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About skipbensley

Unabashed father, AV genius, part time dark knight, foodie, amateur chef, antifascist, volunteer and rabid Boston sports fan.

Marathon Day BBQ 2009

I decided to Have friends over for a BBQ and throw a live feed of the Boston Marathon online live from Natick. At some point early the live feed shutoff, not sure why but it did. I rebooted it and it was fine until I shut it off myself after the last runners passed by.

The Kids had a great time and we ran into more kids that we knew and fed them all hot dogs and BBQ chicken.

There were 2 Americans that both finished third in the Boston Marathon this year. Ryan Hall finished third in the Men’s and Kara Goucher finished third in the Woman’s race. Definitely the best USA finishers in quite awhile.

Ernst Van Dyke (RSA) won the Men’s wheel chair race and Wakako Tsuchida (JPN) won the woman’s wheel chair race. Deriba Merga of (ETH) won the Men’s Marathon and Salina Kosgei of (KEN) won the women’s Marathon.

Viral Video of the Week

I will update these weekly with changes. This one brought tears to my eyes.

http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x8ymn0_susan-boyle-on-britain-got-talent

Playoff time in Boston.

We are at an exciting spring time here in Boston. The Weather is finally getting better and both the Celtics and the Bruins are starting their playoff push. The Bruins are vast improved over 2008 but still need to vanquish their arch rivals the Montreal Canadians to advance and although they had the best overall record in the East they still need to play it loose and fast to be successful. If they get into a brawl they will loose focus.

The Celtics have a much tougher road to Hoe. KG, the Big Ticket Garnett will reportedly miss the playoffs entirely so my seeing gang green even making the conference finals this year is a long shot at best. I can see them advancing from the first round but being pushed hard by Chicago. Celtics in 7 maybe.

The Marathon will run yet again this Monday and I will go on a limb and say a Kenyan will win. They have dominated the Boston Marathon in both the women’s and Men’s races the last few years so I think I am safe with this prediction.

SBANE on Mogulus

I was able to stream the SBANE New England Award presentations to the web as I filmed them for SBANE on Thursday of this past week. I stream it live using my laptop. We had a few connection issues with the Internet feed (power, wireless router) but once connected the feed stayed strong and connected on the Mogulus side.

Vistitors viewing said it was a little dark but then the room light was all we had after the sun set in the West. The flash video I saw that was recorded looked pretty good and the sound off my camera that was feeding mogulus surprised a few people in it’s clarity.

The trick now of course is getting others to want this service at their events and having the resources to pay for it. We call that Monetizing the message I believe.

All and all the TEst went very well and everyone was pleased with the Mogulus platform and it’s capabilities.

The Bensleygram

My dad wrote to all of us years ago with updates about whatever was going on with him while us kids were all in college. He was in transition from working at CBS news to fulltime farming and I guess he needed that outlet. What he didn’t realize was he was creating social media, and if it had been in email form ( email came much later) he was in fact creating a constant contact by writing monthly and keeping us all up to date.

I changed my blog name from Brilliant Video Productions blogging to the Bensleygram for two reasons. The first in honor of my dad and his wanting to be social. I also did it because much of my blog was about other things besides video production so to say it was Brilliant video productions blogging wan’t really accurate. Sure it’s my job but I am not producing video 24/7 although sometimes I wish I was.

I also wrote a Bensleygram to my friends and they thought it was pretty funny. I wrote about observations, sports, comedy, I sent pictures I ran thru a copier, I even had a guest illustrator make a cartoon once. I will continue to blog about whatever, but I just wanted to blog today about the name change. Hope all is well with you where you are currently.

The Fast and the Furious


I attended a very good SBANE breakfast event this morning where the speaker was Suzanne Bates from Bates Communications. Her talk was entitled Motivate like a CEO and was very good. I loved the reference to the mandarin symbol Wei Chi and the concept of in crisis there may be danger but also opportunity. Her talk was well received by the standing room only crowd which was also good to see at an SBANE event.

Tomorrow I will be shoot the SBANE innovation awards presentations for the Gala that happens in may. I will also be streaming it via Mogulus and anyone interested in taking a peak should see http://www.mogulus.com/brilliantvideoproductions tomorrow 4/16/2009 after 3pm.

Last, Mogulus has just launched a new product called procaster. I am really excited about it and it may also be whats next in video streaming. They have a windows version already in release at http://www.procaster.com/ and a mac version due soon.
Go Mogulus Go.

In defense of learning.

Chris Brogan wrote a great blog about GM and all the flack he was taking about being at GM. His comments about taking the time to step back and learn what works and what does not work is far more important then what happens to GM or Ford or Chrysler.

We as a people have a chance to evolve here. We have a bleak picture about what has not worked. But rather then get caught up in all the emotional stuff is this not the time as Chris suggests that we must learn and implement real change?

Change is scary, and it triggers its own set of emotional responses. Is it not worth it at this point? Should we have not stepped back and implemented change in the 70’s during the Oil Embargo and the fall of the Shah of Iran? We failed to learn then.

Are we destined to not learn again? I certainly hope not.

April Showers bring May Flowers

It’s a crummy raw wet day out, so why not blog? This past week flew by for I was flying back and forth from the DC area. I shot footage for Network World and Keith Shaw. We shot an interview he is doing as part of the IT insider series. We visited EDS in Herndon VA to conduct the interview. Everything went well and the interview should be online in a few weeks.

Monday, I Made what I think was a strong pitch to do some testimonial videos for a westboro company’s website later in the spring. The are traveling to a trade show and will have access to their customers all in one setting. The idea is to shot about 6-8 of these testimonials on tradeshow site at an adjacent hotel. This would be a cost effective way rather then flying around the country trying to get these interviews.

Testimonial video from your customers is big right now. Having your customers sell your company for you with stories of wins and great customer service makes a great statement about your company, and can go far to helping a potential customer chose your company over others they might be considering.

Have a Happy Easter Everyone

Basketball, Jack Bauer, President Obama and Chevrolet

I had Louisville in the men’s NCAA basketball tournament that concluded last night with North Carolina running away with the game early after taking a 22-7 lead and never being challenged. It was so lopsided I worried more about if Jack Bauer was going to survive last nights episode of 24 rather then if North Carolina was going to relinquish the National Championship. President Obama had North Carolina in his bracket. Nice pick Mr President.

Congratulations also to Michigan State for adding a storyline to the finals where there really wasn’t one. The City of Detroit and the State of Michigan appreciated all the points you scratched and clawed for never giving in or giving out in the process. I think perhaps your kids showed Ford, GM and Chrysler something about fighting back in the face of adversity. I know you showed me something.

Teetering in a tough economy…

I spent much of February not answering the phones, because they did not ring. I read everything I could to learn about social media and inbound marketing. I installed google analytics, edited my website and now I hope business will return. I blog, twitter and I am also looking for a PT job now also. I am trying to put money in the bank and food on the table. I try to remain positive hoping and implementing the things I feel I need to do to implement change. Corporate video production is what I desire to do most, but I may not have much of a say in that should things get much worse. You can only hang on so long chasing your dream and living life as best you can. At some point the realization that you need to do something else looms.