Who likes waiting around for service calls or deliveries? It wastes so much time. Micheal is here to show us a solution his company uses to get mobile employees to a job on time! Switch put together a great animated video for TOA Techologies whose predictive, cloud-based solution helps mobile workforces manage, plan and time their days.

Their ETADirect solution measures travel time, job time, break time and team time, for every mobile employee and for every job. This helps Michael plan and optimize routes. It helps him manage his team better. And he can now increase employee productivity.

The best part? Wait times for customers are reduced to a one hour window with 98% accuracy! With this solution, you will never have to sit around waiting for someone to show up for a service call sometime between 8 and 5 ever again. Watch Michael show us how its done.

Switch Video completed a series of 5 whiteboard videos for a company that delivers Radio Frequency solutions for semiconductor applications. You say what? This company makes vacuum capacitors, impedance matching networks and Radio Frequency generators for solar, LED, flat-panel and mobile markets. These are the people that make the high tech applications needed for high voltages and frequencies that powers everyone, industry and technology.

The first video is a company overview. The second focuses on their vacuum capacitors, which the company was built on. The third video talks about their Impedance Matching Networks, or Matchboxes. And the fourth is about their RF Generators, which brings their whole RF delivery system together. The last video looks into the future and imagines how RF systems could eventually impact the globe.

The series was played at a tradeshow in Shanghai and has been translated into Mandarin and German.

Did you visit Switch Video early last week? It was insanely quiet here. Eerie quiet….because all the animators were at FITC “Flash in the Can” 2012 (aka Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity 2012). FITC is an annual conference that provides a window into the next wave of artistic and web-based technologies, like Flash, HTML5 and CSS3”.

The conference was teeming with creative people, speakers, and displays. It seems there were ample opportunities to network (read “party”) with cool creatives and learn tangible strategies to use the tools at hand to make their animation even more glorious.

Now that the animators are back in their workspace (named Studio Bob) and so dang inspired I’m absolutely willing to put up with feeling alone and abandoned for a couple of days next year too.

At some point in our lives we all feel pressure to fit in. Do you remember questioning who you are or why you were a certain way? Did you ever spend time trying to change yourself in any way? It takes a lot of time and negative energy to work to fit in. Our beloved Switch Animator Taylor Annisette has created something very positive from a negative experience. Her fourth year thesis film is titled, Fitting In.

Taylor gives clear meaning and understanding to the journey for acceptance. The video features colorful, simple shapes, and an original score by composer Luisa Cornnachia. With no dialogue, the video transcends all language barriers and strikes an emotional chord. Through the eyes of a little octagon, we see that prejudice is unnecessary and unacceptable.

Taylor’s video has been in the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, and the enRoute Air Canada Festival. It will soon be in the TIFF Kid’s Festival in Toronto, the Little Big Shots Festival in Melbourne, Australia, and the Viewfinders Youth Festival in Halifax.

You must watch this. This short animated video is turning heads. It’s making an impact and its message will make a huge difference. Congratulations, Taylor! We’re certainly a proud bunch over here at Switch Video.

In the world of high level hiring, you would think finding the ideal executive for a company would be easy. Everyone has a digital footprint. But this transparency often means the best people are bombarded with opportunities. Searching for ideal senior-level leaders is a complex process and Switch has created a 90 second whiteboard video to explain the importance of a successful search strategy. Take a look! There’s a gorilla in a suit!

Some projects have a certain vibe about them the second the first phone call or email is received. StudyHall is case-in-point. We could hear Meagan’s laugh resonating throughout the building one July day. Who was she talking to? A long lost friend? A hot date? Nope. She was on a sales call with Ross Blankenship and Michael Edgar, the masterminds behind StudyHall.com. They were in the throes of launching their simple yet amazing concept: connect college and university students via a dedicated social media platform where they can share notes, connect with ‘study buddies’ and even work on group projects. Brilliant! Considering that Michael and Ross collectively have more degrees listed in their email signatures than number of videos we’ve produced, we’re guessing they know a bit about how to study successfully. Working with them proved that extremely well-educated (and well-studied!) people can be creative and fun.

There were jokes lobbed back and forth from our first meeting in the Discovery Call straight through until video completion. There was lightheartedness in our professional communications. And in the meantime, we made a beautiful claymation video with the help of their awesome input and inspiration.

It goes to show. Attitudes are infectious. And we’re watching for the StudyHall video to be so infectious, it goes viral.

What I didn’t realize is how much there is to take-in when you visit the track.  This SwitchBoard video is a crash course in how to observe horses (and their human entourage) in the parade ring.  Our animator used simple, elegant black line drawings of horses to illustrate the basics of what to look for before a race. Very enlightening.

Take a gander or maybe I should say “gallop”, learn the basics and enjoy a trip to the track.

Behold another amazing infographic video. Right now infographic videos just take my breathe away. They are engaging, lovely to look at and their messages resonate long after viewing.

In this one, you’ll quickly understand the message of working to improve the lives of women living in poverty. The mandarin orange, black and off white colour scheme jumps off the screen in tandem with a cascading arrangement of piano and strings. I love the bold cello opening – kind of Max Richteresque. But I digress. Enjoy a wonderful infographic and it’s optimistic outlook.

Thanks Scrybe. You ushered in a new era in marketing and your name could win us a round in the web video trivia wars.

People have a limited attention span. They remember more when they both hear (auditory) and see (visual) things together at the same time. Thus the foundation of Switch’s business: short animated explainer videos. Check out a previous post – Why Less is More in Web Videos.

Today’s Switch Fave is the Skype Moments explainer style video. At a total of 30 seconds in length, it’s got the limited attention span aspect covered. It possesses a confident sleight of hand working in a simple white and blue sky environment for the visual. And I love that the auditory stuff includes the speedily revealed technical requirements of “broadband, webcam and other little bits”.

Take a look before your attention fades, or your hearing and vision give out.