Customer Service: Less is Not More

I was reading an article posted on Techdirt about the SOPA/PIPA legislation that was just recently shelved. The article, which can be found here, is about how the gaming companies are supporting the bill even though the gamers (according to the article) are not. To sum it up, one gamer sent a letter to SEGA asking them to oppose the legislation and got the following in response:

“Generally these issues are caused by bad installs or junk data that’s stuck in the system memory. The first suggestion would be to perform a hard reset on the device. It’s best to attempt this any time you experience performance problems with your device or have an app crash. If it doesn’t work, its suggested that you uninstall the app, perform a hard reset, reinstall and then perform one more hard reset before launching the game.

“If you’re problems continue, please let us know.”

Now if you’re like me, your response upon reading this was “that’s about as expected from a big corporation.”

Wait, what?

Why is that

Success in a Foundation Campaign

Prizm is honored to have been a partner with Indiana State University Foundation during its $85 million campaign.  The campaign was the first comprehensive campaign in the school’s 160 year history.  Prizm was engaged to elevate the brand, showcase the March On! Moments through video storytelling, and design both a live event experience and an online presence.

We are so proud of Indiana State and are honored to have them as a client. Read more about their campaign’s success here.

SOPA: What it is and why it’s NOT good

The premise of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is to…well…stop piracy.  Which is a good thing, right?  In theory – yes.  But what the bill actually proposes will do A LOT more harm than good.

CES 2012 Recap: On the horizon for video

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is one of the largest annual technology “release parties.”  Thousands of tech companies and a whole host of celebrities (including Will.i.am., Ryan Seacrest, Justin Timberlake and Justin Beiber…just to name a few) are all a part of featuring new electronics from phones to robots – both in concept and in actual coming-to-market form.

There were many BIG announcements for video this year – both for video creation and for viewing video.  Most notably amongst them were the following cameras and TVs:

Google’s social search: Future for businesses?

Google search just came out with a new feature this week when they integrated Google+ updates into relevant Google searches. They are calling the feature “social search” and it has been getting quite a bit of press. (You can learn more about the service from Google’s promotional video.)

As for myself – having tried it for a week – I have to say, I am impressed with the functionality but more so the strategy it suggests Google+ will take and how it will help businesses profit from social media.

Facebook vs. Google+

Part of how I am forecasting social searches and Google+’s future success is in how I see where Google+ and Facebook differ, which is in the philosophy upon which they were built.

Creating a Mobile Marketing Strategy | Step One: Identifying if you need one

As 2012 begins, the mobile industry continues to grow and mature. Companies are just now beginning to understand the capabilities of these super computers in our pockets as the entertainment sections of the App Stores are giving way to corporate applications. Yet for most small businesses that are still working out the kinks in their social media campaigns, they haven’t even started to think about their mobile presence. The prevailing logic is that they don’t have an App that can bring value to their customers and modern mobile browsers do a pretty good job of displaying their website that was meant for the desktop so mission accomplished, right? 

The other day at Prizm, we were doing some research

Prizm as a Time Bandit? Ah, yes!

As we begin a new year, it occurs to me that I have spent a dozen years now with Prizm.  How can that possibly be?  After all, to contemplate 12 years in future tense feels like a much longer span of time than it does to look back on that same number of years.  And the scary part about it is that as I age, time seems to just go faster and faster.  But enough of that conversation, it could lead me down an entirely different path.  Hmmmmmmmm…Perhaps another blog?  Perhaps not…we shall see.

The purpose of this blog, though, is to give you, the reader, an inside perspective on Prizm, and why, as I look back over these past years, it is easy enough to recognize why time here passes so quickly.  There are a number of contributing factors, all of which could be a singular cause of time slippage, depending upon which angle one views life through, at, and with Prizm.  I have decided to list my top five in no particular order:

Southwest Airlines, Chick-fil-A, and Tnemec: Building great company culture

Exceptional internal communications: we’ve seen it in action but don’t realize exceptional cultures and internal communications until someone exclaims over a great example. Chic-fil-A, Hobby Lobby, and one of our dear clients, Tnemec Company, are doing it exceptionally well.

Merry Christmas from Prizm!

If you haven’t already seen our Holiday EVM (Electronic Video Message), catch all of the marshmallow-y, hot cocoa-y, Christmas Carol-y goodness here.

Wish you’d received this in your inbox? Email your contact information to marketing@prizmproductions.com to receive future videos like this one.

Shot Nomenclature

Like many other industries, video/film production has a set of standards understood by all video professionals no matter their experience level. These standards include a language by which we create short-cuts to expedite production processes.

One example is shot nomenclature. Rather than a director commanding camera one to “zoom in on the subject and compose a shot that starts just above his waist and ends right above his head,” the director can just say, “Get me an MCU of the subject.”

MCU stands for Medium Close-Up, and it is a shorthand command for