Inspiration: White House on Vimeo
By Affinitive
1/31/09: Your Weekly Address from White House on Vimeo.
In thinking about ways in this new year that I could better contribute to Affinitive’s blog, I got inspired by the blog over at everyone’s favorite minimalistic housewares company, SimpleHuman.
Their blog has become a must-read for me, not because they dish out the inside scoop on their latest and greatest, which I enjoy, but because their employees share their favorite finds in projects, web 2.0, other blogs, stories and articles, gadgets, movies, etc.
In reading their blog I feel like I really get a grasp of what an awesome company culture they must have and it definitely increases my affinity for their sleek (and often pricey) trashcans.
Taking a tip from the Simple Human employees, I am hoping to share from time to time some applications, case studies, videos, sites, products, gadgets, articles, and other random finds that I love.
I fully believe that when you are working in a creative environment, inspiration can come from so many varying sources. I do a daily scavenger hunt around the internet and think I am much better at my job for taking those few minutes out of every day to read my favorite blogs, check in on social networks and sites that I love, and new inspirational finds.
Without further ado…
I have been a sporadic Vimeo user for the past year. I don’t shoot much video personally, so I don’t have much to contribute to the artistic and creative Vimeo community but I enjoy watching videos on Vimeo and appreciate the format and what it provides versus the much more popular YouTube.
To explain the difference between the two in very simple, non-technical terms (and from my own personal experience), YouTube is where I would go to watch my favorite music video or try to find an awesome scene from Big Love that I want to watch again. Vimeo is where I go to get inspired by original content, created by aspiring videographers, directors, and Kanye West.
I was happy to discover yesterday that the White House has setup a channel at Vimeo and will be sharing Obama’s weekly video casts via the site.
After watching the tech savviness of both Obama and McCain’s campaigns with their utilization of social media tools, it shouldn’t be surprising that the channel has found it’s home at Vimeo.
But it still feels very refreshing and validating that the very tools that we assist our clients in leveraging as they spread their brand message or empower consumers to share User-Generated Content are platforms that are also being used by our new President.
Our internal company servers nearly flat-lined as we all watched the Inauguration Address online, as did the clients that we spoke to during that monumental time. It is nice to watch it again, on Vimeo, shared to us directly by the most well known white home in America.
No matter what your political affiliations are, the mainstream usage of social media platforms and tools such as Vimeo is inspirational to me as a marketer, and in this case, also as an American.