So if you’ve been wondering about the flurry of activity today, hopefully this explains it…and the site looks as it should.

BTW — I have received the hardware I was promising to review (a two-fer that many of you might be able to use, in lieu of a more costly, bulky setup), but am having some difficulty configuring it. I’ll explain in the coming post, after some more testing.

And another trip to Radio Shack

I’ve been chewing on this one for a looong while.

The advantages to medical bloggers of, well, blogging. But especially if you’re a busy medpro, who may want nothing more than to promote your practice online, and provide fresh content for your patients.

I could, for example, fire up the Aphex 230 and its assorted attachments and record a show in the spare bedroom I use as my studio. But I’m typing this quietly after the rest of the house is asleep, because I can:

Lesson #1: Blogging is quick, quiet, and can be done from anywhere there’s an Internet connection (including your cell phone). Busy medpros take heed — this post is a blog post, not an audio show.

You can skim the MedSqod home page quickly for interesting headlines — and admit it, your eyes catch on the jpg images — as well as delve deeply via reading. And the speed control knob is in your brain, via how quickly you move your eyeballs. Want to pause to ponder? Look up and off to the right while you cogitate. No pause button necessary:

Lesson #2: Blogging is a full-spectrum visual medium, from the instant and instinctive (images) to the formless and timeless (concept discussions).

If your audience is made up of your rank-&-file patients, you will draw more eyeballs, at least initially, with a visual approach:

Lesson #3: Most folks get 90+% of their info about the world via their eyes. If you’re looking for numbers, you can’t afford to ignore that demographic.

So:

• easier on you
• immediately accessible to your audience
• broadly appealing to the widest number of patients

Why do anything but blog?

The answer: next time, on Podcasting For Medical Professionals.

Another in a spate of updates (I feel like an updating dervish, relative to my recent time away…)

This time, the visual theme of the site has been tweaked to Thesis, or rather, the Thesis theme, which has been tweaked to closely resemble the last theme, Copyblogger.

It does a lot, and enables customization and a whole lot of nifty do-dads behind the scenes. It doesn’t hurt that it’s very aggressively supported, no sir; it’s also not accidental that this is a premium theme, meaning that unlike ~ 95% of the themes available for WordPress blogs, you have to purchase it.

I’ve used a number of themes to give my blogs their looks, which were all free before Thesis. IMHO, you get what you pay for, and the price for the flexibility and support is modest.

Again, it’s a theme from Chris Pearson, whose works I’ve used exclusively, for what I hope are obvious reasons. The site links to Thesis are affiliate links, a measure of my belief in the product.

‘Nuff said.

Sigh. I’d be one of the last ones to admit it, of course.

But I guess it depends on what you mean by “dead.”

The cart software platform that I use on my PC to record and produce my shows — Podcast Station — is no longer being made or supported by its manufacturer, despite being pretty much the only such product in its affordable price range that I’m aware of.

Then there’s the news about one of the major podcasting networks possibly heading for the Long Kiss Goodnight. It’s a little premature, but the degree of caution put out by the higher ups at Podango (to their eminent credit, btw) is signaling a certain chill in this neck of the woods.

At least, from an ad revenue point of view.

And for years now, that’s been where most of the attention has been, among podcasters: monetizing your shows. For a few shows, like Grape Radio, it has worked spectacularly. Ask A Ninja and French Maid TV come immediately to mind, as well.

Not coincidentally, all 3 have strong video content. Everyone loves sight as well as sound, and if you want to generate bucks, you have to do what it takes to appeal to everyone.

Dolts That We Are, It’s Never Been About The Money

Of course, from a medical podcasting standpoint, garnering major income from the audio programs themselves has never really been the prime directive.

Not that it couldn’t — hell, yes, ad folks would be interested in the average physician’s trusted headlock on his or her few thousand patients. But the appeal of medical podcasting for practicing physicians has always been more about potentially shoring up their practices:

• retaining existing patients, by providing additional, personalized, in-depth content
• attracting new, desirable patients, by “broadcasting” what the practice does best and likes best to treat
• possibly providing additional income via premium podcasting of special educational programs

The Podcasting News story goes on to cite that “the number of podcasts and podcast listeners is growing at an amazing rate”; it’s just that web-hosting services specific to podcasting (like Podango) may be in danger, with the ubiquity of free or low cost web hosting services and blog/podcasting software. Certainly, there’s no shortage of podcasts on iTunes, and you can listen to audio podcasts on your Apple TV, iPhone, iPod, or TiVo.

The medium itself isn’t going to disappear anytime soon.

Is Podcasting Going To Disappear, Ever?

Never say never, but until such time as it’s no longer valuable to listen to a point of view (i.e. humanity evolves beyond social primate-hood), or to listen to material while you multi-task with your eyes, audio-only podcasting will never die.

Medical podcasting for medical practices will always be oriented to those 2 particulars unique to audio podcasting:

1. Lots of concerned patients multi-task; it’s dangerous watching a video while driving to work.
2. And few patients need to see you boogie in a video to convince them to trust you; they already trust you, seeing as how you’re their doctor.

Plus, as I’ve alluded to before, it’s a heck of a lot easier to produce an audio show than an audio + video one.

Check out some of those successful podcasts I mentioned, in particular Grape Radio, which is based on a model that most medical practices can identify with (few stunts and no flesh). It utilizes all 3 modes of modern communication to connect with its audience — video, audio podcast, and blog texts — so there’s no one it can’t reach, unless they’re blind, deaf, illiterate, and off the Internet.

Not coincidentally, being a triple threat works for you as a medical professional:

1. If you’re motivated and creative, video is hard to beat.
2. If you’re feeling thoughtful, conceptual, and mentor-like (as most doctors do), audio never grows stale.
3. If you’re pressed for time or still getting your podcasting and video production skills up to speed, you can dash off a blog post.

Any which way, your patients will appreciate the added value of your time and thoughtfulness, in the modern digital age.

And once again, it’s courtesy of Chris Pearson. Though it’s NOT his latest creation.

It’s actually an older theme, called Copyblogger, which I use on another of my blogs, The Medical Record Show. There’s just something about those reds and blacks…

More important, perhaps, is that I am, actually, back. Long story short: my work now involves creating educational videos, which has consumed a great deal of time.

The downside has been the geometric increase in time and complexity, both in recording as well as editing/producing these video “shows,” even with the slick Camtasia screen capturing platform. This has translated into my absence these past several months, both in terms of the initial learning curve, and the added workload once I demonstrated competence with the technology.

The upside — and there always is an upside — is that I’ve gotten sufficiently adept at creating these videos that I can finish them in just a few hours (as opposed to a week’s worth of solo effort per vid, in addition to my medical duties). And of course, that creating audio podcasts now seems much easier in comparison.

Has the industry changed while I’ve been away? It sure looks that way…which I’ll be addressing shortly.

For now, Happy Holidays, and here’s to looking forward to a wonderful New Year. The new theme seems to fit the holiday season, too!

If you look at the date of this post…and the date of my last one, I think the reason will be obvious.

Podfading, or postfading, or whatever you choose to call it, are very real issues for medpros. In MEDicine, the tendency is to be hyper diligent, and as a PROfessional, you want your output to be polished, and assume that your audience expects the same.

Add that all up, and you can get some pretty long gaps between your posts. And your show can disappear entirely, if you’re not careful.

Rambo Was Right

Jason — and the relatively large number of people who commented on his post — touched on a perennial danger for both bloggers and podcasters.

Being your own worst nightmare when it comes to posting consistently.

I consider my own writing and editing skills to be above average, especially for my sister site, The EMR/EHR Show, which is based entirely on written text blog posts. And besides Jason Van Orden, I take some cues from another Internet maven, Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame, who has long advocated Quality over Quantity. Better in his opinion (and it’s backed up by some pretty darned good readership stats) to take your time and put out thoughtful, high-value content, than to put out reams of schlock.

I couldn’t have agreed more. But of course I wouldn’t — I’m a medpro.

Quality takes precedence over quantity, no question. But Brian’s advice was aimed more at folks who blog for a living, or at least intend to as a primary endeavor. If you podcast or blog professionally, or with enough frequency to call yourself an inspired amateur, then re-focusing on quality carries specific meaning. It addresses a weak spot you can easily develop, cranking out reams of material on a regular basis.

Medpros don’t have that problem.

We’re healthcare providers first and last. And our blogging — or podcasting — complements that primary activity.

I Have Been Waiting For You, Obi-Wan

For me to put out a “quality” blog post on The EMR Show takes about 3 hours, minimum. That doesn’t include time spent percolating the idea out of the subconscious and coffee grounds of life experience. Writing, mulling, re-writing, then adding paragraph breaks, titles for sections, formatting, and then the jpeg image for the main title…sometimes the prettifying process takes longer than the actual writing.

As it should, if you’re crafting for the ultimate, professional effect. (Ask me sometime, about the proper balance between R&D and Marketing in business.)

But the proof is in the pudding — as a medpro, I sincerely hope you share that value with me.

And if you’re not putting out material with sufficient regularity to keep your audience educated, entertained, and confident that you’ll be around on a reliable basis, then you’ve got to re-examine your creative process.

This is even more critical for the podcasting, which even in theory takes longer than blogging. And let’s not even get started on the additional time needed for editing and posting video.

“Quality” can sink your ship, if you’re not careful as a medpro. Or at least make it dead in the water.

So What Can You Do?

Remember what Churchill said: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

Remember what every single writing teacher ever told you, when you took those summer classes hoping to become the next Tolkien or Michael Crichton: Whatever you do, keep writing.

Take a tip from the New Agers, and keep the following tips from Jason Van Orden’s post in mind:

• Set a cooking timer to a predetermined amount. When it goes off, it’s done. Good enough is good enough.
• Realize that leaving something out of or even making a mistake in your content is conducive to conversation. It gives people a chance to chime in and share their point-of-view.
• Don’t be afraid to show your “human” side. People connect with that and in the end connecting with your audience is more important than impressing them.

Those last two ring some bells with me, from my early podcasting days, as well as fishing with the so-called “do nothing”method. Often, the most interesting things happen when you just keep it simple, throw it out there, and reel it back in slow, with a minimum of drama.

I’ve been in medical podcasting for close to 2 years now — about half the duration it’s been fairly popular as a new medium. (That’s not me in the pic, BTW, it’s an older gent, courtesy of iStockphoto, embodying today’s theme: maturity is a good thing.)

I started out as an interested rank beginner who knew squat about recording and Internet dissemination of audio, but who was totally taken with the possibility of getting my own shows out there.

Besotted, I met some wonderful folk, asked tons of questions, and went to my first Podcast and New Media Expo.

And I noticed something. And thank God I only slowed down instead of stopping.

If you’re not careful, you’ll notice it, too — and be tempted to make a potentially crappy decision.

The Thrill Is Gone — And That’s A Good Thing

It’s hard to see if you haven’t rubbed shoulders with a number of folk doing this, but podcasting — and by this I mean audio podcasting, as opposed to vidcasting or video podcasting — had a certain buzz that has faded over the past few years.

Today’s show explains why that’s not only a good thing; it’s an inevitable thing. I hope I never lose my enthusiasm for this medium that’s been a labor of love, emphasis on the labor, but I’m glad it’s still around, and myself with it.

Because when you’re into something for the long haul, there had better be more to it than first-sight thrills.

The Podcasting Medium Is A Happy Medium

Podcasting is still the best choice for medpros wanting to reach out to their patients and pull them in by the jugular.

There’s no reason you have to limit yourself to blogging, or podcasting, or videocasting. Do them all, and you’ll reach more people; we all respond best to different means of communication.

But if you have to keep yourself to just one medium, today’s show describes how audio podcasting hits that sweet spot between effectiveness on the audience end, and efficiency on yours.