You hear it all the time. YouTube serves up hundreds of millions of videos per day. Video blogs are more popular than ever. And mainstream TV, with it’s so-called reality junk food shows like Jersey Shore, and endless reruns of Jerry Springer, is becoming redundant, is often repulsive, and ultimately will be rendered obsolete within a matter of a few years.

Not so fast. TV isn’t going anywhere.

Yes, the Web has brought about a revolution in the way people consume video. Filmmakers are taking to the Internet to promote, release, and sell their feature films. Indeed, lots of people nowadays spend far more time getting their news and information from the Internet and far less time watching their 6pm local newscast.

Just 8 years ago, I can remember struggling to post videos online – the file sizes were immense, the quality was poor, and the pipe simply wasn’t big enough to handle the amount of data that video created. We’ve come far in a very short amount of time. Online video truly is a revolution, but it’s not a replacement for television. Not at all. And here’s why:

Convergence is Here

A few years ago, convergence was the big buzzword. All the major media folk were talking about how mainstream TV was going to merge with the Web and what a threat that would be to the industry. They predicted that within 2 or 3 years we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between what we were watching online and what we were watching on our 60″ plasma. Nobody would have to watch ads anymore and television as we know it would be dead on the table.

Well that hasn’t exactly happened. While it’s true you can watch YouTube videos on your big screen now, and tools like Netflix and AppleTV are bridging the gap between traditional consumption of media and Web-delivered media, there’s still a big distinction with conventional, ad-driven television, and the cable companies and media moguls like it that way.

With that said, though, there’s a different kind of convergence happening with television – and it’s one that I like a lot. You see, one of the things the media empires didn’t bank on was social media. They didn’t guess that within 5 years of their convergence debates, the floodgates of anyone, anywhere, anytime publishing would open wide.

Social TV

Television merged with social media is a whole different beast. It’s not TV online. It’s TV inline. We are still watching our favourite shows, commercials and all, and why? Because our friends are watching them too. Just look at what FourSquare was able to do with the SuperBowl. Or what the Vancouver Olympics achieved, with real-time commentary and conversation via Twitter. And look at the Oscars - same thing via multiple streams – blogs, Facebook and Twitter played a huge role in that event. The real time stream of conversation means I can watch television now with 100 million of my closest friends. It’s like a virtual bowl of popcorn, that we’re all able to dip our hands into while we gather around our respective boob tubes.

But it doesn’t even take a major network event to see the real benefits of the social channel when it comes to TV watching. Check out the cast and crew of the best sitcom on TV, The Big Bang Theory who are on Twitter. Every week, not only do we see photos of the cast rehearsing posted, but we get to sit down with the cast, crew and fans at 8pm ET every week and watch the show with them. We can follow the conversation in real time. We can laugh together, and post our favourite quotes. No longer do we have to wait to relive the episode at the water cooler tomorrow. The water cooler is online now.

And in the spirit of merging social with the show, Anthony Bourdain, beloved host of the hit travel/food show “No Reservations”, has hijacked his own Twitter account (it used to be run by his “people”) and the other night, live-tweeted the entire episode of his show in real time as it was airing. His witty and often crass sense of humour, and comical banter with other viewers, was not only wildly entertaining, it made me realize one very important point that will please every broadcaster in the world. 90% of people who PVR shows skip through the commercials. But if the host of the show is conversing with fans WHILE the show is running – people will be far more inclined to watch the show when it airs…and that includes the commercials. Can you say #winning?

This, my friends, is the future of television. It’s not going to be some hybrid mashup of laughing babies, William Shatner and Kenny from South Park. It’s going to be real people, in real time, really experiencing all that television still has to offer.

So don’t you worry, TV. You were my first love, and you will remain that way.

[photo credit: hellabella on Flickr]

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Back in TV school, I was taught that when framing up a shot, it’s really important to look at the background. Even if the framing of a shot is perfect, if something weird is going on in the background, it can ruin everything. It could be a cable from a light running across the floor. It could be a person goofing off at their desk, or a strange looking shadow. It could also be a case of bad juxtaposition – when a stair rail, or a picture frame “cuts” through the back of someone’s head. If you don’t focus on the background, then the perception of what’s in the foreground can be completely lost.

I think a big part of the problem with the reluctance of many people to adopt social media is that many people are not spending enough time focusing on the background.

How’s your DOF? There’s an expression used in film, video and photography known as Depth of Field. Specifically, it refers to the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects in the frame that appear in sharp focus in an image. So, if you have a shallow Depth of Field, it means that you’ll see one object clearly in focus, while all other objects in the background appear out of focus. On the other hand, having a deep depth of field means that everything in the picture appears to be relatively in focus, whether it’s up close to the foreground or far in the background.

Shallow depth of field is often used for dramatic effect. It’s a very attractive style, because it allows the eye to focus on one thing, blurring everything else in the background. Deep depth of field can be very attractive when shooting landscapes – it’s a wide-angle shot where everything is crystal clear.

Part of what freaks people out about social media is that by nature, it is exposing. There’s no shallow DOF in social media. It’s all quite deep, in fact. Successful social media is not about companies interacting, it’s about humans interacting. And that means there’s going to be an endless mix of dimensions, tastes, activities, comments, questions, and information. Some of it may be junk to you. Some may be of incredible value to you. But the fact is, social media is vast, and deep, like a photograph where you can see for miles and miles and miles. And that scares a lot of people.

Consider your online interactions for a moment. Who are the people you relate to best? Are they the ones who only show you a little bit of themselves, and keep the rest a closely guarded secret? Or are they the people who present a clear picture of who they are, from all angles, flattering and not-so-flattering?

Social media has deep, deep Depth of Field. The people and companies that are most successful in the medium are those who accept that. Their lens is not focused on one one object. It’s focused on the vast expanse and potential of each interaction they have.

Juxtapose this! I remember one of my profs in TV school equating juxtaposition to that classic gag that comedian Steve Martin made famous. He always said “You don’t want to be the guy with the arrow through your head”. When framing up a shot, you need to be totally conscious of what’s happening behind your subject. If there’s a picture frame, or stair rail, or any object, appearing to stick out of, or cut through the back of someone’s head, it makes them look silly. And nobody wants to look silly.

If social media is all about genuine relationships and real conversations and actual human beings, then it stands to reason that occasionally, even the best intentioned people are going to look silly. It doesn’t matter whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the owner of a flower shop in rural Iowa, or a PR flack trying to build your professional network and generate leads, when you choose to engage on social media platforms, you need to be prepared to open yourself up to the possibility that someday, what you say in the foreground, and what’s going on in the background won’t match.

But that does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. Some of the most fascinating and dynamic people I know online are that way because they accept that the image everyone sees in the foreground is completely subject to what’s happening in the background. That means, if someone is having a bad day in the background, and that surfaces, so be it. If someone is super busy and just trying to keep up in the background, it might mean they have to reframe things. All of this is real life, and all of it’s more than okay. We need to be accepting of everyone’s juxtaposition.

What I think is at once amazing and frightening about social media is that it’s totally raw. The people who use the medium most successfully are completely in focus at all dimensions, and they are not worried that sometimes things are just going to line up in funny ways. They deal with it, and move on.

I am hopeful that as more people begin to understand this new medium, they will be more inclined to present the wide angle view of themselves. For often, what’s in the background is far more compelling than a shallow little dot of focus.

What say you?

[photo credit ohector on Flickr]

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I met someone for the first time recently. They asked me “What do you do?”.

The story of what I “do” has changed over the years. I used to just say “I work for [insert company name here].” Then after a while, I started to identify more with the actual work I was doing. “I’m a TV producer.” “I’m a web designer.” “I’m a technical writer.” “I’m a professor.”

When we started the company, my description started to become more complex. “I’m a partner in a production company.” Which always prompted the response, “Oh? What kind of production?”, to which I’d have to go into a long-winded explanation that well, we do tv production, but also web video, corporate video, and oh – yah, we develop web sites too, and do marketing…..

The problem I was having is that I could no longer easily sum up what I actually “do”. I was “doing” too many different things. Then the other day, it hit me. What I do is irrelevant. It’s a task list. It’s what I am that matters.

So what AM I? Simple. I’m a storyteller.

All day, every day, I’m telling stories. I’m telling them here, on my blog. I’m telling them in 140 character increments, on Twitter. I’m telling them when I meet my friends for drinks or coffee or dinner. And I’m helping my clients figure out how to tell their stories too, whether it’s through a new web site, a video, a TV show, a marketing campaign, or all of the above.

It’s all storytelling.

So how does this tie in to the notion that it’s not about the tools? Well, the fact that it’s really all about storytelling rather proves it, I think.

If what we’re all doing out here is telling stories (our own, our clients’, others’ -it doesn’t matter), then really, the tools become irrelevant. Sure, it’s important to know how to use the right tools, and use them the right way to ensure the story is told well. But the tools themselves are secondary. It’s the story that really matters.

When all’s said and done, it’s the story that people will remember – not what you used to tell it. I’m wondering if it’s time to reconsider how much effort we are spending talking about the tools themselves, and if perhaps we should be spending more effort figuring out what our story is and how we’re going to tell it.

Thoughts?

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Remember the Information Superhighway?

Hundreds of TV channels. Thousands of radio stations. The world at your fingertips through a telephone line. Information any time, any where, any how. It was a promise of things to come, and it came. With a vengeance.

10 years after the vision of the Info Highway was created, it’s now ingrained in just about every aspect of our lives and culture. We are connected in ways we never thought possible. Amazing things are happening because of these connections. We have access to any information we want, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We don’t just have one or two sources anymore. We have hundreds of thousands, millions of ways to receive information. It’s wonderful, and as both a media producer and a media consumer, every day I am more amazed and more excited about the possibilities that new media holds.

500 TV channels, 1000 stations on satellite radio, and millions of web sites all vie for a piece of our attention. Compare this to just 35 years ago, when I lived in a place that had one – count ‘em – ONE – television channel, and on a good day, one radio station. Granted, I was in a small, isolated town, but I know that I am not too far off the mark when I say that we live in an era where information has absolutely exploded.

I honestly think that the information revolution is a really good thing. We are more aware, more connected, and more tuned in than ever before. I wouldn’t have made media my career if I wasn’t genuinely excited about where it’s going. However, all this ready access to information has one serious by-product.

There’s a whole lotta noise.

Ever flip through your 500 TV channels and find absolutely nothing you want to watch? I’m sure the same thing happens with your satellite radio, or the 100 podcasts you have downloaded on your player. Add that to the flood of emails in your inbox, the steady stream of Instant Messages, tweets, Facebook updates, and the 1000+ blogs you have yet to read in your Google Reader, and all of a sudden, all that wonderful information starts to become a royal pain in the butt.

The easy solution is to just turn it off, go read a book or spend some time with your kids. But the more you turn off, the more the channels just fill up and fill up. It’s like that pot of potatoes you left simmering on the stove. It’s boiling away, gentle, manageable, then all of a sudden it boils over, and the only thing you can do is rush over and save it before it makes a giant mess.

In other words, it’s not so easy for us to turn it off. These days, we all have a ton of inbound information, and many of us spew out our own fair share as well. The problem is that the more inbound information we have, the more noise gets jammed in there. We feel a sudden urge to purge our friends and followers lists, delete all but about 10 of our favourite blogs, and cancel our cable TV. But we percieve a big problem with doing that.

We might miss something.

WE MIGHT MISS SOMETHING. Heaven forbid, if we miss that oh so clever tweet from Mr. or Ms. Popular that everyone else found so amusing. Shame on us if we aren’t hung on every discussion about the Obama inauguration. Gosh golly gee whiz if we don’t see the link to the latest, biggest news event the INSTANT everyone else does.

Our human nature makes us prone to distraught feelings if we are left out of something. We always desire to be “in the loop”, “up on the latest”, or “fully informed”. That’s why we get copied on so many inane email trails and our inboxes are bursting. It’s why we have cable TV with 500 channels. It’s why we check our social networks ALL the time. The more we are afraid we are going to miss something, the more we get sucked into the noise. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle.

I have a solution for you. It’s really simple, like most good solutions are. You ready?

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOOK AT ALL OF IT.

People often ask me how I manage to follow nearly 1,700 people on Twitter and subscribe to over 200 blogs (and I’m small potatoes compared to some). They want to know how I can read all those tweets and blog posts every day, and still have time to actually do work.

Well, for starters, I don’t read every post and every tweet. There are only 24 hours in MY day too! I have perfected the art of skimming. I scan my feeds when I have time, and if something catches my attention I read it. If I’m so inspired, I post a comment or reply. Sometimes I get into conversations. Many times I don’t, because I’m too busy doing other things. As for my inbox, I am so heavily filtered now that only about 30% of the total email I receive goes into my actual inbox. The noise is put aside until I have the time to pay attention to it.

This is an amazing time in which we live. Information is everywhere, and it’s mostly a good thing. But it can get the best of us, if we don’t know how to use it. Ulitmately, it’s up to you what information you choose to consume and what noise you choose to filter. But stop being afraid you’re going to miss something. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that if you remain open and focused, the information you need will come to you just about right when you need it. And at the end of the day, you’ll be firmly in the loop in just the way you need to be.

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In my last post, I talked about how I first got involved in community television. When I was 15, we moved away from Masset. My experience with Masset-Haida TV had inspired me. At that young age I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I graduated high school in June of 1988 and that September I was off to college, enrolled in the Television Broadcasting program. At just 17, I couldn’t wait to get started living my dream of being a television producer.

At the time I imagined myself working my way up the ranks at a local TV station, then moving on to network television. I had a particular fondness for news at that time, so I had visions of producing or directing network newscasts, or working for CNN.

In 1990 I graduated from the TV Broadcasting program, and my parents and I moved to Ottawa. I was certain that I could get a job at one of the TV stations in town! I knew everything about TV production, of course, and was ready to make my mark. Of course I very quickly came to the stark realization that TV is a hard business to break into. They didn’t really hire people just out of school. I had to figure out how to get some experience.

Then one day I was on my way to the bank or something, and driving down St. Laurent Boulevard, I spotted a sign. “Skyline Cablevision”. I recalled seeing some sort of TV programming affiliated with Skyline Cablevision one night a couple of weeks earlier. Then it clicked. They have a TV station in there! I sucked up all my courage (I was a very shy girl back then) and turned into the parking lot. I walked in the front door and at that moment my life changed. The nice lady at the front desk (who later became a dear friend) was kind enough to take me on a tour of the station. She told me that the place ran mostly with volunteers, who did everything from camera to sound to lighting, directing and producing (did she say “producing”???).

Needless to say I was fired up. I signed up as a volunteer and man, I was there every day. I did camera, editing, audio, directing, and gained a ton of experience. The programs were in some ways similar to the shows we did back at MHTV. They were community-focused, and targeted to niche audiences. There was a community news program called “City 22″, an arts program called “The Scene”, and a program that would eventually have a significant impact on my life called “Soundtrack”, about the local music scene. There were multicultural programs for the Greek, Japanese, Polish, Italian, and Dutch communities. There were call in programs about politics, movies, home improvement and more. Viewers were encouraged to participate in the conversation by calling in, or leaving a message on the viewer response line. It was a true social network. People from the community, all volunteers, produced the programs from the ground up. They wrote the content, booked the guests and got the show on the air with the help of volunteer crews. It was an amazing place.

A few months after I started volunteering, a job opportunity presented itself. At barely 20 years old, I was hired by Skyline Cablevision to be a Staff Producer, one of 5 paid producers who were hired to manage the productions and the volunteer crews. I had 7 different shows to produce. I was the youngest person on staff, I was in charge of building a community of people, developing their skills to produce good quality programming delivered to targeted audiences, and engaging people in an interactive way (something that mainstream TV networks did not do very well back then). It was social media delivered via television!

In my next post I will be talking further about how community television changed over the 7 years I spent in it.

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