Are These Six Senses in your Corporate Videos?

Six senses in video?

Hang in with me.

When I first read Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age” four years ago, it reinforced how I believe organizations can use video more effectively and authentically than ever before.

Pink's six "senses" offers a new map

“A Whole New Mind” covers six “senses,” or aptitudes, individuals and organizations need to succeed and excel in the future.
You can think of these “senses” as a new landscape for filmmakers and clients to consider when producing their videos.

The premise is simple

The age of information is giving way to a different type of age: an age of artistic and emphatic abilities. It is an age that will require a new mindset to compete and survive. Pink calls this new mind, “a whole new mind.”

What does this have to do with your company's video?

It occurred to me that the six “senses” in “A Whole New Mind” are the same six elements incorporated in many successful films.

And here’s the best news.

These six "senses" can easily be incorporated into any organization's video story

From diversity and recruiting to orientation and marketing films, companies can start using these “whole new mind” senses by incorporating them into “whole new videos.” Here’s how.

Six senses for "a whole new video"

1. Design
Adding design to your video quickly elevates it from a “commodity” to something that is beautiful to look at. Design engages us emotionally. Three places you can begin using design in your video is in the interviews, motion graphics and sound design.

2. Story
For too long, many corporate videos have been drenched in information. Somewhere along the way, story got replaced with data. Video is inherently an emotional medium. Incorporating narrative into a company’s video is not only a natural but will make it memorable and remarkable.

3. Symphony
Pink defines symphony as “the ability to put together the pieces…it is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields.” Video is a fantastic medium for creating symphony. In a matter of a few minutes, your values, teams, departments, locations and various disciplines can all be seamlessly woven into a storyline to create a feeling of wholeness and completeness.

4. Empathy
Of the six senses, this is my favorite. Empathy is having the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Think about your company’s film. Place yourself in the shoes of your audience. Does your film really understand the feelings of your audience?

5. Play
All too often, play isn’t part of a company’s video. “We don’t play here,” is a common response. Just a few seconds of a playful moment in a video can lift the spirit of your audience and create a moment of joy that will stick in the viewer’s mind long after they watched it.

6. Meaning
In an age of over-abundance, “meaning” takes on more significance. Pink offers two suggestions to incorporate “meaning” into our lives: “start taking spirituality seriously and start taking happiness seriously.” As we move into the conceptual age, it will become increasingly important for companies to embed “meaning” and “purpose, into their videos.

What do you think? Does this make sense? Is it possible, even necessary in the future, for companies to incorporate these concepts into their video stories? How does this apply to you or your organization?

Want more? Daniel recently gave a spectacular, two-part interview with Oprah. Don’t miss this! It’s timeless material from a timeless thinker.

---Tom

P.S. Originally posted on my FastCompany column, "Let's See That Again!"

Are These Six Senses in Your Corporate Videos?

Top 10 2008 Corporate Video Posts

Attention spans these days are at a premium.

Heck, Twitter has already proven that, right?

Communicating with 140 characters or less is now beginning to go mainstream.

You have a lot of choices. Your attention is being waged on all fronts.

So for every reader who has travelled here, I thank you. A lot. Really.

There have been many, many people who helped me along this journey. I only trust I'm returning the help wherever it is needed.

Here are the most popular riffs of 2008. Most of these were inspired by you.

So, now that 2009 is around the corner , I'd like to ask you:

1. What would you like to see more of here? Less of?
2. How can I make your ROA, Return on Attention, better?

Drop me a note.

Let me know how I can help you make your experience here really rock.

Thanks!

Top 10 Popular Posts of 2008

1. My 22 Best On-Camera Interviewing Tips Ever

2. Uh-Oh! It's the CEO!

3. 5 Temptations of Every Corporate Video Client

4. 10 Tips to Create Your "Remarkable" Corporate Video

5. Here's My Secret to Capture the Perfect Interview

6. Are You Asking These 11 Stimulating Interview Questions to Capture Your Company’s 'Honest-to-Goodness' Video Story?

7. 3 Steps to Make Your Corporate Video Jump Off the Screen!

8. Need a Hero? Use This Simple Checklist

9. 7 Sure-Fire Steps for Creating Your Company’s Documentary

10. One Email No Video Client Should Ever Write

Bonus: Wow, is this page ever popular!
Tom's Twitter Profile

---Tom
The Most Popular 2008 Corporate Video Posts

My 2008 "Simply the Best" Post

Hat tip to Kathy Hansen of A Storied Career for alerting me to Joanna Young's neat group writing project, "Simply The Best: Group Writing Project."

To make the entry a bit different, Joanna wants us to share why we think our entry is our best post of 2008 in 30 words or less. Of course, what is "best" is entirely open for interpretation.

Joanna will post all the submissions next week. There should be some great reading next week!

My "Simply the Best" post of 2008?

Are You Asking These 11 Stimulating Interview Questions To Capture Your Company’s 'Honest-To-Goodness' Video Story?

My "30 word" reason?

“This post is simply the best because after 25 years of filming conversations, it collects the most interesting and engaging questions I've asked people on-camera. It's designed to create new possibilities for telling new stories.”

If you missed this post, I hope you find my "11 Questions" helpful in your future projects.

Do you have your favorite questions to ask while filming conversations?
Share your thoughts here or with the rest of the comments on the post.

---Tom

PS You counted the words, didn't you? I know you did! The word count excluded the words, "This post is simply the best because..." Just sayin'. :-)

Tom's "Simply the Best" 2008 Post

The Hero’s Journey: Telling Your Hero's Story

The conversation ends. The camera stops. The lights cool.

You feel good. You caught it: a real candid conversation from an employee, a customer or senior management.

Here’s the thing

There’s a pretty good chance your head is swimming from everything that was discussed.

So how do you distill the essence of someone’s video conversation?

How do you make sense of everything that was said? How can you tell your hero’s story so it flows naturally?

This is the last part of the journey, the “return.” Your hero’s story and message will flow easily if you prepared and covered the first two stages of the journey, the “separation” and the “initiation.”

Let’s explore the third part of the “hero’s journey,” the “return.”

Sharing knowledge
In the classic “hero’s journey,” the hero returns from their adventure to share their knowledge and insights with their community.

Your task is no different: to take what you learned from the hero’s conversation and craft it in a way that benefits your community or your audience.

The Return: 3-Step Process

Transcribe
Get your conversation transcribed to paper (ideally, with time-code from the video tape). Put it in a binder and label the binder.

Highlight
Read the transcript at least three times. Really absorb what was said. Begin to feel like you know the hero’s story by heart. Highlight the most meaningful points or moments you feel your audience needs to know and feel.

Arrange
Option 1. Copy your favorite sections into a new document. Arrange them so they tell your story in a way your audience will lean into it and care about your message.

Option 2. The second method is my favorite and works well for many clients, as well as filmmakers. Print out the highlights. Cut out the best sections and physically move them around on a large desk in a way that tells the best story.

That’s it!

This is the last post in this series exploring the “hero’s journey” in capturing an organization’s story through video.

---Tom

P.S. Originally posted on my FastCompany.com column, "Let's See That Again!"

The Hero's Journey: Telling Your Hero's Story

I'm Featured in The Twitter Survival Guide

No. No. No.

I'm not joining Twitter.

Ever.

Less than a year later, I'm profiled in an eBook about Twitter. Go figure.

If you're as skeptical as I was about using 140 characters to communicate, there's good news.

Bob Walsh and Kristen Nicole just published a fabulous new ebook on getting the most out of Twitter. It's called, "The Twitter Survival Guide: How to Use Twitter to Make Friends, Get a Job, Sell Your Brand and Have Fun."

I'm featured in the Power Profile chapter along with some other cool folks, like Guy Kawasaki, Darren Rowse, Jeremiah Owyang.

The eBook is 90 pages and packed with tips, techniques and links to help you uncover the marketing, branding and conversation possibilities Twitter offers.

Here's a peek at the chapters inside:

1. Why should you care about Twitter?
2. Twitter: What, How, Where and Why?
3. Creating your Twitter presence: A checklist
4. Twitter tools
5. Where does Twitter start and blogging end?
6. What can you do with Twitter?
7. Twitter Power Profiles
8. Conclusions

If you're looking to develop your brand, further your online presence, discover your "voice" or connect with new people, Twitter is an amazing tool.

Oh, yeah. Feel free to follow me on Twitter. Thanks!

--Tom

Thomas Clifford Profiled in the "Twitter Survival Guide."