Full disclosure: I still subscribe to the paper version of the paper.
When I snapped open the Metro section today I was surprised to see a long-time Mind & Media client staring back at me. Dr. Matt Friedman, the Executive Director of VA’s National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, was profiled by the Partnership for Public Service as part of a series about career civil servants.

I say we’ve been working with NCPTSD a long time, but it’s a blip compared to how long Dr. Friedman has been committed to helping Veterans with PTSD. As the article says, he’s been working with Veterans since before there was such a diagnosis as PTSD; 40 years, to be exact. His dedication to Veterans is captured in this bit from the article:

“There is something so compelling and worthwhile and so important about trying to help people whose lives have been changed by their willingness to make a sacrifice,” said Friedman of his primary work with veterans. “Some have suffered greatly because of this willingness and are no longer the same person that they were. I just wanted to help them pick up the pieces.”

Amen to that! Mind & Media is proud to have provided multiple online multimedia presentation to the National Center for PTSD, including a professional educational series and three presentations created to help families learn about and deal with PTSD. Our Veterans deserve the best, indeed.

I remember when I first posted a video online. It was probably 1998, and my video production clients had just started inquiring about how get their shiny new video on their shiny new website. Those postage stamp-sized videos were 280 x 210 pixels and blazed along the mighty Internet super highway at about 38 kilobits a second. The clients clamored to see them, but rarely could straight away. “You need to get that plug-in and then restart your machine. Oh, you’re on a mac, you need this other plug-in and we need to encode it differently. We’ll offer two versions…at least.” Online video was more an exercise in patience than content consumption. Everyone wanted online video, but there were myriad road blocks, from bandwidth to delivery systems. It’s incredible to think how far things have come in 15 years.

Relentless competition pushed the online video industry to achieve great things. Competition is great, for sure, but, frankly, at some point, monopoly can make life simpler. When Flash became the powerhouse of rich media creation and delivery, it just made development easier, period. Sure Silverslight showed up and RealMedia has always been strong in closed settings, like universities, but by and large you could count on users to have a recent version of Flash player so they could see your content. For us, and our clients, last few years have been hassle-free. We’ve been creating Flash-based presentations—well designed, narrated, animated, including embedded videos–for public consumption, will much success. Even issues with accessibility have largely been tackled by Flash so our government clients are on board with Flash as a delivery tool. Federal clients are not early adopters of technology, I realize, so bear with me as I move with them away from the fossil that is Internet Explorer 6 to where this post is going.

This post, and our clients, are going mobile, to tablets and phones, and without i-naming names, the big boy in that space doesn’t like Flash (or Flash’s parent, Adobe). Federal clients that were forever locked to PCs and Internet Explorer are not only adopting more varied devices, but I also find that they are more eager to make their content available to the myriad devices used by their audiences. It’s a little bit like being back in 1997 again. Instead of Mac or PC, RealPlayer or Quicktime, it’s Android or iPhone, HTML5 or Flash. As I’m working through how I can give my clients the content they want delivered to as wide an audience as possible, I find myself heading back to my roots; to video.

What was once so hard to deliver is becoming the easiest. With amazing delivery services out there, like Limelight and Vimeo, to name a couple we use, it’s easy to create one video that is available across most—dare I say all—devices. Rather than develop a multimedia presentation in Flash, mixing narration, animation and video, why not just build the whole thing in the edit suite and deliver one big video?

One glaring reason is interactivity. Stand alone video is linear, so interactivity would be tricky, if not impossible, without some surrounding interface (HTML or Flash) or controlling mechanism (like a DVD player). Aside from that, though, if your content is linear, stand alone video might just be the answer.

I read in The Wall Street Journal about a study that says the best way to rest and rejuvenate a tired brain is to take a walk, in nature specifically. It’s better than a walk in the city and better than just relaxing with a cup of coffee.

Being in nature, the research shows, helps your brain get ready to pay attention and remember things, and that sounds like a perfect state of mind for learning, eh?

If you’re developing e-learning that really has to teach, as opposed to simply “check the box”, I’m thinking you might add, “take a hike” to the list of your course prerequisites!

As perhaps the first agency to respond to a June 13 directive to improve online services, the Energy Department just shut down a stand-alone news service site (energyempowers.gov), folding the content into the Energy.gov redesign. You can read about that on nextgov.

Collapsing separate, focused websites into larger, more general sites may not always be the way to go. Sure, it might, might save money, but at what cost to usability or to brand recognition? For example, when the National Center for PTSD was rolled up under the main VA.gov domain, not only did their acronym (brand name) vanish from their URL, but their specific content got surrounded by a ton of irrelevant VA content as their site got dropped into the VA content management system wrapper. That may simplify the VA’s Web presence, but does nothing to simplify the task of navigating that enormous site for information on PTSD.

Beyond usability challenges, moving several distinct programs under one single domain also brings up challenges with content management. One contractor may be creating content for a specific program office initiative, but since they don’t hold the web hosting contract of the larger .gov entity they can’t easily post or update the content they create. We run into that too often. Technical specifications of the primary .gov web server can stalemate a website that would, if allowed to run in another environment, be serving the public as intended. Instead, months vanish from the calendar while program offices and contractors, with no partnerships in place, and separate contracts to honor, negotiate which group must accommodate the other. Instead of focused, nimble contracts, and websites, the agency gets one giant, clunky website (plus one giant web hosting contract).

So while I applaud most efforts to reduce government waste and right the financial ship, I can’t help but hesitate when I read agencies are being encouraged to collapse sites, that might currently do a great job serving a niche purpose or audience, into often already super-sized .gov parent websites.

This month’s Video Vault takes us back to 2002, when just about all hands on deck were engrossed in creating an original broadcast television show. Parent Sense was a magazine-style show providing information on raising healthy families. Mind & Media partnered with The Dr. Spock Company to produce the series of eight half-hour episodes in just three months. To meet the demands of the tight schedule, we expanded our video team by drawing on the production expertise of people from other departments. They quickly turned into camera operators, directors, and producers, making it possible for Mind & Media to field multiple video teams across the country simultaneously. All eight episodes of Parent Sense aired on public television stations in over 90 percent of the nation’s markets (including the top five markets), and the series earned two prestigious industry awards for its high-quality information and production values. Here’s a clip from our award-winning episode about the importance of play.

Read more about Parent Sense in our website portfolio.

You can tell from the comments around this Government Executive article that some folks find it laughable that a Fed agency is trying to make something more usable. But I say kudos for the effort and the approach. From the article:

Nicole Burton, user experience evangelist at the GSA Office of Customer Service Excellence who helps manage the program, says although the tests aren’t statistically significant, the most serious problems are fixed, and the technique improves customer service. Burton and her team did not have to purchase any new technology or equipment to launch the program. She says usability testing can be carried out with the technology available in most modern offices.

So it’s not a full blown usability survey or user experience design undertaking; they’re not saying it is. It can still be useful, as Ms. Burton explains. With no acquisition process or contractor expense, GSA is helping other agencies tackle big usability issues and improving customer service. How can you make fun of that?

Not every website tweak needs huge time, effort, or expense. Grab a copy of Don’t Make Me Think and see what you can do to improve user experience on your site. Or, if you’re swamped, give me a call.

This morning I snagged a last-minute seat at a small panel discussion, YouTube: Beyond the Basics, hosted jointly by the Ad Council and (YouTube owner) Google in downtown DC. The crowd was almost entirely social media staff from non-profits and a range of Federal agencies. Just FYI, Google’s coffee is not as good as their search engine, but the rest of the scene was delightful.

The panel was a good mix of speakers. A YouTube rep showed off some lesser known YouTube features valuable to those that manage a YouTube partner channel and social media campaigns. Blue State Digital showed off a pro bono project that leverages user-generated video and YouTube for itgetsbetter.org. National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) offered lessons learned about successful social media video campaigns. One interesting tip was that no matter how emotionally charged an issue may be, sad videos don’t do well in terms of going viral. NRDC showed a video they produced, that I would say prompts angers instead of sadness, and it is one of their most successful in terms of being shared and inspiring action. The best performers, however, are funny videos, thank goodness. I can only handle so many angry activists.

The presenter I found most valuable was Kay Morrison, a senior advisor in the office of web communications at the Environmental Protection Agency. Oh, and she’s also the liason between the Federal government and YouTube or maybe it’s Google. Regardless, that’s pretty huge. Ms. Morrison was the repository of info that every agency needs before plunging into social media, specifically YouTube.

What the other presenters never touched on was the unique challenges of creating content on behalf of the Federal government. They made everything seem so easy because they’re just creating and posting and accepting user-created video and collecting personal information and doing all these things that Federal agencies either can’t do or are afraid to do or are not sure they can do. Reasons or excuses for inaction, no doubt. Enter Ms. Morrison who had answers for all of it. Turns out there is a specific addendum to the YouTube terms of service specifically for Federal agencies that she can get for you. She also has vetted disclaimer language, privacy statements, and even terms of use for how the public can interact with a Federal social media site. For example, I asked Ms. Morrison about moderating comments. Can a Federal agency refuse to post my comment, what with the first ammendment and all? She says yes, and I don’t believe she was off the cuff with that answer. In her words, the agency can choose to not publish a comment, but they would never censor a comment and then post it. And that to me was worth the price of admission right there (that price happened to be zero, but you get me, right?). I’ve heard numerous Federal clients shy away from social anything  just because they didn’t know how to deal with wild/hateful/off-topic comments.

It’s so exciting to see certain agencies, and super stars at those agencies like Ms. Morrison, working to break down barriers that might keep the Federal government from leveraging social media as quickly, or as effectively, as for- and non-profit organizations. The wider the lines of communication between government and the people, the more likely we can truly have government by the people.

Oh, one last, awesome, tip agreed upon by the whole panel and audience. If you are a Federal agency producing a video, do NOT put a senior leader in front of a flag and agency seal and let them read a prompter for eight minutes. Not even two minutes. Just don’t do it. What kind of video would YOU like to watch? What kind of video would your audience and their friends like to watch? Let’s start there.

Kudos to OhMyGov.com  for creating an easy-to-read infographic about the Hatch Act and social media. Politically active folks considering federal employment should be aware of the restrictions it imposes regarding political activity at work AND at home. But in the world of smarphones, teleworking, and portable computers, what constitutes “at home” or “at work”? Are we talking about the person’s physical location, the ownership of the hardware they use, or maybe even the activity they were doing in the moments leading up to the political activity?

According to the infographic, federal employees may advocate for a political candidate via Facebook status updates from home, but not from work. Ok, but if I use my personal smartphone, while in the cafeteria in my federal office building, during my lunch break, to post such a FB status, am I at work or not? If I use my federal-government-supplied laptop, on Saturday in my backyard, to post that status, am I at home? What if I’m teleworking, now I’m both “at work” and “at home”!

At least some of the rules have zero grey area. For example, if you look up “Solicit political contributions via Twitter” column one, for Less Restricted Employees indicates, “Not on your life”, and column two, for Further Restricted Employees simply says, “Nevah!”

Well that’s pretty clear.

“Rapid” is a hot word in the e-learning industry. The speed and ease with which you can create an online course is the big selling point for many software developers. Ease of use is always good, but for me and my clients, speed to audience is rarely the most critical factor. Over the years I’ve been developing e-learning courses the big ticket item our clients want is ability to easily edit content after the product is originally delivered. A lot of our work is for government agencies and once a contract ends, it doesn’t matter if that agency needs to change one word of a product, if the contract is over it’s a huge headache to get the work done. That’s why so many statements of work that come to us require use of non-proprietary products, and/or the requirement that said agency will have the ability to make edits to a deliverable at a later date.

To that end we often develop using off-the-shelf products with which our clients have the ability to update facts or figures in their training products without having to recontract. They may need some training, just as when they first opened Word or PowerPoint, but the ability is there, and the effort is similar to working in either of those programs.

One challenge that comes from keeping e-learning course content that easily editable is that it can be prohibitive to integrate other media, like video—and I’m talking professionally produced video, not webcam footage which I recognize is becoming more readily available to e-learning authors—into the course. For example we’re working with clients for which we’d like to have an actual presenter as part of their online course. For another we’re producing short, personal video stories, and for yet another, we’re capturing brief personal interviews. The purpose of each course is different, as is the audience and tone, but for all three projects we’re keeping one thing in common among the videos—they won’t include content—or even key personnel—that are likely to need to be updated. Our host will stick to generic content like the welcome, section transitions and historical examples. Our interviewees will be telling personal stories and sharing opinions. We shy away from including agency leadership in video (particularly not in an election year!).

We let the video do what it does best, add story or personality to support the facts or techniques being conveyed via the training course. By keeping the video elements evergreen we limit the likelihood of costly revisions, and give our clients a product that will better stand the test of time.

Online learning can take many forms, from simply reading a page to interactively participating in virtual classrooms or simulations. Also widely variable is how training is produced, the production time, price, and in the end, its effectiveness. Are you choosing the right method for teaching? Sometimes you can tell information to your learners, but other times you may see better results if you show.

Mind & Media recently launched a training community website for therapists helping couples deal with the challenges of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Learners attend a classroom session and then are granted access to the online community where they can expand on the one-time classroom experience. Sure the site will include manuals, and a discussion forum, where information is told, but also in the works is the development of role-play videos that will show great examples of how to conduct the therapy. They’re very real and relevant scenarios, too, created by the experts. No scripts, no actors, and no big bucks. Here’s why role-plays by experts beat scripted, acted scenes just about any day of the week when it comes to effective, affordable training.

For this training project we videotaped eight role-play scenarios in one day, ranging from 8- to 25-minutes. Pre-production was virtually non-existent—no locations to scout, no scripts to write, and no actors to find, screen, hire, and prepare to play doctor or patient. Mind & Media has a beautiful brainstorming room that served as our therapy office so that was kind of a lucky break, but the decisions about script and actors were as much about efficacy as about budget.

The trainers, who served as the actors, loosely developed the scenarios during their travel to our office. That was all the prep time they needed because they knew the content, techniques, and even typical patient behaviors like the back of their hands. The familiarity with the subject made the acting all the more realistic. While we were shooting one trainer told us of at time they had used professional actors for a similar project and they ended up with bad overacting by folks more interested in their careers than the task at hand. Not to say all actors would derail the project, but if your luck does happen to go bad on shoot day, how would you recover?

The production itself went fast, too. Quality assurance for each scenario happened on the fly since all “actors” were subject matters experts. They could prep a scene in a few minutes and complete it in one take. We rolled two cameras to capture the whole scene in real-time whenever possible. We did use a production assistant to keep track of details during any multi-take scenes to make sure we kept continuity, since there was no script or storyboard, but in general the group of trainers and production staff at Mind & Media, just worked smartly and kept things rolling. The scenes were so real that at times I felt uncomfortable watching the fictional husband and wife spar in front of their therapist!

While the trainers may conduct some role-plays during the classroom training, having video role-plays online may be even more effective. They’re not limited to just that one classroom, and if need be the learner just clicks rewind and watches it again, any time of day, any place with an Internet connection. And the bonus, since the videos will be rolled into the larger community learning site, is that viewers can watch the scenarios and then discuss them with peers and the trainers in the forum to keep the learning environment current and ever-growing.