London Region ICT Champion

Sometimes when we’re trying to learn a new technique or a new subject - a video tutorial - watching how an expert does it can be more powerful than web or print ‘how to’ articles.

Video tutorials offer a great way to concisely convey a lot of information that might otherwise take hours of writing and drawing diagrams to make the same point. Tutorials are also a great way for organisations to showcase their expertise or point of view to a wide audience.

YouTube is not the only vehicle for hosting web tutorials - a whole raft of web sites have sprung up in YouTube’s wake and we take a look around at some of the web’s best instructional web sites.

5min describes itself as a place to find short video solutions for practical questions and a place for people to share their knowledge - a communal Life Videopedia. subjects covered range from tech, arts, fashion to practical DIY. First up, it’s “What Google Really Has On You” from 5min video.

Howcast has a slightly more professional clean-cut look than the rough-cut appeal of 5min. It offers a wider range of material but seems a lot weaker on technology. The best we could do is “Hyper sonic shut-down of Windows” for folks always in a hurry.

ExpertVillage describes itself as “the world’s largest how to video site”. The site is very slick and professional looking and has a large section covering technology and the Internet. Here Drew Noah explains the basics of Google Documents.

Lastly, we couldn’t finish without a blast from Youtube. Check out CommonCraft’s “Social networking in plain English”

In the next installment we’ll look at the mechanics of putting together a video tutorial for the web.

There’s nothing like a story-telling to get one’s message across, and video is one of the most accessible medium’s for getting the message across quickly and effectively to stakeholders and funders.

Why video?
With the advent of Youtube and other internet video sites, organisations can now get their message out relatively inexpensively, not just to their stakeholders, but also to a global audience of potential supporters, activists and donors.

• can be inexpensive way of publicising your organisation and its cause - digital cameras are becoming cheaper and easier to use
• Youtube and others will host video for you - most services are free
• Talk about your success stories - how does your organisation or cause make a difference to the people it works with? Video can help you get the impact of your services across quickly and effectively
• No more burning your video onto CD or DVD - just send people the web link to your video

Getting started
In the UK, we don’t talk about voluntary and community success stories enough - we rely on word of mouth or low level photocopied publicity to get the message out. Getting started with capturing your organisation’s success stories needn’t be expensive or intimidating. Nick Booth gives an excellent primer on how to video an interview. You can also check out the resources on the ICT Hub Knowledgebase here and here.

Youtube may be ubiquitous, but it isn’t the only video sharing service, there’s also Daily Motion and vSocial.

As always, the key thing here is to watch these videos and think how you might apply their example (or not) to your own organisation or community group.

If your organisation is using video to get it’s message across, let me know - we want to showcase the best examples from around the UK’s voluntary and community sector.

1. “Talk” - Disability Rights Commission (DRC) (02.40)
Great clip from the DRC on raising disability awareness.

2. Abilitynet (01.20)
Abilitynet is the UK’s leading charity concerned with all aspects of ICT and Disability. Student Caroline Barr talks about her experience of using a computer.

3. More blots on our landscape (04.21):
A husband and wife duo from East Yorkshire campaign against political indifference from shoulder shrugging local councilors to stop a new gas works despoiling the countryside.

4. Age Concern London - Getting from A-Z Part 1 (04.37)
Age Concern’s Information & Advice services offer a life line for many older Londoners and helps transform older people’s lives every day. ‘Getting from A to Z’ portrays the experiences of a few individuals who have been helped.

5. Give a Toss (01.40):
Thanks to Youthnet’s Tom Green for flagging this one up.

6. The Great Communicator talks about the Great Enabler (04.08)
From the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, 2005.

7. Tower Hamlets Community Empowerment Network (10.37)
It’s also good to show how it shouldn’t be done. I was going to make a parallell with London’s Elephant & Castle shopping centre, another example of ‘how not to do it’, but I won’t. With this videoI gave up after less than 2 minutes, dispirited at this flashy corporate speak promo video for Tower Hamlets CEN. Does anyone know how much this cost THCEN?

I’ve just been posting about video-blogging, and as if by magic the BBC has confirmed a deal with YouTube to make programming available via 3 BBC branded channels, including supplying an ad-funded BBC News clips service.

You can read Beth Kanter’s take on it and also check out the YouTube Educational Group.

According to the Beeb, it breaks down like this:

BBC - ad free channel popularising current programming

BBC Worldwide - ad free channel featuring self-contained clips - about three to six minutes long - mining popular programmes in the BBC’s archive.

BBC News - ad funded channel showing about 30 news clips per day. Because of the advertising, these clips can be seen outside the UK only (where the BBC is still ad free).

Interestingly, there was an ultimately unsuccessful campaign by BBC staff and MPs to fight off the dilution of ‘BBC values’ and move to a model of web advertising.

Unlike other broadcasters, the Beeb also seems to be viewing copyright infringement on Youtube as a promotional opportunity:

Mr Highfield said the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people’s copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand.

“We don’t want to be overzealous, a lot of the material on YouTube is good promotional content for us,” he said.

In previous posts I’ve been talking about video can help voluntary and community sector organisations get their message over - not just to their traditional stakeholders (service users and funders) - but also to a much wider audience who may be inspired to contribute in some small way, either through volunteering their time or donating funds.

As I’ve said before, it’s organisations that grasp the opportunities of new technology to get their stories about how they make a difference seen by stakeholders that will prosper.

Getting started:
Nick Booth of Podnosh has some great tips on interviewing for video-blogs. Also, check out the excellent community and social media reporting of David Wilcox.

What about you?
I’d love to hear about how you use video-blogging to report on your local community. How did you get started? Does it make a difference? Do decision-makers and funders get to see your work?

Regular round-up:
The selection presented here is the first in a regular round-up how the voluntary sector is using video to tell the story of what they do and how it makes a difference and covers stories from the deeply personal, to open source, to campaigning adverts to the political.

Social Cohesion: Extreme Measures or Simple Steps (8.14 mins)

Age Concern Southwark, London (3.46 mins)

Open Source in the Community and Voluntary Sector (25 mins)

NSPCC (1.23 mins)

David Cameron speaks about the role of the Voluntary Sector (2.59 mins)