Late last night my Twitter friend, @jewelsann announced that she'd just launched the Cantores Cleveland Web site. When I hear someone has launched a new site I typically pay it a visit to see how it turned out. There I discovered that Cantores Cleveland is a local vocal ensemble "devoted to providing an accessible, educational early music experience." Seeing that this was a music site I immediately looked for the audio to see how it was presented. Going to the "Listen" tab, I found a list of five .mp3 files including song titles, track length and file size.

And then I thought, "I wonder if they've considered podcasting." It struck me that podcasting a new song every week, month or other regular interval would be a good way to keep their fans engaged with their music. Or, because they have an educational mission, they could alternate music podcasts with discussion podcasts in which the singers tell stories and explain the history of the early music they perform.

There in the wee hours of the morning my brain had turned to thoughts of content marketing strategies. It was late, so rather than pursue these thoughts I dragged myself to bed, and awoke hours later…thinking about the ways one can use podcasts to provide rich educational content that engages listeners. And by listeners of course I mean our target audience, the people who will enroll in our educational programs, attend our events, support our cause or buy our products.

Podcasts are like product samples delivered regularly to your door.

As you know, the best way to know if you will like something is to try it before you buy it. That's why grocery stores continue to fire up their portable skillets and offer us toothpick-speared bites of low fat chicken sausage in the aisles. It's also why bands like Nine Inch Nails (NIN) give albums away online. In doing so they end up selling more, which in the case of NIN meant topping the Amazon sales charts for 2008.

There are many ways to give away product samples, both online and in the real world, but doing so via podcast gives us two advantages worth considering:

Repetition

Brand recognition is built through repeated exposure to a brand name, product or service. Years ago I had a boss who told me that it takes 16 impressions for a name to stick. (I don't know if 16 still holds true, but we'll stick with that for the point of argument.) In traditional marketing terms this means that each potential customer needs to see 16 ads, media mentions, direct mail pieces or some combination thereof. Online it could mean seeing 16 ads via Google, mentions on Digg or StumbleUpon, etc.

16 doesn't seem like much, but it can take a lot of time and money to get those first 16 exposures one needs to solidify brand recognition. And to maintain recognition one needs to ensure that such exposure continues into the future. Podcasts distributed on a regular periodic basis provide a venue for ongoing exposure.

Automatic Delivery

Some listeners will simply visit your site when they want to hear the latest news, tips, etc. But, if you get visitors to subscribe to your podcast, as I encourage you to subscribe to my blog, you can create a conduit that provides your audience with continual exposure to your brand via regular updates. Every time you produce a new podcast it will be downloaded automatically to iTunes or their podcatcher of choice, automatically reinforcing the connection you've built with the listeners most interested in your organization (a.k.a. your best customers.)

Podcasting Recipe: Inform and Entertain

As I've mentioned before goal driven content should drive technology, not vice versa. I'm not encouraging everyone to run out and start a podcast. For many of you a blog will provide the same advantages of repetition and automatic delivery.

But some of you, both in higher education and industry, have access to information and resources that would be well suited to an audio or video format. Every situation is different, so to illustrate my point here are some examples of podcasts that fill an audience need while also reinforcing branding and other marketing goals.

Boagworld

Boagworld is "the podcast for those involved in designing, developing and running Web sites." I also wrote about this in 2007 in my Boagworld podcast recommendation. As a Boagworld listener I gain new insights and ideas regarding my field of Web development. As a podcast producer, Paul Boag has built up brand name recognition and solidified his reputation as one of the leading Web designers in the world. This undoubtedly helps bring more business to his design firm, Headscape, and also leads to speaking engagements, book sales, and so forth.

Off the Shelf

Librarian Bill Claspy, of Case Western Reserve University's Kelvin Smith Library, created Off the Shelf to expose people to faculty authors from the university. In these half-hour podcasts, Claspy interviews authors about their latest books and their approach to writing so that we, the listeners, gain new insights into the topics within the books while also learning more about the writing process and the personalities behind their work. As an avid reader—who has read some of these author's works—I find it intriguing to hear the story behind the stories. As a writer, who has yet to get far on my first novel—though I can wax forth endlessly here—I also find it helpful to learn about their writing habits and what compels them to get the words from mind to computer.

Disclaimer: I discovered this podcast when I was still working at Case, have come to know some of the authors involved, and have had many e-mail discussions with Bill Claspy about the project. When I first discovered the site, I knew I'd subscribe, but I was also intrigued by the marketing possibilities.

This podcast serves many roles. On an individual basis it provides exposure to the authors, their publishers and their books. For those titles written for a mainstream audience this could garner more sales. The quality of the podcast also reflects well on the university, by showcasing the talented faculty available to students who enroll there, and by supporting the university brand through the repetition of the podcasts. It also serves students who may decide to apply to the school or enroll in an author's class based on what they've heard in the podcast. Thus, in just 30 minutes per episode, Off the Shelf, not only entertains, but also supports a multitude of listener and marketing goals.

Inside Colby: For Students, By Students

The student produced podcast, Inside Colby, offers informal discussions of campus life, programs, surveys, student projects, interviews and other topics offering insight into what life is like at Colby College. Inside Colby truly does what the name suggests, it provides a taste of the Colby experience while also exposing students to new campus opportunities.

While communicating with students is the primary mission, the podcast also serves a valuable marketing role. For prospective parents and students, Inside Colby, let's them know what to expect. It reveals the personality behind the Little Ivies reputation and the beautiful campus, showcasing everything from what students wear (casual-outdoorsy-preppy) to the wealth of activities they engage in—whether they're playing lacrosse, taking classes in the blacksmith shop or ghost hunting in the theater.

For alumni, such as yours truly, Inside Colby invokes nostalgia. As I listen to the students discuss the different personalities of the dining halls or hear an interview with a professor I had, I'm immediately transported back to Mayflower Hill, cross-country skiing in the arboretum and eating a Colby 8 (cheeseburger with fried egg) in the campus pub. While Colby's monthly newsletter, Out of the Blue keeps in me in touch with campus happenings, the student podcast puts me on campus—at least in my mind. And, as it should, it also reminds me that I should figure how much I can afford to give come June 3oth, the end of the fiscal year.

Why (or when to use) audio/video rather than text

Podcasts, as we've seen in the above examples come in many forms. The trick is having the resources and the personalities necessary to create an audio or video experience that surpasses what you could provide in text. Podcasts can offer information similar to text, but add a depth of experience that let's us feel we're part of a conversation. They can be informal discussions or instructional lectures, so long as they include content that somehow seems more fitting when heard or viewed than it would in print.

Boagworld, for example, is also a content rich Web site that would be a perfectly suitable resource unto itself. It features blog posts that cover material similar to the podcast (handy for reference) and a discussion forum. The podcast builds on this by offering an hour of entertaining commentary, tips and interviews with industry leaders that I can listen to at my convenience. While I may not have time to keep up with all my blog subscriptions, I can plug my iPod into the car and listen to the repartee between Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington so that I can keep learning while I'm away from my computer.

This portability in time and space is key. I'm an avid reader. My house is overflowing with books while my Google Reader account is hemorrhaging more blog entries than I can ever hope to keep up with. But when I'm not on my couch with a novel or my Macbook Pro, I can still ingest information by learning about the Library of Alexandria via the BBC or getting cooking tips from The Splendid Table.

If you can offer similar information, be it lectures from your academic department, or educational resources related to your products or services, you too can engage listeners—like me—with an interest in what you have to say.

A few more podcasts worth exploring

• The Moth Spellbinding Story Telling
• Messing About in Ships News and views of the maritime industry
• This Week in Tech Leo Laporte and friends discuss all things tech and usually something about Twitter
• Creative Xpert Interviews with designers
• City Club of Cleveland Forum for free speech

Help Heidi win a blog scholarship!

Read Learning for fun and adventure: online education comes in many flavors between March 18-30th, and click on the red "Edu Blogger Scholarship" image. Every click made during that time period brings me one step closer to the finals.

Yesterday Jeremy Smith and I gave a presentation to faculty entitled, "Using blogs and web pages to raise your professional profile." This was the final presentation in this year's UCITE summer seminar series on technology and information. For the convenience of those who couldn't attend, we recorded the presentation so that you can listen to the podcast at your convenience. I tried to clean up the audio a bit, but the quality varies. It may be hard to hear some of the questions, but you should be able to follow most of it.

You may also wish to review the slides and handout from my presentation and the slides from Jeremy's presentation. It probably won't surprise you to see that neither of us used PowerPoint. My presentation was done in Flash, while Jeremy's was done in HTML and javascript.

How the podcast was created

For those who want to learn a bit more about podcasting, here are the steps I took to create the podcast.

1. Attach microphone to iPod, set iPod on table, press record. I used Belkin's TuneTalk™ Stereo for iPod®.
2. Give presentation
3. Press stop, remove microphone from iPod, return to office.
4. Plug iPod into computer and upload voice memo to iTunes.
5. Copy audio file from iTunes to podcasts folder on computer.
6. Open file in Audacity.
7. Listen to recording, adjusting volume and noise reduction as appropriate. Remove most unnecessary ums. (I had no idea how often I said "um" until I listened to this. Eeek!)
8. Export file in .mp3 format.
9. Import .mp3 file into iTunes.
10. Listen to random parts of the file in iTunes to make sure it doesn't sound too horrible.
11. With the file selected, choose "Get Info" from the iTunes file menu.
12. Select the "Info" tab and add any necessary information such as the name of the podcast, the artist, etc. You can also add artwork using the "artwork" tab. Click O.K.
13. Drag a copy of the newly edited .mp3 file back to your podcast folder.
14. Upload this version of the file to your blog using the upload file feature (what you would use to upload an image or .pdf file)
15. If this is your first podcast, go to the templates page of your blog and open the file named rss20.xml. <$MTEntryEnclosures$> should appear immediately following <item> in the file. If it is not already there, just paste it in, then save and rebuild the file.
16. Create a new entry with a link to the .mp3 file. Once the entry has been saved users will be able to download or listen to the file from your site, through iTunes, or through other means.

That's pretty much all there is to it. Just remember to only include 1 podcastable item (audio, video or pdf) per entry. This method works reasonably well for small events. For larger or higher profile events, you can hire MediaVision to record the event with higher quality recording equipment, and pass microphones around to the audience during the question and answer period. For discussions or interviews between 2-3 people, you can use the sound studio in the Freedman Center. The Freedman Center also has audio and video equipment you can borrow for use outside the center.

P.S. As it happened, I had already subscribed to this blog in iTunes. Thus, after this posting was published, the .mp3 file was automatically downloaded to my iTunes podcast directory from which I could copy it back over to my iPod in it's final format. If I make additional podcasts from this blog, they'll all be stored together.

The Case Writers' and Editors' Forum, WordNerds, will discuss blogging next Wednesday, March 21st, in room 2280 (2nd floor) at the School of Nursing. I'll be leading this discussion in which we'll cover a brief overview of blogging, then discuss ways to use blogging in our marketing, recruitment and other communication efforts. I've asked Jeremy Smith, Case's blog administrator, to join us to share his opinions and expertise.

About Wordnerds

For those looking for brainstorming partners, story ideas, or the chance to benefit from the best practices other Case communicators have developed, Case's WordNerds meets every third Wednesday of each month for lunch, networking, professional discussions, and general moral support. All university staff members involved in writing, editing, communications, public relations, marketing, and recruiting are welcome. Send e-mail to wordnerds@case.edu for more information, or to join the mailing list.

Blogging? What's to know?

Regular readers of the Web Development Blog are already quite familiar with blogging. For members of Wordnerds, who may not be as familiar with the topic, I've posted a very general introduction to blogs and podcasts below. I wrote this last summer as part of another project, but the principles still apply. Read this now to get a jumpstart on next week's discussion.

Blogs: Web sites with benefits

According to the Case Blog FAQ, "Weblogs, or blogs, are a way of publishing to the web one idea at a time. By simplifying the process of publishing, letting authors create posts easily, and making it simple to link to related ideas on the Web, blogs make it easy to update a Web site while still making sure your words retain a clear, personal voice."

While often thought of as online diaries or journals, blogs can be written by one or more authors and used in any number of ways. Here at Case, the Undergraduate Admission blog allows admission staff to share ideas with one another and give prospective students a glimpse into the way the admission process works. Because the blog system allows readers to make comments, prospective students can ask questions related to specific blog postings and receive answers not only from admissions staff, but also from other Case faculty, staff and students who read the blog.

According to admission's former writer—now director of media relations, Lisa Chiu "We launched our blog last summer as another way to connect with prospective students. Ours is a group blog, so we have several people who post—admission counselors, financial aid counselors, and marketing and communications staff. We post on a variety of topics, some serious, some silly. We love when high school students leave comments on our entries—it's always great being able to spark a stimulating conversation. It's exciting to see that high school students from all over the world are reading our blog and learning more about Case."

One of the greatest features of a blog is its ability to syndicate content. As wire services such as Reuters distribute news to media outlets around the globe, you as a blogger can distribute your content via RSS or Atom feeds. These feeds allow users to subscribe to a variety of blogs via aggregators such as http://www.bloglines.com.

What this means to you as a reader is that instead of visiting the 10 different Web sites where your favorite blogs are published, you can instead go to an aggregator such as Bloglines, subscribe to your favorites, then read them all in one place. Another example of an aggregator is Planet Case. Planet Case aggregates all the most recent postings from the Case blogs. I usually skim Planet Case at least once a day because it allows me to catch up with my favorite Case blogs as well as learn of new ones.

Highlights of the blogs on Planet Case today (last summer) include the latest updates—with photos—from Kelly, who is studying and doing community outreach in Uganda; a post from Weatherhead's Professor Piderit, in which she explores the nature of an "organization" and opens up the topic for group discussion; and part 4 of a series of insightful philosophical entries entitled "Why we must learn to see ourselves as others see us" written by Case's most prolific blogger, Mano Singham, director of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education.

While content found on the blogs is easily viewed through aggregators, it can also be found elsewhere on the Case Web site. Our office uses the blog system to publish news stories about Case. The headlines from these stories are automatically pulled into pages such as the home page and the MyCase portal and can be repurposed in their entirety or by topic on pages throughout the Case site.

The blog system's ability to syndicate information is also what enables us to podcast audio or video content.

Podcast, both noun and verb

A podcast (the noun) is basically just an audio or video file that has been uploaded to the Web in such as way that it can be downloaded automatically through software—such as iTunes—that can read syndicated feeds. While users may also be able to download such files from regular Web sites, the ability to subscribe to a feed—as one subscribes to a magazine—lets users have their audio and video content delivered automatically to their computers. To podcast (the verb) is simply a matter of publishing your content to a system, such as a blog, that can disseminate the file via syndication.

This is much less complicated that it sounds. As I type this on my computer, iTunes is checking my subscriptions and downloading new files. The podcasts I listen to include radio shows from the BBC and NPR, lectures from the City Club of Cleveland, academic lectures as well as some very amusing videos on learning German. To subscribe to these I simply copied the addresses of their feeds from their Web sites and pasted them into iTunes. Now I can watch or listen to the files—at my convenience—by copying them to my iPod, burning them to CD or just using my computer.

Here on campus, it is also fairly simple to produce a podcast. For example, earlier last year Aaron Shaffer, formerly of the university's Freedman Center, gave a talk about blogs, wikis, and podcasting. Using a digital recorder, he recorded the talk, then—using software provided by the center—he added the slides from his demonstrations and saved the augmented audio file in the appropriate format. To podcast the file, he simply uploaded it to the Freedman Center Blog—which supports RSS and Atom feeds. Those who couldn't attend the lecture can listen online or subscribe to the podcast.

Podcasting has become so easy in fact that Silicon Republic.com announced in March 2006 that podcasts now outnumber radio stations.

On a different topic…

I will be out of the office tomorrow through Tuesday. Please direct any Web development questions to Kevin in my absence. ]]> http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2007/03/13/case-wordnerds-to-discuss-blogging/feed/ 0 http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2006/04/03/listening-to-academic-podcasts-who-would-and-why-part-i/ http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2006/04/03/listening-to-academic-podcasts-who-would-and-why-part-i/#comments Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:46:34 +0000 Heidi Cool http://www.heidicool.com/blog/?p=36

Friday on Management Professor Notes II, Professor Piderit wrote, "Jeremy Smith writes that Case has been accepted into Apple's iTunes University program, which sounds exciting... as long as it doesn't mean that students stop coming to my class." Instead of worrying about this, she (and her commenters) then focused on ways to make classroom attendance worthwhile, while I started thinking about ways in which students and others might use podcasts.

As our iTunes workgroup waits to learn more about the technical requirements for the iTunes project, now seems like a good time to consider how classroom (and other) lectures podcast via iTunes might be used by various listening audiences. I've thought about this primarily in regard to podcasts that are available to everyone. There may be circumstances in which a podcaster would restrict a podcast to a limited group, such as students in a particular class, but I think in most cases there are benefits to be found in reaching out to a wider audience.

What follows are some suggested reasons various groups might listen to a lecture/discussion via podcast. I've organized them by audience. Today I've focused on members of the Case community. Next time I'll write about listeners from outside the university.

Case students enrolled in the course might listen to that course's podcasts to:

• Review material for exams.
• Listen again to segments of discussion that were missed while taking notes.
• Watch or listen to a lecture that demonstrated how to operate a certain piece of lab equipment, or that documented certain safety procedures.
• Review material that was confusing during the first lecture. This could be particularly helpful in foreign language classes or in classes that introduce something new or challenging for the first time.
• Listen to a lecture that was missed due to absence. While most students understand that class attendance provides benefits—such as participation in real-time discussion—unavailable in a podcast, there will be times when absences are unavoidable. At least this way—when students do have to miss a class—they will benefit from hearing the whole discussion rather than trying to make sense of a classmate's illegible notes!

Case students not enrolled in this particular course might listen to academic podcasts to:

• Review material covered in a previous course that provides foundational elements to their current course.
• Learn more about a specific topic—that is also studied in a different or related field—in preparation for researching a paper. For example, a history student writing a paper on the Renaissance, may gain insight by listening to a related podcast from a class in art history or literature.
• Identify a professor's teaching style. When trying to decide whether to take a course from Professor A or Professor B, a student could listen to the podcasts to determine which professor's teaching style fits most closely with that student's learning style.
• Explore new subject areas in anticipation of choosing classes for the following semester.
• Learn more about topics outside the student's primary areas of study. Students may be interested in a variety of classes that don't fit into their schedules. By sampling subjects through podcasts they can satisfy their curiosity as time allows.

Case faculty & staff might listen to academic podcasts to:

• Find out more about related research being done by faculty in other departments.
• Listen to information—presented by colleagues—related to joint research projects.
• Learn about a topic outside one's area of expertise—simply because it sounds interesting.
• Gain insight into a subject related to a particular work project. For example, fundraisers looking to match donors to specific programs, writers looking to publicize a project, and others can augment their knowledge by listening ro relevant podcasts.

So far I've covered only a fraction of possible reasons members of the Case community might listen to academic podcasts. I'm sure those of you reading this will have many additional ideas, so please share them by commenting below or via the iTunes working group. If you are interested in becoming more involved in the development of iTunes at Case, we also welcome you to join our charter working group by subscribing to the iTunes@Case Mailing List.

Saturday afternoon I sat chortling on my couch as Übel Knübel (a teenage boy played by an Evil Knieval figure), flirtatious Gummi-Bears, and a pair of rubber shoes tried to teach me German. This was not the latest in children's progamming on WVIZ, but rather a new podcast from http://www.mygermanclass.com/. The primitive animation and kitsch story lines, were so amusing, and so distinctly German, that I was compelled to watch all 10 episodes at once. Having taken 2 years of German in college (much of which I have since forgotten) I was able to understand most of the plots, and while I am not yet sure if Übel's pet is meant to be a dinosaur, horse or dragon, it was quite clear that he has a freundin named Heidi mit blaue augen—just like me! Those unfamiliar with the language will still be able to follow along, as the "acting" is meant to underscore the meaning of the dialogue.

As I watched Uwe the red Gummi-Bear struggle self-consciously with romance, and young Übel suffer from the bad advice offered by his vater, Übel der Erste (pictured right on my iPod—no wonder he's a bad parent!), it occured to me that, as silly as it was, this was a great example of using podcasting for education. With a clever script, simple props or volunteer actors, and equipment borrowed from the Freedman Center, anyone at Case could create a video podcast. Whether you are teaching a language, demonstrating the use of lab equipment, or reviewing the disastrous results of a particular military strategy, the tools are now available to produce audio-visual aids more easily than ever before. While it might take experience and skill to draw an animation in Flash, almost anyone can talk into a microphone while moving Gummi-Bears around a table. Such videos—produced to achieve specific goals—can offer added value to your website.

Produced by Colorado Online Learning as part of a fee-based German class, the video podcasts are distributed—for free—from http://www.mygermanclass.com/. They are produced in German, with German substitles. Scripts, discussions, self-checks, oral exams, and teacher feedback are available to those who sign up for the course.

For those of you not already familiar with podcasting, I highly recommend Blogs, Wikis, & Podcasts for Beginners, Aaron Schaefer's recent presentation on this subject. Listen to the podcast.