“Bait your hook with empathy and reel them in.”

It is my belief that to deliver a message effectively, any presentation requires one key element. That element is empathy. Without it there is no meaningful connection between the audience and the presentation. The delivery medium doesn’t matter. What does matter is the immediate “I & You” connection (otherwise known as intersubjectivity). I’ve been preaching this a lot lately. As a producer of video, and multimedia, I feel very strongly about this.

Over the course of a day, and from all forms of modern media, we are swamped by an endless stream of messages. How many of these messages grab, motivate, or inspire us? Probably, only a very few do. Why are any successful? The answer is simple: in some way they create an empathic connection with us.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of “the hook.” It is how we grab a viewer’s attention and keep it. In my work, words, images and sounds, are the elements I use to “reach out and grab my audience.” If you Google “Capturing Hearts and Minds” you will quickly realize that it is highly overused cliché; however, it summarizes exactly what must be done. If you want to set your hook, you have to bait it with empathy to capture those illusive “hearts and minds.”

I learned about “the hook” concept back in my days as a commercial/spot editor. The ad agency copy writers agonized over what to say and show in :30 seconds that would grab a viewer’s attention. A frequent criticism was: “where’s the hook? I’m not feeling it!” If they didn’t “bait” their hook with empathy, making a connection with the viewer would be difficult. No connection meant extinction (and still does) via the remote control, a trip to the kitchen, or the most horrible put down of all, a trip to the bathroom. Today, on the internet, a simple mouse click happens…and you’re done.

I read in Fortune Small Business Magazine, Feb 08: “Experts say about 35% of the message in a conversation is conveyed with speech, while 65% comes from facial expression and body language.” Within a video, this combination, along with careful art direction, can create a powerful visual experience for the viewer. Obvious? Yes! Yet think about how much “blah blah” we are subjected to that doesn’t even come close to delivering its message? No connection, no buy in, no result. A lot of money, and effort, can be wasted if empathy isn’t created and leveraged.

In the rush to create copy, produce the video and then post it, broadcast it, or show it, the importance of the “I & you” relationship may be overlooked. The subtle combination of words, images and music can be leveraged to create a powerful empathic connection between your message and your audience. It takes a little planning, and forethought, but it can be the difference between a video that works or one that is simply more noise to the viewer’s already overloaded senses.

May 2009 marked a significant milestone in my career. It marked my 30th anniversary in the television industry. Thirty years later, it is an industry that is just as dynamic today as it was in 1979. That was the year I got my start; it was when I got my internship with Cross Country Cable of Somerset, NJ. That summer, as far as I was concerned, I was on my way.

Cable was new, the opportunities were exciting, and it was my first real hands on experience outside of the college classroom. Along with my fellow interns, I got to do everything. It was primitive, it was gritty, but darn it we were producing local access programming and we were proud of it. Just imagine, they had cameras and a real JVC editing system. Wow! We produced everything from cooking shows to news programs. Flying by the seat of our pants we wrote, directed, lit, shot and edited our shows. The cable company had air time to fill, and they were willing to let us run with just about any idea we had. The possibilities were endless.

Now, thirty years later, I still see endless possibilities for video. “Video Killed the Radio Star,” but nothing has come along to kill video. When the web was in its infancy, many video professionals saw it as a serious threat. In a sense it was. Budgets were slashed and dollars were redirected to web development. There was a mad rush to the web. Everyone had to establish a web presence right away.

As a new technology, the web held all the glamour that fire held for cavemen. It was downright fascinating. It still is. From a cultural standpoint, it is as addicting as television was for our parents. Like the universe, but created by man, the web is endless. The web is a vacuum to be filled with content. And, like cable in the late 70’s, there is a mad rush to fill it. But what are we filling it with?

Now that everyone has established their web presence, the process of creating stimulating content is the real challenge. The goal? Get the viewer, engage the viewer, and keep them there long enough to digest your message. I once read this about television advertising: “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.” I think the same can be said of web sites.

The web is evolving. Interestingly, it is evolving to include the “Cool Fire.” Written in 1977 by Bob Shanks, the book “Cool Fire” referred to television as a cool fire. A medium that is irresistible. A medium that can attract people like moths to a flame. And now, with bandwidth that was unimaginable 10 years ago, streaming speeds that can accommodate Hi-Definition video media, video has come of age on the web. There isn’t a web site that can’t benefit from the inclusion of a video that can captivate, inform and entertain the viewer. For the most part, we now say "video" rather than television. Call it what you will, I still believe that the possibilities are endless.