Brian Malone's blood pressure definitely rose at his SIPA Annual 2018 pre-conference workshop last Tuesday when the growing prevalence of 8-second videos came up. He believes it reflects a kind of laziness, meaning businesses think that their engagement problem stems from length and not poor execution.

On the first day of the SIPA Annual 2018 Conference yesterday, Brian Malone of Malone Media preached what he practices. "People are drawn to mystery," he told us. "You have to tap into that in your video."

"Be sure to orient your phone horizontally. 'When I'm watching the news and there's footage from a bystander that's in portrait mode,' says Christian Nachtrieb, a Boston-based corporate and wedding photographer, 'that's an immediate signal that it's an amateur video.'"

"It's an expert in front of a whiteboard, schoolroom style," explained Maureen Hoch, editor of Harvard Business Review's HBR.org, about their successful forays into Facebook Live, at a summit this week in Berlin. (The quotes come from an article on FIPP.)

Effective video takes various skills, Brian Malone of Malone Media told me a couple months ago. He called video a technical process "but you also need a creative person... Recognize what other companies are doing online [with video]. It might be training, webinars, webcasts..."

On a Thursday a few weeks ago, Brian Malone, president of new SIPA member Malone Media, was telling me about an important shoot that he had the following Monday morning. (I love saying "shoot" with video people and "gig" with my music-performing friends.)