KerryJ’s blog

I’ve posted a long-form post on the before, during and aftermath of the day’s production on my personal learning journey blog.

Here is the executive summary:

When considering how and what to share with people not at the event, use a combination of tried and true and the shiny and new.

Prioritise what you want to achieve based on what will be most useful to people unable to attend the event or who wish to access archives in the future.

Eliminate lesser priorities that will distract or that use tools you need for the more important objectives.

My order of priority was:

Audio. De ensured the AV people were able to record in at least one of the venue rooms. I brought along a back-up system.

Live blogging. I used a new, free tool fromcoveritlive.com that includes the ability to interact with people commenting on a live blog in real time as well as the ability to import and add in multimedia. I was prepared to abandon it in favour of a more traditional method if it faltered in any way.

Photos. Images add a layer of richness to events and can capture emotion and energy. I had a Flickr application installed to my mobile that allows me to take photos and upload them with one click. However, in the event the internet connection went down, my phone would be used as a modem for my laptop to support the live blogging. I brought my digital still camera to use in place of my mobile phone still camera, which was to be used for streaming video.

Streaming video. This was something to try and an option available thanks to a web site called quik.com and my mobile phone. However, if the phone was needed to connect to the net for live blogging, I was willing to give this the chop.

Interviews. If the opportunity presented itself, doing a video or audio interview at the breaks was covered via my mobile phone and some bits that allowed me to connect up a powered external microphone.

Traditional video to be edited after the event. This was an 11^th hour addition. In hindsight, I wished I’d added it higher up the chain and brought plenty of tape.

How it all went:

Audio: So far, so good. I’ll post links later today.

Live blogging: This went really well. I’ve found a valuable tool and want to try it out for training and web conferencing too. Participants really liked it.

Photos: When the phone wasn’t in use streaming video, taking photos and publishing to Flickr on the fly was easy and fun.

Streaming video: This didn’t work for long, but was great while it lasted. My 3 connection just wasn’t fast or stable enough to keep the stream moving along. I’ll keep trying it as long as I can get the screens with the presentations in the shot and readable. I won’t bother for talking heads that last more than a few minutes.

Interviews: They never happened. But it was nice to know we were prepared.

Traditional video: I caught bits and pieces which may be useful for mashups. In future, this gets moved up the chain provided I can get presentations in advance to edit into the mix. Talking heads are a waste of video as a medium.

What I’m glad I did:

Used a foldable market shopping cart to haul all my gear around. It is made of wire so everything was visible – eliminating panics about what might have been left behind. It saved my back and was a place to store extras.

Mounted the phone on a tripod during the streaming video capture. The consultation with my semi-retired, carpenter father and resultant legwork in coming up with a hack to mount my phone on a tripod was worth it for the video. In future, I now have the option of using my mobile as a video production studio – especially since it has built-in editing software.

Brought bottled water and non-sticky snacks. Things get hectic. Morning and afternoon teas are about stretching and comfort breaks, then getting back to set up for the next session.

What I will do next time:

Establish the tag for the day well in advance

Publish the notification for the live blogging well in advance

Bring my traditional video camera with an external mic hooked up to it and on the lectern.

Request all the presentations in advance to load up resources in the coveritlive.com resources section and convert the slides to images ready to go

Invite live bloggers at the event to help me facilitate the comments coming in on the live blog tool

Set up a web conference site to stream audio into.

Bring cable ties – cables get messy quickly

Produce and bring the introduction and exit audio files for all the audio. Even if I don’t want to turn the audio around the same day – I could do a quick interview with the conference organisers at lunch or just after the event ended and then produce a quick audio file foreshadowing what was to come in order to “prime” the podcast stream.