richardkong.com » Videos

Interviews with Photographers

Rich — Thu, 13 May 2010 04:39:33 +0000

Lately, I’ve made an effort to produce more video content for my library’s YouTube presence. Here are some video interviews with some of the top finishers from the recent teen photography contest. I shot each of these five videos in our Digital Media Lab against the chroma key wall (aka SPL’s green monster). It was a ton of fun meeting these students and hearing them talk about their interest in photography. I’m amazed at their talent and intelligence! Enjoy!

Skokie Madden Bowl II

Rich — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:29:16 +0000

Last year, my colleague and I started a new tradition of hosting a Madden tournament during the weekend before the Super Bowl. This past Saturday, we held the 2nd annual Skokie Madden Bowl and it turned out great! We had about 20 participants (though a couple had to leave early) competing for the top prize, which was a gift card to GameStop. There was some pretty serious competition, but everyone was also laughing and having a good time just hanging out. There was definitely a good vibe in the room. Read more about the event on our library blog and check out this video from the tournament:

Mashable Picks YouTube

Rich — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:44:45 +0000

I’ve had the opportunity to talk a lot about the Digital Media Lab to both patrons and professional colleagues in recent weeks. Whenever I start explaining why we created the space and the context in which we did so, I always find myself starting with incredible growth of YouTube and digital video. Even though the DML enables people to work with music, photos, podcasts, graphic design, and more, I’ve always seen digital video as the heart of the DML.

That’s why I was happy to see that Mashable, hands-down the best source for news and commentary on social media imho, recently picked YouTube as the top social media innovation of the decade. In the article explaining this choice, editor-in-chief Adam Ostrow writes:

In a decade that saw social media move from the fringes to the mainstream, YouTube is the innovation that touched the most lives, became a driving force for change around the world, and ultimately ends the decade with an opportunity to be as disruptive in the next 10 years as it was in the past four. That’s why YouTube is our choice for social media innovation of the decade.

It’ll definitely be interesting to see how YouTube changes over the next few years! Take a look at the Mashable article. It’s worth reading.

The Library Strikes Back

Rich — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:21:45 +0000

I created this short video for my library’s staff day. It was shown in our auditorium right before our director went up on stage to give her “State of the Library” address. The idea was to make my colleagues feel good about the awesome work they accomplished during this past year and have a little fun at the same time. I think it worked, but in hindsight, I would have added many more words of praise at the end!

Understanding YouTube

Rich — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:23:43 +0000

Recently, I gave a presentation on YouTube at mpow. It was a lot of fun and I even had the audience attempt to do the wave for a short video I uploaded. At the start of the class, only about a quarter of the attendees indicated an interest in both watching and sharing videos on YouTube. But everyone stuck around for the entire class and I’m hoping most of them left the class with a belief that they can upload a YouTube video very easily. Of course, I made sure to plug the new Digital Media Lab as well. There were a few “oohs” and “ahhs” when I told them about the overnight checkouts for the flip video cameras and the digital cameras!

Here are my slides and the wave video: