Audio: Joint meeting of the CSPRC/IABC/PRSA

The annual joint meeting of the CSPRC/IABC/PRSA was held on Tuesday, January 10, 2006, at the Sheraton Clayton Plaza. The topic was:

Revolution in PR Technology: Take Command of the Technologies That Are Transforming the Practice of PR -- Blogs, podcasting, wikis, RSS, and audio streaming technologies are transforming the world of communications.

AUDIO: 50 min (23 Meg MP3) - Questions from the audience were off mic and have been omitted. Speakers in order of appearance:

  • Jerry Bryan, President, Bryan Consulting Inc. - Jerry Bryan is a Principal of WebSanity, which develops database-driven websites that clients edit in plain English with an online Content Management System.
  • Tony Colandro, Vice President, Fleishman-Hillard St. Louis - Tony Calandro joined Fleishman-Hillard in February 2004 and has developed state of the art, national online alliance programs used for public affairs, community relations, grassroots, and lobbying activities. Additionally, Mr. Calandro has developed an innovative use of blogging, podcasting, and vlogging to drive awareness and reposition a corporation’s image among online influencers. Notes from Tony's presentation can be found at: http://prsmarts.typepad.com
  • Steve Mays, Vice President, Learfield Communications - Steve has worked for Learfield Communications, based in Jefferson City, Missouri, since 1984. For the past six years Steve has headed up Learfield's online efforts which focuses on combining traditional and new media solutions, including blogging, podcasting, and live audio streaming. He's been blogging since February of 2002 and recently began producing the Living Healthy Podcast. He describes his virtual life as full and rich.
  • Richard Callow, Public Eye Inc. - Homepage: www.mayorslay.com

January 10, 2006 | | Comments (0)

1. Quick survey

How many of you…

  • Regularly read a blog?
  • Have your own blog?
  • Have a portable MP3 player? iPod?
  • Have listened to a podcast?
  • Produce your own podcast?

Note: None of the three sponsoring organizations appear to use blogs, podcasts or RSS on their websites.

January 03, 2006 | | Comments (0)

2. Study: Podcasting Is Mostly a Guy Thing

The audience for podcasts is relatively small and mostly male, according to a new survey from Podtrac, a company that tracks audience figures for individual podcasts.

According to the research, which was conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres, roughly a third of the thousand Web users surveyed said they have heard of the term "podcasting." Among that group, just 32 percent have actually listened to a podcast.

Of those who have listened to podcasts, 78 percent were men, according to the study. The medium's male-heavy demographics are typical of newer, technology-based media, according to Podtrac officials, similar to the early days of the Internet.

MediaWeek (Mike Shields, December 28, 2005)

January 03, 2006 | | Comments (0)

3. About Learfield Communications

Learfield Sports handles multimedia and marketing for many of the top colleges and universities in the country:

Alabama, Army, Clemson, Colorado,  Georgia,  Indiana, Iowa, Kansas State, Miami  (Florida), Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon State, Penn State, Purdue, South Carolina, Wisconsin...and several more.

Learfield News is comprised of five state and regional radio networks: The Missourinet, Nebraska Radio Network, Radio Iowa and Wisconsin Radio Network. These networks produce news and sports programming heard on 175 radio stations. Brownfield  is America’s largest farm network, producing agribusiness news, markets and weather for more than 220 radio stations in the corn and soybean belt of the U.S.

January 03, 2006 | | Comments (0)

4. What is Podcasting?

What is podcasting (Wikipedia)

Podcasting is a term coined when the use of RSS and other syndication technologies became popular for distributing audio content for mobile devices. Today podcasting is a more generic term that is evolving as people understand what it means.

A podcast is simply an audio file, although increasingly people are applying the term to video and other media, that is placed on the Internet for anyone to download, specifically the location of this file may be known through subscribing to a websites feed. You can download the file just as you would normally do by clicking on it from the website’s pages. However special programs exist that will automatically download and store the podcast file until you want to listen to it.

Podcasting can use RSS and other syndication technologies that allow applications to tell you when someone has posted an update to their website. Through this feature you can ’subscribe’ to a website and be sure to not miss an update.

  • Podcasting vs. Streaming
  • Video Podcasts
  • It’s not a “podcast” if I can’t subscribe

Podcast Directories:

January 03, 2006 | | Comments (0)

5. Examples of Podcasts

  • SwineCast — SwineCast is a a weekly podcast targeted specifically to swine producers, produced by Elanco, the animal products division of Eli Lilly. They came to Brownfield to help produce and publish the weekly podcast. http://www.swinecast.com
  • AgWired – AgWired is quickly becoming the source for news from and about the world of agriculture marketing. An amazing success story illustrating the effectiveness of blogging and podcasting. http://www.agwired.com
  • Talent Podcast for Missouri – U.S. Senator Jim Talent has three episodes up at iTunes: Floor Speech in Support of Judge Roberts; Interviews with the Medicare Lady; Talking with Buck O’Neil about Negro League Baseball. http://talent.senate.gov/podcast/podcast.cfm
  • St. Louis Mayor Fancis Slay — St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay is podcasting and clearly understands it’s not about long-winded speeches and white papers. His December 20 podcast is titled: St. Louis Hip Hop/R&B Holiday, and features young St. Louis recording artists singing holiday greetings. http://www.mayorslay.com/podcasts/
  • Living Healthy Podcast - A weekly chat with my family physician (and friend) Dr. Henry Domke. Easy, fun and inexpensive. http://www.livinghealthypodcast.com

January 03, 2006 | | Comments (0)

6. BASF giving away iPods

Remember when your insurance agent would send you a calendar for Christmas? The tech-savey marketing folks at BASF sent a few of our reporters 4 gig iPod nanos.

You spend the entire year listening to the needs of your audience. So for all of your attentive support, we would like to present a holiday gift that will enable you to hear our heartfelt appreciation. (Don’t worry - this gift doesn’t involve us caroling on your doorstep.) Since BASF is a leader in crop protection technology, we thought it would be appropriate to give you the latest advance in audio technology: the iPod nano.

It’s important to know that this gift extends beyound its small dimensions. You will have already received an email from us with a recorded holiday greeting. Now go to www.AgMediaCentral.com to hear the second part of our message, which you can listen to online or download to your new iPod. This link also includes a few questions that will help us to listen to your needs. When you visit this link, you’ll receive an additional gift with our appreciation: a prepaid iTunes Music Card worth $15.

Note: if you are not currently registered for www.AgMediaCentral.com now is a great time to sign on - it only takes a minute.  

January 03, 2006 |

7. Podcast Articles and Resources

BlogWrite for CEOs - Debbie Weil on CEO blogs, writing a thought leadership blog and the corporate blogging phenomenon.

Podcast411 - Articles and Webpages where the whole idea of podcasting is explained

Business Week offers an excellent podcast on “the business of podcasting.”

Blogging for Nonprofits - Beth Kanter is an independent nonprofit technology consultant and blogger. While searching for examples of podcasting by nonprofits, I found a post on her blog about a podcast at IT Conversation on the topic of nonprofits blogging. She also had useful links on RSS and blogging for nonprofits:

January 03, 2006 | | Comments (0)

8. Random Notes

  • To fully understand the allure of podcasting, you have to listen away from your computer on a mobile device.
  • Writing news releases, corporate brochures and newsletters is not fun. Blogging if fun. Podcasting is fun.

January 03, 2006 | | Comments (0)