Tomorrow, Ton and I will host a group of 40 people in our home for a birthday unconference to celebrate Ton’s 40th. The theme Ton chose is “Working on stuff that matters.”
It’s a theme that we both discussed for a longer time now. We feel the deep need to work on projects that have a positive impact on society at large. At the same time we realize that the two of us can’t change the world and that we need to focus on the small steps we can take on things that are important to us.
For me, it’s an ongoing quest to discover what I’m passionate about, matters to me and, more importantly, matters to others as well so they’re willing to pay me for doing the work. One of the outcomes of my own birthday workshop in 2008, is that I rediscovered my passion for video. This is the video that I created back then:
Elmine’s Birthday Unconference from Elmine Wijnia on Vimeo.
Over the past year and a half, I’ve been developing my interviewing and editing skills and I even created a documentary on a topic that fascinates me.
So far my video work is mostly about my passion and working on things that matter to me: uncovering and showing people’s stories and stitching stories into a bigger narrative.
Now it’s time to turn it upside down and see how I can align what matters to me with what matters to you.
How to get totally energized…
…or how to work your ass off?
Answer:
State to an organizer of an event that you’re willing to record and produce movies during that 5-day event and get the job.
Last week my municipality held an Open Innovation Festival in Enschede. It was held previously in Amsterdam and one person in particular thought it was such a good idea that she wanted to organize such a festival herself, for her local colleagues. And she pulled it off!
All speakers, both from the area and the rest of NL, gave a talk or a workshop for free. The theme was Social Media and Work 2.0 and thus filming there was the perfect job for me (and no, offering a full week’s work for free was a bit too much, I got paid).
It was highly energizing to engage with people locally on themes I’ve been engaged in globally. Even though I know lots and lots about Social Media, it’s still inspiring hearing others say the things I could have said in a different way, using different examples.
It was highly exhausting at the same time, since last week I’ve been amazingly productive:
- I’ve been working for 5 days in a row from 9:00 am – 0:00 pm, with 3/4 hours of intense editing just before sleep;
- I spent 29 hours filming (appr. 8 hours on tape);
- I spent 28 hours editing;
- I produced a daily clip for five days in a row;
- I produced two summarizing clips yesterday;
- I produced two summarizing clips today;
- I have at least 4 light-edit clips still on the list to upload this week.
I loved doing it, even though there were moments during the week when I felt like doing nothing at all. Such a beginning to edit on Monday night, not sure whether I could create something nice. Or Wednesday afternoon, feeling knackered already and knowing that I would have at least another 3 late nights in a row. And what to think of everyone stating on Friday afternoon, after the closing-session and (alcoholic) drinks, glad to be done, and I still had a movie to produce.
Yet, I did it, I’m still alive and still energized
Below is the first of all the movies I created. Take a look at the rest of them in the Festival Channel (I warn you though, it’s all in Dutch
).