Conditional Cash Transfers

Presentation of my paper on Conditional Cash Transfers for my Emerging Markets Class at the MCDM

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) on Prezi

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What Is Behavioral Targeting?

Presentation for my U.S. Digital Media Law and Policy class. MCDM - UW. Summer 2010.

Behavioral Targeting on Prezi

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Prezi: You will swoon as I zoom

Forget about slides. In today’s hyperlink world, a classic presentation feels like being inside of a corridor without the option to enter any of the side doors.
If you’re still stuck on PowerPoint presentations, it may be time to try out more dynamic alternatives, like Prezi, which has the financial and advisory back of TED and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

TechCrunch contributor Robin Wauters called Prezi "the coolest online presentation tool I've ever seen." And Garr Reynolds, who coined the phrase ‘Presentation Zen,’ earlier this year declared Prezi a presentation tool more suitable for the digital natives than its competitors.
That’s a lot of praise for Prezi. So, let’s see what it’s all about.

Elevator pitch
Prezi is a flash-based nonlinear storytelling tool for creating dynamic multimedia presentations. The end result is not a set of slides, but a canvas where the user can zoom in and out, discovering contextual relationships.

Prezi’s strengths
As Prezi's Community Manager, Zoltan Randai, explains, “slideshows haven't really changed since the late 1950-s, when the first acetate slide projector hit the market, while Prezi matches the way we consume information on the internet.”

Prezi is more customizable and agile than Power Point or Keynote, and offers the ability to integrate video, .pdf documents and vector images.

Because it’s an online service, Prezi is not only a creation tool, but also a distribution platform. This is fostered by the fact that many “prezis” are created as public objects that anyone can see, embed, and even copy and modify.

To keep the final product private, you need to sign up for a paid plan, but since January students and teachers can get the basic paid plan (“Enjoy”) for free. This has helped boost traffic to their site.

In addition to educational purposes, Prezi can also be a powerful tool for businesses.

“Prezi allows the audience to get your points immediately, while they have a clear picture about relations, arguments, and the tiny details. Many customers use Prezi not only for business presentations, but also for project planning, market research and analysis. They use it as a media wall in their offices or on the smart board at meetings. But the most interesting way of using the tool is collaborating in workgroups,” says Randai.

As storytelling starts to be more important in all complex organizations—from
schools to companies—Prezi seems to be in a great position to become a basic tool for internal communication, and even as a journalism tool for multimedia pieces.

Some examples
The best way to learn what you can do with Prezi is to take a look at what others have done:

How to make business presentations
Sweet recipe to solving problems (a good example of Prezi’s animation capabilities)
Playing to Learn? (an example of an educational prezi)
MySpace LeWeb Keynote (by MySpace Mike Jones)

For more examples of public prezis, visit http://prezi.com/showcase/

This article was originally written for the class Digital Media Economics and Management. MCDM, Spring 2010.

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WSB: Old Business for New Times

WSB: Old Business for New Times from seretuaccidente on Vimeo.

Tracy and her husband Patrick are the publishers of the West Seattle Blog, one of the hyperlocal weblogs that have proved it is possible to make a living from community journalism in a neighborhood or small town. She has been identified as one of the communicators who is finding ways of making sense of news as a business by people like the Poynter Institute — she is part of their Sense-Making Project — and the News Innovation program at CUNY.The economic crisis and the change in the way we share information have accelerated a situation that most of the media has refused to accept: the end of big editorial structures and advertising as a huge source of revenue for journalism.

While most of the industry is waiting for a revolutionary shift to a completely new business model for what we call journalism — or maybe we should just call it “telling stories that matter” — people like Tracy Record are succeeding in being revolutionary by using common sense and a small structure to apply their “old journalism” knowledge to the new online world.

In this video interview, Tracy explains the journey that took the West Seattle Blog from a hobby to a full-time job that provides the sole source of income for her family. She also talks about the roots of the Legacy Media crisis, why online ventures are still not profitable for big journalism outlets, and the key to her success.

Finally, a tip from Tracy to those who may be thinking of creating a media site for their neighborhood or small town: “Know how your neighborhood works, and make sure that your audience is really underserved.”

(originally posted in Flip the Media)

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Evolution and Trends in Digital Media Technologies

The presentation of my paper on Sports TV Broadcasting for the Evolution and Trends in Digital Media Technologies class. I include after it another three presentations from class that I really enjoyed.

Sports Tv Broadcasting

View more presentations from Xurxo Martínez.

LI XIANG

Fashion diffusion and the role of media

View more presentations from jekyllisa.

DEAN HUDSON

Com546 Final Pres

View more presentations from deanhudson.

ERIKA TAKEUCHI

From snapshots to social commodities: The rise of the shutterbug

View more presentations from silknsavvy.

All the projects and presentations can be reached here.

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Honor & Tradition

Honor & Tradition from seretuaccidente on Vimeo.

An exploration of the Western Martial Arts in the words of instructors and participants in the 4W Workshop, organized by Academia della Spada in Seattle.

Camera, Stephen Brashear
Editing, Xurxo Martínez

There is another version with a music montage at the end.

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A day in Seattle

Slideshow for my Storytelling class. The assignment consisted on a "I am" digital story in which we used about 10 photos, background music and audio narration. The music is a loop from an Atlas Sound song, 'Marietta', published in a non-commercial EP—Things I'll Miss— that can be download here.

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Mom & Apple Pie

Mom & Apple Pie from seretuaccidente on Vimeo.

A documentary on sounds, textures, and sugar.

In front of the camera: Kate McDermott
Behind the camera: Xurxo Martínez

This is my final work for my Web Strategies for Storytelling class. Master of Communication in Digital Media, University of Washington. Fall 2009.

Visit Art of the Pie at http://www.artofthepie.com/

Camera: Canon HDVCAM HV30
Sound: Rode Microphone NTG-2
Edited with Sony Vegas

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Tasting Pears

Tasting pears from seretuaccidente on Vimeo.

Horrible back light, I know. Used a Flip HD + mini-spider tripod and iMovie for edit.

Can a pear be too sweet? This Comice from Safeway ($1.5) was. Not bad at all and really tasteful, but the excessive sugar killed the natural flavor. I guess it should be great with plain yogurt.

Maybe the cheapest thing I found at KFC was this Bartell pear. Just $2 per pound. A single yellow bell pepper was more expensive. Is not only that it was too green. The outside was great but you had the feeling that it had been frozen. The flavor was just decent. For decoration.

From the Farmers Market I chose one Bosc at $2.5 each pound. Just ripped. The smell is great. So is the texture. The flavor was not as expressive as the Comice but I found it better, because was far more natural. Need to get more of this.

Free books at $26.99

Chris Anderson: "Zero is one market and any other price is another".

'Free' is not a completely new marketplace. As Anderson writes in the book of the same title and before in the Wire article Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business, there are examples of businessmen that decided to give away one of their products in order to gain something: either audience or create in the consumer the need of a complementary product.

In fact this is what he has done with the book. For a limited time, anyone could read a pdf version for free in Scribd, and even now anyone can obtain the unabridged audio version, read by Anderson himself, without paying for it. But if anyone prefer to have the hardcover book version at home, then he or she will need to pay $26.99.

The book talks about a reality in the digital world: storage and delivery costs are getting cheaper and cheaper each year and tend to zero cost. And talks also about 'free' as a marketing trend that is becoming one of the few successful nowadays: give something for free and you'll have the attention that would cost enormous amounts of money otherwise. And Anderson does so with an entertaining style, mixing storytelling and statistics.

But in all its brightness, it would be dangerous to see his points as perfect, absolut or definitive. It wouldn't be fair to look at this work as a philosopher's stone that can solve all the business model problems. Mainly because Anderson tries to show how it works something that is still growing and mutating.

Healthy controversy

For that reason is good to find voices as Malcom Gladwell's that make objections and ask questions that, if answered, can help the 'free' hypothesis to become stronger. A good example is Anderson's response to Gladwell in the post Dear Malcom: Why so threatened?

I don't really see a tremendous difference between what Anderson says and Gladwell's points. Basically what the latter says is that most web free services that are successful engaging people still doesn't make enough money to pay their costs. And that considering 'free' an iron law is wrong, because what really happens is that the digital age has changed everything and now we have to figure out how to make a living from our intelectual work. And 'free' is just one more option among the many that can show up in a near future.

And I find too adventurous to state, as Seth Godin does, that a publishing company as Conde Nast will sure disappear quite soon. I agree that they'll have to change, but may stay in business even longer than Youtube, Hulu or MySpace. Godin himself says that "only really valuable information will get paid", and Conde Nast produces great information. Their challenge is to guess how to monetize it, and Mark Cuban believes that the Music industry has already found a path: you can give content for free but always keeping control on the distribution.

Internet and 'free'

For me, the concept of 'free' in the internet is somewhat wicked. First because is not real free: you are paying for the connection. Then, because giving content without expecting money in return was a great marketing idea when the commercial internet started up, but it haven't fully proved to work from an economic point of view.

If advertising revenue keeps low and no-one comes with new business models, a lot of webpages will have to close at some moment. Even some with millions of users. Because millions of users represent millions of profit options but what they are, for sure, is millions of spendings. Will MySpace or Hulu resist if they don't have benefits in three more years? If they do is for strategy reasons related with companies that have their assets in the offline world.

And also internet 'free' is wicked because you tend to think that you have some kind of right to get everything without paying. And maybe won't use a web service that is $1 more than free, even if is terribly useful. But at the same time you but will pay $5 for a latte and a muffin in any coffee shop just because you need to make time waiting for someone. Culture and environment makes a big difference when stating what are you willing to pay for.

And that's the reason why the paper version of Anderson's book needed to have a price. Because all books have. At least until now.

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PD: 2 cents on storytelling in a 'free market': if both the creation and distribution costs are almost free and I can compete with the best possible price (zero), I'll find myself in the same start conditions than anyone else. This can be stressful, but also hopeful: all I have to think about is to deliver the best possible product, focusing in the user's attention because of my topic and trying to engage them at the very beginning of my pieces.

Ideas for final video work

Ideas for the final video work at com597b from seretuaccidente on Vimeo.

For those that have problems with the video (the audio is quite low) or my english, or just because is more than 45 seconds long, here's the four options I put on the table:

- Neighborhoods, because most of the Seattle ones work as small independent units, have their own personality and resources. Quenn Anne and International district are world apart. This subject is open enough for people also to focus on any daily issue that involves the people you live with and the relations with/among them

- Transport (bus, bike, car, light rail, monorail, train...) because is one of the defining characteristics of the city and allow to talk about the people and the relations with the place where they live.

- Music, that have been a city's leitmotiv for the last 20 years (from Mudhoney to Fleet foxes), is one of it's creative forces and also can give us the opportunity of talking about the cultural diversity of Seattle.

- Coffee + coffee shops. This is an obvious one, don't know if too closed. What's the role of the coffee houses in the daily life, if the (again) cultural and ethnical diversity has something to do with the fact that Seattle is one of the prime consumers of coffee in the States...

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Hanson Hosein and the Future of Digital Media

Great radio interview with Hanson Hosein as guest. He talks with clear vision and no fears about the mass media (and their business model) crisis, and explains how the internet has made more evident (and sooner) the problems 'old media' have been developing for the last 10-15 years.

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Disclaimer: This fall I'll become an MCDM student, so Mr. Hosein will be, in a way, my 'boss'.

2nd disclaimer: It happens that the journalist who interviews Hanson Hosein, Ross Reynolds, is also my classmate in the Master.