Podcasting

Friday, February 29, 2008

Brian Solis on Social Media Release

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The February “Cafe2Go,” IABC’s monthly podcast, is up, featuring an interview I conducted with Brian Solis about the Social Media Release. Brian is an original member of the Social Media Release working group. He was selected for this interview because IABC members—communicators—are the audience for Cafe2Go, and Brian’s background is in communication. Among the members of the working group, he (and Todd Defren) represents the people who will be crafting such releases.

You may be wondering why we’re talking about the Social Media Release on Cafe2Go. The short answer: IABC is assuming a role in the development of SMR standards. An official announcement is slated for mid-week next week that will go into more detail.

The podcast kicks off with the usual discussion between Julie Freeman, IABC’s staff president, and Todd Hattori, the 2007-08 chair. This time around, they’re talking about accreditation; a survey reveals that members do, for the most part, find real value in getting accredited. It’s an interesting talk, but if you want to skip right to the SMR part of the show, it’s at around the 18:18 mark.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Get the FIR widget!

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I found a new service called Sprout that allows you to build a widget that plays multimedia, among a lot of other things. It’s remarkably easy to use, as I found out when I managed to get into the beta. It took about 10 minutes to build this widget, which plays the most current episode of FIR. As each episode is posted, I’ll just go into the widget builder and update the media link so it always plays the most recent episode. Just copy the embed code (click “share") and visitors to your site or blog can listen to FIR directly from your page. Pretty cool, huh?

Monday, January 28, 2008

Interviewed with Doug Haslam

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Doug Haslam of Topaz Partners and I were interviewed last week for a BuzzMarketing podcast that will be available from MarketingProfs, but you can listen from here right now.

Friday, January 04, 2008

FIR Contest: Win a copy of our podcast book

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It’s taken three years, but we’re finally running a contest on FIR. Contests on podcasts aren’t unusual. Todd Cochrane runs them routinely on Geek News Central, offering gadgets companies send him to review. Grammar Girl Heather Gorringe regularly gives away books. Neville and I have talked for some time about possibly running a contest, but just never got around to it.

We recorded our 300th episode late in December, and episode #307—recorded yesterday—marked the three-year anniversary of the show. These struck us as fairly significant milestones, which we chose to mark with a contest. The prize is a copy of our book, “How to Do Everything with Podcasting.” Three copies are up for grabs—one for a listener in North America, one in Europe, and one from a listener someplace else in the world (Australia, China, South America...anywhere).

We announced the contest on yesterday’s show. The entry requirements are simple: In 400 words or less, complete this sentence: ”I think a podcast will help my organization/my client because...”

The contest is being judged by all the regular FIR correspondents: Sallie Goetsch, Lee Hopkins, Dan York, David Phillips and Eric Schwartzman (and Neville and me, of course). Be sure to read the full post for details and rules.

Friday, December 28, 2007

It’s okay to pay…and charge

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Despite the fact that many engaged in the social media space want to make money, howls of protest erupt when anyone suggests charging for anything. There is an expectation that anything and everything offered through these channels should be free.

Free is good; I like free. By the same token, I don’t mind paying for something if I get value in return. More to the point, however, the act of paying for something conveys a certain amount of seriousness. Paying actually makes people more responsible.

The recent Podcamp Boston is a great example. Organizers of the free event (as all casecamps and podcamps are) were understandably excited as registrations surged past the 1,000 mark. Accommodations were required for such a large group, primarily a new locale. In the end, though, far fewer than the 1,000-plus actually showed up. When you haven’t invested anything, it’s easy to wake up, look outside, and think, “It’s far too nice a day to spend it inside. I’m going to blow off Podcamp Boston.”

If a nominal fee had been charged for the event—say, $35 or $50—several people might not have registered, but undoubtedly the vast majority of those who did would have shown up. The act of making the investment locks in commitment.

In the early days of social media, it was easy to offer free events because only the core faithful attended. As social media gains widespread acceptance, it intrigues a bigger audience. That’s how you wind up with several hundred people shrugging off the fact that they had registered.

As podcamps and casecamps continue to attract greater interest, organizers might save themselves a lot of grief by assessing the fee in order to ensure attendance from those who say they’ll attend. If nothing else, it’ll make estimating the actual attendance a helluva lot easier.

Another example is the Association of Podcasters & Online Media Producers. This group was proposed by Podango‘s Scott Bourne and a few others who were chagrined that the Association for Downloadable Media (ADM) was going to charge for membership (among other issues). In a blog post this past July, Bourne wrote:

We’re not forming this association because we have any ill will towards the ADM. But we do believe there is room for another association, i.e., one that represents podcasters, even if they don’t have $150 laying around to contribute.

The ADM has since held elections and has launched several initiatives. Conversely, I can’t find any reference to the Association of Podcasters & Online Media Producers having coalesced into a viable organization at all.

Personally, I don’t buy the notion of $150 being out of the reach of most podcasters. Let’s be realistic: $150 represents eight or nine pizzas, less than you’d spend on a new suit to look good at a job interview. The real question is this: How much is it worth to you to have a strong organization representing you and providing you with the resources that will help you succeed? If I joined both organizations, I’d be far more inclined to spend my time with the group where my money is invested.

That’s why I ponied up my dues every year for membership in the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC): What I get out of it is based on what I put into it, both energy and money. (The only reason I stopped is that I joined IABC’s 500 Club, a one-time outlay of $1,000 in exchange for lifetime membership.)

In any case, I’m sure the reason the ADM is clipping so nicely along is due in part to its leaders understanding that its members expect a return on their investment. They are serving customers, which leads to action.

Not every effort to charge succeeds. Charging for online newspaper content has been a losing proposition, for the most part. But some things are just worth paying for...or charging for.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

“Stop Blocking” covered on “The Rundown”

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I completely forgot to blog this—I meant to—but Luke Armour interviewed me on his BlogTalkRadio show, ”The Rundown,” earlier this month. The subject was Stop Blocking, the wannabe grassroots campaign I started out of frustration over the kneejerk company action of blocking employee access to online content.

In case you haven’t heard a BlogTalk Radio show before, it’s essentially a radio call-in-like experience, with audiences listening live online and calling in through a phone line. The entire session is recorded and made available as a download and as a podcast (through subscription to the series). There were a few call-ins that spiced up the session, and Luke‘s a solid interviewer.

I was also impressed with BTR’s functionality. It would be a kick for Neville and me to record an occasional episode of FIR this way, much as we’ve done with our two SkypeCast efforts (which produced quesitonable results).

This post is cross-posted to the StopBlocking.org blog

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

FIR Interview with Microsoft’s Paolo Tosolini on Academy Mobile: Dec 4, 2007

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In July 2007, Microsoft introduced Academy Mobile, an internal social computing initiative aimed at creating a knowledge sharing environment among employees through the use of videocasts and podcasts.

Academy Mobile is the latest in a series of online learning initiatives developed within the Enterprise Partner Group at Microsoft where employees can create, watch, listen and share videocasts or podcasts with peers; subscribe to specific search queries, presenters or tags; and download content onto their mobile devices.

In this FIR Interview, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz talked with Paolo Tosolini, New Media Business Manager at Microsoft, about Academy Mobile including discussion on its objectives, how the programme was developed, aspects about the platform on which it runs, and communication and organizational challenges in rolling out such a programme globally.

About our Conversation Partner

Paolo Tosolini is a New Media Business Manager at Microsoft responsible for a new internal corporate initiative called Academy Mobile (description and video). Funded by the Microsoft Enterprise & Partner Group, Academy Mobile is a social media platform available to all Microsoft employees to share knowledge and best practices using podcasts.

Prior to this role, Paolo worked in several other groups at Microsoft, including MSN and Office, where he managed the Office 2007 partner early adoption program that resulted in more than 500 partner solutions developed at launch.

Paolo is also co-author with his wife Francesca of a blog, podcast and e-Book called Italy From The Inside, where they share travel and cultural tips about Italy using new media.

Download the 34-minute conversation here (MP3, 15.8MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

If you have comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, email us at fircomments@gmail.com; or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America) or +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe); or Skype: fircomments; or comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR; or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.