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Intelligence
Broadcasting Ourselves

Intelligence

Broadcasting Ourselves

Nov 02, 2007By Voltaire Santos Miran

If you’d asked me a year-and-a-half ago what I thought about video on websites, I would have told you that well-produced clips of roughly 15 to 30 seconds in length should be the standard. YouTube, technology, and software have changed all of that, and quickly! As a result, we’re finding in our most recent client work that the doors are wide open for incorporating lower-quality, user-produced video on an ongoing basis. Usually, this is in addition to the high production-value stuff that an institution may do once a year or every other year. The appetite for video continues to grow, but the budget doesn’t. And as one of our clients said, having a videographer and cameraperson back to campus every month to grab and process new video is not a smart, sustainable solution. Agreed.

In the vein of PW2P, we’ve started to add video to our own website to augment our team profiles (next to our blog posts, the profiles get the highest number of visits). Each person at mStoner was responsible for coming up with their own concept for their video. Our intrepid James Hyatt (formerly an indie film producer), shot each segment using an itty-bitty Canon HDV10 and used iMovie to edit and GarageBand to clean up the audio.

Time spent shooting each segment: two non-billable hours.
Time editing and processing for YouTube: seven non-billable hours.
Knowing that people on your consulting team have a sense of humor and a life outside of work: priceless.

So for your Friday viewing pleasure, we offer three, initial clips:

Jenny, on the hands-on process
Heather, on blue steel
Voltaire, on vodka, nonprofit roots, and ketchup 

More to come, and thanks for watching!


  • Voltaire Santos Miran EVP, Web Strategy I've developed and implemented communication strategies in education for more than 20 years now. I think my team at mStoner is the smartest, funniest, and coolest group of colleagues ever, and I can't imagine being anywhere else. Except Barcelona. Or Paris. Or Istanbul. To quote Isak Dinesen, "the cure for everything is salt ... tears, sweat, and the sea."