Christopher Kosovich

One hour of video uploaded every second – How much time do you have on your hands?

Chris Kosovich — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:31:48 +0000

YouTube - One Hour Per Second

The official YouTube blog recently gave some perspective about the amount of online video content that we have available at our fingertips today. Currently there is one hour of new video uploaded to YouTube every second of every day. This isn’t even talking about all video uploaded to all the various video sharing sites. This is YouTube alone. Every second, another hour of video is uploaded.

This doesn’t mean that every second we have another quality hour of video being uploaded. It means lots and lots of video is being uploaded across the entire globe. It also means the “noise” level is increasing which means it will likely become more challenging to find what you really want before it gets any easier.

As the barrier to entry gets lower and lower for video, particularly as more and more smart phones enable greater numbers of users to capture video and immediately upload, it will be important to find ways of cutting through the “noise” and differentiating the “signal” you wish for your audiences to experience in video you create, particularly for businesses and organizations.

Video is a powerful and emotional medium, but just setting out to make a video with your little phone-based camera and uploading it to YouTube is an overly simplistic approach.

You can maximize your investment and gain the greatest value in your online video when you connect it to the bigger web communication strategy. It is important to consider how viewers will find the video and how you will distribute it. If the video is uploaded to YouTube, how will visitors to your company or organization website get to the video? Is there a link on your organization website? Do you have a gallery of videos on your organization website? What social media outlets will enable you to insert a link to the video? What e-mail distribution lists do you have available for sending the link to the video? How frequently can you remind your audience about your video without desensitizing or annoying them?

Just as important, if not more important than distribution of the video is the actual construction of the message of the video. Before a single frame of video is captured, it is important to determine the message and the call to action you hope to elicit from your audience.

A successful web video is not necessarily one that tries to address every single need of every single stakeholder in one single piece. Just like when ordering pizza with a big group of friends, it is sometimes better to get several different smaller variety options rather than one single thing that doesn’t satisfy anyone.

Four billion video views are taking place globally every day. This is a 25 percent increase in the last eight months and is equivalent to half the world’s population watching a video every day. Video is here to stay. Learning how to connect video with your brand, your products, your services, and your core message is increasingly important.

Contact Kosovich Media Group to learn about making the most of your video investment for comprehensive custom solutions that work.

Read my article published in the Journal of Globalization for the Common Good

Chris Kosovich — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:31:17 +0000

I recently wrote an article about “facilitating the experience of belonging in web-based communities” and it was published in late 2011 as part of the fall edition of the Journal of Globalization for the Common Good hosted by the Center for Global Studies at Purdue University Calumet and edited by Dr. Yahya Kamalipour and Dr. Kamran Mofid. This paper was also part of a presentation at the “World Public Forum – Dialogue of Civilizations” that took place in Rhodes, Greece in 2011.

The article was written to help people think about some of the important dynamics that tend to support strong online communities. While online communities continue to evolve in new ways, it is important to also consider some literature that exists outside the realm of technology. This article attempts to bridge some similarities between virtual online communities and real-world physical communities, particularly the cultivation of a sense of belonging among community members.

The full text of the article is available online at the official Journal of Globalization for the Common Good website – http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/jgcg/2011/jgcg-2011-kosovich.htm

Annotations in Google Analytics bridge behavior and analysis

Chris Kosovich — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:02:20 +0000

Google Analytics has always presented a visually compelling display of user behavior for particular websites using the tracking code snippet embedded in the website html code.

Clients that I have worked with in the past have found the various displays, graphs, and maps fascinating. However, there always seemed to be a disconnect between their ability to make meaning of the data and connecting that data with behavioral actions within their business and the behavioral actions of their intended audiences.

For example, one can easily see from the very first dashboard screen in Google Analytics that a line graph exists depicting visitor activity over the past month and it usually shows a series of points across the graph illustrating ups and downs and in a fairly consistent pattern.

However, on occasion there is a spike in activity and clients have always asked me what the spike meant on that particular day. This generally leads to a discussion about what types of business activities took place on or around that day.

Was there a profile about the company in the local newspaper, television, or radio? Did the company send out a paper mailing to a client mailing list or an e-mail distribution? Did representatives of the organization make a presentation to a group of people somewhere?

Google Analytics has enabled a feature that now helps Google Analytics account holders to place little notes on specific dates in the timeline that will help bring more meaning to the spikes in activity and could help explain the peaks and drops in activity.

Recently a client was featured on a local news broadcast and I immediately logged into the Google Analytics account and placed an annotation on the timeline for that day. In the note I put information about the specific television channel that featured the client, the time of the news broadcast, and a short description about the details of the feature.

Now a little annotation flag is placed on that date and it is easy now, looking back a few weeks later, to recall the specific activity that happened on that particular day to explain the spike in website activity.

Without annotations in Google Analytics, one would need to document the date and details in some other format and then match up spikes in activity with the notes, if one can even remember where the notes are located. It just makes sense to place the note on the timeline so when it comes time to reflect about business processes and website activity, all the information needed to make sense of some activity phenomena is right on the same page.

Annotations help bring a very important dynamic to the Google Analytics data. Now we can correlate website user data with offline marketing campaign tasks and behaviors. For example, we can place a notation on the Google Analytics data timeline the day a mass postal mailing is sent out and then place another annotation the day it hits mailboxes. This information can help identify and measure the effectiveness of the mass mailing driving traffic to the website. Ideally we would see a spike in activity with a slow trailing drop back to normal. The annotation can help make sense of the lifespan of the mailing and compare it to other similar events to measure effectiveness.

Google Analytics Annotations is not a magical thing that makes a website better. It is, however, a resolution to a critically missing link in the Google Analytics package for people trying to make sense of the immense amount of data that is captured relating to the user experience on the web.

Learn more about Google Analytics on the official Google Analytics Blog.

Also, learn about how you can get professional consulting support for installation and interpretation of Google Analytics for your website.

I’m now a certified Enterprise 2.0 Practitioner

Chris Kosovich — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:22:44 +0000

In late 2009 I successfully completed my Enterprise 2.0 Practitioner Certification. It was a great experience learning through the various modules of the certification program. Much of the course content helped to reinforce my previous experiences with collaborative web technologies but it expanded my ability to articulate Web 2.0 within the context of the enterprise.

According the AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) website the Enterprise 2.0 Practitioner Certificate program covers the following concepts and technologies of Enterprise 2.0:

How to position Enterprise 2.0 in relationship to IM, BI, KM and Web 2.0
Enterprise 2.0 techniques
Enterprise 2.0 frameworks and concepts
Business drivers for Enterprise 2.0
Worker Model for Enterprise 2.0
Evolution and definition of Enterprise 2.0 technologies – Enterprise 1.0: email, forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards, web/tele/videoconferencing, and static web
Evolution and definition of Enterprise 2.0 technologies – Enterprise 1.5: web services, IM, SMS, collaboration filtering, social networking, social networking analysis, portals, and dynamic web
Evolution and definition of Enterprise 2.0 technologies – Enterprise 2.0: participate web, tagging, mashups, blogs, wikis, feeds, podcasting, and social voting, bookmarking and ranking
An overview of Enterprise 2.0 extensions
State of the Enterprise 2.0 market

I am looking forward to the next certification set of courses that will put me on the path toward the Enterprise 2.0 Specialist Certification.

Istanbul Conference 2007

Chris Kosovich — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:03:25 +0000

In July 2007, I presented at “The 6th Annual International Conference on an Interfaith Perspective on Globalisation for the Common Good” taking place in Istanbul, Turkey and spoke about the topic of “Globalisation and Communication: Reflections and Challenges” during a panel discussion at a conference plenary session.

A version of the paper presented during the session is now available for download as it appeared in recent publication.

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This paper was later published internationally in October 2007 in the “Practically Speaking” section of “Interreligious Insight: A Journal of Dialogue and Engagement” in volume 5, issue 4. I greatly appreciate the editors of the journal sharing this article with me so I may make it available through this website.

Portions of this paper were also published in an edited conference compilation proceedings book in 2008.

Portals and social revolution

Chris Kosovich — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:53:46 +0000

I attended a great presentation at the SunGard Summit 2008 by a professor from Kansas State about web 2.0 and the cultural implications of this style of web interaction. He describes it as a social revolution the will continue to evolve.

Michael Wesch provided example of how he is using portals as a means of collaboration among his students. He had a phenomenal presentation at the conference but unfortunately his exact presentation from the conference is not available in any format that I have been able to find. He was, however, kind enough to send me a link to a similar presentation that carries a lot of the same content from the SunGard Summit.

The link below has links to several interesting presenations but the specific link to the presentation from Michael Wesch is in the lower left hand corner.

Experience Michael Wesch’s presentation at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Educause Learning Initiative – http://hosted.mediasite.com/hosted4/Catalog/?cid=cd40888eed5940f2bbd8daa8c09b4ecc

Shortly before the conference I came across this article in Fast Company magazine (Issue 122, February 2009) talking about a book that I have enjoyed reading that explains some social dynamics. This article featuring ideas by Duncan Watts that bring up measurable counterpoints to the concepts proposed in the book “”Tipping Point”" by Malcolm Gladwell. Overall, this article in Fast Company sheds more light on the social networking phenomenon.

Read about “”Is the Tipping Point Toast?”" in Fast Company – http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html

Digital ecosystems such as portals, content management systems and other Web 2.0 technologies present new opportunities for social revolution and there is much still to learn about social networking phenomenon.

My first published article about content management systems

Chris Kosovich — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:59:10 +0000

View the high resolution article now

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This paper was presented in July 2007 at “”The 6th Annual International Conference on an Interfaith Perspective on Globalisation for the Common Good”" taking place in Istanbul, Turkey. I had the opportunity to speak about the topic of “”Globalisation and Communication: Reflections and Challenges”" during a panel discussion at a conference plenary session.

This paper was later published internationally in October 2007 in the “”Practically Speaking”" section of “”Interreligious Insight: A Journal of Dialogue and Engagement”" in volume 5, issue 4. I grealy appreciate the editors of the journal sharing this article with me so I may make it available through this website.

This article is also set to appear in an edited book published in May 2008.

Please visit the official website of the journal for more information.

My new favorite word – intrapreneur

Chris Kosovich — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:42:42 +0000

The word “”intrapreneur”" ran across my eyes recently. I can’t recall now whether I actually read it in a job description at the IDEO corporation or not. I believe the IDEO job description referenced the term and I was intrigued. I like to read the IDEO job descriptions from time to time because every now and then they throw out a job title like “”Story Teller and Creative Guru”" or something else fascinating that one wouldn’t expect to see in the average job description.

I also came across the same word “”intrapreneur”" in the February 2008 edition of How Magazine. Don’t ask me how I have a copy of How Magazine for February 2008 in December of 2007 – I suppose it is a perk of subscription.

This “”intrapreneur”" is a great concept and seems to have been around for awhile. I like the term so much because so frequently it seems risk-taking and “”thinking out of the box”" kinds of ideas are tossed around so much but those ideas seem to be more fit for those working outside larger organizations.

Of course larger organizations are always encouraging those types of thinking but the larger organizational constructs seem to contradict the entreprenurial spirit. Adpoting much of the spirit of entrepreneur but respecting the organizational structure and using that structure as leverage in ways one without the resources of a large organization would not have at hand seem to be what composes the concept of the intrapreneur.

Learn more at http://www.intrapreneur.com where one may find more details about intrapreneur and the “”Ten Commandments of the Intrapreneur”" which should be on the mind of everyone working within a larger structured organization.

There are some also great ideas in on article about the “corporate immune system” and how the organizational white blood cells seek and destroy attempts at change and innovation.

TechPoint Technology Summit

Chris Kosovich — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:48:11 +0000

There seems to be quite a lot going on in the State of Indiana with regard to business and technology. I learned today that Indiana has taken some important steps towards making business more profitable here than in neighboring states.

I need to clarify the details more but is seems sales tax can be deferred on purchases for technology equipment used for research and development and patents registered by companies doing business in the state may also get a break on revenue generated up to the first five million dollars.

Some important workshops involving site selection and communication technology such as blogs were presented at the conference. There seems to be a lot going on for businesses with regard to technology in Indiana. The TechPoint website at www.techpoint.org is a good place to start identifying more resources.