Staunton Media Lab News

Staunton Media Lab Fails at ICAP
They say entrepreneurs should fail fast, and so the Staunton Media Lab has lived up to this legend by failing the Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program (ICAP) offered by the Virginia Small Business Development Center (SBDC). ICAP is boot camp for taking innovative solutions to the venture capital stage. Staunton Media Lab failed to secure the minumum 20 interviews required, but that did not stop us from benefitting from the program, the instructors, the textbooks, and the many interviews we did conduct with heavy users of multimedia.
Staunton Media Lab = Content Conversion
While we failed the ICAP startup bootcamp, Staunton Media Lab learned enough from customer and prospect interviews to approach content generation from a whole different angle. What we found was that marketers want clever video to attract, connect and convert, but experience shows it's difficult and expensive to get something that actually works. What if you could take all the content you already have lying around, like emails and blog posts and reports and spreadsheets and slideshows and recordings, wave the magic wand, and turn it into clever little branded content nuggets? That's the new Staunton Media Lab!
We're Excited to Give You an Estimate
What would it would cost to generate a steady stream of clever content nuggets -- daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly -- optimized for the channels you use, aligned with your audience and your brand, served in simple branded frames that keep the choices and costs to a minimum? We make videos from text, slideshows from articles, books from blog posts -- in other words, what you need from what you got. Let us start converting content and prospects for you!
Two Breakthroughs in Assistive Tech
Staunton Media Lab executive director, Steve O'Keefe, was the guest speaker at the Work/Study Breakfast at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind (VSDB) on May 10th, where he demonstrated two significant new assistive technology tools.
Velcroing a phone to his vest, O'Keefe was able to project his talk to the hard of hearing and deaf using Google LiveTranscribe. The app was released in a beta version three months ago and is available only for Android smartphones at this time.
O'Keefe worked with graduating senior, Jonell Floyd, to improve Jonell’s writing abilities. After months of effort, with the assistance of VSDB staff Sharon Ernest, Lisa Walters, Ann Christian, and Daniel Martin, Jonell was able to use Google Docs Voice Typing to increase his writing speed from roughly seven WPM to roughly 70 WPM, which is faster than most people type.
Jonell demonstrated the difference in a live performance, writing sentence after sentence, properly punctuated and capitalized, using Google Docs Voice Typing. While voice typing has been available for some time, the new Google transcription engine was upgraded six months ago and is nearly flawless.
Both Google Live Transcribe and Google Docs Voice Typing are free. For best results with Google Docs Voice Typing, use a USB headset microphone and sit up straight!
Staunton Media Lab News is published quarterly by the Staunton Media Lab, a media arts program for the deaf, the blind and the uniquely able. Thank you for taking an interest in our program and for your continued support!