It started as a brainstorming session. You never know where those things will lead… For us, it led to something very exciting!

Brainstorm is pleased to annonce a merger with Good & Worthy Design Inc. and the formation of Freshwater Creative Corp.

Our new company will continue to provide the experience you have come to know and love with additional Web depth.

Our new partners are Jennifer and Neil Devine, people with tremendous talent and experience in Web design and development. Before starting the Creative Offices of Good & Worthy, Jen and Neil honed their substantial abilities at a Calgary-based international Web powerhouse (Jen as a Vice President and Neil as a Senior Designer). We’ve found great alignment with them when it comes to the things that matter: core values, approach to business and client focus. The things we know are important to you as well.

The merger means a move. We are closed July 28th to August 2nd. Starting August 3rd, you’ll find our head office @ 1215 First Street SW Calgary T2R 0V3. The main phone number remains the same: 403-205-4435.

One is the launch of the new Peter Tertzakian book “The End of Energy Obesity”. It’s available now and the video “trailer” produced by brainstorm has launched. You can click on the End of Energy Obesity post to view the 3 minute piece. Reviews are already coming in, including “the best video I have ever seen on YouTube”. High praise indeed, and we’re thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with Peter and his team.

The other is a project we call Understand Demand which is committed to reducing the national and international commercial sexual exploitation of children. See the posts below for details.

The Parliament Building in Ottawa

In June, Brainstorm’s Kerrie Penney and Barry Chugg found themselves in Ottawa making a presentation to the Roméo Dallaire Senate Committee against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. How did that happen?

Well, last year Dr. Susan McIntyre walked into the Brainstorm office in Calgary and said, “I need to start a movement and I want you to help me.”

After snorting coffee through our noses we took the time to listen to this mad woman and quickly became infected by her enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the field to which she has devoted her career.
Since 1982, Sue has been immersed in the work of combating the abuse of children through the sexual exploitation trade. Her doctoral, The Youngest Profession, The Oldest Oppression involved extensive research that revealed that a vast majority of young people involved in the sexual exploitation trade had histories of abuse prior to entering the trade.

Her post doctoral journey with Woods Homes and her own company, The Hindsight Group, led her to the realization that a dramatic paradigm shift is needed to combat the problem. The helping community has always focused on the supply side of the sexual exploitation trade ­ this is, getting young men and woman off the streets and into safe, nurturing environments. Sue’s work began to focus on the demand side ­ the need to find ways to begin to reduce the demand for these services. In all the dialogue, which literally stretches back over the millennia, this has never been addressed.

The people at the Hindsight group realized they faced a daunting task: they needed to start a societal movement to reduce demand. Their work moved on to focus on the best practices common to programs which had dealt with social issues of similar magnitude such as drug abuse, family violence, smoking and teen alcoholism. This research resulted in the creation of The Blueprint which identified 37 best practices that made these campaigns successful in varying degrees.

That’s when Sue came to us and for nearly a year we’ve been learning about the sexual exploitation trade and developing a plan. In 531 BC Lao-tzu said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Well, our first step has been to create something called Understand Demand.

Although the movement will grow to embrace many tools and tactics, the first step for Understand Demand will be the creation of a powerful e-learning tool to demonstrate in a pilot test with a group of junior high school aged children in Calgary that attitudes that result in demand can, in fact, be altered. Understand Demand has established a partnership with Boys and Girls Club Community Services to facilitate the pilot.
This baby movement has already created enough of a stir that we were invited to present to Senator Dallaire’s committee. This group, comprised of professionals from every part of the nation, embraced Understand Demand as a practical tool to help them in the battle against the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

The next step in the Understand Demand movement will be to secure funding to begin work on the e-learning tool. The journey has been poignant and exciting so far. We believe the road ahead, though full of challenges and obstacles, will allow all four Brainstorm partners to use our skills and experience to truly make a difference.

Someone once called Sue McIntyre “dangerously infectious”. We agree and are happy we caught the bug!

Our trailer we just finished producing for Peter Tertzakian's book 'The End of Energy Obesity' will only make you a little smart...for the real goods you have to read his book!

The brainstorm team had the amazing opportunity to work with Peter to create a “trailer” for his book The End of Energy Obesity. And if you think it is hard distilling the gist of the book into five paragraphs, try stuffing it into 3 minutes – which I am proud to report we did.

If you are tuned in at all to the news these days, chances are you’re hearing something about our uncertain energy future. Between recessions and dirty oil, hurricanes and the search for sustainables, it’s hard to figure out what’s next. Are we headed to hell in a handbag? Well Peter Tertzakian thinks not.

The Chief Energy Economist for Arc Financial and Best selling author (Ten Thousand Barrels a Second) launches his new book today. “The End of Energy Obesity” traces how we have come to be so dependent on carbon fuels, where we are at today, and the possibilities out there for ensuring our energy future. Which of course, is linked to maintaining our standard of living.

Reading this book will make you smarter. Well, okay I probably can’t say that, but it will give you a much appreciated perspective about the world we live in (wealthy world) and how we are going to reconcile and repackage the American Dream so that it is do-able for the entire world.

The result is a sometimes tense, always informative, super condensed piece of information that brings the spirit of the book into the digital realm. Peter’s excellent analysis sharpens the focus on the future, and you WILL feel smarter after you have viewed it. And then viewed it again.

Click below to see what I mean and write me to tell me how smart you are. Or perhaps we can discuss how Canadians can work to break the First Principle of Energy Consumption.

The End of Energy Obesity is published by Wiley and is available in stores now. And one lucky viewer of this blog (is it you Barry Chugg?) will win a copy of Peter’s new book. Contest closes July 1st. Simply email us and tell us why you think you should win the book.

I don’t want to tell you how it ends, but suffice to say technology plays a big part in changing our energy appetite.

You're not tripping: this is an example of the alternating fields of CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) broadcast technology

The short answer is a long answer. Here is my short version, and it’s long. It’s also broad strokes, not a technical manual, so to all you editors out there “Yes, I know…sort of.”

In the beginning: Standard Definition

Let’s start with Standard Definition (SD) and go from there. There are variations in SD formats. For our purposes let’s define SD as the NTSC DVD standard. The National Television System Committee (NTSC) created this standard for analog television broadcasts in North America. PAL is the standard used in much of Europe. Here’s a rule of thumb. If the country uses 60hrtz power, like my house, it’s NTSC. If the country uses 50hrtz power, like the Queens house, its PAL. That’s why I always have to bring a power adapter for my razor when I’m over at the Queen’s house.

The important terms and concepts to understand are Size, Aspect Ratio, Interlaced vs Progressive and Frame Rate.

Standard Definition Format Notation

720×480i 29.97fps 4:3

• Size: 720 by 480 pixels in size (width by height)
• i: Interlaced (otherwise it would be p for progressive)
• 29.97fps: 29.97 fames per second
• Aspect ratio: 4:3

Size

Size is measured in pixels. SD video has a width of 720 pixels; and a height of 480. Think of lines of a book: 480 lines, each 720 characters long.

Interlaced

This one is less straight ahead. Convoluted in fact.

It’s the early 1900’s, and we’re in America inventing broadcast television using CRT (cathode ray tube) television technology. CRT draws in lines, left to right from starting at the top of the screen.
It turns out we can’t fit everything we want into the bandwidth available, so to save space we decide to deliver half an image at a time. We split the image into fields. So now the CRT only draws, from left to right, the odd lines (1, 3, 5 …. 479), then it draws the even ones (2, 3, 6, …480). It lets your brain fill in the blanks, which it remarkably does. To do this it uses 30 frames, splits them in half and draws half a frame every 1/60th of a second. Interlacing allows for the transmission of more information but often leads the problem of an image looking like it is flickering, it’s called “twitter”. Today we have progressive monitors; more on that later, but interlaced is sticking around. Even new HD formats have interlaced formats.

Click here to view entire article in PDF

The AltaLink video shoot in action

Many of us who are over 25 tend to think of places like YouTube and FaceBook as the equivalent of virtual pizza joints or pool halls where people go just to hang out and waste time. It turns out that’s only partly true. Today’s young people are using these and other sites to share ideas and gain information which they use to guide their life decisions.

This is having a tremendous impact on the corporate world even though some corporate communicators remain blithely unaware of what’s going on. You think you’re interviewing that bright young millennial for a job? Wrong! She’s interviewing you and has been for some time. She’s been finding out all about you on her social networking sites. She’s likely become “friends” with several of your employees and really does have the inside scoop about the ups and downs of working for your organization. For her, the interview is a formality. Your opportunity to say yes to her.

Progressive recruiters understand these trends and use them to their advantage. There is lots of upside and opportunity but … be careful! Clumsy attempts to fool this audience will always fail. They are savvy and perceptive, and will spot the wolf in sheep’s clothing every time. Communication on these sites must be sincere and transparent or the results will be disastrous.

Brainstorm recently produced a series of YouTube videos for AltaLink. Entitled “The Benefit of Working at AltaLink”, they are light hearted and playful but present an authentic picture of the experience and benefits of working for the company. The early response seems to be excellent.

See for yourself at www.youtube.com/altalink.

An Example of a SERP (Search Engine Result Page)

The goal of this article is to provide a basic overview of what Search Engine Optmization (SEO) is and why it’s important to you. There are businesses that exist solely to optimize websites for search engines and to attempt to summarize the industry in a page is going to leave a LOT out. But don’t worry – I have provided links throughout should you wish to pursue things further.

So, why do you need to know this acronym? Well, if you want presence on the web you need people to find you in the first place. Search Engine Optimization is the practice of tuning your website to resonate at the right frequencies so that people who are searching for your product or your service will locate you.

The overall goal of optimization is to attain a high ranking on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Web users want immediate answers. Assuming that they are presented with a SERP containing relevant information, the searcher is not going to spend the time to look at each result. Instead they are likely to start at the top and work their way down.

How to Increase Your Ranking

There are many ways to go about doing this:

HTML

First and foremost you want your page in HTML. The crawlers don’t have an easy time with Flash. Google is dumping a ton of R&D into making Flash searchable but as of yet the results have been less then impressive. What if you love Flash or require it? Don’t fret; you can still have Flash elements – simply create an HTML/Flash Hybrid.

Keyword Generation

This is one of the finer arts of the SEO industry, and is one of the areas really worth seeking aid from a communications company. Keyword generation is an exercise in marketing – you want to try and imagine what people looking for your site would search for. Generate a list, and incorporate these words into every place that makes sense. BEWARE: don’t spam your site full of industry keywords instead of content, the search engines know when somebody is trying to not play fair, and the punishment is severe – banishment from the search engine altogether.

Dynamic Parameters

The URL itself can cause problems for the crawlers. Be sure not to include symbols like ‘=’, ’%’, ‘&’, etc. For example: http://www.url.com/page.php?id=554&PL34rr&User=%Caley%. Clean and concise is the way to go. If you can’t understand what the URL is saying, chances are the crawler is having a hard time too. Additional tip: if you can, include keywords in the url.

Architecture

The architecture of your site is extremely important. Crawlers (Google, Yahoo Live, etc.) crawl better down some routes than others. The more easily the information is accessible, the better your likelihood of getting results. What are the basics of good site architecture?

• Keep the page depth shallow by keeping information within 3 clicks.
• Avoid login screens and pop-ups. These are a big red flag. Either of these will cause a crawler to stop in its tracks and move on to another site.
• Use PDF’s for downloadable content. PDF’s are the standard for a variety of reasons: security, efficient file sizes, cross-platform use, etc. But what many don’t know is that Google can search PDF’s for keywords.
• Use specific font types. While the crawlers will search the code for the copy and have no problem ranking your site, web browsers (Internet Explorer, Fire Fox, Safari, etc.) are another story. Browsers are sensitive to font types and you need to maximize your websites ability to communicate.

The benefits of good architecture are more than just that of the searchability. The easier you can make a page for your user to navigate, the more likely they will be to revisit, explore and recommend. Which leads me to my next point:

Link Generation

This could be the most important factor with your website. Basically, the more links pointing to your website, the higher your ranking. Search engines are smart and getting smarter – they will judge the quality of the link as part of this criteria. Links from established, reliable sites like .gov and .edu carry with them significantly more weight than your friends Facebook page (though every link helps). The other benefit of link generation is that it provides users a way to get to your site without search engines. Remember: the overall goal is to get traffic to your site, not just a high ranking.

So how do you get people to link to your site? Well, that’s an article on its own. But here is a quick tip: keep your content fresh, interesting, and relative. One trick many successful sites use is to create an industry blog *wink*. This serves as a resource for their clients and peers while showing that they swim with the changing tides.

In Conclusion

Those are the basics of optimization but like I said, they are only the tip of the iceberg. If you take nothing else from this article take this: SEO is important but should be looked upon as a bi-product of good design. You want your visitors to be engaged and to revisit. You want them to link to your site because it’s interesting, it’s relevant, and it’s easy to use. Website design is not just about getting a visitor, it’s about building a relationship.

When everything is always a production

Pre Production

Pre production is the first step in the video process. During this phase, we meet as a group, outlining content requirements, budget implications and generally discussing the treatment for the video program we are creating. Roles are discussed and defined, questions about the process are answered and we set guidelines for approval during each of the three production phases.

Once we have had our initial meeting and worked to define roles and expectations, we submit a video treatment. This treatment is typically one page, and outlines the themes to be covered, how we cover them (actors, narration, host etc.) and describes what the final product will look like. The treatment is submitted for review, with feedback due as per our agreed upon production schedule.

When the treatment is read, understood and approved, we move to the first draft scriptwriting stage. At this point, we would need to work closely with any subject matter experts to discuss all the issues and content to be covered.

The first draft script is submitted for review. A meeting is usually scheduled for feedback, as this first draft is the critical discussion paper.

This is the first time many people may have seen a video script, and it’s a good idea to get questions out of the way. Also, as this is a jumping off point, changes are encouraged at this point. It is very important that everyone develops a clear understanding of what we are including in the program and why.
This is a key meeting and we do schedule this in advance.

Once Draft One has been discussed and feedback submitted (through the meeting), changes are incorporated to create Draft Two. Again this script is submitted for review and feedback, as per our production schedule.
Typically, the scripting process moves through to Draft Three, before a final draft is agreed upon and signed off. A signed off script indicates that everyone has read and understood the material and how it is to be treated. Any changes made after a script is approved may result in additional billing.

Once the script is approved, the video production team “breaks it down”. This means taking scenes and compiling a shooting schedule that makes the most sense. Rather than shoot linearly, scenes will be broken down in terms of locations, personnel, time of day, etc.

This part of the pre production process requires a liaison to help the video production team finalize locations for the shoot, times, classrooms, key contact people, etc.

Once the breakdown is complete, a shooting schedule is submitted, so that everyone knows when we are shooting, for how long, and who is required.

Also, during this time we may hold actor auditions (depending on the type of program we are creating). Actors are typically cast, with the client having final approval.

The pre production process is finished when everything is in place for the actual shoot. These include: approved actors, approved scripts, approved locations, catering, a distributed, approved and understood shooting schedule and finally, the crew.

Production

This is the time where the video crew shoots the body of the program. This happens over the designated days, on location. We encourage our key contact or SME to be on the set. This person becomes part of the crew, watching the monitor, handling questions about content and generally, representing client interests on the shoot. This person should be very familiar with the content, and also be available during most of the shooting to accommodate questions as they arise.

The production phase ends when the final shot is in the can.

Post Production

Post Production is the time where everything is assembled and approved. Typically, about two weeks is reserved off the top to log (transcribe) footage that may not have been logged during the shoot, create a solid paper edit for the editing process, and tie up loose ends regarding release forms for actors, etc. This is also the time where we will record the voice over or narration. Our client SME is more than welcome to attend this. The narrator (approved earlier) will read from the approved scripts.

The first phase of the editing process is called the “off line” or rough cut.

A word about some editing terms: “off line” is a low resolution version of the final program. All tape footage is “digitized” and put into the editing system. The resolution or quality of the off line is low, as we are typically dealing with a great deal of information and file space. You will notice pixelation, and the sound quality will not reflect the final cut of the program. The purpose of the off line edit is to approve content. Remember that this is a rough cut.

“On line” is the final edited version of the show. This is a high resolution program; images and audio will be crisp and clear. Titles are added in on line, although samples of titles will be shown during the off line phase.
The viewing of the off line versions should be done as a team, with time set aside after the viewing to discuss. This team can submit comments or feedback at this time. It is important at this point that we do not introduce new members to the production or approval process who have not been part of this process all along. What we look for in the viewing of the off line is approval of content. This version of the show follows the approved script very closely.

This feedback is then incorporated into the on line or final edit. Music is added, titles are added and we create the programs, in their entirety, for on line viewing.

Again, viewing of the on line should be as a group. It is important all stakeholders view this version. The on line version is the final program.

Once the programs are approved and signed off, copies can be ordered.

Post production ends when the videos have been approved and signed off. Typically, this is a time of great celebration!