My Mom recently asked me why there hasn’t been any activity over at Emma’s website lately? I didn’t have a good answer except to say that I’d been busy. It was a cop-out and I immediately felt bad about it. After all, my family is 3000 miles away from me and the only thing they ask from me is to send some pictures from my iPhone and put up the occassional video on Emma’s website. Too much to ask? I think not.

This got me thinking about how I’m going to cover this week’s SXSW Interactive conference. For those of you that follow my professional career, you know that I shoot a video program called Relevantly Speaking for MediaTrust.

I travel all over the U.S and shoot anywhere from 10-15 interviews per event with industry leaders and other interesting people. During this trip to Austin, I’m changing my content strategy a bit. Instead of spending 4 days hauling around a massive production rig, I’m traveling lighter and doing more blog posts, attending more sessions and shooting more diary style videos. That said, I’ve been researching the best way to bring professional timely content to the masses.

It’s starts off easy enough – how hard is it to shoot a 3 minute daily video clip from Austin and publish it on the company’s blog? In theory, not hard at all. Then I started to remember events I’d tried approach with in the past. I’d shoot it on the large production setup, then break that rig down, head back to the hotel and proceed to pull the content off the flash media – or in the old days, the tape. From there I’d have to edit it and add titles. Then it all had to be exported and encoded. For those that have never worked with HD video, it takes anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours to encode and export a 3 minute video clip, depending on the speed and robustness of your laptop. Just when you think that ride on the Pain Train is over, you realize that uploading that finished clip to a content delivery network (the place that video and audio files are stored and optimized for consumption) takes another 30 minutes to 4 hours depending on how bad the hotel’s internet connection is. Keep in mind I travel to mostly tech events where everyone else in that hotel is using that same connection, so it’s usually really slow.

At this point, what started out as quick 3 minute daily update has turned into 7-8 hour project. That’s just not a good use of my time or the company’s dollars that they spent to send me there. So, I’ve spent the last two weeks researching an alternative approach.

Because this is a daily-update-diary-sort-of-thing, most people expect it to be more raw and I’m hoping that brings a bit of forgiveness around the rough edges. I’ve looked using a Flip HD and uploading directly to YouTube and I’ve tried using my Sanyo Xacti, skipping the editing and just uploading the raw content to Blip.tv (our usual content service). In the end, I think I’m going to use the only camera that I carry around me with every day – my iPhone.

In good light, the iPhone actually shoots pretty decent video. I’ve also added a unit from OWLE that adds a wide angle adapter to the lens and a better quality microphone. From there, I’m able to edit the video in an iPhone app called Reel Director. This means that I can keep everything on the phone and that the “post-production” process takes minutes instead of hours.

Once I’m done editing the video diary, I have a bunch of services I can choose to upload to. After much research, I’ve chosen Qik. In addition to their great functionality and clean video player design, they also offer the option for me to stream live video from my phone should any sort of breaking event occur that warrants coverage. To top it off, I can have Qik publish a link to my video across my social networks automatically including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

All told, the whole process of shooting a daily diary this way should take me less than hour. Obviously, things will go wrong and I could run into snags, especially if AT&T can’t handle the crush of iPhone users attending SXSW as in year’s past.

Is this the best approach? For all you video enthusiasts, what would you do?

I heard that expression recently and I thought it was so visual and so dead-on in the description of a person we were discussing. It refers to somebody that is so focused on speaking, that they seldom listen. I bet you deal with people like this all the time – maybe at work? Maybe at home?

Or worse, are you an alligator?

Technology and social media has given us great channels for sharing ideas and furthering our knowledge base on every subject under the sun. Yet, so many people seem to use it as a megaphone instead of a listening device. Whenever I start a dialogue with someone about the usefulness of something like Twitter, they usually say “how can I use it to get my message out?” I mean, sure, social media is great for that. But, it’s also great for listening to what people have to say about you and your brand. Still, so many people feel like they have to control the message.

Sometimes I run into people that just don’t care about what others have to say. They see social media as pedestal and they’re only interested in one-way communication. There’s a certain social media figure that has risen to micro-celebrity over the last 18 months. He has a book out and he’s appeared on CNN and other mainstream media outlets. He uses all the buzzwords like “engagement” and “conversation,” but at the end of the day, all the evidence I see in his use of social media points to him being a big fat alligator: all talk, no ears.

We’ve all seen evidence of the alligator mentality in our political system right now. It isn’t about solving problems and doing the work of the people, it’s about posturing and making sure you slip in the right soundbite right along party lines. There’s very little listening going on.

Corporate America is another place this runs rampant. So many companies are unwilling or unable to listen more and talk less – or, as Chris Brogan calls it “grow bigger ears.” One company that has surprised me recently is Toyota. Despite the mess they find themselves in, they are actually being proactive and listening to the conversation about their brand. They are responding to the various sentiment in a thoughtful way. You can see a recent article I wrote about it HERE.

Besides the Everglades, where do you see alligators? I’d love to get your perspective in the comments.

* Sarah Palin’s Notes on Her Hand: “Poor Boy’s Version of a Teleprompter”
* FAA Investigating Child’s Air Traffic Control Stint
* Donation: Mike H.
* Email from Soo in South Korea RE: Eating Dogs
* Kate Gosselin on Dancing With the Stars. Why?

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* Theme Park Searching For Worst-Smelling Urine for Attraction
* Listener Rant of the Week: Ryan B.
* Donations: Ryan L., Mark H., Sebastian L. and Christopher V.
* We Continue Our Discussion About Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines
* Parents Upset Over (Another) Porn Mix-Up in Classroom

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* Download Angels & Airwaves New Record for Free HERE.
* Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Air: Too Fat to Fly?
* Olympic Culpability in Luger Death?
* Sarah Palin “Furious” Over ‘Family Guy’ Episode
* TV Chef Suspended Over Cat Recipe

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* Palin’s Crib Sheet
* Weight Loss Surgery Gone Terribly Wrong
* Soldier Waterboards His 4 Years Old Daughter
* DONATION: Daniel G. and Michael H.
* Man Banner from Coffe Chain for Complaining

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* Intelligence Heads: Attack on U.S. Soil is “Certain”
* Dirtbag of the Week: Lynn Geter of Georgia
* Question about Charities from Missy J. – CharityNavigator.org
* Ryan Weighs in on Healthcare
* Principal Suspended Over Sarcastic Letter

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* Apple Unveils iPad
* State of the Union
* Emma’s 2nd Birthday
* NBC: We Were Trying to Keep Leno from Going to ABC
* PETA Wants Groundhog to Be Robotic
* Donations: Elijah B. and Mark H.
* Women Claims White Powder is from a Donut

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* Braving the Crazy Weather in SoCal
* Brown Beats Coakley in an Upset in MA
* Bad News for Palin in New Poll
* Donations: Mike H., Missy J. and Bennett S.
* Conan Vs. NBC: The Fight Continues
* $1000 iPhone App Hits Store

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* Steel Panther Stole My Voice?
* Knee Update
* Haiti Earthquake
* Cell Software Disables Phone While Driving
* Russian Smugglers Try to Sell 36 Year Old Meat
* Donations: Bryan P. and Robert R.
* Carnival Cruise Lines Says “No” to Cougars

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* Last Minute Sponsorship Deal Reached
* DONATIONS: Thank You to All 20 of You!
* Cameron’s Avatar DVD to Feature Sex Scene?
* Hypnotist Puts Himself Into a Trance for 5 Hours
* Dirtbag of the Week: Jorge Garcia

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The rest:

* Happy New Year
* Future of the Show in Your Hands
* Donations: Amber V., Bruce J., Jens M., Sean P. and Jeannie H.
* Florida Man Calls 911 for a Ridd to a Bar
* Failed Bombing on Christmas Day
* Funeral Home Offers Free Burial to Anyone that Dies While Drunk Driving
* My Tribute to Mia the Wonderdog. We love and miss you sweet girl.

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* Emma and Daddy Head East
* The Saga of My Busted Up Knee
* Women Trying to Avoid Prison for Glueing a Man’s Penis to Torso
* Courtney Love Loses Custody of Her Daughter. Again.
* Donation: Jonathan A.
* Cooking School Uses Viagra in Dessert

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* Couple That Crashed White House Invoke 5th Amendment
* John Stamos Blackmailed with Lame Photos
* Uganda Debates Death Penalty for Gays
* Al Gore Tear Sarah Palin a New One on Climate Change
* Listener Emails from Kyle M. and Robert R.

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* Cash-Strapped Couple Make Porn for Extra Money
* Croatian Man Hit BY Train Hours After Escaping Car Accident
* College Teaches Student to Grow Pot

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* Customs Officials Seize Rabbit Poop Cigarettes
* “Unfriend” is the Word of the Year
* MyFDB: Become a Fan on Facebook and a Follower on Twitter and Win Great Prizes.
* 80,000 Mailers Sent Out With Social Security Numbers on Them
* Donation: Sash from Australia
* Twitter Feed to Become TV show

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* Back From New York
* Man is Punching Bag for STressed Women
* Teen Trapped on Floating Ice with Polar Bears
* Listener Rant: Jeremy J.
* Fellatio Bats

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* Heading to New York
* Woman Offered Sex for World Series Tix
* Woman Has to Repay $29,000 Over-tip
* Robert R. Chimes in on Non-English Speaking Driver
* Donations: Lisa G. and Robert R.
* Man Tries to Rob Bank with a Spoon

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* NWA Pilots REALLY F’d Up
* Listener Rant: Jonathan A.: Afghanistan
* 15 Year Old Gang-Raped for Over 2 Hours
* Woman Issued a Ticket for Not Speaking English

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* Man Counterfeits Money to Pay Stripper
* Man Gets Nabbed for DUI – 3rd Time in 17 Days
* Donations: Lea M. and Amber V.
* Corpse Mistaken for Halloween Display
* Woman Seeks Divorce over “Guantanamo” Nickname

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