The Art of the Online Corporate Video

If you never saw the award-winning online video series about the renaissance of the IBM mainframe, “The Art of the Sale”…well, you just don’t know what you’re missing.

See, the mainframe is like a barn.  It’s where you bring all the ranchers and farmers and livestock together under one roof so you can run your latest payroll.

And it’s where the creative comedy genius behind it all, Tim Washer, can sometimes be found hiding out, out behind the big blue barn in Armonk trying not to get found out before he lays down some more hilarious corporate comedy tape and taken out to the barn for a lashing.

After the success of the “The Art of the Sale” series, Washer has gone on to produce some other creative and hilarious videos that help convey the opportunity presented to IBM in helping build a smarter, and yes, sometimes funnier, planet.

Here’s an example from IBM’s recent series, “Mad Science,” featuring none other than IBM Fellow and chief scientist for design automation, John Cohn, hot off his stint on the Discovery channel’s post-apocalpytic reality TV series “The Colony.”

In this episode, he and Tim go canoeing in search of John’s long lost wallet on Lake Champlain…in December…when it’s 27 degrees out…but not before John explains how IBM is helping facilitate smarter and cleaner water by using sensors to monitor water quality and conditions.  Take a peek:

Washer recently joined noted social media PR guru David Meerman Scott in a webinar presented by B2B marketing video enabler, VisibleGains.

In the series of video interviews, Meerman queries Washer how he was able to bring comedy into communications at IBM, still get across the strategic point about building a smarter planet, and not get fired and be demoted to staff writer for the now non-existent Conan O’Brien late show.

Why would IBM make fun of itself?  More importantly, why would IBM join the online menagerie of skateboarding bulldogs and subservient chickens?

Watch this series to laugh and learn.