Our Day with the GSA

No exteriors!

About two years ago, we were invited to a fund raiser for Senator Hillary Clinton as she was making her run for the Presidency.

It was at the home of a VRG (Very Rich Guy) in the Hamptons and for a mere $8600, we had dinner with Hillary and Bill and about 20 other people.

For your $8600, you get a few minutes with the candidate, and so when the table rotation brought Hillary to our table, my wife turned to her and, seeing her moment said ‘the video on  your webiste sucks’.

Well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get someone’s attention.

She got it.

“What do you mean?” the Senator asked, clearly jolted.

“Your video is terrible. It’s boring. You whould be all over Youtube.”

“What?” asked Mrs. Clinton.

“Youtube”, Lisa replied.

Hillary paused for a moment.

“Never heard of it”.  But she called over one of her aids, Huma Abedin.

“Never heard of it either” said Huma. But she wrote it down.

“No no” we said, grabbing the pencil, Y..O.. U.. tube, not U-Tube.”

Shocking?

Well, not really. Washington has never been exactly Silicon Valley East… perhaps, until now.

We spent the day today presenting ‘the online video revolution’ the the GSA. That’s the General Services Administration to the US Govt.

The GSA is an independent branch of the government, 12, 000 employees strong, whose job it is to, more or less, keep the goverment running.  I’ll take it right from the web: The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies, among other management tasks. Its stated mission is to “help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior workplaces, expert solutions, acquisition services and management policies.”

Now, they’re getting very aggressive about online video as a tool to communicate and to educate.

We certainly applaud their efforts and we’d like to do everything we can to help them out with this.

Today as only the first step, but we found the group incredibly engaged and equally well informed about all things online.

And, as part of their mandate to help all branches of government make the transition to online video, they’re running a series of seminars and posting instructional materials as well.

Here’s the link.

As video production becomes easier and less and less expensive, as we shed crews and editors and allow individuals to pick up cameras and editing software, we’re going to see video move into the mainstream as a means of everyday communication.

We’re delighted that the Goverment is taking the lead in this video revolution, and even more delighted to be a part of it.