VideoCamp Texas : Are you coming?

http://videocamptexas.eventbrite.com/

Are you coming?

Video For The People

VideoCamp Texas is a FREE one day ad-hoc gathering of video, public relations, new media, and marketing professionals born from the desire for people to learn about best practices in online video production and distribution in an open environment. It is an collaborative event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.

How To Participate

Share What You Know

Whether you’re a seasoned video producer, search engine marketer or are just learning about YouTube, come out and share what you know, learn new skills, and network with other like-minded professionals.

We invite you to come share and learn about:

* Best Practices in Online Video
* Public Relations and Video
* Shooting for online video
* Vlogging
* Lighting tips and tricks
* Choosing the right audio equipment
* Video SEO
* Non-Linear editing and compression
* Video for non-profits
* Seeding video and distribution
* And whatever else you can dream up.

Say Hello to Gowalla!

Say hello to Gowalla! They are coming in as our newest in-kind sponsor of the Film Festival this weekend. Have you grabbed your tickets yet? Gowalla is an amazing location based service based here in Austin, TX.

According to their blog post “Gowalla is not just about discovering and sharing, it’s also about using those actions to benefit the world around. We’ve previously partnered with groups like the American Red Cross and LIVESTRONG to raise both funds and awareness for important causes, and we’re pleased to once again be partnering with a great organization: Lights. Camera. Help.”

They have designed some super cool Gowalla schwag that you can only earn by checking in at our film festival this weekend. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for Gowalla and grab your tix today.

Are any nonprofits using Alternate Reality Gaming?

I would love to hear an answer to that question. I can’t find any. And trust me, I am looking. What is your experience? Know any that I missed? Not sure what alternate reality gaming is?

Check out these links.

NIN Alt Reality
http://www.jawbone.tv/news/1-news/466-trent-reznor-transmedia-case-study.html

LOST Alt Reality
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Lost_Experience

Olympics Alt Reality Game
http://blog.avantgame.com/2008/03/lost-ring-alternate-reality-game-of.html

P.S. I am in love with Jane since seeing her keynote at SXSW.

So take a look and let us know what you find. Or maybe pitch us on how they SHOULD be using it.

Crowd Sourcing your Nonprofit Website Pt 2

So who won?

The Winning Design

Our developer, Heather Gardner-Madras can attest to this, our design was not necessarily web ready. Genius Rocket Creative, and designer of the entry we chose as winner, Alexandra Pokras, put together an amazing design which we loved, but making it into a website was the next challenge.

For those who may not know Heather, you should. She’s a passionate web developer who cares about causes and making them shine online. She gave us solid recommendations on CMS’ and which was likely to best serve our needs (we ended up with Drupal – and it rocks!). She helped us work through some of our site architecture. She helped us understand modules that would best help us achieve our goals. And above all else she never handed the reins over until we knew what we were doing and still is more than happy to help us as we move along! Mostly, maybe, for her benefit (breaking a site can be a complicated “undo”), but we are well trained today to be able to handle the site.

Overall I would call the experience positive. We believe we have a forward thinking design that is of the web “now.” I don’t know if I would recommend crowd-sourcing for every project that a nonprofit faces, but with limited financial resources it is definitely an option that could result in you meeting your project goals.

We’d love for you to take a look at our website and tell us what you think!

Have you crowd-sourced a project? How’d it work for you?

Do you think crowd-sourcing is a smart choice for nonprofits?