Grow your business with video

July 3, 2:04 PMPhiladelphia Business Technology ExaminerNicole Newman

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Video has been linked to physiological behaviors in adults ((http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/effects_media_violence.cfm) and in recent years, gamers video has been linked to aggression in children (http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/daphne/GreenandBavelier.pdf). The studies are inconclusive but video has been linked positively to learning. People gather information much faster through the multimedia (video, audio, interaction) media. When Michael Jackson (MJ) passed, most young children had no idea who he was but in my generation MJ was ubiquitous. It was the use of video and the internet, that MJ's presence escaped death.  His use of music videos re-programmed the mind. When Billie Jean is played on the radio, a trigger goes off in the mind and his video or Motown 25 special comes up.  Just like MJ learned his moves watching James Brown videos, Usher, Chris Brown  and Justin Timberlake learned their moves watching MJ videos. Video has conditioned the images in the mind that are gathered when the music plays.

So can we use those same techniques for business? Yes, we can. As business grows from a one-man operation to an organization of people, the most critical aspect becomes the training process. Before video there were huge training manuals and managers spent most of their time training and re-training employees. Multimedia applications have revolutionized the training process. Starting at a global 165,000 workforce firm, my orientation was watching on-line videos with a test and that was the training process. The process went from 5 days to 12 hours. It was simplification that created duplication which allowed the company to grow exponentially and hire more workers (profit margins) to increase profitability.

It is up to small businesses to use this same technology to train their workforce for duplication and profitability. One of the clients on DiversePhilly, has a cleaning company and in short 4 minute video spurts can train how to clean everything from the kitchen sink to vacuuming a rug to cleaning a toilet properly.  Another client, a catering company, can demonstrate properly how to make their famous pasta salad so employees can view it over and over again. DiversePhilly’s own, The Career Makeover Coach (http://www.facebook.com/careermakeovercoach) uploaded a short 47 second video thanking her constituents for becoming fans, now every fan feels valued because she sent a Thank You video.  All this video technology is priced inexpensively. There are the flip video camcorders, phone video cameras and computer cameras that capture the images and sounds at affordable prices. DiversePhilly’s own, LaShawne Pryor, is hosting a VMDirect event on Thursday, July 9^th, 2009 on the 5^th floor of the Wachovia Building, 123 South Broad Street Philadelphia, PA to show your business how to use video for marketing and fueling growth! Technology by itself is not the economic driver but the use of technology in business to increase efficiency (also known as productivity) will drive the United States economy from the red back into the black.

Come back next week as we dissect consumer buying decisions - “How to position your business  to be liked, known and trusted”.