Anne Giles Clelland

A Personal Short Film History

On the eve of Handshake Media's corporate video premiere, I continue to reflect on the origins of my short film aesthetic.  I showcased Skater Dater on Handshake 2.0, a short film I saw in the early 70s, which I consider my first experience with a music video.  The original score was without lyrics, simply instrumental, and no word was spoken the entire film.  I was enchanted by the story, the music, and the power of the face and body movement to express profound truths.

I learned the power of perspective, also in the early 70s, sitting in Miss Round's chemistry class at Blacksburg High School.  She showed Powers of 10 and I was sure I was lying by that checked tablecloth and then taken physically out-out-out then in-in-in, all at terrific speed, accompanied by eerie, suspense-filled music.  Three and half decades later, I know my decade-and-a-half-year-old brain was indelibly marked.  When problems and opportunities arise and a creative perspective is needed tenfold, I embark readily on that wild ride of going out-out-out then in-in-in.

Letter to a Friend

"...Take all myself."
- Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

The person I called didn’t pick up, so I began to talk, then cry into the person’s voice mail.  Mid-sob, I found myself observing myself.  One more time, I was leaving a voice mail about how hurt I was from how badly this person had treated me.

The stories are endless and endlessly inexplicable about the abused returning to their abusers, the broken-hearted with broken promises returning to their breakers.  "Leave!" friends and family say.  "Where's your will power?" they implore.  Why, why do people return to the people who aren’t good to them?

For me, my psychological need for my heart breaker to value me is so ancient and so deep that I have felt, at times, willing to give my life for proof of this person’s regard.  Add to this need my fear of annihilation from the breaker’s rage if I were to end contact, my breaker-instilled-self-doubt-my-fault-self-belief that if I were just a better person, the breaker would treat me better, and my vision of the bleakness of life from cutting off ever having any chance to finally win this person’s regard, and that’s a formula for immobility.

Those who return to their abusers have unmet emotional needs attached to the abuser, deep resistance to “making” the person feel some way when they take a stand or walk away - rage, guilt, shame, grief among them - and a belief that they would be broken beyond repair from the loss of the person from their lives.

Even after much professional and spiritual guidance, even after earning a degree in counseling myself, I continue to feel as if I have my mind and my body, but the breaker owns and holds my heart outside and away from me.  I engage with the breaker to at least stay close to this hostage, my own heart.

And with a captive heart, how can I truly be heartfelt with those who love me and with those whom I love?

Into the phone, I stopped sobbing.  I told the phone person I had called that I had just realized that, one more time, over and over again, I was using the phone person and this method in secret, at a distance, from the breaker.  I wasn’t processing feelings productively toward solutions.  I was releasing them in hiding so I could return appearing unperturbed to the breaker.  And then I hung up.

I once asked a therapist friend, “When do people change?”  She answered, “When they’re in enough pain.”

I’m close.

I’ve sought but been unable to find the source of the quote I remember from my studies but here’s my paraphrase of a passage from Freud:  “Consciousness is everything.”

I can take action, or choose not to take action, only about that of which I am conscious.

During the voice mail, I became conscious that I had become pathetic.  I might as well have had a black eye and bruises around my neck, saying into the phone through broken teeth, “Yes, but…”

The abused lose their senses of clarity, faith, hope, and power.  Over time, thinking what to do, believing it’s okay to do it, believing it will work on some level, and believing one has the power to take action on what to do approach impossibility.

And yet.

My breaker doesn’t hold my heart hostage.  I’ve given it over in hopes the breaker would cherish it.

I have become conscious that the breaker will never cherish me.  Ever.  The reasons why are, ultimately, irrelevant.  What I long for with the most elemental parts of me?  It is not to be.

Well.  Then.

The mechanics of extrication of are just that, mechanics.  The what and how and when are mine to decide, no one else’s.  I have been taught and have consciously acquired self-soothing skills over the past decade.  I will need all of them.  Certainly I will feel relieved at times, but romanticizing the end of a breaker of a relationship demeans the process. This will be, at times, excruciating.  My unmet needs and longings can lead me to demoralizing visions of foul, tragic catastrophe.  I have learned to stop these thoughts as soon as I detect them.  To save myself from despair, I will have to do this.  Over and over again.

I turn 51 in a month.  The years of 49 and 50 seemed exciting milestones and I relished them as trajectories towards heights of insights through reflection and contemplation.  On the downward slope of the curve I see 51.  I can do triathlons, eat local vegetables, and meditate with a cat on my lap all I want.  Life will never cherish me enough to keep me.

Well.  Okay then.  Okay, fine, then.  I’m getting my heart back.  When I go, it will be all of me.

The Champagne of Content

I took very seriously, and found myself reacting strongly to, Mark W. Schaeffer’s The best business opportunity in social media marketing.

I read this, “...content is a SEVERE bottleneck for most companies,” and nodded with heartfelt concurrence.  Content is king and queen, but so few companies, especially small ones, have the time or the content-creation skills to get their own content kings and queens into the conversation.  Very, very difficult challenge.

I read more and nodded more.  “The need for content seems insatiable. This exacts more pressure on companies to not only develop ‘meaningful’ content, but content that will knock your socks off.  Every day.”  Yes, yes!.  “…the price companies are willing to pay for content goes up.” Yeah!  We create content for companies!  Yeah for high prices for content!

Then this:  "There will be plenty of content-whores around for everybody." 

Then this:  “So here’s the business plan:  Come up with a posse of technical writers/content whores who can churn out blogs on a variety of subjects (maybe organize by verticals) and fill this out-sourcing market niche.”

Mark Shaeffer is a fine writer and thinker and I consider him an online colleague.  He even included me in his peacock.  He  wrote a blog post.  He writes a lot of blog posts.  What was my strong reaction about?

To me, the term "content whore" devalues the person, the transaction, and the act. 

If I describe myself as a content whore, I feel unvalued. I see the clients who pay me to write fine content for them maligned, i.e. they certainly didn't think they were paying for prostitution services when they signed the dotted line.  And the act itself is devalued.  I won't write just anything for just anybody for money.  I accept clients for whom I can write with my best self.

I value online content so profoundly that I create it and create it and create it, most days starting at 4:30 AM.  To quote Mark, "Every day."  I see online content as a new and evolving art form.  I’m thrilled to be part of what seems a revolution in how we communicate.

Do I churn out content?  I create a lot of content.  But the churning is within.  It’s from striving to create art.

I’ll be teaching a seminar in January entitled "The Art of the Blog Post."  When I define a Handshake 2.0 blog post, I use a sonnet as a metaphor.

A content whore.

I find reading Mark's blog {grow} always informative, often inspiring, and occasionally provocative.  I found myself provoked by his recent post to have greater clarity about what I do, why and how and where I see the best business opportunity in social media marketing for my company.

Content churners are welcome to mass produce Boone’s Farm wine.  It will certainly do.  We attempt to create the Dom Pérignon champagne of content. It's for celebration.  Customers abound for both.

To those who might consider me a content whore, I say, "You can kiss my..."

Actually, no you can't.

A Cost-to-Benefit Analysis of Creating a Corporate Publicity Video

Uh, yeah, I might ought to have done that.

Why are we having a video made for Handshake Media, Incorporated and Handshake 2.0?

The reason defies a cost-to-benefit analysis.  It’s a matter of the heart.

Have I mentioned I was born the oldest child of two oldest children, both known for minds beyond measure, one particularly for analysis, one for creativity?  The genes for the smarts got lightened, the genes for the creativity got magnified, and that drivenness of the oldest child?  Thank heavens for weight-lifting.  I can push and hold still a minute.

I have said and written that I live acutely.  That means I am acutely open to being moved.  I am moved by art.  I have rounded a corner and seen a sculpture, observed the look of the eye in a painting, heard one note sung by one voice, and been moved almost beyond bearing.

Can I just say this way of living has its beauties, but it’s not the easiest way to go?  Do the words “intense,” even “overwhelming,” come to mind?  Well, you and me, too, bro.

I had an idea that I thought and felt could change the way things were done and have a positive impact on people, even the world.  I started a company to make it happen.  That’s pretty much the definition of entrepreneurship.

As a person who knows, somewhat, my limits and expanses, and has learned in bitterly hard ways the value of running my ideas by others before implementing them, I applied for my company to join technology incubator and business acceleration center VT KnowledgeWorks.  My company was accepted and I have found being a member similar to weight-lifting.  I can still push, but have a  moment to pause and reflect.

The smarts side and the drive side of me get the necessity of formulating a business model, identifying a value proposition, forecasting revenue, expressing a corporate message, all that stuff, and they do it.

The creative side of me is appalled by all this intellectualism, stands tall as only the truly convinced can stand, and says, “The idea!  The idea!  The idea is a matter of the mind and of the heart!”

So, I saw some YouTube videos.  I was moved.  To tears.  Some people trust their guts.  I do, too, but I really trust my tears.  If I’m crying, I’m feeling a truth.

I have a camera that takes good videos.  I can make a cool YouTube video.

But in the videos that moved me, no one said anything.  They were doing things to music.

My friends and colleagues have told me they’ve learned to feel both excitement and dread when an email arrives from me with “Wild and crazy idea” in the subject line.

A musician friend received a “wild and crazy” email.  With heart, he wrote the song.  This video has heart.  I replayed the end of the video until I could make out the logo of who made it.  I met with him.  He’s making the video.

Although my smart side, my drive side, and my creative side have all tried so hard to express my company’s idea in words, I think the idea has to be heard and seen.  With heart, through art.

And that’s why we’re making a video.

***

Video credit:  Z. Kelly Queijo

Watch This! Then, Watch Out!

Hoo, hoo, watch this!

What do I want to show? The birth and evolution of a social media publicity campaign. 

An individual with whom I work on Handshake 2.0, who discovered even more ways for it to work than I originally saw, now wants it to work for her.

Yep, Z. Kelly Queijo is launching her own enterprise tomorrow and Handshake 2.0 will be part of the rocket launch of ZKQ's new venture to stratospheric success.

 ZKQ and AGC share a waterproof handshake
 at the Blacksburg Aquatic Center, Blacksburg, Virginia.

I didn't originate these questions, but I've found them the most important ones to ask a client:

1) "What do you want to have happen as a result of a social media campaign?"

2) "How will you know when that's happened?"

As did Handshake 2.0, SmartCollegeVisit will begin its first phase of existence primarily as a content site.  When I launched, I followed the advice of Pat Matthews and found it correct: "Build a large, loyal readership."

All content sites have to build a readership - an audience, or return visitors - and a high volume of traffic, one-timers or more, to validate the quality of their content and to convince potential customers, clients, and partners of their business models.

Answer to question #1, "What do you want to have happen?":  Traffic.

What builds traffic to a site? Great content on that site. What builds awareness of that great content on that site? Great content in social media channels to populate the top of the sales funnel, i.e., in this case, to bring the interested and curious to the site to see if they value what they find there.

Handshake 2.0 has a whole lot of channels.  We'll be using them to invite the denizens of those channels to become aware of SmartCollegeVisit.

And we joined ZKQ in creating a whole lot of channels for SmartCollegeVisit.

Here's the footer on a series SmartCollegeVisit is sponsoring on Handshake 2.0:

First College Visit on Handshake 2.0, a series of first college visit stories by business professionals, is sponsored by SmartCollegeVisit, a college visit portal with tools and resources for planning campus visit travel, college visit advice from parents to parents, not-to-miss college campus sites, and more. You're invited to subscribe to SmartCollegeVisit updates, to follow SmartCollegeVisit on Twitter, and to become a fan of SmartCollegeVisit on Facebook.

How do we love SmartCollegeVisit?  Let us count the ways:  A web site plus a blog, a weekly sponsored series which reciprocates with weekly links in to that site from a well-trafficked blog with a solid Google PageRank (Handshake 2.0), an email subscription that gathers a database of users and distributes content to the self-selected and interested, and Twitter and Facebook accounts with which to share information and engagement.

That's a lotta love.

And that's just for tomorrow's launch.

Speaking of love, or at least a labor of love, I've been very lucky as a start-up to attract clients about whom I can care.  My first client was Jim Flowers at VT KnowledgeWorks.  I cared enough and believed enough to apply to become a member company myself!  And another, Barry Welch of Internet Databases, developer of FurnishWEB, is, frankly, a good man who shares his experience and wisdom with me and others generously.

For ZKQ, having worked with her almost a year (one year on November 13, 2009), I knew the founder and her vision for her enterprise well enough to write my own vision for how I wanted to be of service.

For me, that was a moving and powerful launch of an expanded vision for my own company.

Answer to question #2, "How will you know when it's happened?":  We've got our numbers in mind.

They're in the stratospheric rocket launch category.

Watch out!

***

Photo credit: Zane J. Queijo
Camera:  Olympus Stylus Tough 6000 on loan to blogger Z. Kelly Queijo

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Freelancer

As a 15-month, bootstrapped start-up with one friends-and-family loan and no other outside funding, I hire freelancers per piece and per project to assist with the work of the company.

The “free” in freelance means just that - free to be allied with oneself, not with a company, free to say “yes” to work one likes, free to say “no” to work one doesn’t, free to work with a company for awhile, free to not work with it for awhile, ever, or ever again.

The “free” in freelance is an ideal match for my company’s enterprises, particularly for business news site Handshake 2.0.  For Handshake 2.0, I seek excellent content, not good content.  Excellent content is born of free creation from the heart and mind of a person’s deep expertise and talent.

On Handshake 2.0, we currently average at least one post per day.  If 365 freelancers contributed from their hearts and minds only once per year, that’s a plethora of top quality content for Handshake 2.0.  And that’s a lot of freelancers with a new publication to add to their publication lists and a new link to their sites.  Oh, yes, and I pay.  To the best of my ability, on the day I receive the invoice, I write the check.

A developing challenge for me as a company founder is that I’m finding fewer freelancers applying for freelance positions.  I’m finding more people who need work turning to freelancing who then apply for a position.

Although I’ve been deeply fortunate to experience exceptions, for the most part, those who turn to freelance content creation do so because they have a skill, not because they have a passion for creation.  As a result, they gamely create adequate to good content, not excellent content.

Do I see potential in them to create excellent content?  Yes.  Does my start-up company have the time or resources to employ, coach and support them while they learn?  No.  Can I ask them to reach more deeply into themselves and create more powerful, distinctive content?  Not for the pay I offer.  Someone who needs work needs to crank out a post, then look for more work. 

In a down economy, a former employee turned freelancer is not free.  Writing developed when domestication of plants and animals gave people time to think and create.  While hunting and gathering, i.e. seeking the sustenance of a job?  Hunger is not a free, or creative, state.

In a new, entrepreneurial enterprise, the company founder is not free.  An established, domestic state is five years away.  Now, I hunt and gather revenue intently to feed this newborn baby of a company.

A fine, local company closes its doors today, laying off all of its employees. 

More freelancers.

To create real jobs in the future, not just freelance work in the present, as a company founder I must, day after day, create excellence.

I am deeply uneasy with the paradox of realizing that, in order to create excellence, I need to offer work to those who want to create, not to those who need work.

***

Photo credit:  Jennifer Greger