Common Craft Blog
Common Craft - (Nearly) A Year Later
By leelefever on March 24, 2008 - 7:21pm
It's been almost a year since we published our first paperworks video - RSS in Plain English in April of 2007. Since that time, we've been watching every comment, every blog post and every email. We are lucky to have fans like you that have shared our videos and helped us learn so much.
It's through watching these conversations that we've been able to see new ways for Common Craft to have a bigger impact in the next year. We'll be more specific soon, but for now, I'd like to share some big picture perspectives on how we see you and ourselves. These perspectives will drive the changes you'll see in 2008.
Who You Are:
You're smart and ahead of the curve. You want to help your co-workers, peers and students understand and get involved in the trends that are shaping business and society. You need better tools for turning on those light bulbs.
You aren't always the end user of Common Craft videos, instead you use them to inform and educate people around you. They help you increase your influence and create change by introducing others to new trends and ideas.
Who Common Craft Is:
We want to help you be more influential. We believe that for change to happen, a growing number of people have to be aware and educated about the trends that are shaping our world. Our goal is to provide you tools that will increase your ability to have a positive influence on others. This is why our current focus is Social Media - it's a trend that is having an impact and creating change - yet remains misunderstood by many.
How?
Our goal for the next year is to grow our library of videos we produce via The Common Craft Show. By growing this library, we can offer more resources on more subjects to more influencers and educators. Of course, this requires more of our time - time that is often spent working on custom videos for organizations. We'll continue to do custom video work, but we also have plans that will allow us to spend more time on videos for you.
In preparation for this renewed focus, we hope you'll think about the subjects that would be most helpful for you. Please contact us or leave comments with your ideas - we are always listening.
Great value
Just wanted to say what tremendous value your material has been. The description of your audience is also spot on: we are one of those using your videos to educate others (including clients and partners). Have you considered setting up a "development fund" that people could contribute money to? For my part, I'd be more than happy to contribute $200 to help create these marvellous videos that do so much for the community. That's not much, but if it were to be added up across a bunch of people it might help to defray the production costs... Just a thought, James
Very Kind!
That is such a nice offer James. We'll be sharing some plans soon that will hopefully help with the costs, but I really appreciate you bringing up this idea.
Request for Virtual Worlds
I refer people to your site and your wonderful videos ALL THE TIME! Thank you for providing simple, clear and quick explanations on how to use social media. My request would be a how-to engage in virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life, Webkinz). It would also be helpful to explain why these 3-dimensional browsers are important to the growth of digital business. Keep up the great work! Lori
ideas
Seth Godin has some interesting suggestions: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/257581713/things...
Congrats
L&S: Happy anniversary. If you produce great content, the audience will find you. Best always, - Peter
Keep it up
Love the common craft videos, keep them coming. You have a way of explaining things :)
Congratulations!
Happy anniversary Common Craft! I am a big fan of your videos and am amazed at how accessible and simple they are to understand. Social media is a good thing to focus on because there are so many new technologies coming in every day that lots of people will need simplified :)
Congrats - we're the lucky ones!
I just love your videos and can't wait to see more in the coming year!
An Influencer... who knows so little...
I think I'm an influencer in your audience, but I'll tell you something, I didn't set up a google RSS reader or a delicious bookmark page until I saw your videos today. Your videos are amazing. You deserve the highest kudos. Thank you.
Idea
Swickis in plain English, please.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for the encouragement and nice words. The last year has been a wonderful ride - and one we hope will continue for a long time. Cheers!
In Touch
Lee, Your teams efforts are appreciated and like the rest of the comments before the videos are well thought out and easy to follow. I'm working in a Public Library in New Zealand and hope to use some of your clips to educate staff here on a few things 2.0 that for many are now common craft. I check in on your site often and look forward to hearing your plans unfold. For me your comments and observations on life in general and things internet related are helpful to me as I build up my own picture of user behavior. Best regards Paul
common craft anniversary
Happy anniversary guys and well done on the videos. I'll be using them to inform lots of my clients about social media. It's for a social enterprise project on learning spaces in the workplace that I'm developing here in Ireland. I've called one of the elements KIS (knowledge information spaces) and am showing people how they can use all the things your videos talk about to create really vibrant learning spaces. A few videos that would be useful: 1. a kind of overview video that says 'here are some of the key 'things' in social media' .... 2. videos on things like aggregators and open source and single platform learning software like moodle and sakai. I liked the suggestion about contributing to a kind of video fund. I'd be in it. get back to me if you decide to do something like that. Isn't it cool being able to work from home and do work you love - and - that makes a difference. I do it and it makes work more like leisure - and thank god for wireless broadband. Take care Liz
Happy Anniversary
Hey Lee, Just wanted to drop by and say congratulations on a trailblazing year in web video-space. Look forward to Common Craft 2.0 and sharing ideas in the future, and of course to more awesome videos! Cheers, Michael
RFID
Hey Guys, I think RFID might be a good topic because it's something that people talk about but it's a "technology" not a "product" so helping people appreciate what RFID could be used for might be a popular topic. Congrats on the anniversary!
Thanks so much!
You've been such a tremendous resource. At times, I've found myself caught up in the excitement of explaining RSS or social networks only to be received by nonchalant nods or slightly cocked smiles. All the while knowing that I'm not quite getting through. Despite SEVERAL attempts, one friend just did not "get" the advantages of social bookmarking. Fortunately, your videos are just a click away, and I can almost literally see the light come on when a new learner has his/her aha moment. Thanks again!
Hey Commoncrafters, a
Hey Commoncrafters, a belated happy anniversary to you! All the best in the next year and beyond!!!
Congrats!
This is one of my favorite blogs and I am glad it is doing so well. Lee, keep up the hard work you have a lot of fans! Cheap Furniture