With the addition of flickr video, there’s a new idea floating around called “long portraits. I posted about it on my twitter account yesterday, and since then I’ve been thinking about it and what we could do with it in youth ministry.
A long portrait is basically a video snapshot that lasts less than a minute (or around 30 seconds) where you capture a single moment of a person in that time and place. It’s like a photo that can talk, where the person answers a simple question (click here for some great sample questions.) Photojojo has a great post on what it is and how to do it.
Here are some suggestions I have for using long portraits in youth ministry:
High School Seniors – Could talk about their last year in the youth ministry and what they learned, etc.
Small groups/classes – Could use long portraits to capture a key idea from the series (or year, or however long the small groups meet). Students could also talk about the one thing they remembered the most about the group.
Commitments or memories from camps/mission trips – Record students talking about their commitments. Have them send themselves a message to be watched again in 1 year or more. Have them tell stories about the impact the camp or trip had on their life.
Recruitment of volunteers – Use this idea to record students talking about how their small group leader or other volunteer in your ministry has had an impact on their life. Then show it to appreciate volunteers or recruit new volunteers.
What other ideas do you have for using long portraits in youth ministry?
I was talking with Janell about productivity, and I told her that I needed a timer to keep track of my work during the day. I was thinking that I needed to use an egg timer to focus myself on one task. Then I got to thinking about how cool it would be to have an egg timer on my computer.
The idea is to set the timer to a certain amount of time and get working on something for that amount of time. When the time is up and the alarm sounds, I can feel free to focus on something else. I think having a timer like this would help me with my time management. (I tend get distracted a lot during the day).
Anyway, so I began working on a countdown timer in flash, and I have finished it. I’ve put up a special page specifically for the timer. It can work in the background while you are on the computer or reading or whatever else you need to do.
Anyway, I hope it helps me get work done, and I hope it can help some other people as well. If you use it, please let me know in the comments. Thanks. Please feel free to leave suggestions to make it better, too.
I do it because I like to write and create. When I was a kid, I would draw. Now, I make things online, either through video or writing.
But it shouldn’t stop there. I think ministers and missionaries should definitely blog. Here are my reasons:
Connect – with donors, others in your field of ministry, others in your country, etc. Your blog is a good way to maintain relationships and build new ones.
Reflect – about what you are doing in ministry. The pace of life is fast. It’s good to take some time to reflect on what’s happening.
Archive – You can use a blog to look back at what you have learned and where you came from. A blog can also serve as an archive for your family, and it can remind you of things you have done together.
Inspire – You can use your blog or writing to inspire others to become missionaries, be more involved in missions, or respond to the call of God on their life.
Resource – you can be a resource for others who are involved in missions and ministry. The things that you have learned will help others who are going on the field or into the ministry for the first time.
BONUS: Hone your writing skills. Good writers write. Writing is probably a part of your ministry. You can use your blog to get better at writing.
Why do you think people should blog? If you have a blog, why do you blog?
Yesterday, the huge announcement was made that there is now video on Flickr. Originally, I said that I would not use Flickr video. But, I’ve been playing around with it, and I’ve noticed a few pros and cons of using Flickr to host your videos.
Benefits of using Flickr to host videos
Good quality – the videos I’ve uploaded so far have had fairly good quality, definitely better than Youtube quality, but not as good quality as some other video sharing sites. Of course, it always helps to start out with a good quality video.
Different sizes of embedded videos – when you click embed, you can change the size of the video you want to embed in your site. This helps the user be able to decide how big they want the video to appear on their site.
License how you want – You can license videos with Creative Commons or with traditional copyright. This way, you’re not agreeing to give the site all permission to use your video in something you don’t want them to use it for, like you do when you upload a video to Youtube (see their terms of service 6 C).
Privacy settings – You can decide if you want friends, family, or everyone to see your videos. This is good if you only want to share videos with friends.
Good community – Flickr has a strong sense of community. It is a great place to share with people and find great content. It’s a great way to meet new friends and keep in touch with old friends. Video is just going to add to this community aspect.
Videos and photos living together in one place – You can place videos and pictures from an event in the same place. Now, if you have a wedding, and people all take videos and snapshots with their digital cameras, they can put those in the same place.
Groups – Likewise, you can create groups around a theme or around an event, and those people who are interested in the theme or who attended the event can submit their photos and videos to the group.
Limitations of Flickr video:
Slow uploading (so far) – Maybe it’s because it’s new, but so far it seems to take longer to upload videos to flickr than it should. Anyone else having this problem?
90 second limit – So far, you can only upload 90 second clips at a time. While this could be a benefit, there are lots of videos that people make that are more than this limit. “Moving snapshots” is what the videos on flickr are being called.
No easy way to embed from an embedded vid – In order to embed video, you have to go to the flickr page and grab the embed code. There’s no easy way to grab the embed code on a video that’s already embedded. Maybe this is something they’ll work on in the future to make ideas more spreadable.
You have to pay for it – Right now, flickr video is only available for those who are pro members. A pro membership costs $25 per year, but still, why pay for something that you can already do on the web for free?
No way to download original – I haven’t seen a way to download the original file, either. It’s always better to be able to save the original to your computer. You can do that on other video sharing websites (not Youtube).
What about you? What do you see as the benefits of using flickr for video? What are the limitations?
Techcrunch announced today that Flickr now offers video. If you’ve ever looked at my pictures on Flickr, you’ll notice I use it a lot. I currently have 4,594 pictures uploaded to Flickr. I have a pro membership, but I probably won’t use Flickr for video.
The limitations for now is that you can only upload 90 second clips, and you have to be a pro member to upload video (a membership costs $25/year). Some of my videos are 90 second clips, but I would much rather upload to Vimeo or Blip.tv. They just know how to do video. Although the flickr video player is nice and clean, and there are benefits to having your videos with your pictures, I’ll probably stick to the sites that specialize in video.
We’ll see what Flickr does in the future with video, but for now, I’ll probably just sit back and watch.
(By the way, as I write this, I don’t think it’s publicly available yet).
I will never make money blogging. Although making money would be great, it’s a good thing it’s not the purpose of this blog.
Besides, I just don’t have it in me. Suzie over at abundance highway asks a great question about how many topics should be covered in a blog. It seems that many people who have made lots of money on their blogs say to stick to one topic and write about it constantly.
Those of you who read this know that I deviate often from one consistent topic. I could talk about youth ministry one day. I could talk about missions the next day, and you know I’ll throw something about Mexican culture or global youth ministry into the mix.
These things interest me. They are my life. They are my passion. They are what I feel God has called me to do with my life. It is this mix that makes what we do unique.
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