Cyber Census Introduction Video

What was born a carefree and innocent little clip has grown into a professional video production. This video visually summarizes the essence of Cyber Census 2008, a collaborative effort to travel from coast to coast to examine the increasingly blurred line between cyber and physical space in the reality of the consumer. Within the video are specific examples of consumers interacting with technology, and our use of technology to document the interactions. The ethnographic approach itself is worthy of its own entire discussion, and to honor that worthiness I will leave further discussion for a later date.

More about the production of the video, it all started with me making a “quirky motivational video” to kick off the road trip vlogs, but Maren saw the video as having great potential to be a professional endeavor. Which lead to some personal reservations to making changes to my video that were not self-inspired. This is a reality that exists in both the academic and professional world. However, there are key differences that exist, like requirements replacing “strong suggestions”. your “art” has to speak not only for you and your subject, but carry the corporate identity and logo, font, message, etc, and you have to blend your own flavor into the pre-existing “brand” or image. I’m sure it is a creative challenge for any artistic developer to think outside the box within a corporate enclosure. I am thankful for the lesson and opportunity though because without making these changes, my video would float around in cyberspace with nothing to anchor it, and I am proud to have it tied to On-Site Research.