This has been a challenging year to say the least but we pushed through it together and found ways to stay safe while still staying connected. We met some of your kids, cats and dogs. We had coffee together while in the comfort of a zoom meeting. We laughed at the virtual backgrounds, the PJ's, the social media memes but we also shared some pretty serious moments during some pretty scary times.
We recently completed virtual event design, planning, pre-production and live-stream production for Access for All 2020. Structured with a mix of live and asynchronous activities across 2 weeks in October, AfA2020 was a virtual conference dedicated to using plain language to break down barriers in society, improve the criminal justice system, protect the rights of vulnerable populations and affect the outcome of COVID-19.
Access for All is a nonprofit working to improve people's access to information and services with plain language.
As July comes to an end and we enter into the last month of summer, we wanted to reflect on some things the MM Team has been doing to stay busy during the pandemic. We hope everyone is staying healthy, both mentally and physically. Hang in there! We got this!
We recently produced a Facebook live event for the Lansing School District where they virtually announced and presented their plan for reopening in the Fall.
MessageMakers Video Producer and Director of Photography, Rob Sumbler, recently got back from a two week shoot in Montana with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). He was there highlighting different programs within the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) that the NRCS does in order to help landowners make improvements to their land in the name of conservation.
Fatma Alsaif, MessageMakers Video Editing Intern, plans to go back home to Saudi Arabia on August 9th, 2020, to be with her family. She's very close with both her immediate family and cousins and she is very excited to go back home! Fatma has been living in the United States for seven years now and tries to go home at least once every year and a half.
We can't believe how fast May is flying by. Here's a quick look into what the #MMTeam has been up to these past few weeks...
Kiwi, our office cat, is participating in Zoom meetings as well!
We wrapped up the Be Counted Michigan Census Town Hall virtual meetings and they went super well.
Two of our MM video editing interns, Andrew Acciaioli and Fatma Alsaif, worked on a documentary last year that recently won a Student Production Award from the NATAS Michigan Chapter!
The documentary is called "What Happened to Henry?" and tells the story of Henry Baltimore, the first African American drum major in Michigan State Spartan Marching Band, who disappeared in 1973 and hasn't been found since.
Let's take a look at last week's MessageMakers highlights!
First, a quick message from our COO, Tina Miller.
"Thank you to everyone for the work that you do throughout the week from home. I understand that it is challenging sometimes. You have your kids, grandkids and animals waiting for you to be done with work.
This past Thursday, we hosted our second free webinar called Slides and Supporting Visuals for Live Streaming Video. If you missed it, watch the replay here!
This time is all about thinking outside of the box and maybe even getting a little bit out of your comfort zone when it comes to your professional life.
"Great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people." - Steve Jobs
During these weeks working from home, we are focusing on staying connected and the importance of team work. We wanted to highlight some of our team's accomplishments over the past week to encourage others to spread positivity and share how they've been modifying their services and community outreach during this time of uncertainty.
