I’ve put together a short survey (see below), designed to elicit some views and advice on what would be the best time duration for my podcast show on BlogTalkRadio, Des Walsh & Friends.

I’ve been sticking to a thirty minute duration, but am not wedded to that. The thirty minute duration was chosen on the basis of a highly subjective assessment, namely that:

• it enabled my guests and me to share with listeners some reasonably useful/interesting information and opinions
• because it was only half an hour it was not going to be seen as a less than productive time sink.

Related to the second bullet point, the thirty minute duration also met a criterion I’d read or heard from some podcast expert, that it was a good “commute” timeframe for those who want to download and listen on the go.

But I don’t really know.

I do know that when the half hour comes up I am typically wanting to keep going with the conversation.

Then, when I listen to one hour podcasts, some seem a bit too unfocused, a bit rambly and I get a bit antsy.

Hence the survey. It’s really short, with only a few questions and a box for any comments.

Sorry, there is no Caribbean cruise for the most interesting response, but I will report back here on the results. And I’ll be truly grateful.

Think of the good karma.

Click here to take survey

On Friday last at Bond University I co-presented with Associate Professor Michael Rees a masterclass on developing a social media roadmap for business.

We had a great group of people to work with and Michael and I really enjoyed the interaction.

We also had a lot of material to get through and with some topics we inevitably only skimmed the surface. So in the course of the day I promised more information on several topics, one of which was podcasting.

These notes on podcasting are for people who just want to know enough to get started.

Real experts would want you to know a lot more!

According to Wikipedia, a podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.

In fact, most people restrict the term podcast to audio. (Note: Wikipedia definitions are useful but to be taken with a grain of salt).

I prefer to describe podcasting as Internet radio – I know that is limited and technically suspect, but it helps answer the question “so why would I want to know about podcasting?”.

The answer to that is in another question: “How would you like to have your own radio station?”

“Podcasting may be the ultimate democratization of radio. Anyone with an Internet connection and some inexpensive audio equipment can produce a podcast and make it available online.”

Ed Grabianowski “How to Create Your Own Podcast”

There are lots of resources online.

First, there are sites that are really set up as online broadcast platforms, like BlogTalkRadio and Talkshoe, where all the tech stuff is taken care of and all you have to do is phone in, hit a couple of buttons and broadcast.

BlogTalkRadio and Talkshoe

BlogTalkRadio and Talkshoe are available free and are open to anyone to use – for the free version they have some advertising but it is not obtrusive.

They are both very good. A drawback is that they control the copyright of anything you broadcast, so if you wanted to, say, re-purpose some sessions and sell them on a CD for instance, you would need their permission etc.

For people outside the USA, you need to phone in to a US number. Australians can get a phonecard from GoTalk and in my experience you shouldn’t have to pay much more that $2-3 for a one hour call. Your listeners can access the broadcast via the Internet and can call in via phone if you want to do Q&A or talkback.

Roll Your Own

You can spend as little or as much as you want on a roll your own solution, but my recommendation, for starting, is in three parts: a) download free audio editing software  b) subscribe to an audio hosting service and c) get yourself a free Skype account, a Pamela for Skype account and a headset with microphone, to plug into your computer:

a) Download (open source, free, cross platform sound editor) Audacity

There is a good guide/tutorial here, which also explains how to download the LAME encoder, which you will need if you want to export your audio files as MP3s – and you will! (I’m pretty sure LAME basically installs itself).

If you are on a Mac you may not need Audacity but there is a Mac version. Mac people can use GarageBand which I’m told comes with iLife and the upgrade costs about US$99, AU$120 for 2 years.

b) Audio  hosting service – about US$20 a month.

Is this essential? No. Will it save you a lot of trial and error and generally make life a whole lot easier? Yes.

Audio Acrobat ($19.95 a month – used by many coaches)
BYOAudio ($19.95 a month – used by me)*

Both Audio Acrobat and BYO Audio have affiliate programs so if you recommend them successfully to others you can before long find they are not actually costing you anything.

c) For recording, there are all sorts of microphones and mixers. I have done podcasts, recording straight onto the computer, using Skype audio, which is free, and for recording sessions I have used Pamela for Skype successfully with an around $10 headset (the one with the microphone “boom”) from Kmart. I also have a Plantronics headset from the USA and a new one on the way, the .Audio 470 USB (not available here in Australia, just over US$31 from Amazon).

Pamela has a 30 day free trial. I recommend you then buy the Professional edition for 19.95 Euros, for life, including upgrades etc.

Other stuff about podcasting

There is no end to what you can learn about podcasting.

If the idea of a book about podcasting appeals, there are Podcast Academy: The Business Podcasting Book, by Greg Cangialosi and colleagues, Gigavox Media & Focal Press and Podcasting for Profit by Leesa Barnes.*

There are podcasting networks, like The Podcast Network set up and run by Cameron Reilly.

There are local experts. Glenn Goodman on the Gold Coast, Australia, where I live, has the Aussie Techhead site and is a true walking talking expert on podcasting. If you ask around you will probably find local experts where you live or among your friends and acquaintances.

You can spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge about podcasting, especially about equipment, but I believe you don’t need very much knowledge or equipment to get started.

And if you have already started podcasting or are in fact an accomplished expert, why not share your own tips here?

*BYOAudio link is an affiliate link and book links are to my company’s Amazon Associates site

Image credit: Podcast Wallpaper, by ollyhart, via Flickr with Creative Commons license.

Image: “Cat out of bag, almost” by Plong, via Flickr: Creative Commons license

Over the weekend I posted a message on the LinkedIn Bloggers group, of which I’m co-moderator, sharing some thoughts about how we could generate wider awareness of the group’s existence and in the process hopefully attract some more people to become members, so that they too can benefit from and contribute to our discussions.

I’d headed the message, whimsically as I thought, “How About We Let More People in on the Secret of LinkedIn Bloggers?” I talked about the fact that LinkedIn Bloggers was not easy to find via online search (we were showing up in only the most oblique fashion) and I invited suggestions about how we might let more people know about the group.

The post has generated some excellent suggestions already. And a surprise.

The surprise was that I discovered that at least a couple of members had the idea that the group was now, or in the past, meant to be kept for practical purposes a secret, or at least not publicized. I would not wish to discount that I may have made some remark in the past that gave rise to such a misapprehension, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what that might have been, or when.

The important thing is to move on.

Our team of moderators is keen to do so and we are looking at ways to share the story of LinkedIn Bloggers.

Some background

LinkedIn Bloggers on Yahoo! Groups is a forum, established early in 2005, for discussing how blogging and related technologies, such as podcasting, video blogging (vlogging) and wikis can support members’ professional networking using the professional social networking platform LinkedIn. The only pre-requisite for membership is to be already, or to become, a member of LinkedIn (basic membership is free).

Note: There is some potential for confusion in the fact that there is also a LinkedIn Bloggers group on the LinkedIn Groups site. Membership of that group is via the original group on Yahoo! Groups. About a sixth of the members of the original group have joined the group on LinkedIn. Currently  it is only on the original group, on Yahoo! Groups, that any discussion or information sharing takes place.

On the original LinkedIn Bloggers group we have a broad-ranging membership. We have been fortunate in having been able from the outset to attract people at various levels of knowledge and skill in the broad social media space, from top bloggers, podcasters and video bloggers, leaders in search, providers of corporate blogging services, organizers of major conferences and others, through to people just starting out with blogging and even people just thinking about blogging and other social media.

Given the breadth of membership and our desire to welcome and assist people new to blogging, podcasting and so on, we’ve always had a culture of  “there are no dumb questions”: LinkedIn Bloggers continues to be a community where people – and I include myself very definitely – get answers from a range of experts, for questions or issues on which it has proved impossible or difficult to get informed, unbiased advice elsewhere.

At this posting there are 897 members, which is not huge growth in three and a half years. It should be said that the moderator team have never been into growth in numbers as a priority, preferring to put our  energy and time into doing what we can to “hold the space” for useful and enjoyable conversation on matters of shared interest.

But knowing that many people find it helpful to belong to the group, we’ve decided to take some concerted action to make the story better known.

The campaign begins

In coming weeks we will develop some initiatives to translate that decision into some practical action.

If you are already a member of LinkedIn Bloggers, I hope you will give some thought to how you can help share the story.

If you are not yet a member and the idea of the group appeals to you – and if you are a member of LinkedIn or happy to join LinkedIn – please think about joining us. If you do that, please read carefully the instructions on the LinkedIn Bloggers home page, especially about sharing with us your LinkedIn profile link.

Note that the url for the group is a .net one: http://www.linkedinbloggers.net

• flexibility in being able to make the brand refer to what I’m working on now, rather than what I was focused on previously
• ability to build on the presence I have established online, especially through the past 4.5 years of blogging and related social media/social networking activities
• it doesn’t hurt that there are not, so far as I’ve noticed, namesakes in the business spaces in which I am interested

The Brand YOU concept

As I mentioned in that previous post in the series, I actually started using my own name as a business brand way back in the late 1980s, when I started in business and – like most of the people I knew who established their own consultancies – just took my own name and added “& Associates”. In between then and now, actually just before I started blogging, I became aware of the branding implications, via the “brand you” concept as I learned it from Dave Buck, now CEO of a coaching organisation I belong to, Coachville, who in turn acknowledged the use and promotion of the term by Tom Peters. In the onsite explanation of his program on the Brand YOU topic, Dave says:

Your brand is your trust mark – it distinguishes you from the field. Not like competition, but like uniqueness. As Tom Peters aptly predicts “It’s Brand YOU or canned you; become distinct or extinct”. It makes you a (very well) known entity. It’s how you connect with the people you intend to serve.  Speaking of service, that’s the real essence of Brand YOU – making your talents, gifts, experience, knowledge and value adding products so well known, that the people who want and need them can easily find you.

This is not about an ego trip – although I suppose it could be for some people – so much as about using your own name as a business brand. And social media, which by definition is more about people than about companies or other organizations, lends itself to processes of “Brand YOU” marketing.

Nor does that have to be restricted to promoting only the businesses of solopreneurs and other one-person operators.

Personal branding and company promotion

Paul Chaney explains how personal branding can also be used to promote a company brand. He cites some outstanding examples in the social media space, people who have become, in that world, “household names”. He outlines how, by becoming well known and respected, these individuals have helped raise the profile and reputation of the companies employing them.

The question that immediately arises for me, with my coach hat on, is this: assuming a client buys the idea that the CEO or some other person in the firm could be allowed, encouraged even, to build their reputation online as  a thought leader in their field via a personally branded blog, with the accompanying/supporting idea that this can only enhance the firm’s reputation as well as the blogger’s, what happens when that person gets a better offer and leaves to work with another firm?

Surely the obverse of the company’s fortunes rising with the blogger’s comes into play, with that blogger’s subscribers and other readers now seeing the blogger’s new firm as the one to consider buying from, hiring, etc.

Could companies being asked to support executives and others blogging require them to sign a “non-compete” document, effectively stopping them blogging for a period once they left the company? Taking “gardening leave” from blogging?* And if so, would that requirement constitute, in some jurisdictions, an unacceptable restraint of trade?

Blogger contracts? Attorneys at twenty paces?

For those of us who are home-based, solopreneurs this is not likely to be a problem. But many of us are also in the business of coaching or consulting to companies, which can be expected to have an interest in the topic. If we encourage them, say, to help one of their key people to build their personal brand as a thought leader, in the expectation or hope that the firm will have an “aura” benefit, what do we say to them about what happens when that person gets a better offer and leaves to go and work for – and perhaps blog for – a rival company? Or at least keep blogging but with people knowing he or she is with the new firm?

*Interestingly, in checking for a link to explain the UK/Australian term “garden leave” or “gardening leave”, I found a link to a recent legal decision in the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australia),  in which one of the protagonists was Bearing Point, who from what I’ve read fought their case down to the wire: so who does Paul Dunay, one of the stars in Paul Chaney’s post, work for? Yes, BearingPoint. Small world. And in fairness it should be noted that Paul Dunay has an ‘opinions are my own’ type disclaimer on his personally branded blog, as well as stating his connection with BearingPoint.

What’s your take on the personal branding via social media possibilities? Any drawbacks? And do you buy the argument that personal branding via social media can help the brand of the company which the practitioner – blogger, podcaster, tweeter – works for?

See also:

Business and Branding #1: Built to Last or Built for Now

Business and Branding #2: Finding What Works

Business and Branding #4: Online Reputation Management

• why it is a good idea to have your card designed professionally and
• why you should not leave it all to the designer

Getting your card designed professionally

Over the years I’ve been in business I have used professionally designed cards and ones I’ve designed myself. I’m not a designer, so guess what? The professionally designed cards looked better.

One reason for that would be the fact that people who design business stationery professionally have probably had some sort of training as well as having a good “eye” for design. Another is that they probably have more appropriate software than I. A third is that they know how to lay out the artwork so that the printer can produce what is desired.

The exercise does not need to be expensive. Where it can get expensive is when you decide you want letterhead and other stationery items, which require more design and a bigger budget for printing.

As most of my correspondence is done these days via email and as I have used a lot of professionally designed stationery for general notetaking once the address or phone number or other details became out of date, I don’t bother getting those “nice to have but not essential for my business” items done any more.

The one exception is that I have experimented with some 8 inch x 3 1/2 inch thank-you cards, as a tool for networking follow up, as recommended by networking expert Bob Burg in his excellent book Endless Referrals.

As you can see from the picture above of one of Bob’s own cards, he goes for plain black and white. If you can’t set this up on your computer, your local printer should be able to set it up and print it, without your needing any elaborate design work.

Back to the business cards and design.

There was a time, early in my business career, when it seemed very hard to find a designer who would simply do a business card design: everyone seemed stuck in the mode of designing the “whole package”. Perhaps there is more competition these days, because I have found there are firms which are happy to provide an individually designed card and a respectable initial run, for a relatively modest cost.

I believe anyone wanting to be taken seriously as being in business is not well served by the kind of flimsy, “did-it-myself and only cost me $10″ card I’ve sometimes been handed at networking events. What that kind of card says is something like: “Please hire me because I have no capital and so little business I can’t even afford a decent business card”.

Ditto for the “free” cards: I doubt that everyone will agree with me on that, especially the people who provide them! But ask yourself, how effective will you be in negotiating professional fees if your card is one of those free ones? What message does that send?

On the other side of the coin there will be people – especially professional design firms – who say you should get a whole design package that integrates your offline, business card brand with the design of your website, blog and so on. Great, if that’s in your budget and you believe it will bring you extra business or help keep your existing clients.

But for what it’s worth – and thinking particularly about people just starting out with their home based business – I know from my own experience and the experience of others I’ve observed that it is quite easy to spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars on the design and printing aspect of your brand without that necessarily being immediately helpful in getting or keeping business.

Why not to leave the design of your business card completely to your designer

French statesman George Clemenceau once made an observation that morphed into the expression, in English, that “war is too important to be left to generals”. My adaptation is that design is too important to be left to designers. And while that comment might annoy some people, I suspect that smart designers will prefer an intelligent interaction with the client to the alternative of having a totally free hand.

The key point here is that it is your business and your brand. A designer can help you present that more impressively and more effectively, but it is ultimately your responsibility and mine to ensure that we present our businesses in the best way possible.

And while a very professional designer will be thinking about how your business card is going to be used to best effect, that should not be taken for granted. For example, will the key information on your card – your name at least – be able to be read easily when you hand it to someone at the beginning of a business meeting or at a networking function? And will anyone who does not have 20/20 vision be able to read it easily? I have seen more than one card with the details in such a tiny font size as to be hard to read, especially under not so bright lights, as is often the case in business or networking venues.

In such circumstances, given a choice of whether to peer at the card, trying to decipher what it says, or just pocketing it to study later, I’ll choose the latter. How much better to be able to say “Ah, I see you specialize in……… Just the person I’m looking for!”

It’s essential to have the discussion with the designer before she or he has done any work on the project. I’ve supervised a lot of design jobs over the years and found it next to impossible to get a designer to change their concept once they have presented it to you. The creative work has been done and the opportunity for detailed briefing on what you wanted has passed.

Of course, if you are just getting a business card done and as economically as you can, it is unrealistic to expect the designer to spend a lot of time on the briefing. My suggestion is to get the designer to show you other work they’ve done, pick what you think is closest to your idea of your own brand and then indicate what you would want that is different. If the designer doesn’t want to do that and tells you not to worry, they’ll come up with something, be concerned. Be very concerned.

What’s your experience with business cards?

Do you have a story to share about how you managed the process of getting your business cards right? Or wrong? A story about how a good designer helped you get what you wanted? Any tips to share for getting a design that works? Nothing potentially litigious and not just promo links please!