Project Presence: Using video in you communication strategy yields better messages

Key takeaway: Video is a powerful tool to refine your message before delivery

Learn more about Project Presence: Project Presence overview

Video link: http://vimeo.com/55392221

Transcript:

Welcome leaders. One of the unexpected benefits of doing these leadership videos has been the impact on the quality of my messaging. I truly believe that a big part of leadership is about telling stories, about setting the stage for your team, about providing the context, and preparing them to succeed against whatever challenges the team faces -- be they competitive challenges or something else. Those stories, at least in my case, never pour out perfectly the first time. By using video I can develop those messages,  those stories, before I take them out to my team.

I usually come to stand in front of the camera with the topic in mind and a few bullet points. I no longer write scripts -- it simply doesn't work. I stand in front of the camera, I usually take a few takes, by the time I've done a few I have my message, or my story, to a quality I'm willing with you, or when I'm doing a leadership video, a quality I'm willing to share with my team.

For important messages, for the really critical messages, I take the results of my videos and I share the video or share the story in person, further refine, and then come back and reshoot that video. [This process assures] that I have all my points down very well.

It turns out this [process] is a very important tool to improve the quality of those messages before you share them with your team. Rather than standing up in front of them at a meeting with 30 or 40 people in front of you you've actually run through your narrative ahead of time. [Doing so] in a fairly critical mode. No one is going to be as critical of your performance as you are and you get to see your performance by using the video tool.

As always I'd love to hear about the challenges and successes of your Project Presence.

Happy holidays

Project Presence: Managing Attention with One Message

Key takeaway: Stick to one message per video to maximize attention, retention and action.

Learn more about Project Presence: Project Presence overview


Video link: http://vimeo.com/55385183

Transcript:

Welcome Leaders, Daren Lewis with Leading Visually. On my Project Presence ring the pride of place is given to having one message per leadership video. It is there for a very important reason, because I think it is the single most important element of doing leadership videos effectively. There are a number of reasons for this and we'll get into each of those over time but probably the most important is around attention. This is not a matter of attention span. I believe you lead professionals who can spend multiple minutes watching a video. [Rather] it is around attention to the message. If you have multiple messages the attention of your team, while they are viewing the video and in any conversations or dialog that happens afterwards will be split between multiple messages. We really want to keep people focused on one thing at a time. We process better and we work better on that one issue as a team if we focus on it in that manner.

Now obviously as leaders we often have more than one thing to say. So the challenge then is to increase the cadence of our videos, do more videos, and [continue to] focus on one topic at a time. We'll choose timing of those videos to give greater or lessor emphasis to any given message.

There are a number of other advantages to having one message per video and we'll get into that in future videos.

As always I'd love to hear about the challenges and successes of your Project Presence.