Podonomics

I haven’t visited Bill Sweetman’s blog in a few weeks, so I was pleased when he forwarded me a link to a post he wrote about podcasting being the new plastic.

Bill writes that if you’re podcasting and you’re skilled at it, you’ll be in hot demand for the next few months. In particular, he writes:

The signs are all there; we are at the beginning of a podcasting boom, and anyone with demonstrated experience in this area is going to be in high demand over the next 12-24 months.

I agree 100%. My business is growing and I’m already having a hard time finding people to help me with the workload. I need Media Producers, Interviewers, Graphic Designers, and anyone who can learn audio production techniques really quickly.

Now, there’s no shortage of talent out there. I mean, if you have a computer and a fast Internet connection, you can hire out your voice, your recording studio or audio editing skills for a small fee. Many people are starting to understand that you can transfer your existing skills and make a few extra bucks in podcasting just by hiring yourself out.

However, the skilled labour shortage in the podcasting field will continue because too many who understand how to do it focus on the features. What do I mean? Here’s just a few (and the responses I sometimes hear):

“You don’t need an iPod to listen to a podcast.” (what’s an iPod?)

“It’s like internet radio, but it’s syndicated.” (who cares? I don’t listen to the radio anyways.)

“It’s like on-demand content.” (so’s TIVO.)

While at Podcamp, I met many smart people who are podcasting for fun and for profit. However, it became clear to me why some are making money helping others podcasts and why others sit back and are envious at those who are making money helping others podcast.

It comes down to how well you can sell yourself.

These same individuals, who are really great at putting a podcast together, are way too wrapped up in the technical wizardy of the latest perl script or XML hack. Instead, you need to tell people why they should even be bothered with podcasting in the first place.

For example, if I go to a furniture store and I’m looking at a black chair, the salesperson will lose the sale if he tells me that the chair is…well…black. Instead, he should tell me that:

• The chair will be a breeze to clean because scuff marks won’t show.
• The plushness of the chair is made from a hypo-allergenic material that keeps dust out.
• The chair is so soft it’ll put me to sleep in a matter of seconds.

Get it? Answer the prospect’s question, “What’s in it for me?” and you’ll get a ton of sales. Then they’ll no longer be a shortage.

And if you find that you still “geek out” whenever you talk about podcasting, find someone who you think sells well, partner with them and you just take care of the production angles as he or she keeps the projects rolling in.

This is such a no-brainer.

Technorati: podcasting

Just a quick note that I’m approving all comments for the next few hours as I’ve been getting some spam. I deleted a bunch this morning, attended a couple of meetings, then when I returned to my computer, the same person posted the same messages again.

If any of you can point me to a Wordpress plug-in that I can install to help manage spam comments, do let me know. As soon as I install it, I’ll turn off the moderation so you can freely dialogue with each other sans my intervention.

Dave & Terry over at InsidePR.ca are just absolutely witty. Sort of like Frasier-funny, but without all the big words and complicated sentence structures.

You know who else should be podcasting? Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard and Stephen LeDrew, former President of the federal Liberal Party. These 2 firecrackers are on opposite sides of the political spectrum and their varying opinions about the Canadian political landscape is just a hoot to watch.

They’re typically on Global National on Sundays, but their airtime is very limited. For a paltry 2-minutes, these 2 chaps go at it - in a sophisticated way - and argue their political slant on a national issue. And after the blowout is over, they smile and say goodnight to each other in an ever so polite way. How beautifully Canadian.

I would love to see Ezra and Stephen extend their debate into a weekly 30-minute podcast. I’m so eager to see this happen, I’ll even help to get them started.

I promise, these 2 together on a podcast would be the best podcast ever. Shall we see these 2 men battle it out every week in a podcast? Time will only tell.
Technorati: podcasting, ezra levant. stephen ledrew

Gotta love Sean Moffitt, Canada’s Word of Mouth Expert, especially if you make it into his good books.

Not only did he select Podonomics as one of his Top 20 Canadian Word of Mouth blogs last month, but he just expanded his list and selected The Power 50: Canada’s 50 Brilliantly Crazy & Enlightened Marketing / Media Bloggers, of which Podonomics made that list.

Some notable additions:

• One of my oldest pals, Dave Forde (who’s never afraid to tell me like it is), made the list with his blog, Profectio
• A few blogs in French, which is nice to see since I’m pretty clueless when it comes to french blogosphere
• Amber Mac, who’s lighting it up with her video podcasts and with her new gig over at City-TV
• The ever so humble (and way too smart) Tod Maffin for giving us an inside look at CBC, the state sponsored broadcaster
• Donna Papacosta, who’s one of the savviest communicators out there and a woman I’ve had the pleasure to interact with online (we’ll meet in person very soon Donna)

Check out the rest of the list compiled by Canada’s Word of Mouth expert. Do you agree with his list? Any others you would add? What could I improve here at Podonomics so I can make even more lists?

And yes Sean, please add your blog to the list.

Technorati: blogging, Blogs, canada, sean moffitt, word of mouth, eli singer, canadian bloggers, marketing

Here’s something I’m realizing. Most people still have no clue how to subscribe to a podcast. And looking at my site statistics (and those of my clients), more people will play the episode right off the podpage, rather than subscribe to it. On average, this rate is 3:1.

So, I made some changes to one of my clients’ podpage and noticed that the number of subscribers nearly doubled. So, here’s how to double your subscribers in 30-days.

1. Offer a player on your podpage. Don’t let the listener download the MP3 to their computer. That’s way too frustrating. Let the errant listener sample your podcast by clicking an arrow and hearing your well produced podcast blast through their speakers.
2. Always provide instructions in your podcast on how to subscribe. Thank those who are already subscribed, then sell the benefits of subscribing to the 66% of people who are listening to your podcast via the player on your podpage.
3. Add a page to your blog with step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe. I typically use iTunes as the player that listeners should download and use to subscribe to my feed. So, I wrote up some instructions, created a separate page and then linked to that page from the bottom of every post.
4. End each post encouraging people to subscribe. Bryan Person does this nicely on his blog and I copied this style for my client’s podpage. A short blurb should follow your show notes in a different font (use the blockquote tag) that tells people how to subscribe.
5. Remove the “Subscribe to Feed” or “Download Now” options on your podpage. These make no sense. No one wants to download a clunky MP3 file to their computer, nor do they really know how to copy and paste a feed into a podcatcher. Typically, people will click on your podcast feed, see the XML or Feedburner page, and not know what to do next. Just remove these 2 options.
6. Provide only 1 or 2 banners in your sidebar. And only provide the ones where it’s a simple one click process to subscribe. iTunes is probably the only chicklet I can recommend you list at the top of your sidebar. If you still want to give some love to the other directories you’re listed in, list them towards the bottom of your sidebar or put them on a separate page.

First, get people to listen. Once they’re listening, teach them how to subscribe. Don’t assume that they know, instead, guide them step-by-step.

Try these changes, then pop back here in 30-days and confirm that your subscribers doubled.

Technorati: podcasting, podcasting tips

I was perusing Paul Colligan’s ever changing blog template this weekend (have you decided, Paul?) and I stumbled upon his post where he has transcribed one of his podcast episodes and has made it available for viewing right on the webpage. I’ve been telling my clients that transcripts represent another income stream, that they can make them available for sale.

So which is it - should transcripts be available for free so you can benefit from additional search engine traffic or are they more valuable if you sell them to your listeners?

Technorati: podcasting

For about a month now, I haven’t been able to submit any feeds to Yahoo Podcasts. Everytime I do, I get “System Error.” I tried when I was in Boston, thinking it was an IP thing, but got the same error.

Anyone else having Yahoo Podcast submission problems?

Technorati: podcasting, yahoo, yahoo podcasts

This issue just keeps popping up, so now, I’m forced to blog about this. See the image above? It’s a picture of all the speakers at the Future of Web Apps 2-day conference which took place September 13th & 14th.

The image has been modified a bit from the original. The orange-red badge beside each picture now says white. Chris Messina posted his thoughts about this today on his blog and it’s well worth the read.

Kate T posted her thoughts about the strong white bread content at the upcoming Digital Marketing conference taking place in Toronto on October 19th & 20th.

Dave Forde also weighs in on this issue, saying that having a diverse call center is not enough. That diversity needs to be reflected in the upper echelons of a corporation.

To understand why there’s an absence of diverse voices speaking at events, one needs to ask the event organizers directly. And whenever I see their responses, it’s always the same - that those contacted weren’t available or took too long to respond.

Strange. How could so many conferences contact so few diverse people and get the same type of response over and over?

Which leads me to believe that event organizers are only contacting a small handful of people whom they consider diverse. That’s has to be the reason. I mean, if I only knew of 5 non-white people and the same 5 were being contacted by a multitude of event organizers, then yes, at some point, your cup is full.

As I commented on Kate’s blog, consider me the nutella for technology’s white bread. I’m awaiting your calls and emails to invite me to speak at your conference or event. If you need an idea of what I can speak on, check here and here and here.

Haven’t heard me speak? Check out these podcast interviews or recordings of my speeches:

• Talk About Service with Ed Horrell on podcasting
• Coaching a Go-Go with Nancy Marmolejo and Catherine Bruns on entrepreneurship
• The Engaging Brand with Anna Farmery on podcasting in the workplace
• Podcasters Across Borders as a speaker on Growing Your Podcast Audience

And I have references. Lots. Have voice, will travel. So, what’s the excuse now?

Update: I got a couple of emails from people I really respect who said I should be proactive in searching for speaking opportunities. Some of you may have thought the same thing. I will say that I am proactive (take a look at my calendar) and I’m also represented by a speakers’ bureau who is also being proactive on my behalf. So, I’m doing my part.

Technorati: podcasting, technology, Internet, chris messina, nutella, Kate Trgovac, blogging

In an earlier post, I started to explore who is responsible for preserving our online conversations. Is it:

• The person who creates the discussion?
• The people who participate in it?
• Or, is it the entity that provides the means for these discussion to take place?

Now, I acknowledge that not every conversation can be preserved. If I go to the corner of Bay & King to hail a taxi, I’m not responsible for giving a word for word account of the conversation I had with the cabbie.

However, to discount informal conversations and not acknowledge it as a legitimate form of history is also not fair. For many cultures, they rely on storytelling to pass on their history from generation to generation. Many slaves throughout North America, the Caribbean and South American in the 18th & 19th century could not read or write. So, they passed on their history to each other through storytelling. Recipes, music, events were all shared through word of mouth.

For a long time, many historians discounted oral history as a legitimate form of history - unwritten stories. Yet, it is through these stories that many pass on important details about events, geneology and so on.

In our online conversations, we use chat rooms, discussion boards, blogs and podcasts to share information about ourselves, our lives and our thoughts. Although this space is informal, what’s being shared is a legitimate form of history and hence, becomes equally important to preserve this.

Just because someone has reached their bandwidth requirements or hasn’t logged into their account for months doesn’t mean that the entities that provide the space for these conversations to occur can now just delete that profile. The thoughts expressed by that person and the dialogue that took place will become important to future generations in understanding the way we thought, or acted or why all this Internet stuff has become so important to us.

Instead of focusing on who should be allowed to own the conversations that take place online, we should instead focus on who should be preserving these conversations and what responsiblity companies such as MySpace, YouTube, MSN, Google and others have in being the storehouses of cultural preservation. Million of people use these services hourly, therefore they have some sort of responsibility to archive users’ behaviour, actions and of course, conversations.

Some of you may say that privacy wins out and therefore, we will never be able to preserve these dialogues. However, many of these online entities have terms & conditions that clearly state that your activities are being monitored, so if we’re already being watched, why not go one step further and simply retain it as well?

At the end of the day, is it the person who creates the conversation responsible for preserving it online, or does that responsibility lie with the entity who provides the tools to enable these conversations? I feel it’s the latter.

Technorati Tags: history, Culture, technology, social media, Podcasting, Blogging, montreal shooting, Kimveer Gill

Update: There was a shooting at a Montreal college earlier this week. One dead, 20 wounded. The killer, Kimveer Gill, who shot himself after being confronted by police, was very active online. He shared his thoughts and his feelings on an online community called vampirefreaks.com and here’s his profile page (although you need to login to see it). I found his blog (although it’s difficult to follow) and a UK website printed an excerpt here.

The shooter did something horrible, but isn’t his thoughts worth perserving? One person - screename eversparkle - says no. In particular:

“I think now it’s time for vampirefreaks.com to remove all of his content. We’ll never be able to help everyone in the world who is f****** up, but we can at least get rid of this little bit of cyberspace that breeds such hatred and violence. Use it as a place to discuss anti-violence, gun control, and have healthy discussions about our so-called problems in life, and erase this asshole from memory.”

I disagree. His thoughts need to be preserved. Knowing his thoughts helps us to understand what to look out for in the future. This is all about preserving our collected history, no matter how bittersweet, horrible or disgusting it is. It’s through these stories that profilers can understand pyschopaths, that parents can understand their children, that police officers can understand serial killers. To remove Gill’s thoughts from the social media space just because he did something horrible means that we’re removing a bit of our history.

Here are some things that I want to post about, but just can’t seem to find the time to write up more than a few words.

• Podcast Directories. Jon Watson surmised that podcast directories just aren’t working well enough as a promotional tool. I agree with him. Either not enough people know about them, or they’re just not effective at driving listeners to your podcast. Podcasting News has a whole slew of podcast directories listed on this page, however, I now only focus on submitting to 6 of them. I may scale back even more.
• My Podcasts. I’m currently trying to update 4 of my own podcasts while producing the ones I get paid to do. I’m losing that battle. Some of my podcasts I haven’t updated since July. Any suggestions on how I can manage my own 4 without losing a step in providing excellent customer service to my clients?
• Women in Podcasting. I’m growing more and more concerned about the place that female podcasters are playing in the podcasting space. At Podcamp, only a small selection of sessions were led by women and when a woman was leading, she focused on soft skills. I’m noticing that at other podcasting conferences, there continues to be very few women leading sessions on strategic podcasting or even being invited as a keynote speaker to talk about podcasting as a trend. How can we change this?
• The Power in Video Podcasting. Another thought - Just because female video podcasters are getting alot of publicity being in front of the camera, as in the media world, the power lies behind the camera. The fallout at Rocketboom clearly showed that the brains rests with Andrew Barron, who I had a chance to talk to at Podcamp. He was able to hire Joanne Colan and she jumped right into the hosting duties without missing a beat. Rocketboom is as popular as ever. Popularity can be gained when you’re in front of the camera, but the power lies behind it.
• The Lone Wolf. Talking about Rocketboom, Amanda Congdon was at Podcamp and she kept mainly to herself. She was surrounded by her own entourage (okay, only 2 men) and she did very little networking. She spoke to others only if they approached her. While there was a bit of activity around her when she sat in the main auditorium, most people left her alone either because they couldn’t be bother or didn’t know her. Although I couldn’t meet everyone at Podcamp, to stay rooted in your corner and not socialize is like having your nose stuck up in the air.
• Digital Culture. Lastly, the UN Treaty to allow the distributors of online content to also own it got me thinking about our role in creating, maintaining and preserving digital conversations. As a History major, I understand that part of history is the preservation of our stories - whether it’s oral, written or digital. Unfortunately, it’s the stories of the victors or conquorers that make it to our history books. Sadly, if this treaty passes, many online conversations will be sidelined or censored by those who will now “own” it. As was the case of the conquistadors in Latin America, the UN wants to turn online content distributors, such as MSN, Yahoo and AOL, into the conquistadors of online conversations. I’m very concerned about this. Instead, the UN should be passing a treaty to put the responsibility of preserving online conversations into the hands of MSN, MySpace, AOL, etc. For example, when a person dies, or when someone reaches their bandwidth limit, or when someone deactivates their account, these companies will delete the profile. By removing these profiles from their systems, they are removing a piece of our culture from the historical timeline. Who then is responsible for the preservation of our digital culture? Archives.org can’t do this alone. I’ll expand on this in another post.

Technorati: podcasting