If you took the time to look through YouTube's business education channel from the Part One companion post, then you might already expect that this second segment on educational business videos is a profile of the KhanAcademy. The KhanAcademy videos can all be found on YouTube, but seeing the sheer volume and breadth from the KhanAcademy mother ship is impressive. It's even more impressive considering its founder Salman 'Sal' Khan, (who has three degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard) made the vast majority of them as he discusses in the FAQ.
A 501c3 non-profit, the KhanAcademy is making the world a smarter and better place by spreading knowledge via freely available 10-20 minute short tutorial videos on a wide array of academic topics, including a significant concentration on (unsurprisingly) business finance. Want lectures on topics concerning the 2009 financial crisis, or need a well-rounded view on the American-Chinese dept loop, or can't remember how to derive market capitalization? Sal's videos provide those answers, albeit you might have to stare at his notes carefully because his handwriting is sometimes a bit messy. Great knowledge doesn't have to come in a shiny package though, so that's hardly a reason to avoid brushing up on some business basics. We at bizologie say kudos to Khan!
Business Videos- Part One
On a large scale, we have generally mentioned YouTube in scads of posts throughout this blog, and on a small scale we have promoted the UT Business Librarian Channel and its tutorials on finding focused information in specific databases. Today, this post covers some of the metaphorical gooey middle of general business instructional videos that can be found by browsing in YouTube. How do you find them?
- Select the Browse button next to the search box.
- Choose Education from the navigation bar that loads beneath the Browse button.
- Choose Business from the subsequently loaded Category dropdown menu.
- Filter by different topics that live under the Business umbrella, including things like Finance, Innovation, and Supply Chain Management.
Whether you’re looking for a refresher on Finance 301 or insights on emergent markets, you’re bound to find a useful video. After all, staying informed of business principles and abreast of business practices is the best way to ensure a solid foundation for conducting high caliber business research. Below are a few good videos to consider watching.
Stanford: China New Media & E-Commerce Investment Outlook
University of New South Wales: Online Trading: Creating Efficiency with Double-sided Markets
Duke University: Introduction to Energy Entrepreneurship
Stay tuned! Next week I’ll profile another excellent compendium of business videos.
Casual Friday: Don McMillan Day
We haven't had a Casual Friday in a while, and that's a tragedy that will be rectified now by some quality business comedy, courtesy of Don McMillan. He's one half engineer, one half comedian, and his office-related humor is well worth watching, especially if you've ever seen a bad PowerPoint presentation. Caveat: These are standup videos, so expect the general qualities of standup comedy, e.g. stereotypes, that may make them unsuitable for office viewing (in case you work in an un-fun office).
Last but not least, Don's magnum opus: Life After Death By PowerPoint
UT Business Librarian YouTube Channel
Check out the new UT Business Librarian channel on YouTube. These videos aren't as cute as the surprised kitten or as funny as the talking dog, but they do contain tips and tricks to help you navigate business databases. The short, 2-3 minute videos detail how to use some of the business subscription databases from the UT Libraries Business Information Center. Feel free to use the videos on your website or direct your users to them. And, visit often. More videos will be added each month.
Common Craft Explanations Made Fun
At the Texas Library Association last week I had the pleasure of meeting Lee and Sachi LeFever from Common Craft. Those names might not sound familiar, but I just bet that you have seen their work. Those short explanatory videos with the paper cut outs that explain complex things "in plain English" - yep, those are from Common Craft. The Lee founded Common Craft in 2003 and now both Lee and Sachi work to create these 3 minute educational videos that seem deceptively simple. Their first video, RSS In Plain English has been viewed 1.6 million times on YouTube. Lee is the voice of the videos. He comes up with the outline and Sachi is the detail oriented part of the team. She fleshes out the script and then Lee begins the sketching and filming and Sachi does the editing.
Common Craft videos are really cute, but the trick is that the LeFevers know how to explain! They are so good that Google hired them in 2007 to explain their newfangled Google Docs product. Google Docs changed the way people thought about sharing documents and they needed Common Craft to explain that new way of thinking. That is exactly what Common Craft does so well. They take a foreign concept and create a story around it so that we understand what it means, and more importantly, what it means for us personally and why we should care. Plus they are memorable - I still think of camping whenever I think of wikis because of their Wikis In Plain English video.
Common Craft still does custom corporate videos and now they are also creating more educational videos and offering subscriptions for libraries and classrooms. So if your library or your company has some 'splaining to do, look no further than Common Craft.
Famecount: Social Media's Most Popular Brands
Last week we talked about corporate use of social media and today we're going to see which brands and companies are the most popular. Famecount keeps track of brands, celebrities, media, sports, games, music and politicians on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. They'll give you rankings for each service by region and they also break down each category so you can come up with some pretty specific charts. On the "Facebook Stars" tab, I can break down the brand category to Auto, Food & Drink, Fashion, Restaurant, Retail and Technology. These charts will show me the total number of fans as well as fans per month, week and day:
I can also see most popular brands over all channels combined:
And trends of the fastest growing brands:
Famecount gets their data directly from the sources and you can read more about how their data is calculated here.