Fire-Wired Blog

This week the Foundation mailed out the first issue of its new magazine, "Forward," and coinciding with its release is the release of my first videos for the Foundation. As I've stated before, The ISUf's main purpose is to raise funds for Iowa State. For scholarships, for facilities, for endowed faculty, for programs, etc. "Forward" Magazine is meant to highlight the cool things ISU is doing and keep donors informed about where their funds are going. It's a pretty cool magazine. I'll probably produce 5-6 more videos for the next issue which will mail in June. Up to this point I've been doing a lot of prep and planning for upcoming projects and reworking previous video material for different purposes, but the last couple of weeks I finally got to shoot a couple of videos. The one above and this one: These videos, along with 3 others I edited from old content, are supplemental material to an article discussing the use of...

For many, discovering how to make money off of what they love to do is not easy. I am no different. I love to make videos and I love the boundless nature of the internet. Problem is I didn't properly equip myself to make money off my fanaticism right out of college. I enjoy broadcast journalism but its more of a necessity for videographers than a passion. Well recently through the wonders of web 2.0 - remember that term? - things are changing. Right after I graduated in 2005 I signed up for Google AdSense and thought "If others can make a bucks off their blog readers, why can't I?" Well the problem was the ads were ugly and I felt kind of a drug mule for Google. I turned off the ads and didn't touch my AdSense account for 6 years, last October. YouTube opened my various accounts up for monetization and I decided why not give it another shot.  So I placed text ads on about 5 or 6 of my most popular videos. I was averaging just over a buck a month until rece...

If you know me outside of the information super highway you know I am no longer a television producer. That's right I quite my job and as of January 9, 2012 I am the Multimedia Specialist for the Iowa State University Foundation. Hooray! The new gig is very similar to what I've done in the past; filming events and putting together videos. The main difference being now my work is used to promote Iowa State and cultivate & steward donors for the University. Of course there are other responsibilities but this is the quick and easy explanation. I wish I had an example of my work to share with you but projects take a little longer to perculate here than a TV station. This post isn't to tell about my new job, no it's more about HOW I got my new job. Like the social media maniac that I am, I'm proud to say I discovered the Foundation's position through Linkedin. That's right I'm one of the 16% of job seekers who found their new gig through th...

After 5 years in the news-media I am out. Forever? Who knows. But for the forseeable future I'm a Multimedia Specialist for the Iowa State University Foundation . The Foundation is a non-profit fundraising entity that raises funds for the University and helps promote its mission. My role is to produce multimedia content to that end; videos, presentations, advertisements and more. It's really exciting, I've had some fun calling myself the Foundation's in-house documentarian. Today I took advantage of the beautiful weather and used my equipment for the first time. Shot a building on campus. Not for any specific project, just to learn the camera. After that I took five minutes and shot the weather on campus. Not a perfect video, but for my first DSLR filming experiment, I think it turned out well.

Six years ago, when I graduated from Iowa State, I was done. Like all college students I lightly   considered  going to grad school but after 16 straight years of classrooms, I was done. Fast forward to January 2, 2012 and I'm un-done, and If we're being literal the title of this post is a lie, I'm telecommuting. First Question: What am I studying? In 18 months I hope to receive a "Masters of Applied Science in Information and Communications Technology" with an emphasis in Software Design and Programming. Back before my brain tuned out math, somewhere around 9th grade, I wanted to be a computer programmer. During college my tech interests started to comeback but never in the career path sense. Well now they have. I don't want to be a computer programmer, I dont want to be a web designer, I want to build programs. I get all these ideas in my head and I have some of the skills but not all. Well in 18 months I will have those missing skills. Second Quest...

Obviously I'm a  pretty big geek for web video , and relish every opportunity I get to produce a video for the web, but most of the video I upload is procedural for my job. CRI produces 5 shows and throughout the week there are various short clips to be uploaded. Still, about 3 or 4 times a month I produce a video that makes me excited for public release. Most recently that excitement came from a clip I produced for the travel show I co-produce, " One Day Getaway ." Of course I do have other passions and beliefs outside of my web video obsession, local food is one of them. A few months ago a local cooking show approached 1DG about teaming up for a special cooking/day-tripping episode. After a short brainstorm I proposed the winning idea of heading to the Des Moines Winter Farmers Market , check out a unique getaway opportunity, and find the goods one needs to cook up a delicious meal ( here's the cooking segment ). Fast forward to the episode being fi...

A couple weeks ago my wife Marieta and I traveled down to Kansas City for her 30th birthday. The best part about it was she knew we were going on a trip but didn't know where we were headed until the day of and even when she figured it out she didn't know any of our plans. The fun thing about going to Kansas City was neither of us much history with the city. My family went there a couple times when I was in grade school but I couldn't really remember any of the attractions, same thing for Marieta. So after booking our hotel room I burned up the keyboard searching for things to do . From my experience websites like Metromix and Citysearch are little help investigating our interests, and TripAdvisor is best used for hotels. For our purposes the KC Visitor Bureau, VisitKC.com , website was awesome. Everything's laid out for easy access, the site is really colorful and fun, you can find things based off your interests, there are little preview pictures and ma...