What are the key trends affecting jobs in film and content production? This was one of the questions I answered in my recent talk at the University Film and Video Association annual conference—a meeting of college educators. A couple of the trends I spoke about affect not just job-seekers, but those of us already working in content creation, plus any company or nonprofit producing their own content.

Two key trends are affecting all content creators, from small nonprofits to streaming networks: remote workflows and massive amounts of data.

Remote work is here to stay.

Let’s first talk about remote work.

I’m not just talking about Zoom meetings here. In our content creation world, remote work preceded Covid, and new technologies accelerated our ability to do everything from remotely dive into a sound mix session to allowing a director to see what the camera sees without being on set. In addition, we use tools allowing clients to give us feedback asynchronously directly onto a video timeline, and these tools got even more sophisticated during Covid. For example, ADOBE tools allow us to begin editing with temporary video files directly from the camera before we even arrive at the edit room. And systems like the Teradek, which I often use so that I can see what the camera is doing when I’m sitting near-set. But paired with an encoder and decoder, we can bring that signal to a client or producer sitting several hundred miles away.

What does this mean for content creatives and the people who hire us? We need to be extremely organized and good at self-management. And each of our team members must also be motivated, organized, and able to deliver their components of our workflow whether or not we’re sitting in a room together. Everyone also has to be excellent at communication. Even if our happy place is working alone, successful creatives must be able to collaborate and synchronize the vision—often very quickly.

The Teradek can be paired with a variety of devices to give us a remote view of the shoot.

The second trend is data.

So. Much. Data. We can shoot terabytes of data on a single shoot with multiple cameras. So it is no longer realistic to have the junior production assistant or intern function as a DIT (Digital Information Tech) on set. We use people who have real expertise in how to tag the metadata, organize the files and ensure everything is getting backed up properly. We can’t afford to lose track of anything in the transition from the shoot to the edit. There is so much data that Netflix recently released a list of jobs on set and near set that are involved in the management of data from field to post. In addition, we have many clients who like to update and revise various videos, to give them a longer lifespan. That means we need to be systematic about how and where we archive our projects, so that we can bring them “back to life” at a moment’s notice.

Both of these trends mean that successful creatives, no matter what our job description, need to be massively organized, and always thinking ahead about how we can work smarter to deliver our best creative results. That’s what my team and I try to do every day. And we’re excited about all the students learning the ropes, and entering the workforce to join us in the near future.

Data management is a big part of the workflow in professional content creation.

 

Working with professional actors is one of the highlights of being a director. Actors bring a range of talents to a script, even when that script is nonfiction (the kind I direct). On a recent shoot with actors, I was reminded of some of the reasons I like working with pro talent. And also some of the distinctions it is easy to forget when working with nonprofessionals in front of the camera.

Nomenclature
One of the first differences between working with pro talent and non-actors is the words we use to communicate on set. If I’m working with actors, I can say “back to one” for going back to your first mark for action, or “let’s do a pickup” for repeating a line or phrase that had a hiccup. With non-professionals, we spend more time explaining actions we need, and often why we need them because we can’t use this short-hand. A great example would be explaining how we need both wide and tight angle coverage of the same action, which is why we shoot it multiple times. An actor knows this and will ask which lens or framing we’re on so they know what we’re looking at in our monitors.


Expectations
Good actors come to the set prepared to deliver their lines. If you are directing a scenario, they’ve already studied the setup and considered actions they might use to make the scene believable. If an actor is reading from a teleprompter, they will still usually request the script in advance so they are ready to read it without any stumbles. One of the problems I see so often with internal communications teams expecting a CEO or other executive to be able to read off a teleprompter easily is that this is a learned skill. Even if an executive does it multiple times a year for the quarterly report video, they don’t do it weekly or daily like a professional does. So they may need some coaching.

Selecting wardrobe is something pro talent expects to do on a shoot–it often comes as a surprise to non-actors.

Varying the timing or delivery of lines is something pro talent can do easily.

Consistency
Even when an actor is playing “background” and doesn’t have primary lines, they will be consistent in their actions. Maybe they pick up a coffee mug and take a sip during the scene. They will pick it up at the same point in the action every time, which ensures that we have matching action across multiple takes and camera angles for ease of editing. When you work with nonprofessionals and expect them to re-enact a scenario, even if it’s something they do every day for their job, they won’t be able to deliver this consistency. So plan accordingly and schedule additional time (at least 20% more time) for your shooting and editing.

Actors are an important part of our team as storytelling professionals. They can add depth, drama and professionalism to your next video. And if you need pointers for working with non-actors on camera, check out my book Real People on Camera from Routledge Press. It includes tips and strategies I’ve used over the years to get great “performances” from non-professionals in front of the lens.

It’s brand planning time! Photo by Unsplash.

“We should do more with our brand” is the lament of a lot of busy nonprofit, corporate and association communication professionals.  Here are three ways to boost your brand engagement this  year.

  1. Engage Stakeholders in Social It’s not enough to have staff schedule regular social media posts. Build ways for your donors, your customers, your board members to engage with your brand story. Give shout-outs to the people who help your organization deliver on its mission, and be sure to tag them. Give tutorials to members of your leadership team who might not be as comfortable with social on ways to engage across platforms. Send emails to board members with a link to your latest LinkedIn post and ask them to comment on it and share it to their channels. Every share expands your community and the impact of your brand.

 

  1. Ask Influencers to Share. The social tag is the modern equivalent of getting an autograph, but actually more useful for your brand. When one of my nonprofit clients gave a hospital tour to Justin Bieber (and encouraged him to tweet about it, which he did), they got 10,000 new followers in a matter of hours. Find out if any key personalities or well-connected board members are already known to your institution and encourage them to make a social mention or tag your organization. You can’t hit them up every time, so make thoughtful decisions about when it would be most important to have this extra amplification, such as before a major event or fundraiser.

 

  1. Create Platform-Friendly Content. If you want your content to be mobile- and web-friendly, make it a priority to upgrade your acquisition and output specs. For new video content, shoot in High Def, at a minimum of 1080p (29.97 frame rate, or 24fps which looks nicer in many cases and saves you some file space) but optimally at 4K for maximum flexibility and image quality. This larger acquisition size takes up more space, but storage is cheap. And you can easily make 1080p versions of content for web distribution. Whereas having your fabulous year-end video look dated and pixelated on your social channels when 5G is fully in place is an expensive mistake. For photos that you might want to re-purpose in videos, be sure you prioritize horizontal framing, not vertical. And if you want to post photos to IG, then you’ll need to collect vertically-framed scenes, too!

Merry Branding in this (relatively New ) Year!

Photo by Chris Yang, Courtesy Unsplash

Think Big Picture First

If video is part of your content plan this year, it will be important to start by stepping back and think big-picture as you budget. Why? Because budgeting project-by-project is inefficient in terms of time, audio/visual “assets” and money. You’ll want to consider all the assets you collect for any project to be resources for the next projects. So for example, maybe you want to create some short and snappy Tik Tok videos. While you’ve got people in front of the camera, could you also be creating testimonials or other content for longer videos?  If you are videotaping speeches at a conference, could you also have a roving crew capture in the moment footage of participants, or set up a booth for attendees to tell their stories? And once this footage is created, don’t just use it and lose it. Plan to archive it in such a way that other content creators in your organization can locate and repurpose this footage (see my January post on this topic). In other words, build a content library that reflects your brand, your mission, your organization. (Pro tip: get interviews transcribed so that you can find and use excerpts more easily across media, and for easy captioning.)

Set Realistic Parameters

It’s best to set some realistic parameters for your video project, including the number of reviews you want to be able to have, whether you want live-action or animation, and any specific turnaround deadlines. Without these, I can just give you some rules of thumb on cost. If you’re project is entirely animated, and you have a very small team helping to guide the project and do reviews/approvals (i.e., there aren’t layers of bureaucracy or board members etc who might make significant changes along the way), then you can get an explainer video produced for as little as $4,000. Live action videos tend to start at about $10,000 for a video with one day of shooting, and go up from there depending on number of shoot days, length and complexity. Be careful about “we can make your video for $500” pitches. Most of the time, these videos ending up being boilerplate creations that don’t really fit the bill for most organizations.

Watch Out for Hidden Costs

Remember that either you or your production vendor must use properly licensed music or stock images.  You don’t want a DCMA takedown notice requiring you to prove you own various licenses in order to get your video reinstated. There are lots of creative and affordable libraries for this type of content, and an experienced producer can help curate just the right image or song mood to augment or support your production. If your organization produces lots of videos every year, it’s probably more affordable to purchase a blanket license, which gives you a certain number of downloads or usages for a flat rate.

Another hidden cost is unusable footage. Meaning, if you are acquiring video for multiple purposes, the best way to future-proof it is to acquire in the highest quality–4K UHD. Even though lots of organizations are still using videos on the web for online events, for example, at some point soon we’ll be back in person and you’ll want to project that video on a big screen. Footage shot at 1080 won’t look great and anything you recorded at 720 over Zoom will be blurry. So think long-term to avoid costly reshoots.

What Variables Go Into a Video Budget?

Pre-production should be one of the biggest categories for any video budget. And it’s a big red flag if a vendor gives you a budget with little to no pre-production time in it. Our team typically spends several days, if not weeks, of planning for every shoot day. If live-action videography is involved, for example, then our pre-pro time is made up of location scouting (virtually or in person), pre-interviewing subjects, writing a rough outline or story arc, writing a shooting script (which might include “fantasy soundbites”), compiling a shot list, developing our gear list, and planning for any travel.

Production categories include director and/or producer on set, audio, video and lighting crew and equipment, media cards and laptop for backing up footage.  If travel is required, most crews charge ½ to ¾ of their usual day rate for each travel day (since they are basically fully booked and cannot take other work on those days). If producing in a studio, we might add fabrication of sets, wardrobe needs, or the purchase or rental of props into our production budget.

Post-production categories typically include voiceover recording and narrator fee, editing (a minimum of three rounds–rough cut, fine cut, final cut), graphics, music licensing, sound design and mixing, and color grading. For a short nonfiction video, my team plans on at least 1 day per finished minute to get to rough cut, 1 day per finished minute to get to the fine cut, and then ½ day per minute for the final delivery. So a five-minute video could take several weeks from the start of editing to delivery.

The opportunities and the options are endless with video. So start with your big picture needs, be sure to cover your bases on licensing, and engage professionals to help get you across the finish line.

If you want more details about how to produce a video for your company or organization, try Amy’s newest LinkedIn Learning courses. If you message her on LinkedIn, she can unlock a segment for you for free!

Photo: C. Morillo, Unsplash

Each year, my team has a project that begins something like this: “Yeah, we have photos/videos of that. But we don’t exactly know how to find them.”

We are all awash in content. Every time you hire an event photographer you end up with thousands of photos. Every time you produce a video, you end up with hundreds of minutes of interviews. But to adapt an old saying, if a chunk of content lives on your network and no one knows how to find it… Yeah, exactly. So kick off your New Year with this one resolution: plan for tagging and using metadata to help you find, create, and repurpose content.

Workflow Matters

Before you start shooting photos or videos for an event, make your metadata and folder plan. As you ingest and transfer material from in-house producers or outside vendors, how will you tag groupings of images? By day? By event? By content? (Hopefully all of the above.)

If you regularly hire event photographers, go the extra step by paying them to make selects. The images will be much fresher in their minds than yours. (Your brain will still be full of event details and other follow-ups you need to make.) You still want to purchase the raw images.  But having those selects handy – and asking for a batch converted group as smaller jpgs for social — will make your post-event promotions go much faster.

You also want to ask both photographers and videographers to tag their footage in a way that makes it easy for your team to use it later. If you don’t suggest the tags you want and need, trust me you will end up with drives with folders called “Day 1” “Day 2” “Day 3” etc.  So taking the time in pre-production to let your production teams know how you want cards ID’d will really help. And they’ll be happy to add more useful information such as “DallasINT_1” “DallasINT_2” for two days of interviews in Dallas.

For an event photographer, you could ask them to use a series like PLEN1, PLEN2, PLEN 3 for plenary speaker photos at a multi-day event.

If photos are being taken on cellphones, there are ways to both add to and access the metadata beyond those long strings of numbers and letters in the file name. This article offers some helpful tools for adding and finding phone metadata.

For photos or video that’s already been shot, you can also add metadata as you import it into your photo or video editing system. For example, in Premiere Pro, there are a number of built-in tools that let you harness the power of metadata. In fact, here’s a blog post with that very same name, explaining some of the steps!

So take a few moments this year to create a system for tagging content as you create it. And make this a cost-effective, creative and Happy New Year!

Photo by Stem List for Unsplash

Have you heard the new buzzword? It’s Hybrid events. And yet, hybrid experiences have been around for more than 100 years.   Now we have new tools to add impact and engagement.

So no need to panic. Let’s break it down into what works.

What’s Old is New Again

My grandfather was a great lover of baseball. In his youth, if he was very lucky and could get away from work, he would attend a game or two at the old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Then, in 1947, the transistor radio was born. Now, he could listen from work or home—I can just picture him with the one earbud and a fist pump on a great play–while he packed boxes at his day job at the American Bible Society.  So baseball became a “hybrid” event—one that people could experience both live in the stadium and somewhere far away, hearing the play-by-play.  In fact, many people began bringing their transistor radios to the games, because they liked both watching the game live and hearing the lively commentary from the radio. Today we call this “second screen engagement” during live events—see next paragraph for details!

Help Remote Audiences to Stay Tuned In

The biggest challenge of both remote and live audience engagement is distraction. Remote audiences aren’t in the room or stadium. They have dogs barking, kids needing attention, emails to write. So for a remote audience experience to equal that of a live audience, you must work harder to keep them focused. But live audiences also have mobile phones to distract them. So why not use them? Some of the best ways to engage are with live-polling—tools like Sli.do and Mentimeter let speakers take the pulse of audiences both in the room and those joining remotely.

But not every speaker knows how to use these tools. So added speaker training and prep is incumbent upon hybrid event planners to be sure their presenters have a plan for engaging both live and remote audiences effectively.

Another strategy for better audience engagement is to keep speeches short and instead use Q&A opportunities with a host moderating. Having an experienced host interview a major headliner, rather than having that person deliver a keynote, keeps the audience engaged and feeling like they are participating. Pro hosts can also integrate questions from both your live and remote audiences (who can submit via your event platform app). Both sets of questions can be fed to a monitor on stage, thus putting the remote and live audience on equal footing.

Anchor Your Event in the Live Experience

The primary impact of any in-person event, whether it is a conference, a concert or a sports event, is that live in-the-moment experience. Even from the nosebleed seats, live participants feel that vibe of sharing with other humans in a common space. Very few online events were able to capture this energy during the pandemic because there was no live audience. The ones that did focused on these key areas: presenters who were lively, video content that was brief, and opportunities to acknowledge audience members through live chat, live polling, and post-event networking. So whatever you design, be sure that home audiences feel energized by your in-the-room experience.

Use New Ways to Engage

Sports continues to be a groundbreaking area for hybrid events and fan engagement. The NBA has embraced VR as a way for fans to be right inside the game, experiencing plays from new angles. And if you don’t have the budget of the NBA, you can host your event on 3D platforms like All Seated or Moot Up. These virtual spaces allow remote users to “walk through” spaces and meet with people, just as they would at a live event. They can join others who are connecting live.

Ask One Key Question

When building a hybrid event, there is really just one question you need to ask: what story are we telling? Whether your audience is live or remote, they will need to connect with that story.  So before you book speakers or start worrying about live-polling, consider these storytelling questions:

  • What is the story we want our audience to know after they’ve attended our event?
  • Who is the best at telling our story?
  • Are there any communities we are leaving out of our story? If so, how can we be sure they feel included?

This last question is critical. Today, AI-enabled captioning via companies like Rev.com offer live captioning for Zoom, for example, so that virtual audiences with hearing challenges can still engage with your content. But you may also want to engage a sign language interpreter to be live on screen during your event.

Whatever you do, be sure that you are creating a cohesive story that gives all audiences—whether at home or in the room–a reason to learn and connect with your brand story.

For more ideas on how to generate exciting hybrid events, check out my webinar on July 27 at 2pm ET: Hybrid Events People Actually Want to Attend: How to Craft a Compelling Experience that Engages Live and Virtual Audiences’ with Michael Hoffman, CEO of Gather Voices. Attendees are eligible for 1 CAE credit! Get your seat today!

 

 

What is “B-roll?”
B-roll is the footage essential to visually accompany the story that may be told through audio on the “A-roll,” which is traditionally interviews. If you want a good laugh, this ancient YouTube video “We Got That B-roll” still resonates throughout the industry. (You gotta get all the way to the famous section at :55 where he explains what is NOT b-roll. And he makes a great point. If your shot list is “too specific” or a historical moment, you might need to turn to archival stock footage. More on that in another post.) All laughs aside, there’s nothing worse than getting into the edit room and realizing you don’t have enough b-roll.

How Do You Plan for Great B-roll?
B-roll doesn’t just “happen,” especially if you are shooting on a particularly time-table. My rule of thumb is to shoot three to four scenes of supporting material for every one to three minutes of finished minutes of story. This general works out to a day of shooting b-roll for every day of shooting interviews. By pre-interviewing subjects so you know what they might be referencing during an interview, you can plan to gather relevant b-roll to cover the story.  This is called a Shot List, and should identify each scene you need to include in your video. One scene generally requires multiple angles of coverage, such as a wide shot, medium shot, and various tight shots.  In addition, on-camera subject(s) also need breaks. So to expect that immediately after wrapping an interview someone will want you and your camera following them around to get b-roll may be unrealistic and stress-inducing.

Scheduling Well for B-roll
Build your budget and schedule so that you give your on camera subject(s) time to decompress—perhaps while the team is picking up an establishing shot that doesn’t require your “talent”. Plan key scenes well in advance: “we’d like to get Sarah hanging out with her school friends—can you invite them all to come to the house at 4PM on the day of our shoot?” And try to work around existing opportunities—“Since you told us you have full office team meetings every Monday at 11AM, can we be a fly on the wall this Monday? And can we get into the room a little in advance to put up a few lights?”

By strategizing in advance, you can ensure you have the optimal footage to tell your video story.  For more detailed approaches, check out my courses on LinkedIn Learning. Or feel free to book a meeting with me to discuss your next video project!

 

Here’s me, taking some scouting footage and photos before a recent shoot

Location production is back! And so is the need for ample preparation for your next on-location video is critical. As a producer, I spend much more of my time in pre-production than in production. And if I’ve done my job right, post-production (editing, music, graphics) will also go smoothly. Here are some of my go-to strategies to ensure a successful project before we step out onto location.

1. Location scout for audio, not just video
Often when we scout locations, we are looking. Looking for the best lighting, looking for a relevant background for an interview, looking for a great establishing shot to capture the story. These are essential. But we often forget to listen. How loud is the location? Will it be louder at a particular time of day? How will that affect any interview we conduct here? Google maps is helpful to us in many ways, even when scouting remotely for sound. By using satellite view and street view, for example, we can identify high traffic roadways, nearby firehouses, and other potential audio issues like RF interference which is common in tall, urban office buildings (and requires a wired rather than wireless lavalier setup for interviews).

2. Plan ahead to move fast
With more content creation than ever, we video producers need to move fast when on location. But we also need to be smart. Adding just a single person to the shoot—like a production assistant who can refill parking meters or a grip who can set up the lighting for the next shot while the previous one wraps—can allow your team to gather twice as much quality footage in a day. The added expense is more than offset by less frustration in post and less need to turn to stock images or do a reshoot to fill gaps.

3. Make an acquisition and distribution format plan
Decide before you shoot what metadata you want included on files. “Day 1” is not a great tag, FYI. You can also avoid problematic reworking of files if you know from the start what kind of distribution platform you will be using. This might be multiple platforms—like pushing a video to YouTube but also cropping parts of the video to a different aspect ratio for social shares on Instagram. Up-scaling always introduces quality issues, so if you’re not sure about delivery at the start, better to shoot at a higher resolution (aka 4K) and downscale afterwards. It’s also important to consider frame rate (24fps and 30fps are standard, but the latter creates more frames to compress). And, you’ll also want to consider whether to shoot in LOG or RAW and color grade afterwards in post, or to “bake in the look” with a setting like Rec 709. These are all important conversations to have well before the shoot, as they may affect equipment decisions for camera and lighting. And camera equipment dictates audio configurations in many cases.

4. Logistics
Logistical planning ahead of time is part of what allows the creative to happen on a video shoot. Everything from ensuring the crew has a location to park and load-in safely to organizing the lunch order ahead of time ensure your shoot goes smoothly. If you have a whole series of interviews scheduled, be sure to plan a little turn-around time in between so the crew can reset the shot, and stagger your schedule so each person has time for makeup and/or for you to review their wardrobe without a rush.

I’m thrilled to get back out “into the wild” for video creation. It’s going to be a great year for video!

 

Feel free to reach out to me about your next video production (see sidebar). 

We creatives have unique challenges for public speaking. We must continually present and pitch our work as part of the production process. In addition, freelance and small business creatives need to increase visibility to promote our work, which means grabbing thought leadership opportunities to speak on stages and present at conferences and events.  I don’t know about you, but for me, public speaking is a skill I’ve had to develop over many years. I’m lucky enough to have some musical theater in my background (jazz hands!), but that’s not entirely like keynoting in a room filled with hundreds of strangers. Or presenting a creative concept to a group of clients. And these days I’m also teaching video courses on LinkedIn Learning, hosting livestreamed webinars, and “presenting” to camera on Zoom almost every day. So if you are like me and your focus is on your creative work, and if you happen to be an introvert, all of this public speaking can be a challenge. So I’ve pulled together a few tips that I hope can be helpful.

A Few Speaking Best Practices
This might seem obvious, but wear something that gives you confidence. Stand (or sit) up straight. Speak with conviction–not too loud, but not too softly. If presenting online, invest in a good microphone. (See my blog post on web audio for suggestions.) Smile! Try to enjoy yourself, even if public speaking isn’t your thing. Because the audience can sense when you are miserable, and that can affect how they hear–or don’t–what you have to say. Try not to be thrown off by questions. If someone really throws you a curveball, be willing to say “I can’t answer that right now but I’ll be happy to email you after this event.”

Pitching Creative Concepts
When presenting to clients or prospective clients, I try to be sure to spend plenty of time listening. That can be hard, since I’m usually very excited about the ideas my team and I are presenting. But don’t fill every pause. Let your audience absorb your ideas and visual concepts at their own pace. Let them ask questions. Don’t get defensive (this one is SO hard). Take copious notes instead and offer to revert back with additional ideas if needed. One thing I like to do when pitching creative is to ask these two questions: “What about this idea is really exciting to you?” and also “What about this idea makes you nervous?” That last question can put people at ease that you are willing to problem-solve when getting to a shared decision about the creative direction for this project.

Presenting at Conferences, Webinars and Live Events
I’ve made literally hundreds of presentations at live and virtual events, and I can say there are just two really big takeaways to remember. First, know your audience. It’s not enough to know your subject. You want to understand where the audience is coming from, what they are likely to want to learn, and what level of detail might be best reserved for additional materials they can find from you later. The second tip is give examples. Theoretical information is fine, but real world examples always make an impression on an audience. If you can back those up with behind-the-scenes video or photos, even better.

Being Interviewed: Strategies for Panels and Podcasts
As someone who interviews people for a living for video productions, I always do my homework. I need to learn about the person and their interests as well as the stories they are likely to tell. However, being on the flip side, interviewers don’t always take their time to do background research. So you need to come prepared with several different stories and examples, and have a good sense of the audience for this panel or podcast. If you’re on a panel, hopefully your host has already had a preliminary call with you and the other panelists to map out who will talk about what. If not, take it upon yourself to do this, or at least cover the possible topics in an email. You don’t want someone to steal your thunder, nor do you want to do the same. So it’s best to have some sense of the flow in advance.

I hope these tips are helpful, and that you get a chance to do more public speaking, and better yet, to enjoy it!

Amy DeLouise is a video producer, trainer, author and speaker. You can find out where she’s speaking next here: https://www.amydelouise.com/speaking/

Photo by Sophie Keen for Unsplash

Navigating career transitions is always a challenge, especially in an evolving business climate. But it’s possible to put your best brand forward in a way that allows you to pivot to a new area of work as a creative professional. In this blog post, I’ll cover four key areas for ensuring you have the ability to pivot quickly and effectively.

  1. Define Core Values for Your Brand

As Jendi Coursey discussed in her guest blog post here last month, customers are embracing values as a focal point in decision-making. Businesses and individuals who offer a values-first focus are more likely to get repeat business. And, I’d suggest, when you embrace a mission connected to values, you are able to develop a different pricing structure, because you are building a long-term relationship with that client or customer, not just a quick deal. When pivoting to a new market vertical, or to an entirely new business model (aka, virtual workflow, etc.), you are better positioned to move fast if that mission focus is still driving your decision-making. So, for example, in my business we pivoted from creating content for live events to helping our clients produce virtual experiences. While the end product was different, our core values of quality, a focus on authentic storytelling, and audience impact were still at the heart of our work.

  1. Conduct a Personal SWOT Analysis

Now is a great time to do a personal SWOT assessment—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. If you need more information on how to get started, check out this article from SCORE—the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a volunteer organization that allows experienced retired executives mentor younger business owners. You can use this SCORE Checklist to help you narrow down the questions to get at your SWOT analysis. The benefit of conducting a periodic SWOT is to help you define your brand, create marketing tools that position your business or service appropriately, or help you define a new business angle, product or service.

  1. Develop Big Hairy Audacious Goals

One of my favorite takeaways from the book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies” by James Collins and Jerry Porras is the “BHAG”—which stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Every entrepreneur needs these goals to ensure we are looking past the day-to-day to some significant long-term objectives. And even if you work on staff inside a company, it’s worth targeting your BHAG to be sure you have a life-changing target that can drive your professional development plan. I keep my BHAGs on a white board over my desk, which also contains all my company’s ongoing projects and proposals. By having my BHAG there–both business and personal–I’m mindful of not losing sight of my long-term goals and strategies in the flurry of daily work.

  1. Tips for Transition Marketing

As the market transitions from virtual to hybrid and then to frankly who knows what, it’s important to be mindful of how your portfolio, your social media, and your resume position you for what’s next. Be sure your social channels are aligned with where you want to go. (So often I see headshots with sexy poses or pictures of beloved animals, which don’t really help me know who this person is professionally.) If you are job-hunting as a gig worker, be sure to highlight your soft skills when posting on platforms like LinkedIn. These include your ability to work with a team, your ability to use new tools or software to get the job done efficiently; and your willingness to manage your own time to deliver quality outcomes. Software and hardware tools and certifications are great, but these change constantly. It’s your work ethic and ability to be function as part of a team that makes you hire-able again and again.

The future of work post-Covid is still evolving. The best we can do is be ready for it.

Amy DeLouise is an entrepreneur, digital storyteller, and trainer. Check out her panel of creatives who pivoted their careers during the Post|Production Online conference April 10-13.