A while back, Mitch Joel posted his Pixelated conference series, a collection of seminars and sessions from conferences that contain the “best of the best” for any set of topics. I’ve been so busy doing stuff that I never got around to putting mine together until now. This version of Pixelated is focused on Business Marketing – ideas from sales, marketing, branding, and new media that should help any business do things a little better.
If this were a conference, a real life conference, I have no doubt that attending it would cost you thousands of dollars, at least for the first sessions. Thanks to the exceptional generosity of conferences and events who post their sessions, you can enjoy some of the best content on earth without leaving your chair.
Treat this as an actual conference. Take a day or half a day to watch the videos and give them your undivided attention. Have a bottle of water, a notepad, and an open mind as you watch the sessions, as if you were actually there.
Rather than just a pile of videos, I’ve also added brief annotations about why I think each session is important.
Updated: refreshed for July 2010, with some new sessions from TED and other shows.
Pixelated Business Marketing starts… now.
Seth Godin @ TED: This is Seth’s newest set of perspectives, based on his book Tribes. The evolution of marketing from mass media to hero culture of sorts.
Rory Sutherland @ TED: An amazingly funny and insightful talk about the creation of non-tangible value.
Malcolm Gladwell @ TED: This session ranks super high on my list because Malcolm gets you to think outside the box. What product or service do your customers deeply want but don’t know it?
Joseph Pine @ TED: If nothing else, this talk should make you think about what experiences are and how to give them to customers, rather than products or services.
Dan Ariely @ TED: Dan’s book, Predictably Irrational, is the basis for this talk about how our decision processes are flawed, including why consumers buy things they really shouldn’t.
Garr Reynolds at Google Talks: Garr is the author of Presentation Zen, a phenomenal book that asks you to look at how you present information and how you can make your presentations better, more impactful, and less boring.
Avinash Kaushik at Google Talks: Avinash is pretty much THE bottom line when it comes to web analytics. In this talk he goes over a good chunk of his book and also talks about data-drive corporate culture and its importance.
David Meerman Scott from Inbound Marketing Summit: David’s book, the New Rules of Marketing and PR, power part of this talk as he goes over how the ground is changing underneath traditional business outreach.
NEDMA: I talk about email marketing and social media integration.
Optimization Summit: I talk about the best practices of email marketing.
I bought a Flip Ultra today. Lots of positives and negatives about this little camera, and limitations that need to be understood to get the best performance out of it.
Positives
AA batteries
2 GB internal memory for 60 minutes of record time
Firmware updates
Light
Portable
Stupid simple
Negatives
Not going to sub for a high quality camcorder any time soon
Very susceptible to shake without tripod
No options for expandability
Fixed-length lens (yes, there’s a digital zoom, which is a joke)
Now, I own a lot of gear. When I need to upgrade to quality video, I break out my MiniDV camera because nothing Flash-based captures video with the same quality as tape that I’ve found yet.
When I want a balance of portability and optics, I’ll use my Sanyo Xacti.
When I want to record a lot of video at conferences, this is the camera I’m going to use.
There is one and only one reason I bought a Flip Ultra:
The Flip Ultra uses AA batteries.
When I’m at conferences, rarely do sessions last more than 60 minutes, so the Flip’s built in memory limitation isn’t a big deal.
What is a big deal is that this little camera takes AA batteries. Rare is it when I don’t have a pile of 12 or so with me at any given time. Between sessions, I can dump the memory to my MacBook Pro and swap out batteries.
If I use the MiniDV camera, I have to change tapes and use the AC adapter, which is a huge stumbling hazard for everyone around me.
If I use the Xacti, I have to carry the AC charger with me and recharge the battery (and its two spares) throughout the day, which is a pain in the butt.
If I use the Flip, I just swap out AAs and recharge everything in the hotel room overnight.
The Flip is a single-use camera for me – I bought it specifically for use at conferences. I’m not going to film the next major motion picture with it, and I wholly acknowledge that it isn’t intended for that use at all. It will allow me, however, to capture lots of “good enough” video at conferences I go to, with a minimum of hassle when it comes to power and memory.
I had the opportunity to film Matthew Ebel playing live at AS220 in Providence at NewBCamp this past Saturday. After some uphill learning curves, I got the hang of the tricks I needed in order to make this video, and here’s the final result.
Upsides – the video got aired. They did keep the mention of the podcast.
Downsides – no link love, and they removed the titling, which I wasn’t terribly concerned with, but they did strip the credit for the music for Matthew Ebel.