Getting through the tangle of net-distractions looks daunting — but don’t lose hope.

Not since the invention of the telegraph machine have we had such a game-changing means of communicating at our fingertips. Good messages are getting to the right people as fast as the speed of light and our fingers can type.

But many fall short of the mark. There is simply too much data to take in, too much stimulation visually and intellectually for our brains to sort through. We may yell “too much information!” Yet back we come to the screen because we’re afraid we might miss something.

What I feel is a calling to help people doing important work get their messages seen and heard through the cacophony. You know what stands out when you see it because you do see it. The message is fresh, simple yet innovative, insistent and clear.

We’ve learned how to do that very well and we’d like to help you. Tell us about your project, your mission, your good work and let’s talk about creating a message that will get to the people you need to reach.

Con mucho gusto. It would be our pleasure.

The font of all knowledge, Pearls Before Swine, hits on the reality of schools of communication.

The reality about jobs in the communications field is not a secret. Thinking back to my days at Indiana University, out of my graduating class of 100 maybe ten got jobs working in the communications field — and that includes advertising and farm belt reporting on wheat and hog belly prices. Since that time, the number of colleges offering communications degrees has increased exponentially pumping out tens of thousands of wannabees.

I think the growth of telecommunications, including internet related fields still has jobs for about 10 percent of the graduates.The difference now is more in the pay scale than in the numbers. Back in the day, the ten percent got jobs that could quickly lead to financial viability — positions that paid a living wage. Today, that Master Control starting position is 10 dollars an hour, moving right up to 12, with experience. No wonder the kids aren’t moving out, they can’t.

The NAB Show, “where content comes to life,” but with a splintering TV market how are you going to get people to watch it?

I just checked out the NAB Convention website: http://www.nabshow.com/2013/about/. I read the bumph and looked at the video, but I still get the feeling that despite staggering leaps in technology, the NABShow is either deliberately missing the real point of all this or, like the broadcast industry itself, is keeping their heads (to use the polite metaphor) in the sand.

The PR buzz-word is Broader-casting®. Note the registered trademark symbol. That’s their’s, not mine. They see the fragmentation of the industry as a broader approach to the communications process. In fact the splinters are making connections narrower, “broadcasting” continues to narrow as more and more content moves to the web. The latest example is Monday’s court decision supporting the migration of over the air broadcast to the web with Aereo, Barry Diller’s new venture.

The NAB looks down the wrong end of the telescope and sees an expanding industry moving into new areas. Looking from the consumer end of that same instrument, the view is of diminishing impact and importance of that iconic “broadcaster.” The real issue is narrow-casting and how to get individuals who aren’t limited to just 7 channels (that’s what I grew up with in New York) to turn to you. Because if you can get that person to come back, you now have a salable commodity for eager advertisers. But nobody has found that magic formula, yet.

So beware the “broadercaster®” and let’s take a look at the broader-viewer who has an infinite number of choices and they all seem to be migrating to the web.

FYI: You won’t find me back at the NAB until the technology deals with the reality of diversification.

Always the brilliant innovator, Thomas Edison created the collaborative process of the research laboratory in his ”graying” years.

An Op-ed piece in the New York Times over the weekend pointed out that most innovation comes from people of maturity — the metaphoric “gray hairs” — and that the Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates of the world are the exception.
In making the point, Tom Agan, an over-50 gray hair himself, points out that the five top-grossing films and two of the best-selling authors of last year were in the 40s-50s age category. He highlights that point with the example of Nobel Prize winners. For them the process of discovery usually develops over a period of years — generally around 20.
The author’s conclusion is that businesses going for short-term savings by hiring younger, less experienced talent to replace older hands may well be short-changing themselves in the process and losing out on the benefits of innovation that develops over the longer term.

Our robot monsters may be more mundane than this 1950s 3-D version, but no less dangerous.

When I started writing about Specialists the other day and bemoaned the shift technology has imposed on us, I didn’t imagine that I would find an echo for my concerns in the latest issue of Wired. But leafing through the analogue issue that arrived by snail mail I got a jolt with an article pointing out the dangers of relying too heavily on technology.

The piece by Clive Thompson posits that the dangers of relying on machines, such as the self-driving car, leaves decision-making to algorithms that may not fit our own choices. Giving up choices to machines may even endanger our ability to make decisions in the future, as we become reliant on robot monsters.

Yeah, I hit the enhance button in iPhoto, and I use Automatic Gain Control to regulate record volume when I’m in an ENG run-and-gun situation, and auto iris is useful to get a good video level (no I don’t carry a light meter any more), but I also use Photoshop when I need to do a more careful retouch, and I know when to turn the AGC off so I don’t get fluctuations in the audio levels. Ditto for the auto iris.

The technology gives us shortcuts and a helping hand, but if we don’t know when to switch to manual — or worse, don’t have a manual override option — we may be giving up far too much control, damaging rather than helping the process.

Shooting the first season of “Cops” with the traditional 2-man crew.

I started out in the business of television news/documentary and field production, when it was the world of the specialist — you were the shooter, the editor, the sound person, producer, gaffer — the whatever. In part it was the technology that didn’t allow time for combining functions, in part it was the union. In early video days, camera IO tubes needed pampering. Cameras got their own seats on the plane because they were sensitive electronic devices. They needed to be reregistered first thing when you got to your hotel. Registration charts, oscilloscopes and tweaking tools were part of our kit. The sound person set up chargers and organized his separate recorder while the cameraperson was bringing the camera back into alignment.

Today, cameras go as cargo. The audio person is gone as the camera now integrates sound into the camera operator’s responsibilities. Editing, which required hundreds of pounds of gear, is now done on a laptop.

When cameras had low sensitivity, a lighting person was always on the shoot to boost lumens to a readable level. Cameras now see in the dark better than the human eye.

Technology has advanced to bring the functionality of the crew into the hands of fewer people with smaller, more robust equipment. Instead of a team of specialists, and the expertise that came with it, we now get one person shooting and reporting, then turning around to edit and transmit the final product.

With the compression of time and space that technology brings, we have lost the focus of the specialist. In the process we have made compromises. We accept audio and lighting that would not have made the cut before. The reporter can’t get the best images or follow the story as well when the jobs are pressed into one.

Money is the mover.

But at the same time we see this playing out, we have the move to DSLRs and the large format cameras. Interestingly, it’s about quality. How do you separate yourself visually from the pack? You shoot eye-snapping video that grabs attention. What, the return of the specialist? Perhaps, or at least a realization that we lost something in the process of producing a cheaper and cheaper product.

Keeping ahead of the curve means constantly looking at and evaluating new technologies and how they change the communications process. Shakespeare had the eyes as the window of the soul, and Marshall McCluhan had the medium as the message.The ancient Egyptians had the Eye of Horus that represents their six senses: Touch, Taste, Hearing, Thought, Sight, and Smell. These 6 parts of the “eye,” were the receptors of “input.”
Today, an internet website is the “window,” the “message” and the “input” for our age. Taking Shakespeare, McCluhan and the Egyptians’ advice to heart, we just rebuilt this website. Glad you could come. Take your time. Look around. Welcome to our soul.

New technologies and delivery systems have opened imaginative ways of communicating to viewers, customers and supporters. We have been working on techniques to help our clients get their message through the noise. We’ve even redone our own website. We invite you to take a look now and revisit regularly as we update what we are doing and how we’re doing it.