren’t core to watching the show, so overall, high marks.

Conclusion: Promising Format, Why So Much Control Confusion?

Frankly, I’m puzzled about why there’s so much variety in the controls on these slideshows (and bad variety, at that!). In the early days of online video, we saw lots of glitchy controls that were placed weirdly and did unexpected things.

But we’re way beyond that now!

Here’s a fun post from 37 Signals that shows just how far we’ve come. Note that in pretty much all the video players pictured, the controls are in the same place, and in the key ones (pause/play and progress indicator) there’s very little variaton.

The video controls problem is solved — now let’s import the solution into audio slideshows.

Richard Denison, who works on toxics for EDF, recently provided an excellent example of a blog post that makes a complex argument easy to follow. This post really pushes the boundaries for depth and length: It has 2,250 words and molecular diagrams! Here’s how he made it work:

• He takes a clear position right from the headline, and does nothing but support and illustrate that position. He walks you through and doesn’t let you get lost in irrelevant details. That focus makes the substance much easier to take in.
• The conversational tone makes you feel like you’re connecting with an actual person. And little touches remind you that the person you’re listening to cares deeply about what he’s saying: “…a wholly debilitative lung condition whose name speaks for itself: obliterative bronchiolitis.”
• Finally, he uses headings, lists and structure wisely. Even if you don’t read every word, just skimming the headings and lists shows you how he’s building the argument and what piece of it is where. And if you do read the whole thing, it’s like having the Google map view in addition to turn-by-turn directions — it’s easy to see how things fit together and grasp the overall destination.

Again, here’s the post to check out. When everyone at EDF learns to structure posts this well, I will do cartwheels in the hallway!

In addition to the challenges presented by the map itself, we worked hard to format the material next to the map so it conveyed a lot of information without being overwhelming. It’s great to see this used as an example of good usability.

The interactive map lets people find which buildings in New York City are burning the dirtiest heating oil.

(This is the oil behind the huge puffs of dark smoke that you see coming from rooftops up there.)

I was sad to see that the beautiful building where my cousin lives, and where I’ve enjoyed staying, is one of the offenders.

Find out how we created the map on Jim’s blog.

As I watched the colors wash over my news feed, I had some thoughts about what online marketers can learn from all this.

1. Anyone can start a powerful viral idea

All signs point to no professional organizer behind this: No one stepped forward to take advantage of all the publicity (CNN, Business Week, Times of India!). No link was circulated as part of the campaign.

That’s the beauty of social media, but it’s also frustrating — think how much more could have been accomplished for breast cancer awareness had all this energy been harnessed better.

2. Viral fads can create huge opportunities for a cause

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the biggest and best-known organization working on this issue, was taken by surprise, but still got more attention in a week than most cause advocates can hope for in a month. They were quoted in dozens of news stories, and got more than a hundred thousand new Facebook fans.

3. Lots of opportunities were left on the table.

But there was a lot more organizers could have done to capitalize on this.

• Give people a place to go — and promote it. The Komen home page has a link to how you can make a difference, but most news stories I saw didn’t include their URL, and the quotes they placed mostly didn’t encourage people to visit the site, either. And the link on the home page wasn’t tailored to the opportunity — it would have been a great chance to feature, say, a blog post with a few simple facts about breast cancer prevention.
• Ask your supporters to make it bigger. I’m not on the Komen email list or Facebook group so I don’t know if they sent a message about it. (If you are, post a comment?) I would have loved to get a note saying “What a great idea! When you post your bra color, include this link so your friends can get more information.” I do know that I saw not one status pointing to Komen.
• If your cause is related, jump in! My guy friends were feeling a little left out, and resorted to doing things like posting their t-shirt colors. Where was the men’s health group getting guys to post the color of their boxers to support prostate cancer awareness?

Are YOU ready for lightning to strike?

Fads like this are lightning strikes — they happen in an instant, and you could sit around a looong time waiting for the second bolt.

I’ve pointed out more that Komen for the Cure could have done, but the honest truth is that most organizations (including mine) would probably come out of a Facebook lightning strike the same way — some good, but a lot undone. How would you do?

I started a quick list of things to make organizations more lightning-ready:

• Can people find you? If people think of you in relation to a particular cause, they’re likely to come looking for you. Komen was positioned perfectly to take advantage of press interest — as I said, they got quoted in tons of news stories.But on Facebook, it was different. I wasn’t sure of the exact name of the organization (I think was a re-branding when I wasn’t looking) and a search for a variation on their name turns up only these results. A ton of other groups come up if you search Facebook for “breast cancer.” It took me four searches to find this Komen Facebook group, which looks like their official one. I kept looking, though, since one news account referred to 100K+ fans. I finally found this fan page through an NPR blog post. How many possible supporters never found them?
• How quickly can you offer an online resource? I’m talking about something really simple — a basic landing page or blog post you can send curious people to. It needs just a few things they can do right now for the half-second they’re thinking about your issue. Don’t just think about the technology. Can you get information from the right people? Do you have to ask permission?
• Who on your team wants to help bottle lightning? If you’re lucky enough to get a trend like this, it’s really easy to watch it, have some cool ideas, then just go on to your next meeting. It’s a lot easier to act if you have someone to toss ideas around with, to reinforce the idea that you can actually do something about this. Who can you turn who’s itching to be quick and creative?

Those are just my quick ideas — what other opportunities do you see?

Update, Jan. 12: Carrie over at the U.S. Humane Society found this new promotion, where Facebook is donating money based on how many new fans join the Susan G. Komen for the Cure page.

Update, Jan 14: Rabia Shirazi started a donation campaign inspired by the color campaign.?  Shashi Bellamkonda has a nice write-up of it on his blog. It’s great to see someone build on a good idea.

If I join your e-list on Monday, the system spits out a welcome on Tuesday and a solicitation on Wednesday. According to the spreadsheets, that raises more money.

… if you have some notion that you are creating a sense of community, of belonging or of emotional satisfaction by communicating this way as a fundraiser, well I?€™d like to have a little of what you?€™re smoking.

That’s quite the challenge he lays down. Mark has been saying smart, provocative things like this ever since I met him five years ago, and I suspect we’re going to keep hearing it.

Why? It’s really really hard to do things differently — every routine we have and tool we use push us down a particular path.

But props to Mark for reminding us why it’s worth trying.

I love love love the New Yorker — so well-written and well-edited — and I am horrified to learn (via SVN) that they have installed this atrocity.

What makes this a usability mistake? It behaves in a way that you don’t expect. If you’re going to break expectations, the bar is very high: You must delight people.

This particular trick too often ends up annoying people. See the comments on the SVN post. No delight there that I can see…

This 60-minute presentation is a little slow getting started, but if you’ve got the time, it’s a good overview from one of the clearest thinkers in the industry. Hat tip to Ryan at 37 Signals.

Three months later, what do we have to show for it? Or, in other words, should you do the same thing? Here’s what we’re seeing.

Explosion of EDF bloggers

The biggest new entry on our blog list is our new transportation blog, Way2Go. Kathryn and Carrie came back from the retreat inspired to resuscitate a blog that had been long-since left for dead.? They were organized and focused — they put together the best responses to our internal planning template we’ve ever seen, and a month in, they are blogging with smarts and energy. Nice work!

We also have a crop of new bloggers on our international climate talks blog, which is amazing considering they set that up while preparing for the chaos of the Copenhagen talks. The contributors to our blog about Texas energy re-tooled how they write and edit posts to make the process more flexible and inclusive. And two more blogs are in the final setup stages, to launch in the new year.

But what I’m most pleased with is that EDF staff are engaged in the question of how blogging will help achieve their goals, not just blogging so they can say they blog. One of the best conversations we’ve had is with a department that decided to put off blogging for now, since it made sense to invest in other tactics first. I love seeing our staff make smart, well-informed choices.

Not just the usual suspects

We’ve always had a small but energetic group experimenting with social media (see our business innovation blog and green business twitter feed). We’re now seeing people on social media who were never part of that experimental vanguard.

Kathryn, whose determination got the new transportation blog going, is a great example. A year ago, when we first started talking about a transportation blog, she was skeptical that blogging would be worth the time it would require from her staff. This fall, she made it clear that she wanted to dedicate the time to make the blog succeed.

She’s not the only example. In North Carolina, a staffer who has been a bit cautious about this technology now aspires to become Social Media Queen, and she’s doing a great job soaking up knowledge. In California, the VP set a goal for every staffer to become more proficient at social media in the coming quarter.

Lauren Guite, our online team’s outreach coordinator, says that not only are these “unusual suspects” truly interested, but she’s impressed with their understanding of why the tools are important.

The interest in and support for social media definitely kicked up a notch after the retreat, in a way that our smaller, regular training sessions could not have achieved. And interest doesn’t seem to be flagging, even though a few months have gone by.

Plans to re-run the game

We built our retreat sessions on the social media game, a simulation tool that lets people new to social media quickly build a social media strategy. Three different groups have come to me asking for help re-running the game to generate ideas for specific projects. I can’t think of a better indicator that people found it useful.

And we’re learning from experience. One of the biggest lessons when we ran the game in October was that it would work better if the audiences and goals were more clearly defined. With all three groups, we’re doing a lot more upfront work to define the scenario. This is less important if you’re doing it as an exercise to raise awareness of social media tools, but since we want to come out of this with ideas to implement, we’re being as thoughtful as we can about the parameters.

I expect the first one to be ready to go late this month.

Biggest challenge: How to find the time?

We had to cut staff last year, the economy remains rough, and the planet needs a lot of saving. When staff choose to engage in social media, they have to spend less time on something else. We’re seeing this play out in a cycle of enthusiasm and guilt. People get excited about something — tweeting, setting up Google Reader, writing a blog post. But other priorities get in the way, and it becomes just something else that’s still hanging around their to-do list the next week. Then they feel bad when we check in with them and they have to tell us they haven’t gotten to it yet.

In the big picture, if people see results from social media, they’ll keep engaging, and if they don’t see results, they shouldn’t feel bad about stopping. But getting started requires a leap of faith that time spent trying social media is time well spent. And when there’s so much going on, it’s hard to make that leap.

The time we spent on this at the retreat definitely helped amp up the enthusiasm part of the cycle, pushing more people into making the leap of faith. It’s exciting to see people so game to try it, and I appreciate the trust people are putting in the pitch we made to them.

Now it’s the Web team’s job to make those leaps successful as possible, so our staff’s limited time is indeed well spent.