Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Some hospitals have Dalek-like courier robots that start off in the Pharmacy and drive around the building delivering meds to nurse’s stations. If the robot senses an obstacle (such as a person) it beeps and makes an announcement to get you out of its way. It can even get on and off of elevators.
Another type of medical droid is remote controlled by a doctor in a remote location so that a medical exam can be conducted from afar. Kind of like a Predator aircraft but for healthcare.
Then there is the most well-known medical robot, the DaVinci surgical robot. It is controlled by a human via remote control, either across the OR or around the world. It is debatable whether this saves time or improves outcomes, but the ability to do surgery on a beating heart is pretty amazing.
If any of these devices were to become self-aware it would not be much of a problem, since they move so slowly…but you never know.
While we have gone off on a robots-taking-over-the-world tangent, I think we can all spend some time trying to anticipate future changes in our industry. At the moment, changes appear to be cutbacks, but assuming the economy recovers things should improve. But perhaps we can also look at future technology, and anticipate areas that will need our services.
Mike Cohen
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Ron – I was commenting on the video, not your reason for posting it.
Trent – You’re right – It is only a matter of time before robots take over. All those closed auto factories are full of robots. A bored robot is a potential enemy.
If you are reading this, you are the resistance.
This is John Connor. -
The grant does not require you to pay it back, does it? That is not a grant, that is a loan. Perhaps the grant intends to stimulate business, thus the requirement for recouping costs.
What does the application require? A business plan?You need to estimate your target market X number of potential customers, and describe your marketing plan, ie 30,000 pieces of direct mail 4 times a year. Average rate of return 1% per mailing, 1 purchase per response = 300 sales x 4 = 1200 sales per year. But then figure return will diminish over time unless new products are added to the offerings. Then out of the estimated gross revenue figure out your cost of goods to figure out the net. If this is one product it is an even tougher sell, since it is yes or no.
Same goes for other sales efforts – web sales, retail, etc.
Since it is a product of regional interest, this should help you narrow down your target audience, but keep in mind the demographics of the target audience. There may be 50,000 people in your region, but how many of those people buy DVDs, are interested in the subject matter, are employed, are not under 25 or over 65, etc.
You can throw a bag full of darts at 1000 balloons and probably hit a lot of them, but you will mostly just waste darts. Or you could throw fewer darts at fewer but bigger balloons (qualified leads) and make better use of your available darts.
If a grant is involved, presumably there is a public interest angle involved, even if that interest is education. If that is the case, perhaps your target can be area schools, social clubs, VFW halls, chambers of commerce, cub scouts etc. Put together a media kit and sell the DVD not as a DVD but as an experience.
Good luck.
Mike Cohen
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Nice graphics.
So I guess this means that computers are taking over in 2049. I’ll be 77 so a computer that can cook, clean and do my taxes would be welcome.Comparing the rate of saturation of internet devices vs tv or radio is not logical, because times have changed. My grandparents envied their relatives who had a tv, but grandpa made like $15 a week in 1945. $15 in 1945 = $310 in today’s dollars. So on $1200/month can one afford the 2009 equivalent of a shiny new RCA television, such as a 42″ LCD? Probably not.
What is the point of all this information? Are we supposed to be scared that the rest of the world is growing bigger than the little old USA? Well, since this is the COW, we are the world, so this is expected. Do not fear the future.
However as Bob has pointed out, how do we make money with the world changing at this high rate of speed? This is the big question indeed.
Mike Cohen
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Starting in 1995 I started making videos for all our big family events. The first one was a 30 minute photo montage for my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. Cutting to MII in our online edit bay took about 3 weeks after hours. Every cut, for you youngin’s reading this is another edit (tape machine pre-rolls, previews and records the few seconds to tape. Every picture zoom is a programmed ADO move. Ah those were the days. But it was a touching video, that brought us right up to the present. Between the 50th and 60th, I was able to record about an hour or so of Grandma talking about the old days. That was my favorite part of visiting was hearing the same stories about life in the Depression, the miracle of television and watching the Moon Landing, and of course the stories about my dad and aunts and cousins. Not really of interest to non-relatives, but the very essence of my existence.
I feel so lucky that I always had a video camera with me, recording special memories right up to the year they departed.
Here’s my blog about this subject:
https://blogs.creativecow.net/blog/488/the-futurethe-pastold-friends-long-gone
Mike Cohen
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Kris makes an excellent point. Whether you are new to the market or not, you need to let people know you exist. Aside from wedding videos, multimedia production is generally not a Yellow Pages kind of business.
A great website with examples of your work helps, but again, people need to know about it.Word of mouth can go a long way. In our business, word gets around if you have done some great work for an individual or a large organization.
Do you specialize in a particular kind of production? Trying to be all things to all people can work but get really good at something and become known for it and word will get around. Easier said than done, I know, but you gotta have a goal.
Try to find a niche, convince a few people in that niche to let you do something for them, and that’s a start. You want people in your niche area to say, “We need a Pete Brewer treatment for our business. It seems to be working for XYZ Competitor up the road.”
Mike Cohen
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Seems like something you would see on G4 channel or SPEED tv, or even the History channel given the classic cars involved. All those sponsors listed – did they all give you support for production?
Why don’t you do a blog about the show, your experience getting sponsors and the production process, and include clips of the show. I know you’re trying to sell the show, no promote it, but blogs have provided me with some unexpected google results and the occasional phone call out of the blue. A lot of keywords (mustang, shelby etc) given the COW’s near-instantaneous google indexing might get you some eyeballs on your site.
Are there other web shows like this?
Do you get a lot of traffic on your site currently?
What about approaching a car enthusiast magazine about including a free DVD with an issue.We have found with some of our books that if you find someone who wants to buy 1000 copies you can cover some of your costs.
Do you sell a lot of DVD copies of your shows?
If you sign up for ISBN numbers you can get your stuff listed with Amazon. Searching “classic cars” yields 233 results. Amazon takes a percentage and you drop ship just the units sold you you don’t have to provide inventory in advance.
We have sales on a regular basis from Amazon – not huge numbers but money coming in is the goal
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_d?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=felicien+steichen&x=0&y=0
These are some ideas – you may have been through all this already but you never know. We all have different perspectives and experience.
Mike Cohen
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I can speak to our industry, which is healthcare communications publishing and continuing education. Our clientele ranges from pharmaceutical type companies to medical societies. And as elucidated in my blogs, we also have our own product lines, though sales of individual products are certainly subject to overall economic conditions.
Our rate of producing our product lines (books and videos) is at a continuous level. Outside work varies by client – some up some down, some flat. In general, clients that are publicly funded by their members are down or flat, clients that are funded by product sales are flat or up.We are starting to see signs of recovery however, based upon 2010 planning by some of our customers.
Never take a bad economy as a sign that you should stop promoting yourself. As has been discussed in earlier threads on this board, if your business is slow, take the time to improve your skill sets, upgrade facilities or develop new marketing strategies, so when the market is ready, you will be ready too.
Mike Cohen
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I can speak to our industry, which is healthcare communications publishing and continuing education. Our clientele ranges from pharmaceutical type companies to medical societies. And as elucidated in my blogs, we also have our own product lines, though sales of individual products are certainly subject to overall economic conditions.
Our rate of producing our product lines (books and videos) is at a continuous level. Outside work varies by client – some up some down, some flat. In general, clients that are publicly funded by their members are down or flat, clients that are funded by product sales are flat or up.We are starting to see signs of recovery however, based upon 2010 planning by some of our customers.
Never take a bad economy as a sign that you should stop promoting yourself. As has been discussed in earlier threads on this board, if your business is slow, take the time to improve your skill sets, upgrade facilities or develop new marketing strategies, so when the market is ready, you will be ready too.
Mike Cohen
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I should add that in our company, editors are not only sitting in their offices 8 hours/day. Our editors also go out and shoot – sometimes in the OR, sometimes in a corporate board room, sometimes in a college lecture hall, and sometimes not shooting at all but working a trade show booth, doing AV support at a conference, etc. I sometimes keep a sportcoat in my car just in case. I would say I dress up 20-30 days a year.
So as Mark has suggested, you can tell if a job candidate is someone you want representing your company out in the world. If someone wore jeans and a sweater vest or polo shirt to an interview, I’m not saying I would not consider everything they have to offer, it just becomes part of the puzzle.
Today you may be cutting a video, tomorrow you may be in scrubs shooting surgery, the day after that interviewing the CEO of a Fortune 50 company or the director of a government agency.
Put your best foot forward to let me know that I would trust you to put my company’s best foot forward on my behalf.
Maybe here in New England we are a bit more traditional, must be our Puritan ancestry. Although it would be nice if supermarkets sold wine. But that’s another thread altogether!
Mike Cohen