Multimedia for Social Change

So we finished all that we set out to do, with a few minor changes left.
Here is the final presentation we gave re: our project!

The final KIWA blog and video can be viewed here:
http://kiwablog.wordpress.com

KIWA blog viewable here: http://kiwablog.wordpress.com/

We have updated the header to feature KIWA’s logo, removed test posts, added sidebar content, and overall populated the blog with more information. So the blog is pretty much complete.

The blog now features:

• a subscribe section in the sidebar, where readers can subscribe to the blog and receive KIWA updates in their inbox
• an “About KIWA” page
• a “Current Campaign” page featuring information on KIWA’s Campaign for Fair Housing and Redevelopment
• an “About the Writers” page
• a “Get Involved” page, with the content copied directly from KIWA’s website
• a “Contact Us” page, with basic address, telephone, and email information
• an Events Calendar section in the sidebar, where KIWA’s 5 upcoming events from Google Calendar are listed
• and a Links section, where KIWA’s other online presences are listed
• an example post with content from the recent November newsletter! (Holding Oriental Mission Church Accountable)

Becky also went into the blog’s back-end and started modifying some of the pages to include more content — you can see the picture she uploaded and the mini-bio she wrote in About the Writers.

I also linked their blog on KIWA’s Wikipedia page.

Currently, I’m still in the process of finding other people who blog about social issues + Koreatown. I’ve only found food blogs so far, so we’ll see.

Here’s the anti-drug dog commercial that we couldn’t find earlier:

Now I’m looking up at all kinds of anti-drug commercials. An interesting meth one embedded behind the cut, as well as a scary one.

(more…)

So yesterday, Amanda and I went to KIWA’s base and trained 3 staff members (Joyce, Becky, and Jang Woo) to use the blog. Everyone picked it up fairly quickly and seemed to have fun with it. They learned how to make and manage posts and pages, as well as embed YouTube videos, upload and place images, as well as make polls.

Because of availability, we weren’t able to train every staff member, but the 2 organizers were able to participate, which was great because we believe that they will be the ones writing the bulk of the updates.

Amanda and I will be visiting KIWA in a bit to do some basic WordPress training. We have created a blog for the organization at http://kiwablog.wordpress.com.

Here is a quick message we wrote for Joyce to send to KIWA staff members regarding the training:

WORDPRESS TRAINING

INTRO
Thank you for your time and for working with us on our multimedia project. As you already know from Joyce, Amanda and I are doing a 2-part project, which includes creating a blog and promotional video for KIWA, as well as training the staff in how to use the blog and produce videos.

WHY?
The idea is that with these new skills, KIWA staff will be able to personally produce, publish, and disseminate content. We believe that these skills will really benefit the organization, as staff members will be able to provide coverage of their events and keep interested community members updated on campaign progress on a consistent basis. KIWA staff could also use the blog to make announcements and invite potential volunteers to upcoming events and activities to further campaign goals. Our primary hope in setting up a blog and training staff members is to provide KIWA with a platform with which they could self-publish information quickly and easily, as well as potentially engage in discussions with their readers.

THE TRAINING
The training for blog use will proceed as follows:
1. Setting up WordPress accounts for all staff members who will be writing for the blog. Giving them all access to the new KIWA blog.
2. Walking through the back-end of WordPress.com.
3. Creating and managing Posts + Pages.
4. Working with comments.
5. Going over extra blog features, e.g. creating polls.
6. Going over other WordPress features, e.g. site statistics, adding new writers, etc.

So Amanda pretty much explained our situation in her most recent post. Things are not going too smoothly where the cooperation of KIWA’s IT guy is needed — there is definitely some miscommunication happening here. We are hoping to receive some input as to how to proceed when we meet up later today.

As Amanda mentioned, KIWA’s IT guy is not sold on giving us access to a subdirectory on KIWA’s server, with primary concerns being cost. Probably has something to do with their webhost (and not meeting the minimum requirements?). So for now, we’re hoping to proceed with alternative plans, which is either 1) set up the blog on WordPress.com, or 2) temporarily host it on a server we do have access to… and then move on from there (this is what we hope to discuss in class).

So without further ado, here are some things we’ve thrown together for the blog thus far:

Recreated KIWA’s logotype and trademark/image in Illustrator — so now we have a scalable vector logo to work with. Might add some color later on.

Drafted a comprehensive of what the blog could potentially look like. Pretty standard for now. Might change the header up to be more exciting later on. Didn’t really go too crazy with this draft… seeing how hosting the blog will end up first… because that will really effect whether or not the blog template will be customizable.

And in other news, as Amanda posted about in detail, the video is going really well. Looking forward to going over the interviews we recorded yesterday. It was my first time interviewing people, so I was a total newb when it came to gathering the soundbites we wanted, but Amanda really owned it, and we ended up with some pretty neat footage. And we also have the opening screen (the bumper) created already… so it’s going to be cool seeing the video come together.

So we met up with Joyce yesterday to further discuss the project. Since our last post, there have been some adjustments to our timeline –

We have decided to work on the blog + video concurrently, rather than finishing up the blog before starting the video. This sets our new schedule at:

November 4, 2009

• get FTP access to KIWA.org subdirectory
• collect all KIWA video footage that we wish to use
• start interviews with KIWA staff

November 11, 2009

• have WordPress installed and set up
• teach KIWA staff how to use WordPress
• finish up interviewing KIWA staff

December 2, 2009

• have video done and uploaded onto YouTube
• teach KIWA staff how to produce and publish their own videos

So far, Joyce is still discussing with their IT person to set up the new subdirectory. She said to give it another week, and if we aren’t able to move forward in this area, we will consider the following ideas:

• making it a campaign blog, rather than KIWA’s general purpose video blog
• hosting the blog on wordpress.com or blogger.com instead of KIWA’s own server

KIWA’s interests:

• To be able to produce and broadcast own media
• To engage people interested in their campaigns—interested volunteers + supporters who already visit their website seeking more involvement and contribution opportunities
  • To create an outlet for discussion around their current campaigns and events
  • To provide a means for people to share and contribute to what is happening
  • To provide a means for people to register for opportunities online

Our skill sets / experience:

• Amanda: Video production
• Sylvia: Graphic design / web publishing

In assessing what we were able to offer and what KIWA is interested in doing,
We proposed a two-part project:

• ONE: Setting up a blog and teaching KIWA staff how to use it
  • This will be a space where they can easily publish their media. The idea is that they will be able to manage and edit this space themselves, without having to go through a middleman.
• TWO: Creating a KIWA video and teaching KIWA staff how to also create their own videos and publish them
  • Although KIWA has a lot of video footage, most remain archived and unpublished. The idea is to create an introductory video to illustrate what KIWA is about.
  • Teaching KIWA staff how to produce their own videos becomes important because they had mentioned that most of what they do is not covered by the press — to be able to document their campaigns and events and digitally publish them will be a great way for them to broadcast what they are doing and even garner interest in their organization from potential supporters.

After we proposed our project, some comments we received include:

• Using existing infrastructure / their current social media accounts to distribute the video we create
• Perhaps helping them set up a dedicated computer for video editing, perhaps upgrading a computer or getting a hard drive just for video projects
• Teaching their tech students how to use blog / produce videos
• Walking them through first few posts so they create the kind of content that will engage readers the way they hope to

All these comments are really great and we’re looking to carry them out if KIWA is interested.

[EDIT @ 2009-10-15 12:39PM]

Our presentation, with timeline:

(Continued from last week’s post.)

Last week we looked at various videos and presentations. I really liked what I saw and decided to look up the artists and check out their other work. One of the videos we saw is a video on the USGS ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario:

I thought it was a really great call-to-action video and decided to look up the artist’s (Theo Alexopoulos) other projects; I ended up landing on his portfolio page: www.fivefivefive.com. He has some pretty cool stuff up.

[Other artists I looked up include Anne Burdick, Rick Prelinger, Rebeca Mendez, and Lawrence Lessig. They each have a distinct presentation style which I found to be pretty cool, so I just ran a brief search on them to see what they do.]

Also, for those interested — Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind came up during discussion — might be an interesting book to look into –

With visionary flare, Pink argues that business and everyday life will soon be dominated by right-brain thinkers. He identifies the roots and implications of transitioning from a society dominated by left-brain thinkers into something entirely different—

Didn’t post this earlier, but figured I should.

We had a lab on Prezi last week — and here is my partially completed test presentation: http://prezi.com/yuftupnluznq/

This is the most fun I’ve had making a presentation! I don’t like working with PowerPoint, and I’ve probably only made one presentation in the last 4 years — but I definitely enjoyed learning how to use + working with Prezi.

Holly’s lecture on presentations today was also very interesting to me. I love the examples she showed us, and I’m looking up more info now! These graphic artists + tools are amaziiiiing. More on this later.