Hype boils down tomorrow as Slush 2014, the start-up conference kicks off in Helsinki. Start-ups have grown up to be the big brothers of business and Slush too has crossed the gap from a small challenger to a mainstream phenomena.

Being in a video production company mainly for growth businesses and being located in Helsinki, missing Slush would be stupid. No, I am not a speaker in the conference and we are not looking for an investor. Because there is no ready-made slot for us we have to decide what is our plan in Slush at least so that we can pivot the plan when we get there 🙂

Our plan is simply to look and see what is going on to learn, analyze and gain insight about how to make life better for us and our clients. Hopefully we’ll meet new people and business contacts, but that is not our main objective. In general I would warn everyone about stepping into performing a preconfigured start-up ecosystem role. It is as likely to succeed as becoming a rock star by mimicking the rock stars of today. You’ll be inevitably late when you get to your goal that way.

I don’t know what to expect from Slush, and I like it that way. I am about to go and see. We’ll make a series of #microvideo’s about the insight I get from Slush. The first one is about the Slush app, created by Qvik. I like it a lot. See the video and you’ll see why.

Antti Sipilä

The most common question in the world is: What is this? Kids ask it at least ten times a day. And you ask it quietly in your mind every time you encounter something new, like land on a new webpage or open an email from a new contact.

What is this? – Moment is a great opportunity to tell a story that engages the inquirer and answers her question in a way that exceeds her expectations and creates relevance and meaning to her. The opportunity could not get much better, since the person asking is willingly 100% focused on you and your answer. If you succeed, you might be able to start a new relationship. If not, she is going to ask about the next thing.

How to answer to: What is this?

Objective: To start a new relationship. (If not – no need to answer.) Side note: A brand is something that has a relationship with a substantial amount of people. So if you are looking to build a brand, you are looking to create relationships.

Setting the expectations: Even before you start to answer the question, the recipient has set her expectations about you based on your look and feel. This is an integral part of the answer. You want to set the expectations towards you and your answer to intrigued and moderately hopeful to deliver maximum satisfaction for the inquirer by exceeding her expectations. So pass those attributes along to your designer. When you start to become confident and experienced in your storytelling you can start to mess with the expectations to create an experience that really stands out. But for starters, try to create intrigue and some hope of delivering something.

Your tone: Anyone who has been married, or has had a parent, knows that tone of voice is the part of the message that sets its urgency and priority. The tone that you think would work, will not necessarily work with the people you want. Luckily the web is a perfect place to test it. Try out a tone. Then look at your small data. If you are lucky to have big data, look at the small data within it. By small data I mean a behavior path in a real human encounter and its results. In addition to your pricing, your tone of voice is a very good tool for you to actually select the people you want to have relationships with.

Engage: Engagement is something everyone wants from a relationship. Your answer needs to be engaging because it is a sample of the engagement of the relationship you are offering. If you cannot answer in an engaging way, I expect that in the future you won’t engage me either. I don’t want an idle relationship to use up my limited mental energy.

Answering the question: You must not recite information, nor specs or the features of whatever this is at this point. Tell a short story about the problem this solves and why and how it solves it, and what is unique and really special about it (this part can include a few key features). Then tell simply how to use it, try it or buy it.

This is how to answer next time someone asks you: What is this? It happens every time someone new arrives to your website or gets a message about a new subject from you. Grown ups just don’t ask it out loud.

I believe that all that we work for in business is relationships. Stories and storytelling is something that has been in discussion a lot lately, and the reason for me is clear: Stories are all about relationship. A story effectively changes the relationship of an audience member with something. In business it is usually a product, brand or a person. The subjects are often intertwined. A story achieves change by creating new understanding and relatable feelings in the audience, and guiding them through a dramatic change, resulting to an emotional relationship shift towards the subject. There are two kind of basic stories in business, and I describe them here as claims. A story needs to claim something to be relevant. A story just for a story’s sake, is an uninteresting one.

1. What is this

The first story claim type in business context can be told in a product video. A well structured story tells vividly the story of why and what is the product. It changes the view of the audience from not understanding, relating or caring to understanding, having personal insight, being intrigued, trusting, sharing, wanting and eventually purchasing the product and making it a part of his or her own story and identity. This story’s emotional effect is dependent on how enjoyable the execution of the story is and if it can create and an epiphany moment.

2. What is this really, emotionally about

The second claim in business could be told through a brand video. It appeals to and invokes your feelings about the core of the subject and revitalizes them, making the subject emotionally significant for you in a new way. These stories are very effective, and when the drama ties into a as big picture as possible, it makes the shift of your emotional point of view as effective as possible. And thus effectively changes your relationship to the subject.

Mixing

Great stories mix these claims purposefully in ways that slip by the viewer’s consciousness. Noticeable is that to use the second, the emotional claim, in business you need to have a relatable brand. If you don’t yet have a know brand, you can use a brand representative person or/ and you can establish your brand within your story. Because you need something that people can have emotional relationship with to make an emotional claim.

We want to engage into new meaningful relationships, and that is what stories cause us to do. They change us by changing our relationships or by beginning new ones.

P.S. A good example of using both claims described above is a well made jubilee video. Here is one:

Antti Sipilä

What the thumbnail of your video looks like on your website or elsewhere on the Internet can be equally significant as the contents of your video. This is because the relevance of both is a prerequisite for the other. If the appearance of the video does not tempt people to click to start the video and generate positive expectations for it, then the video will not be viewed or it wont have a powerful effect if it is viewed. The functions of the appearance of a thumbnail are:

1. Tempting to click by a pleasant design
2. Creating positive expectations regarding the contents of the video.

The second point is just as important as the first one. Without it, no tension is formed between the expectations of the viewer and the contents of the video. At best, this tension will contribute to a home run effect, when expectations are fulfilled and exceeded. Expectations can also be diverted intentionally, when a surprise is triggered for the viewer. If low expectations are created unintentionally, they have a confusing effect and flatten the mood even before the video has started.

How should you act?

The thumbnail can and should be changed. I do not believe in pedantic A-Z testing (though it would be interesting to try it), but in an outlook that is tested and monitored through the experiences of new viewer. Decisions have to be made with inadequate information as usual.

A true story

We had a video of our own some time ago, and a very bold thumbnail was added to it. Our e-mail started flooding with requests for bids unusually quickly. Unfortunately, these requests were completely wrong for us. Once we decided to change the thumbnail, the influx of unsuitable requests ended.

The starting point

If you take a moment to think about your own concentration capacities, you will realize that you are not freely using your capacities as such. Your brain processes several different tasks and duties with varying degrees of effectiveness, and so dealing with new tasks get very little room. This is quite common for most people, including your future clients.

Analysis

The human goal is to quickly get tasks (especially work-related ones) out of the way (so as to make room for new tasks). This why an individual tends to logically avoid dealing with new things. New things that will help in the accomplishing of prior tasks are an exception though. This exception is our only truly justified market niche: We need to be able to present a new tool or solution to can help our customers get pending tasks out of the way.

The acquisition of a new solution

The searching procedure for myself goes something like this:

1. Dealing with frustrating tasks.
2. Talking to my wife or my co-workers about them.
3. From a discussion a solution will be suggested which, in turn, means a new task leading to evaluation and reflection.
4. Exploring the new solution on the net.
5. Deciding to change the task to contacting a new person or buying a new product or service.

When considering the suggested solutions the clients will end up on the net where they will be looking for something and thus end up finding your company’s website. This is the significant moment on the net for your company. What is expected of your company at that precise moment?

Using myself, again, as a guinea pig, I describe in which way the experience unfolds:

1. How does this look?
2. Is this a valid company?
3. How does this work?
4. Does it meet with/exceed my expectations?
5. Who should I contact?

The style of the pages is usually adapted to the target group and modified according to the brand. In any case, for the person who visits the pages for the first time, getting to know the company’s line of basic blues or a brand’s innovative splash takes time and effort. It can be a discomforting and vague experience. You can’t be sure if you are wasting time or not until the search on a website has been taken far enough for your diagnostic purposes.

Videos present a great solution

A short and interesting video which is offered right in the beginning is a good way to get to know new things and it is often the best option because:

• A video requires very little labour. Press play.
• It removes the user’s (and your) uncertainty when it comes to finding all the relevant information in the right way and in the right order.
• The time you need to invest for the watching of the video is displayed in the player beforehand.
• Videos capture and entertain. They therefore allow individuals to forget all those other things and tasks that compete for attention in the brain in order to focus only on your offering.

In order to accomplish these advantages, the video needs to be sufficiently aimed at the user and the video production needs to be sufficiently professional and tasteful. The player’s and thumbnail’s appearances, i.e. the way the video is presented, are of great importance. More details on that in the next post.

A story is a container.

We read, watch and listen to stories because we have an expectation and a hope for an enjoyable and/ or useful experience. Story as such is not what we look for though. What we crave from all mediums is a personal internal experience, an epiphany that renews us, gives us so much new multifaceted knowledge in an instant, that it transforms our mind somehow, even just a little bit. It is the moment we “get it” and it is very enjoyable. That is why actively search and pay for these efficient renewing epiphanies.

Stories and Products

All stories and products contain one or more epiphanies in them, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.

Just knowing a product exists is not enough to create action. Once we get an epiphany from a story of a product, we want to do something, we want to tell someone and buy it. In the digital age epiphanies are hard to find, since everything has been and is seen. But when we find even a small one it is very easy to share, commit to and buy something. Smart marketers find new epiphanies and install them in their products and brands over and again.

In creating stories that contain epiphanies, visualization is very effective. As an example of the point I have want to share a piece of the genius of Hans Rosling who creates ephipanies in his stories about statistics through visualization.

Antti Sipilä, Oneminstory

We are exited to join a partnership with Eliademy, a fast growing massive online course platform by CBTec. CBTec recognizes the quality of videos within a course as a key differentiator, and for that reason has decided to partner with us to offer access to professional video production for all educators for creating high quality MOOCs. Our offering for MOOC video creation takes use of the Oneminstory video template process, which will integrate with Eliademy to specifically serve MOOC – creators.

For pilot case productions, please contact us now at: mooc@oneminstory.com

Antti Sipilä, CEO

The internet tells us that videos are the best way to communicate or sell stuff. The amount of video is surging by numbers. But in relation to that, it feels like there are not so many great business related videos around.

I think the reason is the expectation we have for a specific video. We don’t play all the videos, just because they are videos. And if we play a video, the expectation we had for it plays a major part in our whole experience with the video.

The way a video is found creates an expectation for it

For best results we need to create a stimulating, even an exited expectation for our business video. Ask Steve Jobs. He would say that every video, in any business, should be thought as purposeful act. It should be thought of like a product of its own. That is the only way to have great want-to-buy experiences. So it might be smart to position your video purposefully too.

Where to put my video?

1. Your Front Page.

You want to put your video on the front page, on the top half of the page. Because it is assertive and it creates an exiting expectation in your visitors head, like: ”Oh, they have a video, cool! Now let’s see what it’s like.“ Click. The visitor is alert, exited and engaged, because of the bold move you are making by positioning your video center stage.
And the best reaction you can get is:” Wow, that was great! I am doing this right now.”

If on the other hand you are positioning your video on the margin of page 4 with a stamp-size thumbnail, you are saying: “We put this video here, because we try to comply with the trends. Please, don’t watch it, because it sucks.”
So the best reaction if someone watched your video there is limited to: “ Hey, that was quite ok. Now let’s see how the other companies compare to this one.”

A major difference in the potential of your video is made in positioning it on your website.

2. In the Web, Contextualized

There really isn’t a common service yet that would give out personalized business video discovery, and there are no well-known video channels where you could expect to find good videos. (If you are creating one, please contact me. )But videos, for now, are like fish swimming in your feeds. What is the most exiting feed and context you think you would find a business related video? Examples:

• An upcoming company shares its video boldly, and it is shared by some relevant players.
• A major corporation shares an update with a challenging question. And it is liked by someone you now in business.
• A video comes up in the most relevant network for it, so many times, by paid advertisement, that you eventually decide that you must see it.
• Someone shares a video that she really praises a lot.

To create your experience, you must craft your own.

Antti Sipilä, CEO, Oneminstory

According to a recent survey, videos are one of the most exciting tools to use in B2B content marketing – yet still you don’t come across videos nearly as often as other formats. One reason for this might be the difficulty to find employees or customers willing to step in front of the camera, or the lack of confidence in their ability to pull it off successfully. Professional talent is rarely used, for budgetary reasons.

Common sense would say that a company’s own employees or customers are the ones who embody the very core of the business, something that a great video can communicate. But when it comes to performing on camera, there’s often one big problem that can be captured in a single word: should. If you go into it thinking that you should make a video and you should make it look really great because that’s the “it” thing to do now, your mind is on something else than the message you should be conveying, and this will show in the outcome.

As someone who has directed a great number of video shoots over the years, I can see one clear key to a successful on-camera delivery: the combination of willingness and a sense of assurance. When the person in front of the camera has a personal interest in being there as well as the assurance of knowing that the shoot has been set up on his or her terms, the results will be good. You can get superb on-camera performances out of your employees by first creating a workplace culture that embraces people who like to perform, and by supporting people as their own individual personalities, along with nurturing their presentation skills at work. One star is a good start. Think you know who that star is in your organisation? You might be in for a surprise…

Antti Sipilä CEO, Oneminstory

P.S Below you can find a recent example of a succesful performance by Gary Marquis, Dean of Aalto University School of Engineering.

Antti Sipilä

Ideally, the ideas that come up during an innovation process are widely assessed at each development stage so that a relevant sample of feedback can be collected to be used when making decisions about further development. How to produce and distribute a universal presentation for each idea at different stages of the process?

One solution is video production with the help of a video template. For example, for each idea that has made it or is just making it to get to the prototype phase, a video is made using the same format that will present the idea clearly, repeatably, and interestingly and that is easy to share. A coherent process and visual look promote fair competitive atmosphere and concretize the realization of the process’s interim goal for both the participants and the external audience.

The brand of the innovation process’s owner is visible as wished during the entire duration of the video thanks to the customizable video template.

Antti Sipilä tel. + 358 (0) 45 6733369

Linked here is a Start-Up compilation of Aalto University’s process from a couple of years ago. You might recognize a few cases that have since caught on 🙂

Antti Sipilä

Nobody wants to deal with uncertainty factors or something difficult. That is why we have removed uncertainty factors concerning contracts from the video ordering process by stating the price for the video beforehand and by granting permanent rights for the distribution of the video for the same price.

That’s nice but what about the main issue, what will the video be like? It feels that it is impossible to know that in advance. –No, it isn’t. –It probably requires an endless number of meetings. –No, it doesn’t. The goal and target group of the video define the style for the video, and it is, of course, useful to talk about these issues face to face. Usually, this requires one meeting. For the purpose of actually planning the contents of the video, we have created a contents table with which it is possible to plan the video together without any meetings – by e-mail and phone. The contents table is easy to share, and with it you can see how everything will be displayed on the video. The table guides you to fill in the right elements at the right spots. It can be customized endlessly.

When the plan is ready, we will begin the production. Because of the contents table, our animators and producers have a clear overall picture of the project and they can trust that the client, too, knows what he has ordered. They can concentrate on creating all parts of the video in the best possible way.

During the nearly two years with Oneminstory, I have witnessed noticeably less need for corrections in the first versions of the animated videos that our clients have ordered than during the entire 15 years I have worked with customized video production in general. This is due to the fact that corrections have been made in advance, already during the planning stage. We correct all possible mistakes but never have I encountered a situation where a client has said: Hey, this is nothing like we ordered! On the contrary, we have often seen that the first version is the final version!

Feedback from people who have made animated videos with us:

“Originally, my boss thought that we would never finish this video.” – “In our company, people have been truly amazed at how great the end result has been with such a limited budget.” – “We have attached the video as a link in the signature block of our e-mails for over a year.” – “We localize (translate) this video to suit all of our new countries.”

Making animated videos doesn’t need to be difficult. The most important thing is to contact us.

The following compilation features samples of animated videos we have made:

Antti Sipilä