MODcasting

Mobile-on-demand training using podcasts to internal and external customers. Marketing and Sales are in favor of developing small training-casts of specific topics which could enhance our value to our interanl and external customers. I have gathered a lot of information from podcast from other already doing this for a living.

My interest in this venue of training was prompted by a session conducted by Bob Lee of WebEx during the ASTD conference. He mentioned a podcaster named Craig Syverson who had produced several very polished productions in videocasting. Bob appears to be old-school (my generation), but he is so in-touch with the emerging technologies. As he mentioned, he just loves his job and the toys that come along with it. He is having a ball.

I visited Craig's website at http://www.gruntmedia.com/ and subscribed to his RSS through i-tunes. Wow is the best way to describe my reaction to what could be done. Another RSS subscription I made was to the companion podcast series to "Podcasting for Dummies". This was also an eye-opener. It demonstrated how podcasting could be produced with minimal amount of resources. The fist episode for this series was actually done on freeware audio editor and a laptop with a built in mic. I tried this in my office, but the mic was terrible. So I tried it with a very cheap mic I had in my drawer and produced a sample podcast.

This podcast was output in the mp3 format, and I was able to load it into one of the ipod shuffles I won at the ASTD conference. My first audience was my wife. She was very supportive of the podcast and thought that it was a good idea. Next, I had to see if I could actually post it to the web and create a RSS.

There are several concerns for this type of training. One of which is that I may have to deal or negotiate with IT and/or marketing for internet server space. From what I have gathered from many different podcast introduction sites, there is a concern for not only storage space but also bandwidth for subscribers to download the podcast. Since this is not a good time to ask IT for resources, I decided to try the recommendations from wikiHow on "How to Start Your Own Podcast". Their information is remarkable.

Therefore, I set up a free account with a podcast hosting site and have posted the pilot podcast for evaluation on http://www.beadedowl.podomatic.com/ to determine if this could or should be taken further. Having listened to many very well done podcasts, I am convinced that a modest investment in equipment would be required to do this on a regular basis.

I am very excited about the prospects of launching this program and realize that this will be another strain on my personal resources for time this year. Most podcasting suggestions are to produce the topics on which you are most passionate and keep them flowing to keep your audiences happy. Also, they recommend that you produce 5 episodes before you release the first one to gain confidence and to build a cushion of episode for your listeners.

Topics available for internal and external customers are endless. Most all of our training could be chunked into manageable short podcast stories or shows. There are so many, it is going to be difficult not to start more than one at a time. Several of these topics would appeal to both customer groups...providing the material is produced in an engaging and professional fashion. Again, the time constraint is the biggest obstacle.