Goal Setting

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 14, 2015

Don’t Waste Your Time On New Years Resolutions

So, it is officially 2015! You have a clean slate, a fresh start, and a new beginning. It’s no surprise that this is the time of year we all consider the things we would like to see changed. Sadly, chances are none of them will, unless you follow these steps!

1. Set Specific Goals

Have you ever wondered why so many new years resolutions fail? It’s almost like a curse! We’ve all heard them: “I want to make more money.” Or, “I want to lose weight.” Maybe, “I want to get in shape.” Notice a trend? These are really healthy desires, and should be pursued. The only problem is, these are not goals. These are simply desires. A goal is specific, measurable, and on a deadline. Some better examples would sound like this: “I want to make $40,000 by December 31.” Or, “I want to lose 30 pounds by August 1.” Or, “I want to run a half-marathon by December 15.”

2. Determine What’s At Stake

The next step is to connect to what Michael Hyatt calls your “Why.” Why do you need to make more money? Why do you need to get in better shape? These questions are important because if you haven’t connected a strong enough reason, you’ll just quit when it gets tough. A good example might be that you want to get in better shape to keep up with your kids. Or maybe you want to live long enough to see your grandchildren. Whatever it may be, you need to connect to it because when it gets hard, that will be the only thing that keeps you going.

3. Determine Your Schedule

Once your goal is specific and you’ve connected to your why, it is time to set the progress schedule. How much progress do you need to make each month, or even each week, to accomplish your goal on time? If your goal is to make $40,000 by December 31, 2015, then you need to make about $3,300 each month. If you hope to run a half marathon by December 15, you should be able to run about 6.5 miles by June 15. If your goal is to lose 30 pounds by August 1, then you should be shedding about 4 pounds a month. One of the coolest experiences is to have a goal and be ahead of schedule. Even better, when you start to fall behind you can determine what needs to happen to get back on schedule.

Achieving your goals for 2015 is totally possible! Connect with your why, set a specific goal with a deadline, and get at it!

Question: What specific goals will you be setting this year? How do you plan to get there? Even better, check back in and let me know how you’re progressing!

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 24, 2014

Passion

I love the topic of passion. Maybe it’s because I am so passionate about so many things, especially personal development. My guess is if you’re reading this blog, you probably are too! Have you ever hit slumps in your job where passion was nowhere to be found? Unfortunately, this tends to happen from time to time. I know it’s happened to me recently. Follow these three steps, and you’ll be on your way to recovering the passion needed to thrive!

View the challenge as an opportunity
Last week I was tasked with producing a demonstration video that would cover three separate products. I needed to film in four separate locations, use four different cameras, and cover all of my material in one morning; half of which would be shot outside in the late December cold. The night before, I dreaded having to go in and go through the pain of managing the shoot. Instead of staying in a place of dread, I began to view it as an opportunity. This was an opportunity to produce one of the best videos I have ever made. With that result in mind, I tore through the shoot with passion. Not because it was particularly fun, but because I really wanted this to be a video that I could show to my boss, my friends, my wife, and even myself with pride. The end result was a video that gained more views in the first 24 hours than any of our previous videos.

Have the end in mind
Do you enjoy busy work? Me neither! One way to gain passion is to ask good questions. Try to discover why the work you are assigned is important. When we can see results for our work, it motivates us to attack the next assignment with passion. Why is what we are doing so important? What’s at stake? If your end is to simply bring home a paycheck, then I promise you won’t be happy, much less passionate! If you are spending 40 hours a week doing something you dread, then you need to consider a career change. But, that’s a topic for another day.

You bring the passion
I know, this post is supposed to help you regain passion at work, and here I am saying something that sounds a lot like “Just do it.” Just follow me for a second. The ability to bring passion, even when it’s hard, is one of the most important traits of effective people. Sometimes work is really hard. That’s why they call it work. Even work we enjoy has moments where we have to really push through to finish. It’s during these times that keeping the end in mind and viewing the challenge as an opportunity are important. When you do, passion is the byproduct. Passion is contagious.

Do you ever experience these slumps at work where passion is nowhere to be found? If so, what are some ways that you have regained passion? Please leave a comment below!