Acronym

Freedom From Smoking® public service announcements featuring Carol Burnett - American Lung Association of California

In May, 72% of Web users in the U.S. connected at home via broadband, compared to 57% during the same period last year, according to research firm Nielsen/NetRatings. The increasing use of broadband has, in part, allowed the video explosion we've all seen on the Web recently. And maybe it's time to rethink the role of video in the association world.

We've all seen the anniversary video, the history video, the volunteer thank-you video, the trade-show highlights video, the year-in-review video. But what could we provide online in short video segments that could teach our members new things? Something where telling is just not effective as showing.

So I went in search of what associations are using video online and what they are featuring. I started with a Google Video search. Interestingly, most of the examples of association videos are used as examples on the Web sites of the companies who produced them, but are nowhere to be seen on the association's Web site. (Which begs the question to me, how many videos are sitting gathering dust on some bookshelf right now that we could all have posted on our Web site?)

But some did provide video examples we could all learn from:

- The United States Golf Association has educational videos online on turf management (and I don't even play golf but when I see the dead grass in the video I understand why aerating is so important now)
- The American Pyrotechnics Association shows members how to set up safe fireworks displays on floating barges (This is actually housed on the OSHA site.)
- The American Lung Association of California has video PSAs available online (in English and in Spanish)

I'm not advocating video for video's sake. If I'm going to try a new recipe at home, all I need are the ingredients and the instructions. But if I want to learn how to dice an onion like a professional chef to use in that recipe, it's a bit harder to learn by written instructions.

Sometimes showing is much better than telling.