Our First Podcast Debuts

Last week, analyst and blogger Dana Gardner invited us to join him for a BriefingsDirect podcast on ... podcasting! His other guest was MediaSurvey's Sam Whitmore, veteran media watcher and journalist. Dana and Sam have teamed up in the past to chat about Marketing 2.0, a podcast that discussed the changes in marketing to IT that have been wrought by blogs, RSS, podcasting and viral marketing.

You can hear our resulting conversation here. A couple of points in particular that stuck with me:

• Sam noted that clients sometimes early on raised the issue that blogs were more easily searched than podcasts. But with search services like Podscope and PodZinger, that issue has quieted down.

• Dana shared an anecdote about posting a podcast for a client in one location on the client website without a transcript and with a transcript in another spot. The podcast with the transcript generated nearly twice as many downloads. His theory? The transcript enabled visitors to give it a quick scan to conclude: "This looks interesting. I think I'll download it."

Lessons/confessions from my maiden podcasting voyage...

The joke around the office was my request for a briefing document to prep for the session. My personal team of media handlers gave this one a big raspberry, I was left to prep on my own by doing the following:

• PR 100 -- Read (or in this case listen to) content from previous works by the participants -- Check.
• Think of a few key points you'd like to make -- Check.
• Read up on the subject matter - ongoing, so check. As luck would have it, this article on the changing role of analysts had made its way around the office and Dana brought it up, so I was prepared.

Here's one thing that I didn't do that I'd recommend. Have someone stage a mock interview with you (on even a non-work topic, e.g. American Idol results) and tape it. This is similar to the exercise of conducting a mock presentation while videotaping when undergoing speaker training. If you're like me, you'll be appalled just how many "ummms" and "ya knows" find their way into your answers. I have a renewed appreciation for Dana's and Sam's more crisp speaking style.