MCAI is rebuilding to serve our fellow members more and better than ever before! Here’s a quick explanation of four new initiatives — Webinars, Webcasts, VOD and MediaProCamp—followed by some details. These are all in the beginning stages and your (and your chapter’s) participation will make a big difference!
As an all-volunteer association, many of your fellow members have stepped forward to make these and other advances happen ASAP. But they can’t do it alone. That’s part of the concept of an association— individual members benefiting from helping each other as a group. If you can assist in any way let us know.
Go To Meeting/Go To Webinar — Web conference calls with video sharing of participant’s desktops.
WebCast Chapter Meetings — Web streaming of any chapter’s meeting (eventually every meeting?) making it available LIVE as well as for later playback by any member.
MediaProCamp presented by MCAI — Formerly called ‘Un-conference,’ this is a series of chapter-run (so far, three chapters are planning to hold a MediaProCamp) all-day events based on the ‘Bar-Camp’ model. Think mini ProTrack—but not.
VOD Videos & Podcasts— Posting member and chapter videos online for Video-On-Demand (VOD) access.
OK, HERE’S SOME DETAILS:
Go To Meeting/Go To Webinar — You may have heard the commercials for this service. It’s essentially web conference calls with video sharing of desktops. This has already been used by the International Board and Leadership conference with great success. It’s replaced our old (and expensive) phone conference service. Now, we’re working on ways to roll it out for use (free) by all members. Imagine being able to host a virtual meeting for your clients, including up to 1000 of their key people!
While everyone can see the presenter’s desktop, (the video feed can switch between a limited number of presenters) all the participant’s voices are sent on a separate VOIP stream. It works great but does not support any audio from the desktop. So, things like sound from videos and music don’t come through. It’s a truly wonderful application for meetings but it’s not for video streaming. Which is why to share our meetings, we’re looking at true webcasting.
WebCast Chapter Meetings — LIVE web streaming of any chapter’s meeting making it available to A) anyone on the web B) as a VOD playback on both that chapter’s website and the IO (International Organization) website.
MCAI meetings are a fabulous resource for all media professionals. Problem is we can’t experience them unless we go in person! A chapter across the country is having a great meeting featuring a national expert—the best we can do is read about it later! And if you’re a member-at-large, not near an active chapter, you’re just out of luck! Why aren’t we using the power of the media for ourselves? This Initiative is to get chapters to start recording their meetings on a regular basis and put them online for all to share (VOD). Imagine the valuable library of information we can build up even if every chapter contributes video files of only two or three of their meetings a year! Get your group together and start NOW!
Recording a meeting doesn’t have to be fancy. The basics are one camera and one microphone and some decent lighting. What chapter doesn’t have access to those? Sometimes your production can be more extensive. Certainly, we should do a professional job even with limited resources because it does reflect on us, but ultimately it’s about CONTENT! That’s what the world (and google) is looking for!
The promotional value of a library of VOD Meetings to attract new members and get back the BUZZ on MCAI is only outweighed by the possibility of LIVE STREAMING one or more of our various chapter meetings every month! If every chapter committed to just one Live Streamed WEBCAST a year (and we could coordinate it properly) your international organization could be promoting an exciting LIVE EVENT once a month! THAT would create BUZZ! That is the kind of organization of which everyone wants to be a part!
On a practical level, Live streaming a meeting may not draw a large audience due to different time zones but the excitement and marketing value of sending it out LIVE is unmatchable! It’s the word of mouth that you can’t buy! MCAI needs to be doing this if we expect to claim that our members are media leaders and experts. This isn’t about reaching a lot of people (the VOD can do that.) It’s about staking a claim to being at the leading edge of our industry.
The LA/Orange County Chapter is leading the charge on live streaming of meetings. They’re trying to set up a protocol that other chapters can follow. In January they webcast via TodoCast www.todocast.tv For March they are looking at using Mogulus www.mogulus.com/ Mogulus may also be a solution to provide the VOD of chapter meetings. We’ll see.
If you want to join the effort to WEBCAST meetings contact Grace McKay in the LA/OC Chapter: grace@electricpictures.tv At the very least get your chapter talking about it and create some local Buzz! Start taping your meetings and explore how you can make them available on your website.
MediaProCamp — presented by MCAI — Formerly called the ‘Un-conference,’ this is a series of chapter-run, all-day events based on the ‘Bar-Camp’ model. We’re branding it MediaProCamp. So far, three chapters are planning to hold one of these events. But we need at least 2 more chapters to stick the sword in the sand, as they say, and commit to making it happen in their area.
MediaProCamp is the complete opposite of the standard lecture format. Instead, it’s an intense day of mini-discussions, demos and interaction among participants. The procedural framework consists of sessions proposed and scheduled by attendees, (some spontaneously at the last minute) typically using white boards or paper taped to the wall. This is a form of the open space approach and has been dubbed, The Open Grid.
Todd O’Neill presented this idea in Anaheim last fall and Orange County was the first chapter to commit (Scheduled for June 20th.) Two other chapters are not far behind. Our goal is to have 5 or more chapters organize and host a MediaProCamp sometime in ‘09 so we can gather national sponsors for them as a “national series’ of events. Consider these to be live, in-person regional events. If any can be videotaped and/or streamed to the web even better!
For some of us this sounds quite off the wall, but this style event has created a lot of buzz. it’s relatively easy to organize and with a little effort you should be able to get some good publicity for it. Since every attendee is a professional, they bring a certain expertise to share—along with a lot of questions. The day becomes a series of short interactive brainstorming sessions (each only 30 to 45 min long) each with only a moderator or facilitator rather than a lecturer. Usually there are multiple sessions happening at the same time and a time limit for each session drives the intensity of the discussion. The key is interactivity! As Todd points out, the satisfaction level reported by attendees is sky high. Why? Because THEY determine the content!
The best part MCAI Chapters is that tips for organizing are all laid out at www.barcamp.org All you have to do is pick the topic, organize and promote it! If your chapter is looking to do something different and exciting this is it!
Equally as important, this initiative is designed to replace the old centralized conference model of ProTrack—which lost us a ton of money! Getting 5 or more chapters to commit to MediaProCamp this year gives our organization a sponsorship vehicle to promote nationally. Remember, as an all-volunteer, member-managed association, every dollar the IO raises supports you and your local chapter.
Chapter leaders or anyone interested in creating a MediaProCamp for their area may contact John Coleman of the LA/OC Chapter for more info and assistance: jwcoleman1@cox.net as well as to coordinate ideas and the series sponsorship.
VOD Videos & Podcasts—Posting member and chapter videos online for VOD access. As a media organization, our site lacks a great deal of video and audio. Your volunteer international leadership is moving forward to find practical, affordable ways to allow members and chapters to post/share podcasts, videos, and other presentations of interest to the general media community.
We’re looking for volunteers who can work together across chapter lines to help determine the most cost effective way MCAI can make our website rich with media. Servers, storage solutions and streaming services that can embed video into our sites all need looking into. Can you Help? At the very least poll your chapter members to see what videos and posdcasts they can make available for posting! For more information and/or to join the effort contact John Coleman jwcoleman1@cox.net
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Talk about these 4 initiatives in your chapter. How can you apply these locally? How can you help the rest of the association to implement these? Get involved on the national level—it’s only an email of a phone call away to someone who’s looking for your help!
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15-Feb-10
Good point, Laura! And Showdocument looks great too! I'm going to give it try. --John
Its a good tool, but there are other options - personally I use http://www.showdocument.com since it needs no installation. really easy for sharing your designs, documents, ideas and collaborating online. Just saying you should know all your options. - Laura W.