The end of September kicked off with a bang as International Justice Mission’s (IJM) Premiere for their first Documentary – At The End of Slavery. Today kicks of the Weekend to End Slavery and we encourage you to click here and watch Gary Haugen via Livestream at 8PM EST.

At the premiere, Portnoy Media was able to work with IJM to help facilitate a trailer contest that lead up to the premiere event. (See the winners video here)

IJM called upon Portnoy Media over the summer to give some ideas that took advantage of the incredible content and great mission of IJM. We took care of all the details of the event from setting up digital invitations and registrations, coordinating the food and taking care of all the technology to make the event a success. We also worked with IJM’s press core to invite college press agencies to give them unprecedented access for the big night. In attendance were several officials from the State Department, including Ambassador Luis CdeBaca. There’s another post launching soon with the coverage of the event and our approach that the event was the 50% point to this entire movement to end human trafficking. It was an incredible pleasure to work with them and please make sure that you check out Gary Haugen at 8PM EST

Below are the pictures of the event taken by Snaptography, LLC.

Today marked the launch of the latest Deidox film “Deidox | Dawn” This film is an expansion on the Deidox brand with it’s previous 3 films showing jobs and people in the midst of the struggles. The latest film gives a profile of Dawn, a mother of three discovering her unexpected purpose. I’m quite sure that this is a role that we are constantly surrounded by and yet don’t take a lot of stock in. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.

Also launching today was an update on the homepage of Deidox. Since it’s inception, the Deidox site has been bleeding edge with big visuals, slick java scripting and a powerhouse of Search Engine Optimization. With this launch the entire Deidox team wanted to see if there was a better way to communicate all that Deidox is about and what they’re doing.

We needed to convey the message that there were many films and what they were about. After spending some time research what was available in the java script banners we decided on a player that showed the main pictures but allowed large buttons for the other panes. Many times the additional buttons don’t show enough area or are automated to only show a certain point. We wanted more control over it, and found it with our selection.

For this project Portnoy Media Group was again allowed to collaborate early on to guide and research from the early stages of filming Dawn’s story. This allowed the sensitivity and the strategy to walk through the launch. Also in the mix for this project was the incredible work of Out:think Group (Their recent projects include: the redesign Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop Blog, Hugh MacLeod’s Gaiping Void site and Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran’s site). Tim Grahl and Joseph Hinson were instrumental in making the launch happen and were massive collaborators in the design and layout. After initial designs were agreed upon, the guys at Out:think went right to the heavy lifting transforming the site to the beauty that it is now.

We also spent time adjusting the individual film pages. There was a lot of thought put into what would provide the best user experience and bring the least amount of visual fatigue. A fair amount of comparison was made with other websites that offered digital distribution. The aim was to keep everything with in a click or two to make sure that the user experience was simple, although the technology wasn’t.

Huge thanks to the guys at Out:think for another job well done and also thanks to the guys at Deidox for allowing Portnoy Media Group to be involved.

I think this video says more than I ever could.

I think most organizations (non-profits too!) realize that it’s not an option to sit on the sidelines. But too many organizations are being convinced to throw money at anything because they need a presence.

My encouragement would be to make sure that your product or web info:

is accessible in multiple channels
has the ability for you to monitor your message
factors in worst case scenarios
allows for immediate engagement

It’s not an exhaustive list but with that in mind you can make smart, informed decisions on your campaign.

Join me May 15th at the Pasadena Convention Center for a time of problem solving for non-profits.

It’s important to get your story out there, and the marketing world is consistently being turned on it’s ear.

This will be a great seminar for you and/or your team if these phrases keep coming up in your meetings.

What’s Twitter?
How do we better connect with our donor base?

Or if these thoughts cross your mind:

We need a social media presence but don’t have the manpower/resources to devote to it.
It seems like social media experts and snake oil salesmen have a lot in common.

Portnoy Media Group has a track record of increasing online donations and engaging new donors for organizations, even in a down economy – come get the info for FREE

Why FREE??!?!?

Honestly, because it’s the right thing to do. At Portnoy Media Group, we’re big on abundance thinking and we know that we can help your organization. With all that’s happening on the non-profit front right now through layoffs, pay decreases, and over stretched resources. There really isn’t a better time to share ideas and refresh your development team than to remove some hurdles from your path.

Our goal is to help you with small incremental changes that you can put into practice 30 minutes after the meeting or roll out on Monday. Going further than theory we’ll give you a step by step map to improve your organizations communication. Bring your questions, we’ll be looking for some real world examples.

We look forward to meeting you.

Today’s a big day in the world of Ramit Sethi. His new book I Will Teach You to Be Rich just reached the top slot on Amazon.com

He’s giving away Free Kindle’s and thousands of dollars as promo when you buy the book at Amazon or from Barnes and Noble.com (Currently #13) I personally bought the book this morning because Ramit knows what’s going on financially.

I did some searching through the Portnoy Media archives and found an interview with Ramit from 2006 before he was the big dog he is today. This was taken from the Biz-Ops Podcast and also features Tim Grahl of Out:think Group. The biz ops podcast was a show I got to co-host for Dane Carlson and his Business-Opportunities web network which has been a giant leader as the largest business website.

I get a kick out of it because it was 3 years ago and although trends change and our financial climate has changed drastically – Ramit still gives solid advice. Give it a listen, click the play button below.

Ramit Sthi - Biz Ops Podcast [ 20:14 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Cynthia Ware from The Digital Sanctuary grabbed me for an interview while at Idea Camp. I’m always getting asked, “I see you attached to so many different project, what exactly do you do?” The next time I get asked I think I’m just going to send this link to them. Thanks Cynthia!

As far as Post Idea Camp thoughts..

I feel very fortunate to meet, hang out with and develop relationships with attendees and speakers alike. Idea Camp is definitely the kind of conference I’d like to be a part of again.

I personally really enjoyed the session I got to facilitate (How to Tell Your Story through New Media – and Save Money), it was a room of about 25 sharp people. With questions ready, we railed through some serious real world issues on how to make media work in the context of church and business. It was a great exchange of solutions and opinions about what other media directors, developers and filmmakers were using to make their lives easier.

Here’s a couple solutions and recommendations from the session:

WordPress – It’s CMS (Content Management System) a blog tool and pretty much anything else you can imagine. I think it’s a great foundation to a digital presence. (it’s also free)

Twitter – It’s such the buzzword right now. If you AND you’re organization aren’t on Twitter – you should change that. Caution: Please don’t launch a campaign to tell everyone how cool your organization is. Think of it as a segue to talk to a crowd of people.. what would your opening line be? Plus, there’s a bunch of additional tools to make twitter do whatever you want it to.

Mobile Cause – I love this! For under 4K a year your non profit has a number to promote for stadium appearances, speaking engagements or talking with small groups. The phone is the future appliance of communication.

Harness low/no cost multimedia tools to accentuate your brand like Vimeo, and Facebook Applications.

I’m looking forward to next year’s Idea Camp. Big thanks to Charles Lee for the opportunity.

This was closest thing I could find to notes on the workshop I facilitated with Dave Mahanes and Brent Gudgel – (Thanks Henry Zonio, you’re a lifesaver)

* 1:25 AM henryjz – visual storytelling is just that… storytelling… you don’t say everything in it
* 1:27 AM henryjz – conversation with Brent Gudgel and Dave Mahnes from Chronicle Project and Dan Portnoy
* 1:28 AM henryjz – dynamic sites make a big difference for ppl to come back
* 1:30 AM henryjz – Q: How do you get a story out there in a short amount of time with limiting resources? Is there a framework or structure you can set up without it becoming boring?
* 1:31 AM henryjz – just because you can tell a story doesn’t mean you should tell it all the time so that you have more time to put a quality story out there
* 1:32 AM henryjz – there is a diconnect between the decision makers and the artists many times… best time is to communicate with each other better
* 1:34 AM henryjz – on ministry websites what should you do and not do?
* 1:35 AM henryjz – don’t do black and white pics to add drama… e.g. “homeless people… awwww”
* 1:35 AM henryjz – don’t try to manipulate
* 1:36 AM henryjz – if you have dynamic engines (like Flash) make sure they are dynamic and get updated
* 1:37 AM henryjz – how do you get ppl to stay on your site?
* 1:38 AM henryjz – got to be clean: visual, white space, good fonts, invest in decent CSS, allow easy access to other areas
* 1:38 AM henryjz – make your site easy to update by those who aren’t “computer savvy”
* 1:42 AM henryjz – website needs to reflect your values… put the important thing on the front page and make clicking through a discovery process
* 1:43 AM henryjz – open source is great!
* 1:44 AM henryjz – what is best/cheapest way to get started when you don’t know computer talk
* 1:50 AM henryjz – figure out what you want first
* 1:50 AM henryjz – that’s called development
* 1:50 AM henryjz – then you can pay someone to build it all the way to using free sources to build yourself
* 1:51 AM henryjz – don’t let tech push your message… let your message push the tech
* 1:51 AM henryjz – if you really don’t do computer… use the money to have someone do it when you can
* 2:00 AM henryjz – work from the simple solution first and work up from there
* 2:05 AM henryjz – how do you promote streaming
* 2:06 AM henryjz – do you promote it, even?
* 2:08 AM henryjz – promoting digital media with traditional media
* 2:09 AM henryjz – business cards… pass them out
* 2:10 AM henryjz – where is your audience? what do they want? go where they are?
* 2:11 AM henryjz – what about twitter? what’s that all about?
* 2:11 AM henryjz – it’s social media so it has to be social
* 2:14 AM henryjz – twitter is like a cocktail party
* 2:18 AM henryjz – in going to twitter, what would be your line?
* 2:24 AM henryjz – when putting together a web presence, you need to find out the relaitonships
* 2:28 AM henryjz – Orbiting the Giant Hairball… book on communicating creative process to management
* 2:31 AM henryjz – there also ways to use mobile to interact with your audience… it’s growing
* 2:33 AM henryjz – Mobile Cause is a way to set up faith-based giving via mobile… because mobile service carriers have waived all fees for non-profit giving

If you’ve got questions on anything touched on – leave them in the comments, I’d be happy to elaborate.

Last month, the beginning of the short films of DEIDOX launched along with their website. These stories are a great combination of documentary film and Christian media.

My interaction with the Brent Gudgel and Dave Mahanes at Chronicle Project (CP) started almost a year ago and it wasn’t until May that we started kicking around the idea of working together on a web portal that would be different than a lot of other short film download sites.

“These stories help us focus on something bigger than ourselves.” – Brent Gudgel

Early on I was able to see their business plan and being in the same suite of offices got to enjoy the ups and downs along the way to last months launch. This was a great project to work with because we were able to really collaborate on the site. Having worked previously together and continually with Union Rescue Mission’s Stories from Skid Row helped establish a great work flow and exchange of ideas.

In October we really went to work talking about the features they’d like the site to have and came to the conclusion that since Chronicle Project has had great success with Dear Francis (Heartland Film Festival Crystal Heart, Best Documentary at NY AIDS festival) The site had to convey and be on par with the kind of work that they do. We set about making a laundry list of features including making the focus and experience of the site highly visual.

Their initial idea was to develop a site that allowed for easy access, distribution and download the short films that they’d be creating. We took a look at other sites that were distributing on a massive scale in the faith based community (Sermon Spice, Worship House Media, Bluefish.tv) and while they were hitting a massive audience the choice was made to self distribute and augment the process through publicity and working network/contacts for awareness.

In similar fashion to Independent music, independent film (specifically shorts) don’t have a lot of options. Both iTunes and Amazon.com distribute video but unless you’re a major studio, there isn’t an option for distribution due to the length of the piece. What we eventually decided was to use e-junkie.com as a cart due to the fact that they allow a really flexible checkout solution and allow for digital downloads hosted on their servers.

Throughout the process of development, two companies were tapped for their expertise. Domestic Equity, based in Orange County and East Coast based Outthink Group. Prior to this project I’d worked with Greg Crosariol’s design in updating the CP website to be database driven on their back end. Greg is really amazing at conveying different looks and feels with his work. When I saw his design/look/feel of DEIDOX.com I thought it conveyed where the films were headed and communicated to the audience that would be checking out the site. He thought through so much of what would be needed that it was really a joy to work with.

Outthink Group has consistently been my right arm for web development in making the impossible happen. My favorite part about working with them is that they anticipate problems and get really involved in their projects. Tim Grahl was fantastic in bending javascript to his will, making the complex move simply and for general miracles.

Every project has it’s own unique problems/opportunities and since this process was blazing a trail in a cross platform melding of the professional film world, faith based communities and self distribution there was a fair amount to get past. We decided to harness the power of Vimeo HD (I think it’s the best player on the web) and showcasing the trailers by giving them a whopping 900×500 pixels of space above the fold. Everything on this site is designed to engage the viewer with video. Last years reports on web traffic said that 60% of traffic was viewing video; furthering the idea that if a picture tells a thousand words, video tells hundreds of thousands.

Also part of the genius in this business plan/model is the “pay-what-you-want” element. Where the music industry went wrong 10 years ago is where the independent film community can go right. There’s an important balance between having value on your work and creating product that is quality. This way you can see what you’re getting for a relatively low buy in ($2.99 or less) and enjoy the films at lo-resolution for your iPod, iPhone, etc. The dangerous part for the CP guys is the great trust they’re putting in their audience. I totally applaud them for this move but if the support isn’t there.. they won’t be making anymore of these films. Other price points for the SD and HD versions are $19.99 and $24.99 respectively.

DEIDOX.com was a great project to be involved in and I think the guys from Chronicle Project are doing some powerful things with film – check it out.

Deidox tile

I’ve been working with Union Rescue Mission (URM) recently. It’s the countries oldest and largest homeless shelter in the country serving over 20,000 meals to the poor and homeless of Skid Row weekly. The homeless community in LA County is at epidemic proportions with numbers ranging from 70-90,000 and URM and the other missions on Skid Row are leading the charge to equip individuals with skills and services to break the cycle. What I’ve been learning over the last few months is that homelessness is a complex issue. The reasons for a man, woman or family on the street are as diverse as the people themselves. One of the staggering statistics is that the average age of someone who is homeless on the streets of America is 9! I’ve had a chance to be at URM a lot more recently and what always strikes me when I come into their facility is that people are fighting for life and death on the streets all around them. It feels like the country gas station on the side of the road after a long journey and you’re almost out of gas. Having just recently traveled through the desert and almost breaking down, I can really appreciate that.

Over the past 6 months Chronicle Project has been working with URM capturing some of the stories of what’s happening at their facility and a glimpse into the lives of their residents. A few weeks back we launched a video podcast of these stories and the iTunes staff selected it as “New and Notable” and since then it’s been in the top 100 of Non-Profit Podcasts on the iTunes Network.

So here’s my encouragement – subscribe to this podcast, especially if the issue of homelessness is important to you. In the coming weeks we’ll be adding a video FAQ hosted by URM’s CEO Andy Bales as well as some seriously great stories about Skid Row’s finest.

Check out Stories from Skid Row and don’t be afraid to share it

About a month ago we made a significant switch on THE DROP website. The adjustment came as a way to incorporate the multitude of ways that users would interact with the website. We had been using a social plug-in and it really started out working amazing. Last month I was introduced to ShareThis and I found that the plug-in was easy to use and that it actually gave the user more options to pass around the info and would be crucial in the interaction of social media to the site. The user would then be able to add or share the posts via their Myspace or Facebook but could also email them to friends if they so chose. A little while back The Drop was featured on the ShareThis site. We got sandwiched between infertility and obscure movies – I don’t think it’s a bad start.

I also had a chance to join their Publishers Group on Facebook. What I loved about this was that I then could put faces with the code writers and other bloggers/new media types who were employing the same pieces and any additional strategy that they may have. ShareThis has just been named one of the Top 20 plugins to have on WordPress and I highly recommend it.