Welcoming Two New Members of the Explainer Network

We're so excited to have two new members of our Explainer Network of custom video producers. 

Lilipip is a Seattle-based company that has been making videos for years. They're seeing new opportunities in the world of animated video explanations and we think they'll be a great fit for the Network.  From their listing:

We make animated videos about your product, service, or concept. We’re an “Open-Source Creative” team with transparent pricing and processes – featuring global artists with a wide range of styles. Follow Lilipip on Twitter.

Here is one of Lilipip's most recent videos:

---

Animated Explanations is based in Brussels, Belgium and focuses on the European (and global) market for explanatory videos. They have extensive experience in making complex ideas easy to understand in video form and we're happy to have them in the Network. We're especially excited to have European representation in the Network. Follow them on Twitter @instruxion. From their listing:

Animated movies, interactive tutorials and instructional videos in attractive formats and any language.

Here's a sample:

How to find a new job using LinkedIn? - Animated Explanations

 

The Common Craft Explainer Network is a group of video producers that specialize in making custom explanatory videos. The Network currently has six members that represent a number of skills, styles and formats.  If that chunk of text on your home page just isn't doing the trick anymore, contact an Explainer Network member.

View With Comments

Common Craft's Wikipedia Page

Yaay! We have a page on Wikipedia. Now what?

As you may know, Wikipedia pages tend to evolve over time as users contribute new information and we're excited to see the Common Craft page evolve.  But first we're hoping to build on a solid foundation - and we need your help. The information that's there is a good start, but it can be better. 

As the owners, it's not kosher for us to edit the page, so we'll be adding suggestions to the "talk" section over time (a few are there now). If a Wikipedian deems the information verifiable, unbiased, accurate, etc. they should feel free to update the article.  Of course, the hope is that information in the article grows organically. We hope you'll consider lending a hand!

If you don't know what a wiki is, you might check out Wikis in Plain English.

View With Comments

New Explainer Network Member: 1/29 Explainers

We're excited to announce a new member of the Common Craft Explainer Network, 1/29 Explainers. Executive producer Nick Seuser and the 1/29 team have ton of experience in the film and video world.

Our introduction to 1/29 was through the "Behind the Logic" series of videos they did for Pandora. You can watch them on the 1/29 Explainers home page. We were impressed with the entertaining creative way they explain the logic that connects the music that plays via Pandora.  Here's an example:

1/29 Explainers, like all members of the Explainer Network, are available for creating custom explanatory videos for your product or service. We created the Network to help organizations in need of videos find talented video producers. Other members include:  SayItVisually, Switch Web Video and 'Splainers.

View With Comments

Coming Soon: More Videos on Financial Responsibility

Here's a question for you: Were you taught about financial responsibility when you were young? 

When I ask this question, the vast majority of people respond with a quick "nope." I sure wasn't. In my high school I learned to recite a poem from BeoWulf in Olde English, but never learned about 401ks or compound interest. In light of the current financial crisis, we want to do our part to make sure people understand the important elements of personal finance and being financially responsible.

The First Three

This is why we've focused the first part of this year on videos about financial basics.  We started with very basic videos, meant to be prerequisites for more complex topics.  We've covered Saving Money (including Compound Interest), Borrowing Money and Investing Money.  With these in place, we're ready to release our next three in the series.  I won't divulge the titles just yet, but they're all meant to help people understand how to be more financially responsible.

Finance is Boring - But Doesn't Have to Be.

We see two big problems in learning about managing money.  First, our financial system is filled with complex terms. It's difficult to care about financial information when you don't recognize the words.  Second, most materials about finance are deadly boring.  For these next Money videos, we've put a lot of effort into making the videos easy to understand, but also entertaining and fun. You won't find finance videos like these anywhere else.

For Whom?

We often have specific people in mind when working on videos like these.  There are usually two audiences:

1. Learners - These are the people who need to learn about financial responsibility. They are students in classrooms and seminars, they are website visitors and employees.

2. Educators - These are the people who need better ways to educate others. Our goal is to provide these good people with accurate, useful and engaging videos that will help learners grasp and even care about financial responsibility. This is the audience we expect to license the videos.

Expect the first of the videos within a week from now.  We'll look forward to your feedback and ideas...

View With Comments

Potential Confusion Avoided - rPath Video

Yesterday, we posted about a video by a company called rPath with the title "Cloud Computing in Plain English." Read about it here.

The blog post came as a result of our unsuccessful efforts over six months to illustrate to rPath that their video, because of the combination of the "in Plain English" title and use of paper-cut outs on a whiteboard, was a source of confusion for Common Craft customers. Because rPath insisted on using legal means to communicate their stance, we chose to take a different route that didn't involve lawyers.  We simply asked our fans to help us reduce confusion.

Over the course of the last 24 hours, we've learned a lot. First, let me say that we couldn't have imagined the level of your response. We are very lucky to have people around us who feel passionately about helping us protect our brand. Within a couple of hours of the blog post, the message to rPath was clear and as you'll see below, we have reached a resolution.  We thank you.

Along the way we learned that it is possible to mobilize a community to seek a better outcome. However, it comes with risks. We have no control over what is said and it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. We are big fans of civility and reason and there is a chance for these kinds of campaigns to diverge from our strongly held values. We've learned to tread lightly.

Yesterday afternoon I received a note from Jake Sorofman, rPath's VP of Marketing and someone who was involved in creating the video.  Jake's side of the story is that he was never aware of Common Craft or the "in Plain English" series of videos when the video was created. I will take Jake at his word and assume this is the case.  For months, we were dealing with another VP, who made it clear a simple solution would not work. Today, Jake and I have discussed it and we both agree that this issue could have been avoided, had we been able to communicate with him early on. 

Jake has agreed to change the title of the video on YouTube and display a link to commoncraft.com on the YouTube page.  The video itself, which contains a watermark with the "in Plain English" title will remain online.  We think this is a reasonable way to resolve the issue and avoid future confusion. Thank you, Jake.

I'm happy that we were able to resolve this reasonably and without lawyers. Thanks you for all your support! Cheers.

View With Comments

Help Common Craft Reduce Confusion - rPath's Cloud Computing Video UPDATED

Updated: The issue described below has been resolved. You can read about it here.

While we are happy to be an inspiration for educators and individuals, sometimes we see examples of commercial organizations that choose to make videos that cause potential confusion. When a video uses paper cut-outs on a whiteboard and "in Plain English" in the title, people may mistake it for part of the Common Craft video series. This confusion compromises the hard work we've put into building the Common Craft brand of "in Plain English" videos.

When this happens, we often take a reasonable approach as a first step: we ask them to simply change the title to reduce confusion.

Unfortunately, one company has not been so reasonable. A tech company called rPath made a video called "Cloud Computing in Plain English" that uses animated versions of paper cut-outs on a white background. Despite our multiple requests, they (via their IP attorneys) refuse to change the title of the video.

So, aside from potential legal action, we're motivated to make sure that confusion is reduced. We have our own "Cloud Computing in Plain English" video in the works and we want to ensure that rPath's video is not confused with our video.

So our purpose is clear: The Cloud Computing video by rPath, despite the title and appearances, is in no way related to Common Craft.  Common Craft did not work with rPath in any way.

If you would like to help us reduce this confusion (without linking to the rPath website) it would be appreciated. Might I suggest a comment on their video? Commenting has been turned off.

---

UPDATED:  I knew this would happen. rPath is now hiding/deleting the comments on the YouTube video and has turned off commenting completely. That's OK, I managed to grab a few screenshots (below) because I figured they didn't really want to hear what people think about this issue. Thanks to everyone that has commented!

Update 2: The rPath folks have changed the description on the YouTube video page to say "**Not affiliated with Common Craft. If you're interested in Common Craft, visit: http://www.commoncraft.com**" I appreciate them making this change.

Update 3: Jake from rPath has left a comment on this blog post ("rPath Responds" below) and we have been in toch via email.  I will take Jake at his word when he says he didin't know about Common Craft when the video was made.  Of course, as I told him, knowing then and refusing to make a change to make it right now are two different things.

 

View With Comments

Introducing the New CommonCraft.com

A few months back, we made re-thinking our web site a top priority. We needed a better way to organize, display and sell our videos. At the same time, we saw an opportunity for our website to feel like a Common Craft video. Today is the official launch of the new CommonCraft.com and we can barely contain ourselves.

A few things:

1. We need your help. As with anything new, bugs, typos, and issues of all sorts are expected. Please contact us, or leave a comment here if you see anything out of place, or have feedback of any sort.

2. We're using a video player that may require you to upgrade to Flash 10 (the technology that makes sure the videos load fast, etc.). Please let us know your experience with watching the videos.

3. Ten of our videos can now be viewed and purchased with audio in 5 languages, including English. If you're bi-lingual, we would love it if you could watch the videos and let us know what feedback you have.

4. We now offer a newsletter service called "Common Craft Video Updates." If you sign up, we'll send you a short email each time we publish a new video. We don't expect to send more then two per month. You can always sign up at the bottom of every page.

Overall, I hope you'll take a look at the site. It's truly a new way for us to present our work and business - something of which we're very proud (but not too proud to hear feedback!)

We'll talk more about them later, but we worked with two small companies to make it happen. Jay and Anastasia at Juxtaprose helped us re-imagine the site's design and structure while Lyal, Alexa and Vince at Outcome3 turned that design into a incredibly manageable, SEO friendly and purpose-built Drupal site. I can't say enough about the hard work and integrity of these folks - both companies are class-acts.

View With Comments

Editors in Brief: Common Craft Article in Seattle Magazine

A few months ago, we spent an afternoon with Jamie Friddle, a writer for Seattle Magazine, who was putting together a story on Common Craft. We were so excited. A few weeks later a photographer came to take pictures.

As Sachi will tell you, the process added a layer of anxiety to her day over the next few months. What would the article say? What photos would they use? I'm happy to report that the anxiety was all for naught. The 4 page feature appears in the May 2009 issue of Seattle Magazine and we love it. Jamie's writing captured, in a compelling and interesting way, what we're all about.

Read the article.

 

 

View With Comments

5 Ways the New CommonCraft.com Will Be Different

We've re-thought our website from the ground up and soon you'll see the all the changes we're making.  For now though, I want to highlight a few things that make a big difference.

1. A Focus on the Business. This may be the best way to explain how the focus has changed:

• The current Common Craft site says "WE HAVE A BLOG - and we sell videos"
• The *new* Common Craft  site says "WE SELL VIDEOS - and we have a blog"

It's true - the new site is more closely aligned with the goal of finding, viewing, purchasing and downloading videos.

2. Simplified Video Organization. Our videos used to appear in two places, depending on their version: "free" or "presentation quality."  We've consolidated the display of videos one a single page. This means:

• No More "Common Craft Store" - Instead of trying to attach a video store to the site, we're integrating the purchase experience into the pages where the videos appear.
• No More "Common Craft Show"- The "Common Craft Show" was simply a way to organize the free versions of our videos.  Now higher-quality versions of the videos will appear in a single place on the site. 

3. Videos in 5 Languages

We're taking a big step to internationalize our videos.  For the first time, 10 of our videos (including the Social Media 9 Pack) will be available with voice-overs in 5 languages (English, French, German, [Brazilian] Portuguese and Spanish.)  These videos will be available for viewing, purchase and download.

4. Organization by Major Topics

Our video library will be organized into four major topics, which outline our direction in the future.  The topics are: Green, Money, Society and Technology.

5. Overall Look and Feel

Our goal was to make the site look and feel like our videos.  We've integrated our artwork, used a white background and tried to make the experience as focused as our videos.

Of course there are many more changes, but I think these points capture some of the big ideas that drive the new design. More soon... 

View With Comments

Meet Splainers - The Newest Member of Our Explainer Network

I recently wrote about a project called the Common Craft Explainer Network.  The big idea is to help connect prospects looking for custom explanatory videos with talented producers.

I'm excited to report that we now have 4 members of the Explainer Network. Our newest member is Splainers - a small company from Issaquah, WA just around the corner from Seattle that specializes in simple presentations that use 3D modeling.  Splainers joins great group of talented producers who not only make awesome videos, but work together to create visibility and demand for explanation as skill and craft.

View With Comments