We should all realize that our digital community is a little more like the small town life filled with nosy neighbors, than an anonymous big city. Privacy is something we should all take seriously and only share what we’re entirely comfortable with everyone in Mayberry knowing — even Aunt Bea.

Here are a couple tools that can help you understand what is public about you or anyone else on the Facebook.

YourOpenBook.org

zesty.ca/facebook/

Here’s a tool that may actually help you stay a little more private.

ReclaimPrivacy.org

The truth is that Facebook is constantly changing how they address privacy. And because advertisers are Facebook’s customers and not you, Facebook is unlikely to hold your privacy more dear than ad revenue.

To paraphrase what a South Carolina State trooper once said to a smart-asssed New Yorker friend “when on Facebook, you act like you Moma is looking over your shoulder all the time.”

And one more thing; it doesn’t hurt to Google yourself every now and then too. You never know what you might find.

The advances in technology have made this problem worse. We used to shoot most things with film which required a separate audio system and professionals. Now with everything going digital and budgets under attack, some people are questioning why we need to spend all this money on sound when the camera records it already.

With this background, I present the 10 most troublesome myths about production sound:

You don’t need a dedicated sound department: Yes I said department. Even on a small shoot, there needs to be someone responsible only for getting great sound. If they’re worried about the camera and lights, odds are they will miss something.

Picture is more important than sound: Ever see a good movie with bad sound? Ever see a low budget indie movie with not so great camera work but was moving thanks to a killer soundtrack and dialog? Or how about a television commercial that was all type and sound but no moving pictures?

Cameras are a great way to capture sound: Very few cameras actually capture sound at the same quality a professional location recorder can. And none of them are manned by a dedicated sound professional that will be able monitor and control the input for best results.

Lavaliers (or any other type) are the best microphone: There are lots and lots of different types of microphones created for different purposes and environments. They all have their pluses and minuses. Lavs for example are great at isolating voices and are almost always better for wide shots. But they’re also susceptible to interference, rustling, and don’t do a good job with environmental sound.

It’s better to scrimp on sound than anything else:  Good audio is going to cost you. But not nearly as much as your camera department or talent. May as well save money on something like lunch, maybe hotels or how about that masseuse the producer wanted.

You can easily fix spoiled audio in post:  If you have enough money you can do just about anything in post. Just ask George Lucas. Big budget movies use a lot of ADR. But reconstructing audio in post is no easy task and it requires reassembling your cast, potentially weeks later, for a costly audio session at another location while trying to match the same energy captured on screen. Good luck and please don’t send me the bill.

What a location looks like is more important than how it sounds: This is only true if you are not shooting sync sound. If you are shooting sync sound, the way a place sounds if far more important than what it looks like. Sorry art directors.

A PA can do it: A PA probably shouldn’t even be holding the boom. If a PA can actually do it well while following the dialog, she probably deserves a promotion.

Shotgun microphones are for capturing sound from across rooms or are supposed to be attached to camera: They’re designed to be on a boom or stand, and usually just above the talent. Period. No matter how sensitive, a poorly placed microphone can sound perfectly awful.

You can easily enhance an actors voice or a thin recording in post: Yes there are post production tricks to make someone sound different. But if the recording is weak it will only get weaker the more affects are applied to it. Think of it like making a photo copy and then making a photo copy of the photo copy. The more times you repeat the process the fuzzier the image becomes.

No, it’s not Bing.

Yahoo? Nah.

It’s YouTube. Yeah, really.

Did you know that almost half of search results yeild video thumbnails? And as you might guess, those thumbnails tend to get clicked on.

Is it time to get serious about video? You bet.

With the explosive growth in tablets in the last year it’s safe to say it finally, truly was the year of mobile.

Transitioning to video business this year and creating a start-up video business in September, I can also say that online video is truly on the minds of everyone in the marketing, interactive and advertising businesses. Creating video content for audiences now interacting more often on less work related devices that are more suited for video content, I believe will fuel more growth in video next year.

Internet TV has received a fair amount of buzz this year. GoogleTV has popped up on lots of new devices and Netflix has had some major success and failures. I think IPTV is definitely the wave of the future as it is in phone technology. We should see continued growth here.

QR codes of course have also been all over the place this year. Here’s to hoping they get more thoughtful next year.

Location based apps have become ubiquitous — well, for anyone owning a smart phone. I have to say folks, I’m about sick of seeing you check into work, lunch, and then work again.

Probably the best part of the year has been that people are starting to understand social a little better. Fewer blank stares in meetings and also less reliance on the guru types. Social is also no longer the thing for the intern “cause they’re young and they understand that stuff.”

I haven’t seen any overall statistics for the year yet but just from what I’m hearing and seeing is a lot of pain in the small to mid-sized ad agencies while the larger ones doing better this year. But not nearly as well as the larger interactive shops. This is also a trend I think will continue until traditional small ad agencies find a way to make themselves relevant again or the economy shifts dramatically.

2011 has truly been a mixed bag — lots of cool tech but stagnate growth. Here’s to 2012 being a little more positive on the growth side.

I’ve written a lot here about the rapid change in technology our industry is experiencing right now. I’ve also written a lot about how smaller to midsized advertising agencies are finding it hard to staff with enough talented people. And how marketing departments struggle just to keep up with their workload in their downsized departments. Everyone is stressed these days just to keep up with the work while business leaders are looking for strategies to stay profitable in the new economy.

Fortunately social technology has enabled new ways of working, connecting, and collaborating that, when leveraged correctly, can have real benefits to the cost and effectiveness of providing services to clients. How so?

One example is Basecamp that enables project management and collaboration with no regard for proximity or even brick and mortar. The cloud has freed us from the need for large and narrowly structured organizations to complete complex projects.

This means my business and even a group of freelancers can function within your project just as if we’re an integrated part or your organization. Suddenly, collaboration isn’t pain in the butt for a project manager but a chance to bring in expertise and fresh thinking from anywhere on the globe.

It also allows business to add expertise and services without having to take on the significant costs of moving to a bigger space and hiring more people. Because collaboration is so much easier these days, my business can integrate with your business in the cloud on a project by project basis. Imagine the flexibility and the cost advantages you suddenly have.

Collaboration make you competitive. It can turn men into giants. And give small businesses the reach of mega corporations. Now each project you touch can be so much more effective and drive more ROI. Truly, collaboration is the new competition. How will you use collaboration to become more effective?

What’s a marketer, an agency, or a content producer do? Discuss maximizing the production before the cameras roll or even the script is finished. A small investment in a longer shoot day or an extra shoot day can yield a campaign that works on four screens instead of one. On a television, YouTube, iPad, mobile device. One that works on a homepage and not just as a 30 second spot.

Making great content for an iPad isn’t just encoding an mp4 of your TV spot. Consideration should be given to the media in the creative process.

Things to keep in mind:

Wide shots feel epic on a 50 inch plasma but just small on a mobile screen. Get lots of footage at various focal lengths and consider using multiple cameras to maximize your production time.

You often have longer to tell a story online, so make sure you get longer takes and give your actors time to breathe. It’s often more convincing in the end too.

Your brand’s engagement most likely isn’t an interruption if it’s on YouTube or your home page. Treat your audience with respect and make sure the content is actually entertaining.

The online environment has so many different platforms it can confuse even the oldest hats. Make sure you work with people who know a codec for a file container.

But what does it really mean to those in the creative industry facing more and more challenging budgets, timelines and clients? Does this mean everything can now be shot on a Canon Digital Rebel in your brother-in-law’s basement? Not even close.

What it does mean is in the hands of a professional director of photography, with solid crew and on the right project, amazing results can be achieved from a camera system that costs less than your house. It also means that your workflow can be quicker and more responsive. Saving you time and adding creative freedom for your team.

10 years ago it was popular to shoot reversal film and process it for negative. Five years ago it was popular to shoot tungsten film outside and then desaturate it in transfer. Film stocks gave us an extra tool to express our creativity. Now this new wave of digital cameras is giving us a similar toolbox but this time with cameras that have different strengths and weaknesses.

Here’s my oversimplified cheat sheet:

DSLRs are like 16mm was, nimble less expensive to produce with. But they are not the pinnacle of image quality. Right now, compression is still an issue for some applications.

Panasonic AF100 is like shooting super 16, many people won’t be able to tell the difference between it’s image and 35 mm film but it’s smaller sensor size means less options for lenses, greater depth of field, and its compression, thus image quality, isn’t as good as the big guns.

Arri Alexa is like shooting a 35mm negative, it preserves the most highlights, giving you amazing image quality on par with 35 mm film.

Red Epic 5k is like shooting super 35. This camera provides a larger image that give even greater room for cropping, plus Red Raw preserves more color information and latitude for manipulation in post.

These are just a few of the more popular cameras often discussed with commercial shooters. When your bidding your next job, ask the director why they want to use a particular camera over another. It’s not just a budgeting choice, it’s a creative one too.

Like when Gale Tattersall chose to shoot House with Canon DSLRs because it was the best way to shoot in confined spaces. He then worked within the systems limitations to achieve great television.

Or maybe if you’re shooting on a set, you don’t need the same depth of field so the workflow of the AF100 could save you money to use in post or the art department.

Unfortunately this is often the world where the best talent operates. One where the client is stuck in video village, isolated from the process by a 200-foot video cable, multiple layers of producers and an elitist attitude.

For those that have been trying to ignore the stock market, whose pagers keep buzzing with calls to work as 4th assistant to the assistant on a beer commercial, it’s time to wake up. Clients don’t need to put up with the old model anymore. I suggest you stop making fun of the kid with the 7D and consider buying one yourself.

Thirty years ago we were here in print technology. Every major city had specialized type houses, photo labs, and pre-press shops. There were teams of people who perfected the building and delivery of print ads to newspapers and magazine ads. They were staffed by talented professionals with a high degree of skill. Most of these places don’t exist anymore.

Today we have digital presses and software that enables one person to do it all on the same desktop. But we also have digital cameras that shoot cinematic images at native 800 ISO and products like Adobe CS Production, Apple FCP Suite, and Autodesk Smoke that can potentially complete post production from a single desktop.

This means leaner and meaner crews, no film developing and transfers, and a more integrated production process. It also means that it’s feasible for a single organization to possess the ability to script, produce, direct and complete post production without being a massively expensive company to operate and hire. This is where Fluid Films comes in. Welcome to the future.

This is probably one of the more shocking numbers on the rise of video on the Web but maybe not the only one that will amaze you:

Did you know that Netflix accounts for 30% of internet traffic.

Or that iPad users watch three times more video?

Or that video traffic will exceed 50% of mobile traffic this year?

I don’t need to flog the newspapers. We know that printed word has lost its dominance. Video content has established itself as the primary form of mass communication. And web distribution is quickly becoming the best way to reach diverse audiences on their own terms. And as connected devices including tablets, smartphones and set top boxes become more important that computer desktops, Web video will not only be important but essential to a brand’s success.

Your audience no longer just has a lean in, “interactive”, work relationship with the web. Today it’s also social, relaxed, playful and fluid. It goes where she goes. And you have to too. That’s where Fluid Films comes in.

I also believed in what I was doing. It was the right thing for the clients.

This passion birthed a business plan. One that I feel very strongly about and that I had hoped to execute with my former employer. But that didn’t happen.

When others don’t act you can sit around and complain or you can harness your passion, work with others that feel the same way, and do something creative. The world today is a tough place but it’s up to creative people to make the most of it and create opportunity for us and others.

So today, my business partner, Jason Gorbett and I are officially announcing the founding of Fluid Films. Over the next several days, I’ll be sharing our vision for a transmedia company and how what we’re doing is the right thing for companies and institutions. Please stay tuned.