Dinner Table Values

A few weeks ago we spent a day in Northeast Ohio with a couple families as they prepared for their regular Tuesday night dinner at Bob Evans. In this project our goal was to learn why there’s value sitting at the dinner table and how Bob Evans helps bring families back to it.

Girl Party Time

It got me hungry for more.

So when my good friend Shane Haggerty asked me to come speak at the Ohio School Public Relations Association (OHSPRA) annual conference, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about telling great stories, learn more about the education system, and meet the personalities that are challenged with communicating a school/district’s message.

Here’s what we learned

The event blew my mind with the attention to detail and quality of presentations. To say I learned a ton is an understatement. Joe Pulizzi and his team have a knack for finding the very best in this industry and challenging them to share memorable stories and information.

We’ll be back covering this year’s event as the CMW crew comes to Columbus, Ohio in September 2012.

Content Marketing World 2012 Promo | Register for #CMW12

So I’m in San Diego, finishing up a shoot with Astute Solutions when I see a call from Nate Riggs on my cell. I decided to ignore it and pack up my equipment instead when a twitter DM quickly follows from the persistent Mr. Riggs that read:

“call me ASAP. Have a potential gig for SXSW with @mitchneff that has a budget attached. Startup bus. Shooter.”

Enter Andy Newman

We recently brought Andy on to help serve even more clients with great, quality work. Looking through our production schedule and resource list it was really clear who should make the trip. Andy got the assignment and we wanted to share his experience with you:

And a few quick notes from Andy’s blog:

“In the end, there’s one thing I’ll remember from the trip more than anything else. One of the budding entrepreneurs was talking to me about my video work and what it was like to come up with a video, shooting and editing on a bus over the course of three days. Not unlike their companies, my project required a lot of fast thinking and long days. He made a comment to me that as great as the trip was, he didn’t get to take any of it in. The people, the places. His head was always down in a computer, hard at work. While the experience was rewarding, he missed a lot of the small moments, the memories.

And it hit me. That’s where my job lives. I live in that singular moment. I have to capture and produce it to share with others. So the ones on the bus, for the ones that weren’t there, or couldn’t be there, or may want to be there one day can experience it. A single moment in time like a sunrise or a good conversation will pass quickly, and it’s my job to make sure it lives on forever.”

Just before we made our way to San Diego for the 2012 Astute Solutions Customer Conference, the team over at Astute gave us the task of creating content that had life beyond the conference. Basically, they wanted to maximize the value of the investment they were making into our creative services.

Note: We also covered their 2011 conference.

We dig challenges

With the task clear, we set out to build a truly unique and memorable story. Good news for us, Sally Hogshead happened to be the keynote speaker for their conference. Memorable story? Look no further. Below we married the key points from Sally’s presentation with the memories of Astute’s 2012 conference. I hope you enjoy and gain as much from it as we did.

We dig a great partner

What we love most about working with Astute is the high level of satisfaction they provide and require. We have a lot of the same work ethic and cultural philosophies in common. Instant win every time. We’d like to join up with a few more partners just like them.

So this year, the conference is being hosted in San Diego, CA.

As planning began for content creation, one of the major feedback points Astute received from it’s customers in 2011 was how they “love the tech support staff, but want to know them better”. In other words, this specialized group interacts with clients regularly when server issues pop up, or program errors appear but clients desire a more personalized relationship with the tech support staff. Unfortunately, this group does not get to go to the annual conference, so we began brainstorming creative ways to “introduce” them. The results are shown below.

A Day with Tech Support

To help set the tone for the three day conference, this video is played during the opening ceremony. How do you kick off your conference?