Business

February 11, 2015

Vision for My Production Process

Casting a vision is one of the single most important exercises to being successful in the workplace. Whether you are leading a business, a department, or yourself as an employee, casting a vision will give you a clear direction to move in, stimulate growth, and reveal resources that would have otherwise been overlooked. One of my visions for this website is to “Become more clear in my thinking and stimulate my mind which will keep me creative.” So today, in front of you, I want to hash out my vision for my role in Multimedia. My hope is that this will encourage you to cast a vision, provide an example of how, and even get some feedback from you on what could be improved.

As a video producer for On The Edge Multimedia Studio I do a lot. From pre-production, to production, and on to post-production, I am involved in all of it.

Pre-Production

Monday is my planning day. I come in to work five minutes early and start working. I paint a picture of how I want each product video to look when it is finished. I lay out a detailed plan illustrating what I will need, how long everything will take, and what order I will attack each task. When my primary plan is laid out, I plan three contingencies. Once my foundation in planning is strong I prepare everything that I can possibly prepare.

Production

The quality of my production is directly related to the quality of my preproduction. When it is time to film, I hit the ground running. I quickly gather everything up and head to my first planned filming location. I decisively set up my equipment and set. When I am filming, my focus is sharp and my picture is clear and beautiful. My pans are smooth and tasteful. My light is falling on the areas I want it to. It is only highlighting what I want the viewer to see. I systematically cover all of the shots I have planned to cover. My product demonstrations are thorough, intense, entertaining, and practical.

Post-Production

The quality of my post-production is directly related to the quality of my production. My videos start with an intriguing, captivating, or curious opener. They grab the viewer from the start. They hold the viewers attention through the entire video. The consistently surprise the viewer and deliver more than they expected. The transitions are tasteful and rhythmic. They reflect well on the respective brands that they are promoting.

So, there it is! I hope this helps inspire you to create a vision of your own. What will you cast a vision for this year? What area of your life could benefit from a vision makeover?

January 28, 2015

Multimedia In 2015

Are you striving to accomplish more, produce better products, and grow your business or department? If you’re not proactively looking to the future there’s a good possibility of being run over by your competition or even your boss. Even though I’m not in leadership in my department, I absolutely love looking to the future, and casting a vision is a solid first step. So, here is my vision for Multimedia in 2015.

Our Culture
To the rest of the company we are a reliable resource. We exceed expectations, we are responsive, and we are approachable. When someone visits our office they are encouraged and in a better mood by the time they leave. We show the same respect to someone when they leave that we showed them when they were present. No gossip. If you don’t have a solution that you are willing to initiate, then we won’t cripple our department and our company by talking negatively about someone when they aren’t present. This is an integrity issue. Our department will adopt this in spite of what everyone else does.

Our Imagery
The rest of the company is improved because of us. We provide beautiful, polished and compelling imagery to the Creative Department (which then gets put into catalogs, email banners, web graphics, social media channels, product pages and boxes), we catch possible production errors for product development, which will increase our customer satisfaction, and we create professional, well produced, effective, brand-building videos for product pages as well as social media channels.

Our Videos
All content we produce is to the highest standard we can produce. People see our videos and believe that a Hollywood production studio was hired to produce them. People see our images and product pages and believe that a professional design firm was hired to handle them. The imagery and videos encourage high conversion. It is constantly changing with the product line and the industry. It never gets boring or stagnant but is proactively and consistently evolving and improving.

Remember, this is a vision. All of these points may not be true, but that is perfectly fine! A vision should stretch you! It should drive you to want to be better and do more. Like me, you may not be in leadership. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t impact the culture around you! So, what is your vision for 2015? Are you striving towards more, or just reactively floating with the current?

January 20, 2015

Three Reasons Why Casting A Vision Is Important To You

If you haven’t decided where you are headed in life, your circumstances will decide for you. It is important to intentionally decide what you want all areas of your life to look like. I affectionately call this “casting a vision.”

1. Casting A Vision Helps To Fight Away Distraction

In geometry there is a rule that states: between any two points is a straight line. This rule also applies in our lives. Your vision acts as the second point in the equation keeping you moving in a straight line toward your goal. One of my goals at work is to “produce three product videos per week.” This vision pushes me to avoid distractions and time-consuming tasks. It has also caused me to develop specific, repeatable, measurable steps in completing my projects.

2. Not having A Vision Will Leave You Shipwrecked

If you haven’t set a destination, you’re like a ship adrift at sea going wherever the current takes you. Early last year, I had to stop producing videos to help the increased load of our photography department. At first my editing was taking forever! Finally, my boss challenged me to process an image every 15 minutes. I didn’t always meet that challenge, but I realized that I was saving about 5 to 10 minutes per image while trying to hit my 15-minute mark. Over the course of a 480-minute day, that’s up to an extra 48 images!

3. Without A Vision There Can Be No Strategy Having a vision doesn’t mean you have it all figured out. It isn’t a game plan or a strategy. It is simply a destination. But that destination, I believe, is far more important than strategy. In fact, it is an essential precursor to strategy. How can you develop a strategy to win if you don’t know what winning looks like? Would a football coach be able to develop an effective strategy if he didn’t know that winning meant having more points at the end of the game than the other team? Of course not! In the same way, you have to decide what winning looks like in your life. You have to cast a vision.

Question: What is your vision for 2015? What do you want to accomplish at work, in your finances, with your family, and everywhere else in the Wheel Of Life? What does winning look like in those areas? Drop me a line in the comments!

January 7, 2015

The Wheel of Life

Long before I ever considered blogging, possibly even breathing, a man by the name of Zig Ziglar presented an illustration called The Wheel of Life. In this wheel, Zig illustrates the importance of seven crucial areas of our lives: Career, Financial, Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Family and Social. Zig tapped into a universal truth with this simple diagram; what you do in one of these areas of life will affect your overall ride.

The Wheel Leaks!

If it isn’t maintained, it gets out of whack. A perfect example: When I graduated college I thought my wheel was pretty round; until Maura and I got engaged. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been more excited about anything in my life but we had no idea how we were going to pay for it. Maura was in a career transition, so much of my income was going to things like rent and lights at her apartment. I hadn’t been doing any saving or even budgeting up to that point, so my wheel wasn’t as round as I had thought. As a result, the ride got a little bumpy!

Pump it up Schwarzenegger style!

Thankfully, around that time we discovered Dave Ramsey. Over the next few months, we hunkered down, cut our lifestyle and began selling anything that wasn’t nailed down. We began pumping the wheel like Arnold pumps iron! It was a perfect opportunity for Maura and I to work on something together. In the end, we had our wedding and our honeymoon without acquiring any debt!

All Parts Need Each Other

An even more profound aspect of the wheel is how connected the different areas of our life are. You can be the champ at work, but if you neglect your family it will catch up to you there. You can be the best parent, but weigh 500 pounds and not live to meet your grandchildren. It is so important to give attention, or “air” to every section in the wheel. The other sections depend on it!

Question: As 2015 really gets moving, what areas do you need to give some air to? Leave a reply in the comments!

December 17, 2014

The Trap of Least Resistance

We’ve all heard about “The path of least resistance.” As a teenager, all I heard in that phrase was “no fun for you!” Today, as a newly wed and fresh college grad, I understand why avoiding what that phrase entails not only means life, but a successful, fulfilled life. Following the path, or as I call it, the trap of least resistance has caused me serious pain. Read on to find out why, but most importantly, how you can avoid it.

Hakuna Matata
As a young college student I ventured out without a plan to pay for school, prepare for life after college, or how to get the most out of my time while attending. So, like many students today, I took a part time job and coupled that with Student loans. I had the H.O.P.E. scholarship, which covered most of my tuition, and the loans covered my living expenses. It was easy, stress free, and I didn’t have to think about it. Hakuna Matata. As a result, I graduated with loads of student loan debt which is a huge tax on my income today.

It Hurts!
This is the problem with the path of least resistance. It’s easy now, and may save you a little pain, but it always catches up. When it catches up, the pain is multiplied exponentially compared to what it would have been had you put forth the work of being intentional. I could have avoided the student loans with wise spending, saving, and working more hours. It would have been a little harder then, but it would have changed my life forever. Instead of living in a tiny apartment with my wife, we could be saving up for a big down payment on a house right now. Not to mention avoiding the pain of being the only one to bring debt into a marriage. Don’t follow the path of least resistance! It hurts!

You can avoid the pain that comes with this easy path. The key word is intentionality. Be intentional about how you live. Use your emotions as a gauge. How do you feel in your marriage, at work or at school? Is it easy? If so, it’s possible that you may just be in a good season. But I encourage you, strongly, take inventory. Assess your situation and see if there’s something you could be doing better, somewhere you could be working harder, somewhere you could be more effective. Don’t make the same mistake I made. Don’t just go with the flow!

Have you ever found yourself caught in the trap of least resistance? How did it affect you? What are your tips for escaping it? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

December 9, 2014

Unity: Secret Sauce to Success

I have different opinions than my boss. I don’t always agree with his decisions. If I sound like I am being insubordinate, you need to change your thinking, and here’s why:

We are all human, and we don’t always agree.
The element that separates winning teams from mediocre teams is not that winning teams agree. Instead, winning teams support leadership decisions, take ownership of their job, and don’t sabotage projects they don’t agree with. The element is unity, and it supersedes good ideas.

Unity trumps good ideas every time.
There is no shortage of good ideas. Entrepreneurs have good ideas every day. In my experience, the shortage is in unity. The boss makes a decision that the team may not agree with and, as a result, the team drags their feet. Rather than supporting the boss’ decision in unity, the goal is sabotaged by disunity.

Unity starts with you.
Unity will not happen by accident. Leadership should facilitate it, but often, they don’t do the best job. If this is the case, it’s your job to influence the culture around you. Give credit where it’s due. Be kind even when your coworkers don’t deserve it. Encourage everyone around you. Otherwise, problems just get worse. Then, when a project falls through, when a deadline gets missed or when your department falls short of expectations, everyone is held responsible. Facilitate unity, and succeed together.

What do you do that helps unity in your workplace? What about your home? I would love to hear from you in the comments!