Tag Archives: attitude

I’m a big Pete Carroll fan, as a coach and as a motivator. I’ve been fortunate to have met him and you can’t help but walk away from the experience feeling good.

He’s a forward thinking guy, so it should come as no surprise he’s onboard the social media train and that includes using video. It’s a big part of his Win Forever series, and I love what his team did with this “About Us” video.

If you’ve read this blog before, you know I’m big on keeping web videos short. The Win Forever video isn’t short. It’s over 7-minutes long… pushing 8-minutes.

The reason why it works is thanks to a smart little trick. They break it into two segments. The first 1:20 is a basic introduction video. If you stop watching at that point, you at least got their core message. If you continue watching the next 6:00+, you get an extended look at the program.

Doing this satisfies the casual viewer, as well as the person who’s especially interested.

Great idea! How great? Don’t be surprised if you see some future T60 videos done this way.

–Tony Gnau

Jim Collins writes a lot in his book Good To Great about how important it is for companies to “get the right people on the bus.” In short, finding employees who are self-motivated.

That’s something we take seriously at T60. Right now, I shoot and edit most of our video, but T60 is growing so more and more we turn to freelancers to help. These aren’t just any freelancers though, they’re rock stars! Photographers and editors we can trust to create great content for our clients.

I was reminded how talented they are last week when I got the good news that Jeremy Nichols won a pair of Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Jeremy is a news photographer/editor at WISC-TV in Madison, WI.  He has worked for T60 in the past, and I hope he’ll continue to play a part in the company’s growth.

Jeremy just won awards for best use of video, watch Goat Art and you’ll see why, but he didn’t stop there. He’s so motivated that as a photographer/editor, he even won an award for sports reporting. Jeremy shot, wrote, voiced, and edited Good Eye, Tanner.

Any doubt this is the type of person you want creating content?

–Tony Gnau

A client had a last-minute request yesterday for some DVDs and I was happy to be able to accommodate them. I also promised to deliver them myself. A promise made and a promise kept at about 8:20 a.m. this morning.

Pat on the back… nice job Tony… thank you T60. If you’re a hard worker and want satisfied customers, this is pretty standard stuff, nothing noteworthy. Believe it or not you deserve that pat on the back because that’s not always how it works.

I got a reminder on the way home while waiting at the Clark & State “L” stop. Looking for my train I spotted at flat screen monitor operated by the Chicago Transit Authority. Various ads were running, the time, weather, and then something that caught my attention… a graphic that said, “CTA Train Tracker.”

Standing there in the cold I anxiously awaited to see how long it would be until my train arrived, only the information never followed. The CTA announced they have a train tracker, but that’s it. Frustrating.

About 10-minutes later my train showed up and I was on my way, but it really made me appreciate people who deliver on promises. If that’s you, this is your pat on the back.

–Tony Gnau

Gini Dietrich blogged yesterday about positive attitudes being an important component to successful leadership. I couldn’t agree more.

A positive attitude can influence everything you do. It’s something I see all the time on video shoots. You can plan all you want, visualize all your shots in advance, but chances are once you get to the location you’ll have to throw it all out the window.

Things rarely go as we envision them. How you react and adjust to them will determine how the situation turns out. A positive, upbeat reaction will likely produce the same result.

Want to see what a positive leader looks like?  Just watch former USC head football coach Pete Carroll (now the Seattle Seahawks’ head coach).

“Something good’s just about to happen.”

–Tony Gnau

VIDEO: 60 Minutes “Coach Carroll” (2008)