Chief Content Officer - July 2011 - (Page 30)
A CONTE NT smöRgåsbOR d. DONAHUE: A NEw TOOl FOr MAkiNg CONFErENCEs BETTEr HOT TOOL AdObe GOes subscripTiOn MOdeL Every small to medium-sized business we’ve ever worked with has asked this question—how many computers can we put our Adobe software on? Many had out-of-date versions that worked for their needs. We suspect some had cracked versions (although we can’t say for sure) and others dedicated one or two Macs as “creative machines.” None of these are scalable solutions, which is why it should come as good news that businesses can now access the entire Adobe Suite via a subscription. Users can opt for a month-to-month plan starting at $99/month for the full suite (which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and others), or a one-year plan starting at $65/month. So whether you are adding an in-house designer to bang out tradeshow backdrops and site updates, or trying out a summer design intern, getting access to the suite won’t require a four-figure investment. Sounds like a smart idea to us. H ow can we improve the technology of public speaking? This is the question two agency heads asked themselves after a growing frustration with conferences. It wasn’t just speaking to head-down-face-aglow audiences that bothered them. It was the one-way nature of presentations—the disconnect between the presenter and the audience. That is why New York agencies arc90 and Behavior Design teamed up to design and build Donahue, an experimental tool that allows presenters to engage audiences right where they are: on Twitter. “We argue that back-channel conversations—with audiences engrossed in their screens and digital devices while a speaker is talking (at conferences or classrooms or town hall meetings)—should not be discouraged, but instead cultivated,” says Christopher Fahey of Behavior Design. “Speakers should be trying to make people have conversations about their ideas, immediately and publicly. And we have built an application to prove it.” Fahey, along with Timothy Meaney of arc90, debuted Donahue App at SXSWi this past March with their presentation, Toss the Projector: Redefining the Presenter/Audience Dynamic. Rather than following the typical 10/20/30 presentation model (10 slides, 20 minutes, 30-point type), Fahey and Meaney distributed their key points (aka slides) via tweets while collecting and responding to tweets from participants. “A conference presentation, like a logo redesign or a TV show, is now a conversation,” Meaney tweeted during the event. The entire conversation was hosted–and archived–via Donahueapp.com. (Try searching for archives of conference hashtags on Twitter and you’ll see the value in the archive function alone.) In a world where the very tools we use to connect are causing our disconnection, Donahue is breath of fresh air. Check out the Donahue movement: http://dlvr.it/T6lLL 30 CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER
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