Four Simple Technologies That Can Facilitate “Brilliance”

We were thousands of miles apart as we collaborated on a short animation about our work. And it was probably better that way.

My project is based at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs in Baltimore, but our director lives in New York, our coworkers are scattered throughout the eastern half of the country, and I’m in Chicago. Like many global organizations, we have colleagues in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tanzania, and many more locations around the world.

How do we keep our projects moving forward despite time differences and geographical distance? We take full advantage of the many (free!) technologies that connect people instantly and seamlessly.

Sure, there’s value in seeing your colleagues in person. But I’d argue that one of our recent successes — a short, animated video about knowledge management, for which we’ve received widespread praise — was made stronger by the fact that we weren’t in the same room together when we produced it.

Here’s how we did it and why it worked.

The four primary technologies we relied on are accessible to nearly everyone. They allowed us to communicate often and honestly, to bounce ideas off of each other, to build on each others’ thinking, and to hone our crafts — writing, narrating, animating — until they gelled into a succinct, engaging message with a global reach.

Google Docs

One person pasted a draft script into Google Docs and shared it with our small video-making team. We all reviewed the script online, making edits and leaving comments. We never had to worry about version control, and we were able to make changes in real time as we talked.

Also — and this is key — we were able to achieve a degree of honesty and constructive criticism by communicating online that we might not have achieved in person. It can be hard to critique someone’s writing to their face, and often people err on the side of being too complimentary or forgiving.

Skype

Skype allowed us to convene for scheduled or spur-of-the-moment meetings to address issues as they arose. The instant message feature let us quickly discuss little details or larger questions without flooding each others’ inboxes. Many times, we’d convene via Skype and edit the Google doc as we talked. Our narrator could let us know which parts of the script didn’t sound quite right when spoken out loud, and we could try out alternative wording and receive immediate feedback from all involved. We were in communication whenever we needed to be, but without the time-consuming burden of in-person meetings or office drop-ins.

Basecamp

Basecamp provided a central place to link to the Google doc and let the group know when another look at the script was needed. When our narrator/animator had a draft animation ready for review, she’d link to it in Basecamp, and we’d all get the alert. We could all then share our feedback in the video discussion thread. Again, this kept our inboxes clutter-free and allowed us to easily access conversations about a particular draft or issue.

VideoScribe

Last year, another global health project at our university produced a gorgeous whiteboard video. It was more polished and professional looking than the beta, hand-drawn whiteboard video on healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy that our project had produced around the same time.

We heard through the grapevine, however, that the video had cost something like $15,000 to produce. That was about 15,000 times our budget. Luckily, we found VideoScribe — an affordable and user-friendly whiteboard animation software. We purchased one license for less than $200. This has been one of our best investments.

How do we know? In the two weeks since we launched our video, it has had more than 850 views— that’s a lot in the global health world. We’ve been receiving reports from colleagues around the world on the diverse audiences with whom they’re sharing the video. And we’ve been hearing accolades like this from esteemed international health and development experts:

This is brilliant. Clear, concise, and with purpose.

But don’t take my word for it. Take four minutes, and see for yourself!

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