Vampire Bats at SXSW

Technically, they’re not vampire bats, which might be behind the inferiority complex.  But the 1.5 million bats living under the Congress Bridge in Austin can brag about being the largest urban bat colony in the world, as Reuters reports.  Be sure to add this to your list of  destinations while you’re in ATX.    Last year I had a fun visit with Scott Laningham and Turbo Todd Watson about some of our humor projects at IBM, including Art of the Sale, Mad Science with John Cohn and the smarter planet animation series.



The year before, David Meerman Scott and I watched the bats along the way of our aimless tour of ATX.



I hope to see you if you’re heading down this year. Ann Handley and I will record an ATX version of our new series , and I’ll tweet out when we have the session planned.   If you need help picking which events to attend, check out the Golin Harris marketer’s guide, SX Scout.

Marketing Over Coffee

John Wall and Christopher Penn produce a brilliant podcast called Marketing Over Coffee, and I joined for the Thanksgiving holiday special.  Their series is one of the best ways to stay current on the wonderful world of social media marketing and tools.  It’s loaded with excellent tips that can improve your success in social business, although not this week.   We talked more about producing content and some approaches to using comedy in B2B social; as well as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and upcoming BlogWorld in Las Vegas.

Subscribe in iTunes, or listen here.

Ghost in Room 217: Stephen King and The Shining

Our ghost tour guide, a Colorado University student, unintentionally convinced me that we were in the presence of the paranormal during the Stanley Hotel Ghost Tour because the only time she seemed to be relaxed and unscripted was when she was talking about the ghosts nearby.  (See New York Times article about “Scary Mary”).  I’ve been fascinated by the story of Stephen King’s failure, which led him to a frightening night in room 217, which then led to the novel that put him on the map, The Shining.  It’s a beautiful and redemptive reminder to me that failure is a necessary part of the creative process.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to write and produce a dark comedy about the story.  For now, I’ll use it as the topic of a new YouTube series: Better Marriage Through PowerPoint.

The Atlantic reported,

“Jim Carrey requested 217 during the filming of Dumb and Dumber, but checked out—so the story goes—after only three hours. “That’s a shady one,” says the hotel’s tour guide Kevin Lofy. “What happened to him in that room, we don’t know. He’s never spoken of it.” A fantastic, if apocryphal, image: Carrey the rubbery actor-medium, the channeler of presences, windmilling out of the Stanley in a post-ghost panic.”

This year at the Sundance Film Festival, director Rodney Ascher premiered his feature documentary “Room 237” which explores Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of the story. (BTW, the hotel asked Kubrick to change the room number for the film.)  Another Stephen King feature was announced last week — “The Breathing Method.”  Congrats to my creative partner from the mainframe videos, Scott Teems, who wrote the screenplay!

Special thanks to Barbara Barna Abel and Ann Handley for the creative support and encouragement on this PowerPoint video series.  Thanks to Garth Beams for the animation, and Justin Balog at HOSSedia for this eerie shot of room 217.

Television Premier of “The Network Effect” Documentary

The documentary we produced premiers tonight on ShortsHD. The Network Effect is a collection of stories of the history behind some of the technology pioneers and service providers who created the infrastructure, and how the network vastly improves the lives of many, especially in developing countries.

One of my favorite stories that our host Steve Shepard tells is about undertaker Almon Strowger, who in 1888, invented the step-by-step switch which helped to democratize the network.

The program will run throughout the month of July as part of the Summer of Docs series. Check your schedule on DirecTV channel 568 and AT&T U-verse channel 1789.

Mythbusters: The World’s Most Rugged Router

We headed to San Jose, CA to test one of the oldest myths in the corporate world:  If you throw an expensive piece of equipment off of the HQ balcony, you’ll be fired.

3 Simple Steps: A New Comedy Video Series

A quote from storyteller Ira Glass, host of public radio’s This American Life, inspired me to finally launch a new web series.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Then, the circumstance. A few weeks ago, I watched in awe as a guy climbed 60 feet up in our tree to cut down a huge branch damaged by the snow storm. I grabbed my video camera and began to tape. It was fascinating. The idea for a web comedy series hit me — “Three Simple Steps.” It would be some interesting footage I could film myself with a few jokes along the way yielding roughly a solid minute of nonsense. Something I could do for little to no budget, and put myself on a deadline to finish a comedy story each week.

My buddy Garth Beams helped me out with the animation and rewriting the script for episode one, about cutting down a different tree.  Check out the pilot episode.

FastCompany Interview: Corporate Comedy Video

After speaking at NYU’s B2B social communications leadership conference, I had the chance to visit with FastCompany’s Drew Neisser about how corporations can help use  humor to build online audiences.    Check out the article here, and an extended discussion on Drew’s blog.

5 Questions: Royal Wedding Planner Video

Five questions you haven’t asked yet about the royal wedding planner video because you are afraid to or possibly not interested:

Q1) Why did you do this?

A.  My boss asked me the same thing.  The Cisco router will connect the royal wedding (the real one for Prince William and Kate) video stream to the TV station for the broadcast, so this video is a fun way to celebrate.

Q2 ) Who is Ms. Fauntleroy?

A.  I’m not sure if you’re asking about the character or the actor.  The character was inspired by the middle name of the wife of one of my best friends from college, Robert Spencer. The actor is Jenn Schatz, who you may have seen recently on 30 Rock “Double-Edged Sword” in a scene with Tina Fey and Matt Damon — neither were in our video.

Q3) Was this filmed at your home?

A. No.  We needed a setting that was more cozy.  The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, with 62 rooms and 44,000 sq. ft. helped to create the intimate mood.  Special thanks to the mansion’s executive director Shelly Gerarden for his kindness and generosity, and to his staff, especially Brian, Jon and Susie.

Q4) Why didn’t you use a British accent?

A few folks have asked that before you did (Updated – thanks Elyse and David) .  We tried British accents for both Ms. Fauntleroy and the voice-over actor, but it didn’t seem to work as well.   Although I’m now filled with self-doubt.

Q5) The mansion looks familiar.

That’s a statement not a question.  But the mansion hosted scenes from House of Dark Shadows and The Stepford Wives –  both 1975 original film featuring Katharine Ross and the 2004 remake with Nicole Kidman — neither were in our video.

B2B Comedy Classics

The age of the curator seems like the perfect time to assemble a collection about something, so I put together a list of the Top 10 B2B Comedy Videos for a guest post for the Social Media B2B blog.  Above is a bonus video for Valentine’s Day.  Thanks to Jeff Cohen for the opportunity, and for his virtual tour of North Carolina wine.  His Biltmore photos compelled me to plan a return trip to my favorite vineyard in the Smokies.

A Vote for Comedy in B2B Social Media

I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Gillin at the Inbound Marketing Summit this month in Foxboro, MA.   He was interested in a series of YouTube comedy videos  “Mainframe: The Art of the Sale,” and wrote a nice article about them.

A notes from behind the scenes:

The question I get most often about these is “how did you get these approved at a big corporation?’

By starting small.  The first comedy I produced at IBM was at the end of 2004, and it was internal only — for a sales meeting — which kept the risk very low.  I kept the cost low by asking one of my best friends, Scott Teems, a director, to help me for $400.   The video was a hit, I was asked to create a sequel, and was able to pay Scott a nice tip.