multimedia academy 2015 seas and resources presentations

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Welcome!Multimedia Academy#digMM

https://youtu.be/mcx1vyOKFtU

Break 10:30 10:45

Up next: Making the Most of Multimedia in a Higher Ed SettingMultimedia Academy#digMM

Were a small communications office of 4 people: (director, 2 writers, and generalist visual person/project manager). 3

Be StrategicGet A Little Help From Your FriendsBe CreativeShareReflect

Were going to talk today about our approach to creating multimedia with our small staff and very tight budget4

Be strategic

Why are you doing this to yourself?

Internal CoverageExternal CoverageSocial Coverage

First, identify your goal. What audience is this content aimed toward? What is the message? The medium is the message, right so one informs the other. A beautiful branded video if you have the time is wonderful but if the main goal is get the story into the Washington Post, youve just wasted your precious time. If youre goal is to hit all of these platform, great! Youre officially a multimedia mogul! Just make sure you have content to satisfy the appetite of all of these different platforms. So, what does that content look like and how Is it used?6

Multimedia that supports contentHow it was used:National GeographicForbes

YouTube: 18,631 views

Multimedia is a great way to support and draw out one aspect of the story, especially if its complex or difficult to convey. Here, we used an animation company to highlight one aspect of this story. We decided to approach the content this way because, while the story itself was newsworthy, subject of the story the battery isnt visually compelling yet the working process of the battery was. When you say flow battery not a lot of people know what that means, yet understanding how a flow battery works was quintessential to the story. The story received wide coverage, internally and externally and the video was used in its entirety almost everywhere. It almost never stood alone as the centerpiece of the story, rather as we intended, as supplemental material. Mention that we worked with an outside firm

We wrote the script, did the V.O. and collaborated on visuals between the researchers and animators. 7

Multimedia that tells the story

How it was used:Popular ScienceWashington PostYouTube: 53,649 views

If the story is the visuals, a multimedia piece can tell the whole story as a stand alone piece, with the written story acting as supplemental text. Robotics stories, for us, lend themselves particularly well to this kind of multimedia story telling. These videos play great on internal communications and social media but its about 70/30 in the media. We get great media coverage on these stories but more often then not, news sites will edit or just use clips or gifs of our videos, rather than the whole thing. As you can see, the power of this kind of multimedia is YouTube because it stands on its own. 8

Multimedia as Click bait

How it was used:TwitterReddit Futurology

Were not above it and neither are youMention that we worked with an outside illustrator

These images dont have to tell a story, they dont have to be specific mostly they just have to be pretty to have a big impact. Unsurprisingly, that impact is seen mostly on social media. This story, quickly became one of our most Tweeted stories, with traffic to our site from social media up about 1000% with it. It made its way to the front page of Reddit Futurology)/Reddit Science -- powerful social media platforms. While this story got picked up on a couple of influence blogs, it didnt have the mainstream pick-up that the other two examples had. 9

Get A LittleHelp From Your Friends

Get a little help from your friendsIts a two-way streetBe a resourceReward success

A few years ago we had to explain to our faculty and graduate students why high quality multimedia was important for helping us help them. Now were noticing a significant increate in the interest and skill in multimedia creation among our graduate students and post docs. Our primary challenge now is getting our hands on all the great work theyre producing so that we can share it.

In the past weve taught informal photography classes to our community and provided advice on what photo and video equipment to purchase. With the talent pool growing were now also thinking about how to help our community share their expertise with each other, investigating the feasibility of equipment sharing, looking for new ways to capture short-form video, and brainstorming with faculty about ways to include multimedia creation as a component of their course work.

We try to create a positive feedback loop by promoting great images on the web, through social media, and in print. This positive also helps to set a high bar for the rest of the community.11

Be Creative

As a team of four with limited time and resources we have to be creative and a little scrappy about how to get images to accompany our stories.12

Be CreativeElevate existing footageCollaborate Conjure something out of nothing Make the most of the moment Use what you have

We do this in a few ways13

Elevate existing footageCollaborate Conjure something out of nothing Make the most of the moment Use what you have

First, Leah has been taking taking the short research clips recorded by labs and stringing them together with text and audio to create a more informative and exciting videos that stand alone better than the original footage.14


For several years Ive worked directly with research groups to photograph people and devices so weve got images to accompany an upcoming press release. One of the images from this set was used on the cover of the magazine Science. 15

Elevate existing footageCollaborate Conjure something out of nothingMake the most of the moment Use what you have

When theres no device to show but we need an image that visually connects with the story sometimes we have to come up with a concept to elevate a basic faculty portrait such as in this photo of Professor Federico Capasso highlighting his work on quantum cascade lasers.16

Or this photograph of professor David Brooks highlighting his thoughts on high-performance computers in an article called The Need for Speed.17


Be prepared because you never know when youll stumble across a wonderful moment like this demonstration of of the non-stick properties of a newly design coating called Slips. This has become one of our most requested images.18


Its amazing what you can do with a iphone or GoPro these days. Dont feel like you need fancy equipment to produce good work.19

Share

We try to make it as easy for people to get their hands on the media we have.20

Public sharing

The Media Resources link on the press releases hosted on our website provides self-service access multimedia assets.

Also have a new YouTube channel.

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Invitation-only sharingAlbum access:guest passesfor media

Full access:AA&DHAAOTDHarvard X & more

Most of our photographs are hosted on Flickr (least expensive hosting option with the sharing options we need)We use guest passes to share individual images and albums with individuals & members of the mediaWe invite internal communications partners to become friends or family and then give them full access to see & download all imagesCurrently 18 Flickr memberships with friends/family affiliation. Includes members of AA&D, HAA, OTD, Harvard X, and more.

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ReflectWas it worth the effort?

What is a successful package? Is it a video that has 100,000 views? Is it content that makes it into the NY Times? Is it a popular Gif on Twitter? Is is a video that faculty use in conferences or on institutional websites? We think all of these qualify as success. What about images that make it into books and foreign magazines, reaching thousands of more people? What do you think?

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Examples Katia Bertoldi & soft actuatorExample Robobee image in childrens books24

Panel: How Can Teams Handle Multimedia?

Moderator: Catherine Seraphin, Multimedia Project Manager, Harvard Public Affairs & Communications

David Bergeron-Keefe, Production Manager, BU NewsMatt Cadwallader, Digital Strategist, Harvard Kennedy SchoolKatherine Bell, Editor, HBR.org

Multimedia Academy#digMM

Lunch 12:00 1:00

Up next: More Than Just a Pretty Picture: Strategic Visual StorytellingMultimedia Academy#digMM

Break 1:30 1:45

Up next: Multimedia Resources: Let Others Help YouMultimedia Academy#digMM

Multimedia Resources:Let Others Help you

Ben Sharbaugh@bsharbaugh

Multimedia is hard

Multimedia is expensive

Help! I need somebody!

Resources available at Harvard

Simple

We have videos for youHarvard YouTube and SoundCloud

Harvard YouTube and SoundCloud




Harvard Giphy

Sharing Harvard GIFs

HPAC photographyMerlin

Advanced

Harvard campus b-roll

Email [email protected] for access

Video Toolkit

Media Usage guidelinesGuidance from the HPAC media relations team on how best to share multimedia with online publications

Resources available elsewhere

Simple

The entirety of YouTube is at your disposalUSE IT!YouTube

Two autoplay video platforms with large, built-in audiences and a preference for videoThe challenge is consistent metricsFacebook and Twitter video

Giphy tools

Giphy tools

Can easily upload videos or a series of images to create a GIFSlideshow creation functionality

SoundslidesTurn photos into video slideshows

AudioJunglePond5PremiumBeatVimeoExtremeMusicAffordable, legal music

Advanced

Kaltura has an enterprise deal at HarvardBrightcove (robust, costly)Wistia (pure video player, cost-effective)Livestream potential

White label video player

What can I do next?5 Takeaways

Ben Sharbaugh@bsharbaugh

All three platforms have very different audiences and styles. What kind of videos work best and where?Shorter videos or longer videos?Plays versus engagement Compare video performance on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube

Use communication and project tools to partner with producers

Create GIFs for Twitter/Facebook using GIPHY tools

Always include high quality photos with your storyRecord audio interviews with story subject and upload to SoundCloudEmbeddable, sharable video if relevant

Assemble a multimedia package for a media pitch

Who is our audience?What are we trying to communicate about our brand?Do we want it to be more professional or organic? Engage users or do it all yourself?Create a strategic plan for sharing visuals

Thank You

Thank you for attending!

harvard.edu/guidelinesMultimedia Academy#digMM

multimedia academy 2015 seas and resources presentations

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