Corporate Podcasting Expressway

Great news from those at Skype - impending convergence between the Internet and conventional television could mean a new dawn for easier access to fresh and more interactive video (Joost). BBC Entertainment news have summarised their (Joost’s) announcement nicely.

Joost describe their service as:

a new way to watch TV, free of the schedules and restrictions that come with traditional television. Combining the best of TV with
the best of the internet, Joost™ gives you more control and freedom than ever before - control over what you watch, and freedom to watch it whenever you like. We’re providing a platform for the best television content on the planet - a platform that will bring you the biggest and best shows from the TV studios, as well as the specialist programs created by professionals and enthusiasts. It’s all overlaid with a raft of nifty features that help you find the shows you love, watch and chat with friends, and even create your own TV channels.

My first reaction to this was: What is the difference between todays Internet experience with on-demand streaming video in a separate window and what Joost hopes to achieve? I thought about this a but more. My suggestion is that it could all be about ease of access? For example,

1. For those not familiar or confident to surf to the extreme - aka having a core competency to find stuff
(this touches on the issue of social inclusion and the potential digital divide that could happen in todays society, let alone internationally)
2. Continuing the concept of grouping content, establishing outlet channels and attracting more diverse and user built and driven content.
(what I mean by driven content is: viewers having the chance to vote and decide on what to make viewable).
3. Creating a social interchange - a kind of virtual water-cooler to share common interests and happenings.

If there was ever an application more suitable for delivering corporate value this has to be it. Convergence of traditional media delivery, new media and sharing ideas could provide corporations with applications that focus on the activity of internal departments. They could be established as channels to create engaging and valuable content for existing and potential clients. Even from an internal Human Resource (HR) perspective, there could be channel just for them - argh! - It could provide an excellent means of inducting new staff or announce promotions. A different type of e-Induction. HR could even use it to announce deadlines for staff appraisals, best practice and recruitment processes. I say this as my experience with many corporate intranets and knowledge management systems is that they all start of with wonderful intent but there are lots of examples where they just become to complex to navigate.

Does this mean that we have to wait for early adopters to prove this concept before corporations can get the confidence to use it? Unfortunately, the answer has to be maybe as we really have not seen corporate podcasting coming of age. We all live in hope for some creativity and courage for managers to start understanding the value of such web 2.o functionality.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Are there any key reasons for the slow take up of Corporate Podcasting ?

I’m only saying this because of recent conversations I’ve had with some CEOs
and Strategic Directors.

Last Friday I was at the Institute of Directors (IOD) in London.
For international readers, this is just off London’s (UK) famous Trafalgar Square.

The IOD has been described as a good place to network. It is quite interesting when you enter the large room that they have allocated for face-to-face meetings, it reminds one of parents evening. The only exception is that you do not move between desks when the next subject tutor or teacher meeting/ review is due. At the IOD staff are on hand to serve you Tea/Coffee, biscuits or a light snack.

Anyway, back to the meeting. I was meeting the UK Strategic Director of a major US firm specialising in Best Practice business consulting. These guys are both massive in terms of their international presence but also in the way that they build effective partnerships. I was with a good friend of mine Jon Vanags. We started talking about how Corporate Podcasting could be turned into a commodity or packaged. Interestingly, I’ve recently seen an interesting organisation announce that they are the first to offer what they describe as ’simple pricing for podcasting’. In some ways they are to be commended in helping to make podcasting services easier to understand.

However, as I’ve said on a number of occasions, podcasting is not just simply recording and hosting it requires a culture shift. In addition, a firm without anything interesting to communicate could rapidly lose the value of this communication medium – I prefer to call corporate podcasting a mechanism that must have a ‘meaning for the message’.

My advice would be to select a particular area within an organisation and trial it with pre-agreed effective return on investment criteria. This concept could also apply to those corporations that wish to use podcasting to earn revenue, for example: supporting product sales or targeted marketing.

The Strategic Director we were talking to shared the same thoughts with regard to Corporate Podcasting - For example:

Listener -> Reaction:

1. Mention Corporate Podcasting to a CEO, likely reaction, too technie - Good night
2. Mention Corporate Podcasting to a Marketing department’s PR partner, likely reaction - Who is listening and why is it better than our traditional routes to feeds? Ironically, the PR budget for many major corporations is huge.
3. Mention Corporate Podcasting to a Publication house, reaction - Prove to me that it can be complementary to my physical publication and will my time and cost investment really bring in more subscribers or even advertising revenue? Again, ironically, Podcasting gives you the ingredients for a niche and forms the basis of the ‘attention economy’. I read recently that a celebrity magazine’s online strategy had delivered a 1000% increase in new subscribers!

In summary, although a lot of the potential appears to be lost and in the short-term, it is only the early adopters that start to set the trend and standards. On that note, maybe simpler pricing is a good route.

What we can do is learn from the early days of Web 1.0. Remember in the early nineties when hardly anyone had a website. Now even a South Indian Dosa house (rice pan cake based food) that I visited in the Greenbelt part of Maryland, USA had their website listed on every disposable placemat menu. i.e: It appears that it is only when Corporate Podcasting is proven to ‘pull in’ clients and also your nearest competitor has something that you do not have, will this technology and its use get any respect.

How and When will this happen?

1. Production of simpler service descriptions
2. Ease of technology use
3. Good case studies from early adopters
4. A cost benefit matrix!
5. A high profile project trialing the technology
6. The provision of practical examples that are better than manual approaches.

In terms of a CEO being convinced of the investment and in an effort to not make him or her fall asleep at the very thought of Corporate Podcasting, there has to be courage from internal managers to start blogging and sharing thoughts. The latter is difficult with corporate politics.

A better place to start is if Corporate Podcasting helps to both win and retain customer - maybe Sales is the first place to start.
CEOs have enough on their plate, maybe in the not too distant future they will need to consider what to do if no one is listening to them!

Popularity: 15% [?]

Bloggers power
One of the great things about blogging (a regular online journal that anyone can post – in English a Weblog ) is that creativity and production is down to the individual. Interestingly, recently it was reported that China has released its own version of Wikipedia - (http://www.wikipedia.org the free online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit but is moderated by online volunteers). We already know that China has authorised a doctored version of Google from Google themselves.

In terms of the power of Blogging. Recently a viewer suggested that TV talk shows, new shows, news programmes, political commenting and newspapers in general have their favourites. The implication was that the same guests and self declared political spokespersons are repeatedly relied on to perform endless ‘chit chat’ between themselves – enjoying jokes and satirical narrative. Suddenly, we find the same experts and view-points emerging. The viewer suggested that a member of the public should be representative at such sessions. He also went as far as to suggest that when a member of the public is involved in asking direct questions it results in the most engaging television - back in the 1980s when a member of the public asked Margaret Thatcher about the exact nature of the situation when a British vessel sank the Argentinean Belgrano during the Falklands war – with regard to the latter the debate about the exact situation at the time continues.

Many argue that the media does need a wake-up call. Although the profession of journalism is demanding in terms of working to tight deadlines and the challenge of producing engaging quality content – In my view some aspects of the media are spoilt by favoritism, targeting, sensationalism and crudeness. Maybe media ownership, political siding or simply stereotyping has a lot to do with the problem. We have to admit that it is difficult for journalists and editors to balance the complexity of the world and how people’s values vary. However, a breach of human rights is wrong no matter where it occurs and often not enough rallying takes place to condemn it to ‘drive’ change.

Recent online polls can help gather public opinion. However, how confident are we that a decision cannot be overridden? There is much talk of Citizen journalism and the power of blogging but we need to remember that we elect politicians on their stated manifestos. Or, maybe the problem is much deeper. I note that a number of political Bloggers are beginning to emerge – I worry if these bloggers are ‘plants’ by commercial media in a desperate attempt to encircle or capture this domain of public expression or movement and call it ‘its own’.

In addition, although Google have some amazing search solutions and tools, I really hope that the algorithms they have developed are truly impartial and fair.

I’m really impressed with the increasing number of bloggers as it shows that the diary is not dead and there is a compelling instinct to share thoughts and ideas. What is worrying is the emergence of being not discrete and over exposure – i.e: The potential of lost innocence in a world where self expression is seen as important.

Press freedom is not the same as contributing effective / knowledgeable content. There is still a need to control blasphemous comments and insensitive commentary.

Maybe there is an opportunity to innovate in a world where the media have a structured route to broadcast on their megaphones. All we need to do is shout more and louder than before!

Blogging from a personal and corporate perspective can be a great way to champion change, it just requires the Internet to stay free.

Popularity: 26% [?]

The following video is a truly inspiring film.
It shows how we have moved from paper to a learning machine.
Eventually considering that we are not all driving the machine but have become one!!

I’m especially impressed with the last part that says what I have been shouting about!

/Governance
/Family
/…

Please watch and enjoy.

Popularity: 19% [?]

I’ve had a few occassions in my career when a project manager was frowned on as being a limiting sales factor. I’m not suggesting that things have suddenly improved. Indeed, I have been in many a sales or bid situation when the cost of project management was either absorbed elsewhere (hidden in mark-up or margin) or been seen and marketed inhouse to introduce a greater end or total cost.

The good news is that at least project management as a discipline has now been widely accepted as a career supported by some excellent companies that provide training - albeit that sometimes core disciplines such as understanding how to run a decent project definition workshop or show to analyse and produce a reliable project requirements can be missing from curriculums. There are also some companies focus more on accreditation rather than core competencies.

If there was an application that really needed project management, in my view it has to be Corporate podcastings.

Think about it:

1. Organising who, why and when the podcast and those involved will be affected.
2. Tagging standards
3. Communication strategy management
4. Quality assurance of what is going to be recorded
5. Set-up and maintenance of the infrastructure, both fixed and portable.
6. Content management systems (inc: Archiving an Filing)
7. Integration with internal or Customer wide communication strategies
8. Security planning
(inc: content release risk review)
9. E-Induction/e-Learning integration
(inc: linking to Knowledge Management approach)
10. Escalation when things go wrong!
(inc: contingency planning)

The above list is just for starters.
Consider the risk of information being miscommunicated or even taken out of context!

Corporate Podcasting should be inclusive not exclusive to a firm’s Communication & Knowledge Management strategy.
For example, if a meta data model is to be adopted for key corporate content assets, there needs to be greater consideration of the Knowledge Management issues too.

Project management has to be the key factor in assuring that the correct path to success is emarked upon.

Remember - Project inception to delivery, with measurement on-route.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Recently I had the chance to meet with the UK director of Phonecasting.
This organisation has some amazing new and practical applications for corporations (aka Corporate Podcasting)

Take for example some immediate applications or useful examples:

e.g.1. A project meeting has been conducted. Normally, someone will take the meeting minutes and distribute them via editing a document, storing/sending and awaiting a receipt on email.

e.g.2. A sales director has decided to make a special discount for a product or an important annoucement about product changes.

e.g.3. CEO’s wish to update their shareholders on what has been traditionally called a conference call - It is a time when the stock exchange will be listening hard for continued confidence in the firm in question.

e.g.4. A Sales person or Technical person is in transit without access to the Internet but urgently needs the latest news on a product sale or product fix/ support issue.

One solution is Phonecasting. This is where we see the convergence of audio and what I call ‘information reach’.

In summary, RSS can be used to ensure subscribers can get information when the want it and through a conventional route. This form of ‘push’ information is also excellent in not having to rely on extensive housekeeping of data. NB Content management disciplines can be integrated to make information available on an a set of asset life dependancies, i.e: time and associated validity (a bit like food labels - best before!)

Please watch the podcast (compressed quality through YouTube):
You can also get it from itunes and download it to your ipod (.m4v quality)!

Popularity: 57% [?]