“Communities must be cultivated, respected and deftly managed if they are to come together to create economic value. This takes talented staff, and a set of skills not taught in journalism or business schools.”
Jeff Howe, Wired Magazine
My mind is about to explode this week. As I get ready to finish my Digital PR class at Johns Hopkins I am also getting ready to go on vacation. In the meantime, my group is in the final stage of completing an engagement plan for an experimental film site. After all the meetings and discussions with my group I am still looking for an insight that will lead to a unique product and campaign for my client. I thought that community sourced film would be a great start, but for my surprise, some people have already developed and implemented the idea. No wonder my teacher is so skeptical about my insights…
Among several open sourced movie projects, “A Swarm of Angels” deserves special attention. In an interview for “Assignment Zero” — an online community journalism site – Matt Hanson explains his purpose and different possibilities he sees in having a crowdsourced and crowdfunded movie production. Anyone can join the project for ₤25 and, in exchange, give inputs during the movie making process.
Gosh… that was one of my ideas for my client… Now what?
Hanson says one has to go through a lot of junk to find some quality films in sites such as Youtube but there are some people out there who are looking for “more distinctive and personalized content”. It is very easy to create a site and ask for people to feed stories, footage, etc., but when it comes to putting together quality, art, business and a serious and dedicated community you need someone equally passionate, knowledgeable, and who is willing to work pretty darn hard to put these pieces together and transform them in an amazing product.
So, yes, there is hope for my client if he is ready to commit to hard work, community, passion, and leadership. And yes, there is hope that my group will put something amazing together for our presentation by Monday night. And yes, there is hope that my client and teacher will be satisfied with our engagement plan…