We’ve reached the end of a significant phase with eMainstay, a client with whom Astek has spent the last three years building the My25 web-based meal-planning software to improve health and reduce management costs for communities housing people with developmental disabilities.
In order to broaden the market for the software, which has proven highly successful in numerous USDA-funded studies, eMainstay approached Astek to develop a robust new My25 prototype for the software and online community development. We chose video as the form to convey our vision for the future of our software and a truly innovative approach to household-oriented meal planning.
The videos below say it better than words. Bon Appetit!
My25 Business Overview
My25 Online Toolkit Intro
Extra special thanks to Vin Design, Kathleen Ermitage, and Sedgwick Productions for their multiple contributions to the ongoing success of this project.
Remember MySpace? If you’re like most people, you were probably on it three or five years ago, but haven’t looked at it lately.
The thing is that Google still sees it, and therefore so can anyone searching for you. It’s also highly likely that back then you were a bit more liberal about what you posted to social networking sites, since they were shiny and new and you hadn’t gotten burned by those drunken party photos yet.
I’m also noticing that many old MySpace accounts seem to have little or no privacy on them, which means that nearly everything you posted will be available to prying eyes.
Do yourself a favor. Find your MySpace account or Google yourself to see where it comes up. Delete it or restrict access. Really, what are you going to use it for these days anyway?
You may have noticed a new kind of square barcode popping up all over the place, which are most likely QR codes. Actually there are a few different kinds of barcodes, but they all have the same basic purpose – using your smartphone’s camera to access information encoded on anything in the physical world.
I think of this as putting hyperlinks on any surface you see – anywhere. This is huge.
It’s the best thing I’ve seen bridging the real world of signs and paper to the virtual world of Web and mobile. With the right app you can transfer information such as contact data from a name tag or view the trailer for the movie review you’re reading. The possibilities are endless and they aren’t limited to scanning the physical world since you can scan a code on an LCD monitor and take the information with you.
Earlier this week I noticed an otherwise unmarked white cargo truck with QR codes on the back and sides. I didn’t get a chance to scan the code to see if it was a subtle marketing experiment or used for logistics tracking, but I did get the picture below.
In addition to seeing these pop up in magazines recently, I saw one Tuesday night on a Dance Flight program by DanceWorks Chicago, who recently became an Astek client. The link goes to an extended program with videos and other multimedia material you can’t get on paper.
Try scanning the QR code above. I use QuickMark on my iPhone, which works quite well scanning screens and paper. You can download QuickMark here.
For an example of the Microsoft Tag, which I think is a bit too colorful to be practically incorporated into most branding, I scanned an ad from the current issue of Entertainment Weekly (yes, someone else in the office has a guilty pleasure). Scan the code below to view a YouTube trailer for The Green Hornet on your mobile device. You’ll need to download a tag reader free from Microsoft.
If you’re envisioning a world in which we all wander around scanning each other for information, well, you’re probably not too far off. But this is all an interim step until the technology becomes so ubiquitous that we don’t even need our phones to do the scanning. At that point privacy and social concerns will take over the conversation from technology.
You can generate your own QR code to try out the technology. Post a comment if you’ve seen some interesting QR codes out there or think of any great uses for this technology.
My great and talented friend, Aarti Sequeira, proves that social media can help make your dreams come true. She turned her homemade YouTube-based cooking-variety show, Aarti Paarti, into a spot on The Next Food Network Star, premiering this Sunday, June 6, at 9p/8c on the Food Network.
Aarti’s show features original how-to recipes with distinct India influences that just about anyone can make. I was fortunate to interview Aarti and learned a few things I didn’t know about her fantastic journey from laptop to living room. Enjoy!
What first inspired you to create Aarti Paarti in early 2009?
I was floundering at the time — my career in journalism had evaporated, and I hadn’t had that fire in my belly to chase it. I had just finished co-producing Sand and Sorrow, one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life; I’d had the chance to work on a story that really impacts our humanity, for a Peabody Award-winning director, narrated by George Clooney and eventually bought by HBO. How can you top that?! I tried to find more documentary work, but that was right as the economy was shrinking, so there wasn’t money or interest in doing “another Africa documentary.” Isn’t that sad?
Anyway, at that time, cooking had grown into a real passion in my life. I had completed a part-time cooking program, interned at a James Beard Award-winning restaurant (Lucques, helmed by Suzanne Goin) and realised that restaurant life was not for me. I was totally stumped about what I supposed to do with my life, and it was depressing me. Here I was, a Northwestern graduate, a former CNN employee, a documentary filmmaker… with no drive to do anything but make dinner. Finally, one day, my friend said, “You need to do a cooking show, a cool one, where there’s someone in the kitchen with you and you’re chatting through the whole cooking process.”
My husband, Brendan, ran with the idea, and within a day, had written a complete one-sheet with a solid concept for a show called “aarti paarti”, where I would be cooking for a bunch of my friends, who we’d cut away to as the food simmered or roasted — since all my friends are actors/performers, they’d be doing something amazing. We shot it one day, and we got 13 hours of footage. It was unrealistic to try to put that together into a pilot by ourselves, so months later, I got so frustrated that I just picked up the camera and shot a quick 10-minute episode myself. My husband shot the next episode and we started incorporating the variety show angle, which I just love. And the rest is history! We’ve shot over 30 episodes so far, featuring everything from a uke-strumming juggling clown to singing puppets to a belly dancer!
(I made a cameo [4:20] in this episode, which for some strange reason has more views than any other…)
What equipment/knowledge/materials does someone need to produce a show like this?
We borrow the camera, a Panasonic dvx100, an older model that still shoots beautifully, but not in HD. It’s our dream to upgrade to an HD camera — can you imagine how good the food will look in HD?! Those cameras don’t cost more than a few hundred dollars these days, but you need a good cameraman to shoot, which normally is pretty expensive. Luckily, I’m married to one! Tape is pretty cheap, $100 for a box of 64-minute tapes. We also borrow mics whenever we can, because good sound psychologically makes your visuals look better.
I edit the show on my Macbook Pro, using Final Cut Pro, which is pretty expensive but wonderful. I taught myself how to use Final Cut by using the classes at lynda.com, which is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $20 a month. Food costs are pretty low, about $50 per episode, and we get to eat it afterwards!
What advice would you pass on to someone starting their own YouTube show?
Make your show look good — get someone who can really shoot, who’s got a steady hand, who can shoot from different angles. I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve seen where the cooking show host is just facing the camera head on for the entire video. So boring! And stuffy! Make your show as fluid as possible.
Also, make sure you get close-ups of all the food and action, and capture any natural sound too — they make for nice breaks in the action, just like a little breath. And speak normally, in regular English… don’t try to be anything you aren’t. The more you try to fancy yourself up, the stiffer you’re going to come across.
How long was the show posted before it started to get attention?
At first, my videos got about 100 views, and that stayed pretty steady until I started doing videos for Goodbite.com a couple of months into it. Then the numbers rose to somewhere in the 300-400 region. I realised that when naming my videos, I had to include words/phrases that people would be searching for. For example, my samosa episode got about 1000 views, probably because people were searching for a good samosa recipe. Now that the Food Network Show is about to start, I assume I’ll get somewhere in the region of 10,000 views, fingers crossed!
Is it difficult to keep up with the schedule and come up with new ideas? What keeps you motivated?
It *is* hard to stay motivated. Toward the end of each season, I inevitably feel like I don’t have any energy or ideas left. But having your husband as your producer is good (and bad!!) for that, because he pushes me when I don’t feel like I have anything left to give. Every season, we try to have the recipes and the variety acts planned out before we start shooting, so I’m not scrambling at the last minute. But, that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the ideas for recipes come effortlessly. Sometimes it’s much harder. Usually that’s when I’m overthinking it. And Bren is great at coming up with the variety acts.
What other social media tools/sites/channels do you use to promote the show? Are these critical to its success?
I update my Twitter and Facebook accounts when a new video is up. I also created a fan page for Aarti Paarti on Facebook, and I put the video up on that page first. And, I send out an email to over 500 people with a link to the video. Oh! And of course! I write out the recipe with a back story on my blog, aartipaarti.com.
Why did you go with YouTube over other video sites?
I wanted to put them up on ONE venue so that I wasn’t splitting viewers between sites. I much prefer the video quality and layout of Vimeo, and the cool community of artists gathered there, but I found that some people’s computers couldn’t play their high-quality videos. I also wanted to garner the most eyeballs possible, and since YouTube is still the biggest outlet for videos, I figured that when people want to see online cooking videos, they’d go to YouTube before they went to Vimeo.
How much professional cooking experience/training have you had, and is that more or less important than just getting right to the experiments?
I trained at the New School of Cooking — I find that essential in understanding the science behind cooking, so that when I want to make food with particular flavours and textures, I know how to get there. It shortens the experimentation process. My journalism training definitely helps me write on my blog and stay comfortable on camera.
How important is collaboration for your show?
I couldn’t do my show without collaboration. Full stop. My husband is just as vital to the show as I am. And I couldn’t do it without all the artists who perform on my show!
Did Aarti Paarti help you get selected by The Food Network?
Aarti Paarti gave me weekly practice at my dream job for about a year! Every week, I got a little more comfortable talking to camera, whilst preparing food, which is a little bit like rubbing your tummy whilst tapping your head. That meant, by the time I sent in my application video to the Food Network, I had gotten pretty good at letting my personality and my food style shine through. Being on camera is much harder than you think!
Now that there’s no way the Astek bump could artificially inflate the popularity of Brendan McNamara’s hilarious YouTube interview with NBA star Stephon Marbury, I feel obliged to brag on him a little bit. The story goes that he was driving by a bus stop in L.A. and saw Stephon waiting for a bus (eating at a restaurant in L.A. with Brendan is a special experience since he recognizes just about anyone he’s ever heard of). He ran home to grab his video gear and brought it back to the bus stop. This is the first episode of what ensued:
What I especially like is the way Brendan split “Me & Stephon” into multiple YouTube segments to give it an episodic feel. You could draw a straight line to chart the increased viewership of each episode over time, with Episode One weighing in at more than 40,000 views in the past week since it was posted. Go B!
A particularly great game this year, though I felt that the commercials were lacking. The word “sleazy” was used by some party-goers to describe the GoDaddy ads, but the ends have always seemed to justify the means for Bob Parsons. The Doritos snow globe ad was entertaining and Audi was fun.
What makes the ads really fun is dollar betting. At the beginning of each commercial break, we’ll each throw down a buck and guess what type of ad will come up first (soda, beer, car, etc.). Side bets are common, and at one point someone started betting that there would or wouldn’t be a web site listed in the ad. I was intrigued and took a few of these bets.
I wasn’t as sensitive to it before, but this revealed quite plainly how many large non-dotcom companies didn’t list their web site on the final “info screen” of the commercial. Three that stood out were Toyota, Budweiser, Audi, and Heineken. I’m not alone. Regarding the Audi ad, Michael Lebowitz of Forbes said, “Jason Statham is a good choice. Funny, but doesn’t rely completely on gags. A solid spot, but where’s the URL? Am I going to be asking that all night long? It’s 2009, right?”
My interpretation of this is optimistically to believe that it wasn’t simply a gross oversight from these companies, but that they have determined that people find them through search engines. Certainly with well-known brands like these, the appropriate web site comes up immediately through a Google search.
But at the end of the day, putting your web site URL on as much of your marketing material as possible is the best bet. People have come to expect it, and to an extent are comforted by it. Every ad has a final page of info to leave a lingering impression, or reinforce existing impressions. So why not take up a small piece of this valuable real estate to point people to your web site? Even if they are right about people using search engines to find them (or I’m right about giving them the benefit of the doubt), is it ever worth losing the minority of people who aren’t?
Consider especially that these ads will be posts to thousands, if not millions, of web sites as embedded YouTube videos. The more info about your company that you can put in the video itself the better since all the other pieces might not make their way to the viewed web site.
I just had a scary thought. Some day the social networks will be used to mine friend groups for advertising opportunities. Who hangs out with who, where, what they did, what was said. Maybe even what they wore in the photos or videos that are posted. What they were drinking, eating, etc. Facial recognition can be used to tie people to places, let alone the popularity of GPS devices and phones.
We tend to think of advertising as direct and in our face. The good thing about this is that it often makes it easy to discern and ignore. If technology advances to the point of allowing advertisers access to all the private details of our social lives, creative marketers will use this information to target us more directly. While in many cases targeted advertising is good in a consumer culture as it offers services we need, often we find ourselves fending off services we don’t want or need. Worse still is the likelihood of giving into to services that we are convinced in an instant to want but really don’t need at all.
The only way to fight this is to leverage the power of social media and community feedback to establish some safety in numbers. It’s a consumer culture, after all, and as consumers we have the ability to dictate how companies market to us, especially if they’re using our social networks to do it.
The eyes of society are watching everything already. No longer are the video mediums the province of notable occurences. Now just about every insignificant thing that’s done is recorded and shared in one way or another. It just needs to be organized a little better for a computer network to become god, encouraging good behavior throughout the land.
My25 Videos Demonstrate New Approach to Software Prototyping and Fundraising 
This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter | 
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