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	<title>Bill Cammack &#187; professional</title>
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		<title>Save Your Pennies, Then Hire Professionals</title>
		<link>http://billcammack.com/2011/02/21/save-your-pennies-then-hire-professionals/</link>
		<comments>http://billcammack.com/2011/02/21/save-your-pennies-then-hire-professionals/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:23:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bill Cammack</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://billcammack.com/?p=9838</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. He&#8217;s a photographer, and I&#8217;m a video editor, so we kind of do the same thing, but not really. He was talking about how, as technology increases, more and more people are calling themselves photographers because they own cameras. Yes.. People have been owning [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div name="googleone_share_1" style="position:relative;z-index:5;clear:right; float: right; margin-right: 10px; margin-top:10px;"><g:plusone size="tall" count="1" href="http://billcammack.com/2011/02/21/save-your-pennies-then-hire-professionals/"></g:plusone></div><p>I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine yesterday.  He&#8217;s a photographer, and I&#8217;m a <a href="http://billcammack.com/billcammack/">video editor</a>, so we kind of do the same thing, but not really.</p>
<p>He was talking about how, as technology increases, more and more people are calling themselves photographers because they own cameras.</p>
<p><a href="http://billcqc.com/" rel="me" title="Bill Cammack"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2053/2036979667_2aba592ba8.jpg" width="300" style="float:left"></a>Yes.. People have been owning cameras since cameras were invented, however, none of these people promoted themselves as professionals.  They were hobbyists, at best.  Mostly, they were civilians that happened to have spent some of their money on a camera.</p>
<p>At this point, people own cameras that take pictures on a level of quality that can be used in actors&#8217; portfolios, wedding albums, or even as stills in television productions.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean that any of them are GOOD at what they do. <span id="more-9838"></span></p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t mean they know about lighting.  It doesn&#8217;t mean they know about framing.  It doesn&#8217;t mean they know how to use computer programs to maximize the impact or quality of the pictures they take for you.</p>
<p>Meanwhile.. If you go to your favorite &#8220;Hire A Random Person To Work For You&#8221; website, you&#8217;ll see these civilian hobbyists listed side-by-side with verified professionals.  This gives a skewed impression of what a photographer actually is.</p>
<h3>Video Editors</h3>
<p>This becomes an issue when you get to the <a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/04/10/time-part-06-whats-your-budget/>budgeting phase</a> of your project.  You look at the list and you see two people who both own 21 Megapixel cameras (really high resolution, compared to your pocket camera or your iPhone) and one of them costs three times as much as the other one to hire for a single hour.</p>
<p>Being that you&#8217;re not a photography expert yourself, or else you would have done the project on your own and saved your company the money of hiring an expert, you&#8217;re just not savvy enough to understand the difference between the two.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not low-rating you.. That&#8217;s just a fact, like how I&#8217;m not savvy enough to understand whom to hire to teach me how to play basketball.  If I see someone dunk or shoot a 3-pointer, I figure they know about basketball and they would be just as good to hire as anyone else. \o/</p>
<p>So what happens is that under-informed clients hire inferior photographers to work on their projects and then they get what they paid for.</p>
<p>Sometimes, it works out perfectly, which means that their project didn&#8217;t require the level of expertise that the actual pro photographer was bringing to the table.  That&#8217;s a good business decision (or you just happened to get lucky).  I&#8217;m not going to hire a gourmet chef to cook hot dogs for me.</p>
<p>OTOH.. I&#8217;m not going to hire a &#8220;hot dog chef&#8221; to cook gourmet food for me.</p>
<p>This is where the big problems occur.. When people aren&#8217;t savvy enough to know how important their project is, so they don&#8217;t strive to hire the best person for the job.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s all well &#038; good to save your company money and increase profits, but is it worth potentially tarnishing or destroying your reputation to risk failure for a few dollars? o_O</p>
<p>As I said earlier, I&#8217;m a <a href="http://billcammack.com/billcammack/">video editor</a>.  I have the same phenomenon in my field.  There are lots of people who own the same equipment that I own.  In fact, there are people that have gone to classes to receive some bullshit certificate that says that they&#8217;re &#8220;certified&#8221; to use the same software that I&#8217;ve been using to put video on local and national television for over 10 years.. and they STILL suck at using it.</p>
<p>Of course they suck.  The sat in a classroom and passed a couple of tests.  They have ZERO real-world experience.  Hiring them to edit videos for you is the same thing as hiring me to be your personal bodyguard because I&#8217;m a champion at first-person-shooter video games like H.A.L.O., SOCOM, Ghost Recon, and Call of Duty.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve never shot anybody in my entire life, so don&#8217;t expect me to whip out the Desert Eagle .50 Cal and wax six dudes with AK-47s like I can on my XBOX or PS3.</p>
<p>Similar to the photography field, these Herbs are grouped together with me as &#8220;Editors&#8221;.  In fact, they&#8217;re button-pushers.  They&#8217;re not bringing anything to the table other than the equipment they own and the fact that they know how to use that equipment&#8230; SLOWLY.</p>
<p>This is another thing that people don&#8217;t get about post-production (the process of blending the elements you provided into the final product).  If my rates are 3x as high as a button-pusher, but he or she takes THREE DAYS to do what I can do in one day, guess what? :D HAHAHA You just paid the same amount of money for inferior work that you received two days later than you could have.</p>
<p>If my rates are higher, and I&#8217;m better at working with you and your clients because I have advertising agency experience and have edited commercials that ran on television for years, you. will. lose. if you hire the el-cheapo editor and they cause your client not to give you any more business.  You. Will. Lose. if the service your client receives was juuuuust that little bit worse than the treatment they received working with another studio, and they give THEM that next large contract instead of you.</p>
<h3>99 1/2 Won&#8217;t Do</h3>
<p>You may have noticed that you never see &#8220;most&#8221; of a show on television.  There&#8217;s a beginning, a middle, and an end.  The show cuts to black for a split second and then the next show starts.  This is because there are regulations and television stations expect and DEMAND that you create your videos properly and completely, or else they will kick them back to you.  They will tell you directly that until you do this, this, and that to comply with their broadcasting standards, your show will not air on their network.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as 99 1/2% of a video.</p>
<p>You have 100% of a video, or you have nothing.</p>
<p>You have 100% of a video BEFORE YOUR DEADLINE, or you have nothing.</p>
<p>Similar to baseball, I am the closer.  I never fail.  Never.  I can&#8217;t afford to fail, because it&#8217;s not &#8220;Oh well! \o/&#8221;.  If I fail to achieve what my client asked me for and I assured them I would deliver, there is NO SHOW.<br />
<br />
<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/iKHIJqnXo0k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
If there&#8217;s no show, my client is accountable to the people that paid him or her to produce the show.  My client&#8217;s reputation&#8217;s on the line.  It&#8217;s not *MY* reputation, because as a freelancer, my name doesn&#8217;t go on myriad productions that I do for production companies that hire me.  I&#8217;m filling in.  I&#8217;m doing vacation relief or handling overflow or a certain type of video that their staffers aren&#8217;t well-versed in and I excel at.</p>
<p>If my client&#8217;s reputation is tarnished because *I* failed, they lose business, they can&#8217;t pay their staff, people get laid off or fired, businesses close&#8230;</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not trying to be dramatic about this. :D I&#8217;m saying that it&#8217;s like being an airline pilot.  Pilots can&#8217;t afford to fail, because they won&#8217;t be the only ones that suffer the consequences. o_O</p>
<p>There&#8217;s no such thing as &#8220;Almost landed the plane.&#8221;</p>
<p>If you insist on hiring a low-cost pilot instead of a more expensive one that definitely knows what he or she&#8217;s doing.. Good Luck with that.</p>
<h3>Budget vs Reputation</h3>
<p>So if your company&#8217;s reputation isn&#8217;t important to you, go ahead and hire button-pushers.  Save yourself the money, assuming they work just as quickly as the more expensive professional.  Good Luck that they do it right the first time, too.  If you have to go through several rounds of changes because of errors they made or because they didn&#8217;t fully understand what you wanted after you told them to their faces what you wanted, keep counting up the hours and watching your bill increase.</p>
<p>If you have work that isn&#8217;t important, hire button-pushers.  If you have internal corporate videos that nobody&#8217;s going to see, except your workers, who cares if they&#8217;re garbage? :D  Everybody knows that you&#8217;re a Senior Vice President and not an Executive Producer, so why should they expect your videos to be any good, right? :D</p>
<p>On the other hand.. If you&#8217;re expecting your media (pictures, video, audio&#8230;) to represent your company and get you more respect and business in your industry, do some research, figure out who&#8217;s who, and plan your budget so you can hire professionals with proven track records to work with your team and complete your project for you in a quality fashion and BEFORE your deadline.</p>
<p>Some people like to utilize a hybrid style where they hire button-pushers to do all the grunt-work and then bring in a pro to tighten up their work.  Sometimes, this works well, and sometimes, it doesn&#8217;t.</p>
<p>One of the main problems with working this way is that video production is &#8220;Garbage In, Garbage Out&#8221;.  The process begins with making selections from the raw footage (video that came directly from the camera without being edited).  If you send interns who don&#8217;t know anything about building a show to make your &#8216;selects&#8217;, they&#8217;re going to leave out a lot of things that they don&#8217;t realize would work well in your video and they&#8217;re going to select a bunch of things that don&#8217;t work well.  Same thing if you do it yourself.</p>
<p>The upside of producing this way is that you save a lot of money, and the professional editor you hire will still make the best video possible from the footage you make available to them.  The downside is that your production could have been a lot better if you understood enough about the process to get everyone to play their positions well.</p>
<h3>Quality > Quantity</h3>
<p>Mind you.. I&#8217;m not knocking button-pushers. :D  They occupy a valuable space in the field.  They&#8217;re inexpensive, and you probably don&#8217;t know enough to understand that the work you&#8217;re receiving is shoddy and your company would be better off if you never showed the video you paid for.</p>
<p>Button-Pushers are legitimate businesspeople and deserve to be hired.  I started out as a button-pusher, of course.  Everybody has to.  What I&#8217;m saying is that if you&#8217;re a hobbyist, doing an <a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/09/19/why-professionals-avoid-web-video/">online video show</a>, or something you&#8217;re just going to show your family or keep for yourself, it doesn&#8217;t matter who you hire or if you hire anybody at all.  Do it yourself! :D  Use iMovie or Windows Media Maker, which came FREE on your computer&#8217;s operating system and go enjoy yourself.  Take a month to do a video that could have been finished in one day.  Spend hours that you could have been billing a client or hooking up with your SO working on creating an inferior product instead of hiring someone that knows what they&#8217;re doing, so you can enjoy your life while they&#8217;re working or make back the money you&#8217;re going to have to pay them anyway.</p>
<p>However&#8230;.. If you expect people to watch your video and give you business, get it done properly.  Go Big or Go Home.  Period.</p>
<p>If you do a low-quality video and it goes viral, that&#8217;s not success.  That&#8217;s 6 Million People that know that YOU SUCK! :D</p>
<p>Instead, if you do a high-quality video and not-so-many people see it, that&#8217;s way better, IMO, because the FEW people that watch it are going to say &#8220;That person knows what he or she is doing, and I want to hire them to bring the same quality to my productions that they brought to theirs&#8221;.</p>
<p>Of course, the best situation is a GOOD video that DOES go viral! haha I&#8217;m just saying that you need to consider that the money you&#8217;re saving, hiring button-pushers instead of professional editors or hobbyists instead of professional photographers could very well end up working AGAINST your company&#8217;s reputation, which will ultimately negatively affect your bottom line.<br />
&#8211;<br />
<a href="http://billcammack.com/" title="billcammack.com"><img align="center" style="background-color: white; border:0px; padding: 0px" src="http://billcammack.com/images/icons/billcammack.png" width="32" height="32" alt="billcammack.com"></a> Connect with <a href="http://billcammack.com/">Bill</a> via <a href="http://facebook.com/BillCammack" rel="me"title="facebook.com/BillCammack">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/BillCammack" rel="me" title="twitter.com/BillCammack">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/billcammack" rel="me" title="www.linkedin.com/in/billcammack">LinkedIn</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/reelsolidtv" rel="me" title="myspace.com/reelsolidtv">MySpace</a>, <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=billcammack&#038;loc=en_US" rel="me" title="Bill Cammack email subscription">Email Subscription</a>, <a href="http://billcammack.com/feed/" rel="me" title="Bill Cammack RSS feed">RSS Feed</a><br clear="left"></p>
<h3  class="related_post_title">Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/clients-projects/" title="Clients/Projects">Clients/Projects</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/07/13/hire-an-executive-producer-ep/" title="Hire an Executive Producer (EP)">Hire an Executive Producer (EP)</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/09/28/personal-branding/" title="Personal Branding?">Personal Branding?</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/03/20/iraqi-refugee-documentary-five-year-anniversary-of-the-iraq-war/" title="Iraqi Refugee Documentary: Five Year Anniversary of the Iraq War">Iraqi Refugee Documentary: Five Year Anniversary of the Iraq War</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2011/11/24/done-with-politics/" title="Done With Politics">Done With Politics</a></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>What Do You See As The Future For Major Media Companies?</title>
		<link>http://billcammack.com/2009/02/05/what-do-you-see-as-the-future-for-major-media-companies/</link>
		<comments>http://billcammack.com/2009/02/05/what-do-you-see-as-the-future-for-major-media-companies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:52:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bill Cammack</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://billcammack.com/?p=3694</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was fortunate enough to attend a New Media Dinner last night which was hosted by Mr. Strauss Zelnick and featured a discussion moderated by Mr. David Remnick. One section of the discussion focused on the print media and their online properties vs random bloggers&#8230;.. (Like MEEEEE!!! *waves* :D&#41;. David asked the group [paraphrasing] &#8220;What [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div name="googleone_share_1" style="position:relative;z-index:5;clear:right; float: right; margin-right: 10px; margin-top:10px;"><g:plusone size="tall" count="1" href="http://billcammack.com/2009/02/05/what-do-you-see-as-the-future-for-major-media-companies/"></g:plusone></div><p>I was fortunate enough to attend a New Media Dinner last night which was hosted by Mr. <a href="http://www.zelnickmedia.com/zelnick.html">Strauss Zelnick</a> and featured a discussion moderated by Mr. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Remnick" rel="nofollow">David Remnick</a>.</p>
<p>One section of the discussion focused on the print media and their online properties vs random bloggers&#8230;.. (Like MEEEEE!!! *waves* :D&#41;.  David asked the group <em>[paraphrasing]</em> <strong>&#8220;What do you see as the future for major media companies?&#8221;</strong>.  I elected not to say anything, because as y&#8217;all know who read my material, I don&#8217;t like to throw in two cents and leave it at that.  I wouldn&#8217;t have been content with throwing my idea out there and having the conversation just move on, so I saved it for this morning.</p>
<p>Basically, the point was that there have been major publications like the New York Times (NYT) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and television networks like ABC, CBS &#038; NBC that have had the media industry ON SMASH for, like, forever.  That&#8217;s all going away now, because everybody has phones that either have still photo or video capability and everybody AT LEAST has a blog, and at most is hooked up to some sort of live-streaming site like Qik.  All bets are OFF when Ustream releases their iPhone app.  It&#8217;s going to be live video straight to people&#8217;s phones&#8230; crazy! :D</p>
<p>Anyway, the question was basically how people saw these Mainstream Media (MSM) groups evolving to keep up with and remain viable in these changing times. My prediction will be based on several things that guests brought up during that discusssion.  </p>
<h2>Fact vs. Opinion</h2>
<p>In any situation, there are at least two elements.  There are &#8220;The Facts&#8221;, and then there are people&#8217;s OPINIONS ABOUT &#8220;The Facts&#8221;. <span id="more-3694"></span> Let&#8217;s say that we accept as &#8220;a fact&#8221; that <a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/01/28/who-spat-on-michael-arrington/">someone spat on Michael Arrington @ the DLD conference in Munich</a>.  Since nobody else reported this, <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/" rel="nofollow">his actual post</a> contains all the &#8216;factual&#8217; information.</p>
<p>There are lots of blogs which reposted a couple of blurbs from his post and made no comment AT ALL as far as the blog-writer&#8217;s OPINION about the situation.  This is what I call Ambulance-Chasing.  There&#8217;s a hot topic, and you just repost it ASAP so you can try to get some Google hits. *yawn*</p>
<p>Other blogs reposted blurbs and then gave their opinion about the situation itself and in a lot of cases, the reasoning behind why they feel the way they do about it.  This is where you start to see the difference between random bloggers and trained professionals.  Arrington went from DLD to Davos so quickly that by the time some bloggers found out about the incident and rushed to reblog it, they reported that he got spat on @ Davos, which is in an ENTIRELY. DIFFERENT. COUNTRY. from where the actual event occurred.  You don&#8217;t expect this from MSM, because a) they&#8217;re trained and b) if they fumble on simple facts like this, their credibility goes out the window, which is detrimental to their careers.</p>
<p>Still other blogs gathered &#8220;The Facts&#8221; and attempted to write an actual STORY around them.  This is where MSM pulls away, for the most part, because the people that work for these organizations are professionals who most likely have some sort of training in fact-gathering AND &#8220;storytelling&#8221;.  Another issue is that a lot of bloggers are scared to death to give an opinion on anything, lest they disagree with someone or someone disagrees with them.  Hate it when THAT happens! :/</p>
<h2>Value Added?</h2>
<p>So the question becomes &#8220;What is the value added by going to MSM for your &#8216;news&#8217; instead of random bloggers?&#8221;.  This is actually a VERY good question. :D &#8230; On February 09, 2007 (hehe wow&#8230; almost EXACTLY two years ago, today :D&#41;  I was filming a video for a local politician and Sen. Hillary Clinton rolled through&#8230;</p>
<div style="float:left;padding-right:10px"><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYmVaA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="240" height="200" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"><br />
<font size="1"><a href="http://billcammack.com/2007/02/09/reelsolidtv-episode-39-when-hillary-is-president/" title="ReelSolid.TV Episode #39" rel="nofollow"></font>ReelSolid.TV Episode #39</a></div>
<p>This happened around 11 AM, and I rushed home and dropped my post @ 1:13 PM, about two hours after it actually happened.  Meanwhile&#8230; Even though there were MSM cameras there, there was ZERO mention of her speech on the 12 noon news and either a short sound bite or NOTHING on the 6 PM news.</p>
<p>So the options in this case were to a) Watch the entire speech from some random blogger&#8217;s site, or b) See little to none of it on MSM networks, because they&#8217;ve only allotted a certain amount of time (if any) to this story.<br clear="left"></p>
<p><em>* I&#8217;ve STILL never seen ONE VIDEO, other than mine, of this speech in its entirety. *</em></p>
<p>That was two years ago&#8230; Today, we have situations where Twitter is SERIOUSLY beating MSM to the scoops.  Even another MSM provider, CNN is beating print media up with their cable television offerings as well as CNN.com.  MSNBC&#8217;s on the case sometimes, as well.  The point, however, is that by the time that newspaper hits your doorstep, you probably already heard/saw/read all of &#8220;The Facts&#8221; of the situation.  &#8220;The Facts&#8221; are distributed by <a href="http://www.ap.org/" rel="nofollow">The Associated Press</a> (AP).  As soon as those &#8220;facts&#8221; are released, they permeate the blogosphere via people&#8217;s derivative posts.  You can hit Google Blog Search as soon as you hear about something and see a list of blogs that have already reposted the facts.</p>
<p>IMO, This means that the only thing MSM has left to hang onto is &#8220;opinion&#8221;.  The only reason people would remain loyal to MSM sources is that they TRUST the hired professionals that they&#8217;ve been listening to for ages and/or that they find added value in their style of fact-gathering and &#8220;storytelling&#8221;.  MSM organizations will find ROI in their employees within their ability to cultivate, maintain and grow passionate and loyal viewers &#038; readers.  Similar to the NFL or any other professional sports league, there will be lots of journalists that don&#8217;t make the cut and don&#8217;t make sense to retain, as far as the bottom line.  I think this should lead to a filtering of news staff employees across the board, favoring quality over quantity, and make MSM organizations bastions of heralded and respected storytellers.</p>
<h2>Shifting Focus?</h2>
<p><a href="http://billcammack.com/" title="Bill Cammack"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3052/2966510083_b547bd0f14_m.jpg" alt="Bill Cammack" /></a>Of course, all this stuff assumes a few things, such as people HAVING computers and internet connections to begin with, and not having a particular affinity for &#8220;reading the paper&#8221;, like an actual, PHYSICAL paper.</p>
<p>It also assumes that people will regard &#8220;fact + blogger opinion&#8221; in anywhere near as high regard as they hold &#8220;fact + MSM opinion&#8221;.</p>
<p>The <em>problem</em>, however is that the kids (read: Future newspaper buyers&#8230; or NOT!) are growing up using their smartphones.  They interact with their friends on phones, get their news from phones, read books on phones, watch videos on phones&#8230;.. </p>
<p>The days of Al Bundy taking a newspaper or magazine to the bathroom are just about over.  Physically printed publications are shutting down left and right.  Even internet &#8216;magazine&#8217; properties are consolidating and downsizing. In a minute, it&#8217;s not going to be enough to graduate from college with whatever degree you have to have to become a journalist.  The budget&#8217;s going to be reserved for the top dogs.</p>
<p>So we&#8217;ll see what actually happens, but that&#8217;s my prediction.  The only way MSM&#8217;s going to be able to remain profitable in the way they have in the past is to focus on the value added by their professionally-trained staff bringing a flavor to the reporting of &#8220;The Facts&#8221; that keeps people interested in coming back.  They&#8217;re also going to have to get with the program as far as where the next generation&#8217;s attention is focused.</p>
<p>I believe I found out on Twitter that a crane fell down several blocks away from my house.  I KNOW I found out on Twitter that a bridge fell down in some other state.  I know that several of President Obama&#8217;s speeches &#038; rallies were broadcast live during his campaign, via Ustream.  Speed is *CRITICAL*.  Sending a crew out with tape in their cameras, physically bringing those tapes back to the office, having a producer write a story and hand off the materials to an editor for near-future release isn&#8217;t going to cut it anymore.  Writing about the plane that was landed safely in the Hudson River by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesley_Sullenberger" rel="nofollow">Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III</a> (THANK YOU for not landing that plane on our HEADS, Captain Sully!!! :D&#41; and having that story appear on your doorstep the next moring isn&#8217;t going to cut it anymore.</p>
<p>So what do <em><strong>you</strong></em> think, as far as whether MSM will stand as-is, fall or successfully adapt?  If you already wrote something, feel free to link to your article in the comments, below.</p>
<p>~<a href="http://billcammack.com/" title="Bill Cammack">Bill Cammack</a></p>
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<h3  class="related_post_title">Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2011/11/13/internet-blog-influenced-news-cycles/" title="Internet Blog-Influenced News Cycles">Internet Blog-Influenced News Cycles</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2010/11/16/noblog-status-plausible-deniability/" title="#NOBLOG Status (Plausible Deniability)">#NOBLOG Status (Plausible Deniability)</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2011/11/14/cnn-presents-black-in-america-silicon-valley/" title="CNN Presents &#8220;Black In America: Silicon Valley&#8221;">CNN Presents &#8220;Black In America: Silicon Valley&#8221;</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/12/29/twitter-or-your-blog/" title="Twitter? Or Your Blog?">Twitter? Or Your Blog?</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/09/19/why-professionals-avoid-web-video/" title="Why Professionals Avoid Web Video">Why Professionals Avoid Web Video</a></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Personal Branding?</title>
		<link>http://billcammack.com/2008/09/28/personal-branding/</link>
		<comments>http://billcammack.com/2008/09/28/personal-branding/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:12:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bill Cammack</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Personal Branding&#8221; has been hotly debated recently in my circles. &#8220;Do I have a personal brand?&#8221; &#8220;Does personal branding exist?&#8221; &#8220;Am I a brand or a person?&#8221; Part of the reason this is discussed so often is that people tend to define a personal brand in terms that don&#8217;t mean anything. By using terms for [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div name="googleone_share_1" style="position:relative;z-index:5;clear:right; float: right; margin-right: 10px; margin-top:10px;"><g:plusone size="tall" count="1" href="http://billcammack.com/2008/09/28/personal-branding/"></g:plusone></div><p>&#8220;Personal Branding&#8221; has been hotly debated recently in my circles.  &#8220;Do I have a personal brand?&#8221;  &#8220;Does personal branding exist?&#8221;  &#8220;Am I a brand or a person?&#8221;</p>
<p>Part of the reason this is discussed so often is that people tend to define a personal brand in terms that don&#8217;t mean anything.  By using terms for PEOPLE that are used to categorize COMPANIES, people are turned off to the concept or fail to understand the true meaning of the term.</p>
<p>Does personal branding exist?  Yes.  Do *YOU* have one?  Maybe.</p>
<p>Basically, a &#8220;personal brand&#8221; is what people EXPECT when you come to mind.  Period.  Some people have this and some people don&#8217;t.</p>
<p>A personal brand is achieved through ACTIONS which people come to associate with your name or face.  If you never DO anything that people perceive, you do not have a personal brand, IMO.  This is because your name doesn&#8217;t &#8220;ring bells&#8221; and doesn&#8217;t alter anyone&#8217;s perception of a situation when they find out that you&#8217;re involved.  This does NOT mean that you aren&#8217;t important&#8230; It merely means people don&#8217;t KNOW who you are and/or what you do.</p>
<p>For instance, if you google <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&#038;q=emmy+award+editor&#038;btnG=Google+Search&#038;aq=f&#038;oq=" rel="nofollow">Emmy Award Editor</a> I&#8217;m #1.  Actually, I&#8217;m #1 AND #2, because the youtube version of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHh1tAA-UFE" rel="nofollow">the collab I did with Indy Mogul</a> is in the second slot, with 11,240 views.  People hit my resume page or my &#8220;about&#8221; page every single day, so lots of people have associated the name Bill Cammack with quality videotape editorial.  This is what they EXPECT when they find out I worked on a project&#8230; Quality.</p>
<p>So what about Ian Jenkins?</p>
<p>&#8220;Who?&#8221; :D</p>
<p><a href="http://ianjenkins.net" rel="nofollow">Ian Jenkins</a> is a friend of mine who edits and works A HELL OF A LOT HARDER than I do. :)  Ian edits a show for Next New Networks called &#8220;Fast Lane Daily&#8221;, which just <a href="http://ianjenkins.net/2008/05/06/fast-lane-daily-wins-a-webby-award/" rel="nofollow">won a 2008 Webby Award</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://ianjenkins.net/blog/2008/05/06/fast-lane-daily-wins-a-webby-award/" rel="friend met colleague"><img src="http://ianjenkins.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/crew.jpg" title="J-Rad, Ian Jenkins &#038; Alan Kaufman" alt="J-Rad, Ian Jenkins &#038; Alan Kaufman" width="500"/></a><br clear="left"></p>
<p>That&#8217;s Ian in the white FLD shirt and headphones.  Also pictured are a couple of other NNN friends of mine, J-Rad &#038; <a href="http://alankaufman.com/" rel="nofollow">Alan Kaufman</a>.  </p>
<p>Now&#8230; If I had a project I wanted to get done, Ian Jenkins would be one of the top guys I&#8217;d want working with me.  That&#8217;s because I happen to know his work ethic and the skill and dedication he brings to the table.  I know this because I&#8217;ve spoken to him, I&#8217;ve seen his work and I know people that work WITH him.  Does he broadcast this himself?  No.  Not that I know of.  Is he crafting a personal brand?  Not that I know of.  He&#8217;s doing what he does.  IS &#8220;Ian Jenkins&#8221; a brand?  HELL YES! :D  That&#8217;s because when *I* hear his name, I EXPECT certain things from a project Ian worked on.</p>
<p>So who&#8217;s the better editor?  Bill Cammack or Ian Jenkins?&#8230;.  Unfortunately, editing is highly subjective.  The only thing that matters is whether the job gets done WELL and ON TIME.  So I say NEITHER of us is better as a editor.  My personal brand is more recognized, because I spend hours every day working on it and Ian doesn&#8217;t give a damn. :)  Ian meets deadlines every. single. day. while I play SOCOM.  I&#8217;m freelance, so I&#8217;ve worked for a ton of shows, companies and people for advertising, corporate and broadcast productions.  Ian&#8217;s a staffer, so he works on one show, and it runs on the internet, but he probably produces 15 videos for every one that I output.  Ian shoots video as well.  So do I, but I&#8217;d rather edit, and Ian&#8217;s probably better at shooting, because he does it infinitely more than I do.</p>
<p><a href="http://billcammack.com/"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2053/2036979667_2aba592ba8.jpg" width="500" alt="Bill Cammack" title="Bill Cammack"></a><br clear="left"></p>
<p>My point is&#8230; You can&#8217;t tell JACK from how well someone uses the internet to publicize themselves.  I&#8217;m not going to tell you to google <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&#038;q=video+editor+resume&#038;btnG=Google+Search&#038;aq=f&#038;oq=" rel="nofollow">Video Editor Resume</a> (I&#8217;m #3) to figure out who&#8217;s GOOD or who can make it happen.  That&#8217;s just a list of people that know how to use tags, or even worse, actually PAID PEOPLE to get them better rankings on google. :/  Doesn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;re any good at what they do AT ALL.  Doesn&#8217;t mean their name &#8220;rings bells&#8221; IRL.  What matters is what people know or perceive about you, which IS your personal brand, whether you LIKE that or not and whether you EMBRACE that or not.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether you brand YOURSELF, people are going to brand YOU.  I started telling people to <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&#038;q=Bill&#038;btnG=Search" rel="nofollow">Google &#8220;Bill&#8221;</a> (I&#8217;m currently #9 of 541,000,000 pages for &#8220;Bill&#8221;) because I don&#8217;t carry business cards, and it&#8217;s really the easiest way for people to get in touch with me.  Next thing I know, hahaha this is how I&#8217;m being introduced to people at parties. :)  This wasn&#8217;t MY idea, but people get a kick out of that and it spreads from person to person.</p>
<p>Actually&#8230; And I don&#8217;t know whether to laugh or cry about this&#8230; :D  Neither my professional accomplishments nor my stellar search engine rankings (e.g. <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&#038;q=women+dating+nyc&#038;btnG=Search" rel="nofollow">women dating nyc</a> #3) are what most people that I meet &#8220;know me for&#8221;.  It&#8217;s always &#8220;&#8230;.. YOU&#8217;RE that guy that&#8217;s in all those pictures with all those women! :D&#8221;.</p>
<p><a href="http://billcammack.com/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3168/2808702242_6ec206db6f.jpg" width="500" alt="Alana, Jill, Chrissie, Flo, Bill, Michelle &#038; Whitney" title="Alana, Jill, Chrissie, Flo, Bill, Michelle &#038; Whitney" /></a><br clear="left"><br />
<a href="http://billcammack.com/"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2037/2445651701_d6e07fa715.jpg" width="500" alt="Grace, Christine, Bill, Kathryn &#038; Annie" title="Grace, Christine, Bill, Kathryn &#038; Annie" /></a><br clear="left"><br />
<a href="http://billcammack.com/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3218/2679905438_c248d912e5.jpg" width="500" alt="Chrissie, Flo, Bill &#038; Leora" title="Chrissie, Flo, Bill &#038; Leora" /></a><br clear="left"><br />
<a href="http://billcammack.com/"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2168/2438312102_cf3f376e9a.jpg" width="500" alt="Michelle, Marissa, Bill &#038; Lindsey" title="Michelle, Marissa, Bill &#038; Lindsey" /></a><br clear="left"></p>
<p>So, BESIDES not overshadowing your BUSINESS brand with your SOCIAL brand, :) the moral of our story is&#8230; Do you have a personal brand?  Maybe.  It depends first of all on whether you actually DO ANYTHING, and second on whether you&#8217;re letting people KNOW that you do these things or whether other people are publicizing you.  If people think differently of something because you&#8217;re involved with it, that&#8217;s your PERSONAL BRAND at work.  This does NOT only have to do with business either.  We&#8217;ll get into that another time.  You might have a personal brand when it comes to <a href="http://billcammack.com/category/datinggenius">dating</a>.  The fact that you can be trusted in general and your word actually MEANS SOMETHING is potentially part of your personal brand.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also NEGATIVE personal branding, such as when a client refuses to pay you for several months for work you did for them and you&#8217;re getting ready to blast their name and company all over the WORLD WIDE WEB for not living up to their agreements EVERY SINGLE DAY until you get satisfaction, which would amount to receiving PAYMENT IN FULL for services rendered.  But that&#8217;s a story for another day. :D</p>
<p>So that&#8217;s what I think about personal branding.  If you&#8217;re in the &#8220;public&#8221; eye (as &#8216;public&#8217; as our small Echo Chamber gets) brand yourself or other people will do it for you.  Whatever opinions come to mind when people hear your name or see your face, that&#8217;s YOUR brand.  Even if NO opinions come to people&#8217;s minds or they&#8217;ve never heard of you, that doesn&#8217;t matter as long as YOU know what you&#8217;re bringing to the table.  &#8220;The Fame Game&#8221; isn&#8217;t for everybody.  Not everybody CAN do it, not everybody SHOULD do it and not everybody does it WELL.</p>
<p>So.. Does &#8216;Personal Branding&#8217; exist, or am I talking about vaporware? :D</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>~<a href="http://billcammack.com/">Bill</a></p>
<h3  class="related_post_title">Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/08/29/alana-jill-chrissie-florence-bill-michelle-whitney/" title="Alana, Jill, Chrissie, Florence, Bill, Michelle &#038; Whitney">Alana, Jill, Chrissie, Florence, Bill, Michelle &#038; Whitney</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2010/06/04/social-branding/" title="Social Branding">Social Branding</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/02/11/next-new-networks-barely-digital-launch-party/" title="Next New Networks / Barely Digital Launch Party">Next New Networks / Barely Digital Launch Party</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/01/19/time-part-02/" title="Time, Part 02">Time, Part 02</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/09/19/why-professionals-avoid-web-video/" title="Why Professionals Avoid Web Video">Why Professionals Avoid Web Video</a></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Why Professionals Avoid Web Video</title>
		<link>http://billcammack.com/2008/09/19/why-professionals-avoid-web-video/</link>
		<comments>http://billcammack.com/2008/09/19/why-professionals-avoid-web-video/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:38:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bill Cammack</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[In professional productions, broadcast or corporate, there is a deadline. If you miss that deadline, you lose. If you don&#8217;t want to miss that deadline, you have to hire someone competent and trusted. People competent and trusted have rates. If you don&#8217;t want to pay that rate, you can hire someone else. Since you have [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div name="googleone_share_1" style="position:relative;z-index:5;clear:right; float: right; margin-right: 10px; margin-top:10px;"><g:plusone size="tall" count="1" href="http://billcammack.com/2008/09/19/why-professionals-avoid-web-video/"></g:plusone></div><p>In professional productions, broadcast or corporate, there is a deadline.  If you miss that deadline, you lose.  If you don&#8217;t want to miss that deadline, you have to hire someone competent and trusted.  People competent and trusted have rates.  If you don&#8217;t want to pay that rate, you can hire someone else.</p>
<p>Since you have an air-date, there isn&#8217;t an infinite amount of time that can be spent on your project.  This is another reason to hire a competent editor.  You can either have a REALLY GOOD video in 8 hours or an &#8220;ok&#8221; video in 8 hours.  Actually, depending on how much you skimp, you might not have a video AT ALL in 8 hours and miss your deadline.</p>
<p>Quality&#8217;s important when you&#8217;re doing professional work.  This is because the company that hires you cares about its image and its brand.  The whole point is to get people to feel like trusting the company with their business based on how they present themselves through media.  Because of this, companies tend to go with post houses or editors that they know can and will make them look good, and pay those people accordingly.</p>
<p><center><a href="http://billcammack.com/"><img src="http://www.reelsolid.tv/billcammack/CammHummEmmy01_600.jpg" title="Elizabeth Hummer &#038; Bill Cammack" alt="Elizabeth Hummer &#038; Bill Cammack" width="350"/></a></center></p>
<p>Getting involved with video productions on the web is totally different.  There&#8217;s no revenue stream coming from advertisers down to companies down to producers, shooters and editors.  If a company&#8217;s going to make videos for the net, they have to be prepared to take a financial loss in return for increased brand recognition or social cred.  They will NOT be making their money back via revenue-sharing.  Unless they get tons of views, they will NOT be making their money back via sponsorships.  They *have* to treat their videos as ADVERTISING and not some vehicle to make money with.  They have to weigh their increase in social and business cred against the cost of their videos in order to justify a budget&#8230; ANY budget.</p>
<p>This is what makes it tough for professionals to feel like getting involved with the internet video business.  Everyone in the space is trying to &#8220;make it&#8221;.  Everyone&#8217;s clawing for that next dollar and that next passionate viewer and that next page hit to the point where it&#8217;s like a high school play.  &#8220;Oh&#8230; could you run the lights for me?&#8221; &#8220;Could you dress up like a tree and stand in the background here for an hour?&#8221; &#8220;Can you pull the string that opens the curtains?&#8221;  It&#8217;s REALLY incredibly unprofessional, but like I said, it needs to be, because these aren&#8217;t video production companies&#8230; They&#8217;re companies that are attempting to UTILIZE video on the net to gain something else.  The bottom line is to spend as little as you can to produce videos that get you as many views as you can get that you can turn around and sell to someone that wants to advertise something.</p>
<p>So what you end up with is individuals or groups whose budget is 1/3 of your day rate who want you to get on board with doing a project that you know is going to take you three days.  This is where TIME comes back into play.  The question you have to ask yourself as a freelancer is &#8220;What else could I be doing during the time that I&#8217;m spending on this person&#8217;s project?&#8221;.  Let&#8217;s see&#8230; You could be:</p>
<ul>
<li>Doing work at your actual day rate</li>
<li>Socializing and making new business connections</li>
<li>Learning new styles and concepts in editing</li>
<li>Learning about new sites and apps on the web</li>
<li>Reading what others have to say in their blogs about your chosen field</li>
<li>Doing Trial &#038; Error testing of new tools and concepts you&#8217;ve recently acquired</li>
<li>Doing follow-up calls &#038; emails on invoices people haven&#8217;t paid you for yet</li>
<li>Posting to your blog or video blog</li>
<li>Spending time with family &#038; friends</li>
<li>Enjoying your hobbies &#038; other entertainment</li>
<li>Living YOUR life</li>
</ul>
<p>So, basically, the point of the budget is to get the producer, shooter or editor to focus on YOUR project instead of doing ANYTHING ELSE UNDER THE SUN that&#8217;s more beneficial or entertaining to him or her.  Therefore, the lower your budget is, the less time that person&#8217;s willing to apply to your production.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there&#8217;s a baseline to the amount of time that&#8217;s necessary for a project, so there&#8217;s a baseline to the budget.  For instance&#8230; If someone gives me a tape that&#8217;s an hour long, off the bat, that&#8217;s an hour that has to be spent loading the tape onto the drive (less time if it&#8217;s coming from a digital source, like an SD card or P2 card).  There are only two other ways around this expenditure of money/time.  Pay someone else to be a loader and make sure they coordinate with the editor so they know how to load the tapes properly, or DO. IT. YOURSELF.  Do it yourself and say to the editor, I have this drive with all the footage on it, and I need you to edit it.  Saves you money right off the top.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also a baseline in PLANNING that&#8217;s necessary for a video.  If you give me a page with clearly marked ins and outs, video and dialogue cues, I can crunch that out in no time.  If you give me NOTHING, then you have to pay for all the time it takes me to watch all your footage and make up an entire story in my head that makes you and your company look good.  Even if the final product is 30 seconds long, if you gave me three hours of footage from which to select the best 30 seconds&#8230;&#8230;.</p>
<p>Then you have to deal with changes.  If the editor you hire isn&#8217;t also going to be the EP (Executive Producer), you&#8217;re going to have opinions about the video after it&#8217;s done.  &#8220;Change my title&#8221;.  &#8220;Move this part here&#8221;.  &#8220;Take that part out&#8221;.  &#8220;Change the volume&#8221;.  &#8220;I don&#8217;t look good here&#8221;.  This means that MORE time is taken listening to / reading your changes and more time is taken making them and then encoding the file and getting you a review copy.  This is why a lot of work is done on a day rate basis instead of a package deal basis.  Video is almost entirely SUBJECTIVE and people will tweak and tweak until they run out of time (air-time deadline) or money (budget / agreement).  As long as they&#8217;re paying for the time they&#8217;re taking up (and to the degree that it makes it worthwile to the editor), more power to them.</p>
<p><center><a href="http://billcammack.com/"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1238/1271894524_ed191d8161.jpg" title="Bill Cammack" alt="Bill Cammack" width="350"/></a></center></p>
<p>This is why production companies are now swooping down into the space and creating all these web shows.  Their editors are STAFFERS.  They get paid REGARDLESS of how many people watch the videos, whether they go viral, whether there&#8217;s rev-share advertising on it, whether it has a shelf-life of more than three days.  This works for the reasons I stated above.  Production companies gain social &#038; business cred from doing QUALITY WORK.  Since they pay their editors to DO that work, their ROI is continued and increasing business from clients who want that same level of quality and consistency for their productions.</p>
<p>Is there a solution to this?  I don&#8217;t think there will be.  In fact, it&#8217;s not even actually a &#8216;problem&#8217;.  Since most people are concerned with hits and viewership and membership, it&#8217;s not an issue for them to output GARBAGE and do that for as close to $0.00 as they can.  Their reputation is based on how many eyeballs they can attract to sell to advertisers and NOT the quality of the video on their site(s).  Nobody&#8217;s ever going to ask them to get their team to make a web video for them or a corporate video for them or something to go on broadcast television.  Nobody&#8217;s going to ask them to work on a film&#8230; evAr.  As long as the video is the means and not an end, it&#8217;s going to remain a high school production, and as long as that translates into hits, views and sales, these web companies are going to be happy.</p>
<p>The only decision here is whether to dress up like that tree and go stand in the background or only entertain video production proposals from individuals and groups with a focus on quality and an understanding of what it takes to make that happen.</p>
<p>~<a href="http://billcammack.com/" title="Bill Cammack">Bill Cammack</a></p>
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<h3  class="related_post_title">Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2008/09/28/personal-branding/" title="Personal Branding?">Personal Branding?</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/04/20/time-part-07-subcontracting/" title="Time, Part 07: “Subcontracting”">Time, Part 07: “Subcontracting”</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/04/10/time-part-06-whats-your-budget/" title="Time, Part 06: &#8220;What&#8217;s Your Budget?&#8221;">Time, Part 06: &#8220;What&#8217;s Your Budget?&#8221;</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/02/19/time-part-04-spend-your-money/" title="Time, Part 04: “Spend Your Money”">Time, Part 04: “Spend Your Money”</a></li><li><a href="http://billcammack.com/2009/02/05/what-do-you-see-as-the-future-for-major-media-companies/" title="What Do You See As The Future For Major Media Companies?">What Do You See As The Future For Major Media Companies?</a></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
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