Video Challenge: What is it like to work for you?

Posted on March 6, 2011 by admin

Over the weekend I ran into a friend who said the company she recently started working for was having trouble filling positions with qualified candidates. She also mentioned that a lot of their top talent was being poached or just leaving for a better commute. A better commute!? In this economy!? I was a bit taken a back by the conversation to be honest. This is new up and coming email marketing firm and from what I’ve heard, it’s a great place to work and the pay isn’t that bad either. So what gives? Are the rumors about how great it is not stacking up to reality? I wondered what the employees were really thinking about this place, so I went to their careers site to find out. Guess what? No videos. I guess I wasn’t too surprised, video is still considered a “nice to have” by some and using video to recruit new employees is still just catching on. So, how can you use video to compete for top talent in today’s globally connected market place? And why should you consider trying it out even if your employees aren’t,..well,..happy? Let’s discuss.

For many companies today, saying that their employees are their most valuable asset isn’t enough. In order to attract and retain top talent, you don’t only need to say your people are your most valuable asset, you need to treat them as though they are. Perhaps Google set the bar too high years ago with their on-site laundry service, volleyball courts, daycare and spiral slide accessible cafeteria. So do you need free on-site pet grooming and napping pods to keep your employees happy? Probably not, but If you’re reading this and wondering how it feels to work for you, it might be time to ask.

Take a moment and think about this. If you asked your employees to make short videos about what it’s like to work for you or what it’s like to work on a specific project for your company, what would they say? Do you think you would put those videos on your careers site? Keep this in mind; just as you’d want your customers to say nice things about your products or services and recommend you to a friend, it’s even more important in today’s highly competitive job market for your employees to say nice things about you as an employer as well. No one wants to work for a company that sucks the life out of them each day and they certainly wouldn’t want to recommend a talented friend to come work there.

Show your people that they are indeed your most important asset. Ask them to share their story, give them a voice, or better yet, give them a camera and see what happens. Either way you’ll learn a lot about your culture, the people who work for you and who knows, you might end up with a great recruiting tool.

While poking around for some examples to share with you, I looked at many career sites and watched a bunch of videos. I found a lot of great content, even companies like wal-mart and Starbucks are getting in on the action. One that I was really impressed with though was Facebook. Below is a video much like some of their others. Employees talking passionately about the projects they are working on and how amazing it is to work there. I’ll also mention that the video looks great, it’s shot/edited well and the music keeps it moving. You might be saying to yourself, well of course Facebook has great stories to tell, it’s Facebook. I’d argue that you don’t have to be Facebook to have good moral and inspired employees working for you. Take Southwest airlines for example. It was ranked number one last year as the best place to work. These are employees that basically can’t get through a day without getting yelled at because of the weather and over sized luggage, yet Southwest airlines isn’t afraid to spotlight their employees. If you take just one thing away from this post today let it be this, no one can help tell your story more authentically than the people who work for you.

So if you find yourself with a bunch of under qualified candidates knocking at your door, or a line of employees looking to walk out of it, it might be time to find out why. Perhaps a few videos could put you on the right path.

Check out Facebook’s career site here to see more.

Posted in Branding, Culture, External, Uncategorized, Video | Leave a comment

Truth Happens with a Brand New Lens

Posted on February 13, 2011 by admin

It took me a long time to decide what to write about first here on Brand New Lens.  I mean lets face it, I chose digital media & video production as a profession for a reason,..I’m not much of a writer. So after a few false starts, it seemed only fitting that I start here, with a story about a video called Truth Happens.

Truth Happens was made just before I arrived at Red Hat. I had nothing to do with creating it and in all honesty, I’ve spent the past four years telling people why we shouldn’t make a Truth Happens II (a story for another day). That being said, it is undeniably one of the most powerful videos Red Hat has ever produced and it was also the first Red Hat video I checked out while sitting in my one bedroom garden apartment in Brooklyn looking for a job. In retrospect, Truth Happens ended up being the video that would help change my view forever of how digital media can be used to push a brand and drive a business. So, I guess at the heart of Truth Happens, lays the heart of Brand New Lens.

While working for a production company in New York, I quickly became accustomed to big crews, big cameras and even bigger lights to pull together a very highly paid agency’s creative vision.  As I hit the offices of Red Hat in 2007, almost wondering what I was doing with my career, I was introduced to a small team with small cameras and when I asked where their lights were, my co-worker and editor of Truth Happens nonchalantly pointed to two switches on the wall.  I remember smiling as if he was joking, but then quickly realized, he was not laughing.  That day was my first lesson in low cost / high value video production, a concept that sticks with me to this day and one that I’ll talk more about as I venture down the Brand New Lens road.

So why Truth Happens? Truth Happens is a video that everyone can relate to, even if you aren’t a tech geek (or rock star as we call them at Red Hat).  The piece reflects the quintessential David and Goliath story, an us vs. the world account of the history of technology and how even the biggest names and the biggest minds fell way short on their predictions. The music grabs your attention from the start with the sound of a heart beat (the beginning of something new) and is built around a powerful quote from Mahatma Gandhi.  “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then you win.” Pretty powerful and lets be honest, hits at the awkward teenager in all of us struggling to define who we are.  For an up and coming software company competing with enterprise class giants, this message at that time was exactly what Red Hat needed to say. Again, I was not there when it launched, but I can only imagine it was exactly what the employees wanted to say as well. In fact, many of them still feel very connected to this message. Don’t tell us what’s possible, we’ll show you what’s possible.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Truth Happens. From the first time I watched it on my couch in Brooklyn, to the first day at orientation at Red Hat, it got me excited to work there and be a part of something great, as I’m sure it’s done for everyone after me. Its views are easily in the hundreds of thousands and it not only inspired our employees, it inspired our community, which is amazingly powerful. I still get asked for hi-res copies of it so folks can open up their talks at events with it. As Red Hat grows faster and faster, I sometimes go back and watch Truth Happens to remind myself of where we were as a company when I started, but more importantly I watch it to remind myself that something as simple as a video can inspire people to click “apply” on a website, join a community and share a companies story with the world.

So that’s that, my very first blog post.  Hope it was short and sweet and left you wanting to hear more.  I have a lot to learn myself and many new lenses to peer through, but I have a lot to share as well.  Hopefully this will connect me with people who share my love for creating something inspiring. I’d love to hear from you and help you think through what makes your story unique and how video can help you share that story with potential customers and future employees.  Feel free to email me at mike@brandnewlens.com.

Thanks for visiting Brand New Lens!

Posted in Branding, External, Video | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment