Kodak Moments for the 21st Century

No surprise to the regulars of the blog, I'm a huge fan of the GoPro.  A first-gen owner, I've used them for years.

60 Minutes featured the founder of GoPro Nick Woodman.  If you don't get what GoPro is about, and how you MUST use them, watch the story.  Aside from a traditional American success story, it's a visual presentation of all the memes associated with GoPro.

At the close of the piece, Woodman says something profound regarding both the camera and the way people relate to it.

"It's a marketer's dream.  It's all based off authenticity. Our customers doing interesting things around the world and they're so stoked . . . . that when they share the video, they often give us credit.  My GoPro ski trip.  My GoPro day at the park with my kids . . ."

That's when it hits me.  When George Eastman changed the way we captured the world in still photographs, the late 19th and entire 20th century were dominated by the Kodak moment.  That became synonymous with a heartwarming event, saved forever in celluloid.

The 21st century equivalent? When I GoPro my fill-in-the-blank.  And thanks to the technology I can both be in the moment and preserve it in motion.

Why all that?

To say this: replace GoPro with your university name from Woodman's quote.  Is that how graduates view their experience, their learning, their transformation while at your university?  Do they send you photos and emails from their lives around the world?  Staying connected to where they learned their skills, or built their social networks?

If they do, your "brand" shall increase.  If they don't, you're just issuing credentials and certificates.

Find a way to engage through the authenticity of your unique experience.

Tarkin Doctrine Finally Fails Olympics

Or maybe I should make another SciFi reference by saying the International Olympic Committee has decided to stop Fighting the Future.  New guidelines that recognize both the nature of (and the benefits accrued from) social media.  At Sochi, social is in.

A good read from USA TODAY about the shift that allows those who are accredited media to use their information and stills to report and promote.  It is another step forward after London where the Five Rings recognized that those who "would not profit" could do the same.  Video is still off limits, but in a rights-holder world, most can accept that.

We have come a long way from Beijing.

The opposite from Oklahoma State earlier this month as a clash between the media relations office and student media becomes nasty he tweets, they tweet battle over who "broke" the news of what would happen at an athletic department event.

Reminds me a bit of institutions that still won't credential born digital or participatory media.

Oh, and if you don't get the Star Wars reference in the headline . . .