2 kinds of service
1. Monday I wrote about community. I talked about several interactions, including one about using ustream.tv on Sunday mornings. One of the comments on that post is from Chris Yeh, new CEO of ustream, thanking me for using ustream.
I’m guessing that he has a google alert set up. I know that’s easy to do. However, he took the time to followup. So I sent him an email about another use of ustream, streaming a wedding on July 21. Within minutes he replied to that email as well.
That is a much better level of responsiveness than I give. (nods all around). I try to respond directly to comments here, either in the comments or by email. I try to return phone calls. I try to remember emails. But I often don’t.
I’m sure Chris Yeh misses sometimes, too. But it is worth pointing out that a 2.0 communication platform has a CEO who uses the technology to interact. That’s cool.
2. The wedding I referred to is up on ustream as well. This couple has a grandmother in Illinois who can’t travel, an uncle in California with some growing medical problems and a couple other people who couldn’t come. So we decided to use ustream to carry the wedding to them. Zach, a freshman from our congregation ran the camera. We used a line out of the board into the camera for the audio. It worked pretty well.
In an odd twist, Connie Reece watched from Austin, just because I had twittered about the coverage. She provided a set of eyes and ears for me about the broadcast, and her play-by-play comments on twitter gave Nancy and Hope and I a laugh in the balcony.
There will be an official wedding video, two cameras, well-edited. This one is choppy at times, non-dvd quality video, less-than perfect lighting. However, it made a family feel part of the ceremony, and it allows others to check out the technology and the wedding.
Not a bad use of free media.
Do we try to have the best quality possible? Yep. Do we keep working on technically better audio, better video? Yep. However, given the choice between perfect and present, we opted for present…and I think it worked.
Thanks Zach, Connie and ustream. (Oh, and Tim and Kristen for getting married!)
