Rapid video meets social networking

James Cory-Wright explores how rapid video can empower real knowledge sharing in the workplace.

You haven't got a Flip yet? Where have you been? These funky little camcorders are genuinely easy to use even for the genuinely ham fisted.

Check out this video:

Not only are they incredibly easy to use and affordable, the results are pretty good as well. And easy to edit and either e-mail or post on to a web site such as You Tube. But rather than proselytise for Flip - though I'm happy to do so - I'm asking whether they can help us conquer corporate video fear. And more to the point do they point the way to a brave new world? Let's start with the fear. What's to be afraid of?

• Fear of cost - from £75.00 for the regular model, £125 for the HD version
• Fear of filming - point it and press the red button. Tip - get the flip tripod as well to avoid wobble vision
• Fear of being on camera - you've got me there. I hate being filmed. But lots of people don't mind. Have alook at these clips if you don't believe me.

• Fear of social networking? Well presumably if you can use these mini cameras to record people's knowledge and expertise, you'd want to share those clips around the organisation and facilitate any comments, conversations or networking opportunities off the back of the. You may also want to read Lars' Brightidea on how to build a social learning culture.

Rapid video meets social networking in the workplace

The question is not if this will happen, it is when. The smartest organisations will start the transition now. They will encourage and enable their people to video each other to capture each other's expertise, experience and knowledge - rapid video - and to share that online - social networking - either on their own intranet or linking to a customised portal site hosted externally. In other words:

Corporates and public sector organisations can be notoriously slow to embrace the things we take for granted outside work - such as media - and especially something as potentially democratic and, dare I say it, empowering, as real knowledge sharing. But educationalists are imaginative enough to already be on the case as Laurie Rowell reported in October 2009:

Teaching, Learning, and Recording in the Future

To learn how video will change the future of teaching and learning, I (Laurie Rowell ) contacted Jake Dunagan, for the Technology Horizons Program at the forward-looking think-tank, Institute for the Future. His brave new world is filled with mobile video-capture technology.

"Video is becoming a significant avenue for the way young people acquire knowledge. YouTube has surpassed Yahoo! as the second leading search engine, just behind Google," he says. This trend should continue as improved search capabilities make it easier to find information within videos to use as source material. "How-to and instructional videos on the Web are huge, and getting bigger,"

http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=98-1

So there we have it. Training and knowledge sharing in the future will be achieved by a combination of rapid video and social networking. Which brings me neatly to my next suggestion as to how we can start this ball rolling...oh rats, I've run out of time.

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