Mar 22, 2010

Generation Me

Videos on the net are very "Generation Me". A brief moment on YouTube makes it evident that today's youngsters are just not shy about taping themselves and sharing the result with the world. 


Although I don't often like to think about getting old and generation gaps, I must admit that I never found the idea of video taping appealing. In general. Even just to show to bore your friends afterwards, the way we used to with photo slides. And then there is always the fear of tripping clumsily and ending up on "America's Funniest Videos" or equivalents in other cultures. 


I never thought much about it. I simply assumed that I'd never have to use this medium in my lifetime. After all, I can get by with emails, pictures and simply lecturing at my students.


Unfortunately, our media department has other ideas. As does the chair of our department. And the head of sustainability. From three sides, I've been bombarded with requests to do interviews. Not only in the form of written articles subjected to questionable editing, but also in the form of videos that are splashed all over our university website. 


Today, the result of 45 minutes of talking my throat raw were revealed. And though I figured they'd cut me down to a sound-bite or two, I actually seem to occupy a rather large amount of space in this little clip. More surprising (to me): I didn't cringe when I watched myself back. I'm actually a little proud of it. Now I don't know whether to attribute that to a job well down on being articulate (if slightly bobble-headed), or to the fact that I've quite simply become used to seeing things in video format.



2 comments:

  1. Well done. You were articulate and I only counted one, "um." :)

    It's a nice and concise promotional video that made me interested in learning more about sustainability in business...mission accomplished. This is the type of media that students flock to as they evaluate their choices in classes, area of study, which faculty members fit their needs, etc. I'm trying to get a similar campaign off the ground at my campus. First will be one targeted at high school students, second one will be targeted at faculty as a recruitment tool.

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  2. Thanks for the compliments. I also thought I did rather well no the "um" ... tried to avoid saying it :)

    There will likely be more videos for the exact purpose you list above. We're trying to get a number of faculty members to talk about their research in an interesting way - I guess to target students and maybe businesses.

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