London Regional ICT champion

There’s nothing like a story-telling to get one’s message across, and video is one of the most accessible medium’s for getting the message across quickly and effectively to stakeholders and funders.

Why video?
With the advent of Youtube and other internet video sites, organisations can now get their message out relatively inexpensively, not just to their stakeholders, but also to a global audience of potential supporters, activists and donors.

• can be inexpensive way of publicising your organisation and its cause – digital cameras are becoming cheaper and easier to use
• Youtube and others will host video for you – most services are free
• Talk about your success stories – how does your organisation or cause make a difference to the people it works with? Video can help you get the impact of your services across quickly and effectively
• No more burning your video onto CD or DVD – just send people the web link to your video

Getting started
In the UK, we don’t talk about voluntary and community success stories enough – we rely on word of mouth or low level photocopied publicity to get the message out. Getting started with capturing your organisation’s success stories needn’t be expensive or intimidating. Nick Booth gives an excellent primer on how to video an interview. You can also check out the resources on the ICT Hub Knowledgebase here and here.

Youtube may be ubiquitous, but it isn’t the only video sharing service, there’s also Daily Motion and vSocial.

As always, the key thing here is to watch these videos and think how you might apply their example (or not) to your own organisation or community group.

If your organisation is using video to get it’s message across, let me know – we want to showcase the best examples from around the UK’s voluntary and community sector.

1. “Talk” – Disability Rights Commission (DRC) (02.40)
Great clip from the DRC on raising disability awareness.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3AeIFup1qY]

2. Abilitynet (01.20)
Abilitynet is the UK’s leading charity concerned with all aspects of ICT and Disability. Student Caroline Barr talks about her experience of using a computer.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux1EYqmCeTU]

3. More blots on our landscape (04.21):
A husband and wife duo from East Yorkshire campaign against political indifference from shoulder shrugging local councilors to stop a new gas works despoiling the countryside.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxJi7G_hhFI]

4. Age Concern London – Getting from A-Z Part 1 (04.37)
Age Concern’s Information & Advice services offer a life line for many older Londoners and helps transform older people’s lives every day. ‘Getting from A to Z’ portrays the experiences of a few individuals who have been helped.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5xJ1SSiiL0]

5. Give a Toss (01.40):
Thanks to Youthnet’s Tom Green for flagging this one up.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywpcjK400RQ]

6. The Great Communicator talks about the Great Enabler (04.08)
From the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, 2005.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_U8yO9mUbM]

7. Tower Hamlets Community Empowerment Network (10.37)
It’s also good to show how it shouldn’t be done. I was going to make a parallell with London’s Elephant & Castle shopping centre, another example of ‘how not to do it’, but I won’t. With this videoI gave up after less than 2 minutes, dispirited at this flashy corporate speak promo video for Tower Hamlets CEN. Does anyone know how much this cost THCEN?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqdb9Irj3X4]