seaz me

Podcasting Basics – Screencast Version of USCG PodCamp Presentation

2009-11-22T04:29:14Z

Best viewed in Full Screen HD Mode.

Five Highlights of United States Coast Guard PodCamp

2009-11-19T14:37:22Z

Earlier this week, I travelled down to Virginia Beach, VA to participate in the first United States Coast Guard PodCamp which took place on November 18, 2009. It was a great event where, in the spirit of social media, people connected, shared and learned.

There were so many highlights of the day but for the sake of crafting a post that doesn’t go on forever, I’ve limited my self to the five (5) below.

Connecting. The main reason I travelled down to VA to participate in PodCamp was to meet face to face a number of people that I’ve been building online friendships over the past few years. While I’m a strong advocate for social media, there’s nothing more effective at building relationships than shaking a hand, sharing a meal or learning from each other. And it’s always great to catch up with my friend and fellow Weekly Leader contributor Mario Vittone.
Being part of something new. While the PodCamp concept has been around for a while (as measured in social media years), this was the first USCG PodCamp. In fact, it was the first PodCamp organized by any of the US military services. It’s always fun to be part of something new and exciting and PodCamp USCG did not disappoint. Kudos to Ben Strong, Katie Hood, Peter Stinson and Ryan Erickson for doing all of the heavy lifting to get the program ship shape and underway.
TSA’s Blogger Bob – It’s always valuable to get perspectives and learn from people outside your organization or system. One of USCG PodCamp’s guest speakers was the Transportation Safety Administration’s (TSA) Blogger Bob and it was fascinating to hear him tell the TSA social media story. It’s amazing how one guy with a small team and strong organizational support can have such a dramatic effect on the public persona and online brand of a large government agency. This is social media in action.
Re-enlistment. Chief Petty Officer Paul Roszkowski, a public affairs officer in the Pacific Northwest and strong social media advocate, decided to re-enlist in the Coast Guard during the PodCamp and arranged to have an officer that he met through social media swear him. It was a great reminder that this is more than just a job to the men and women in the Coast Guard. Cool idea, well done. Congratulations and great success to Paul!
Weekly Leader Podcast Leadership and Social Media Roundtable – We thought it would be fun, and hopefully instructive to participants, to actually record an episode of the Weekly Leader Podcast while at PodCamp. We had an impressive group of individuals from a wide range of areas in the Coast Guard who were willing to share their thoughts and experiences around the topic of leadership and social media. It was an incredible opportunity that we were not going to miss and you shouldn’t either! So make sure you listen to the Weekly Leader podcast episode 27.
Ben Strong, Peter Stinson, Beverly Howard, Daren Lewis, Katie Hood, Mario Vittone, Kathy Nash, Steve Flowers, Dan Taylor

USCG PodCamp was run parallel to the USCG Innovation Expo which appears to be a perfect fit. It was a great event that offers a lot of promise for the future. I’m already looking forward to the US Coast Guard’s second annual PodCamp next November and if you are in the Coast Guard, maritime industry or Tampa, FL area, you should too!

Podcasting Basics: US Coast Guard Podcamp Presentation

2009-11-18T02:22:40Z

Here is a copy of my PowerPoint presentation. Unfortunately, the animations aren’t captured.

Podcasting Basics – PodcampUSCG

View more presentations from SeaFever.

Podcasting Basics: Why Podcast?

2009-11-18T02:19:33Z

Why podcast?

Well, there could be lot’s of reasons but I believe they all fall into two overarching ones: passion and business objectives.

Spend some time in the iTunes store or any of the podcast directories, like Podcast Alley, Podcast Pickle or Mevio, and you will be amazed by the breadth and depth of content that you will find with much of it is produced by people who simply have a passion for something.

Take Just One More Book, which is one of my favorite podcasts. Three times a week Mark and Andrea review children’s books from their local coffee shop with ambient noise playing a key supporting role. Andrea is “a software designer at a telecommunications company” and her husband Mark is “an information security, privacy and risk management consultant and a new media specialist.” More importantly, and what really manifests itself in their podcast, is that they are parents who love reading to and with their children. Their authentic passion for children’s books, and the act of reading as a family, comes across very clearly in Just One More Book and it’s contagious. As a parent, I enjoy these podcasts and trust them to give me solid book recommendations and each week I look forward to their podcasts. (N.B. Just One More Book is currently on a short hiatus as Andrea beats breast cancer.)

I bet you think it’s tough to measure passion like Andrea’s and Mark’s but in a recent post they’ve shared some insights and metrics about Just One More Book:

1,362,954: total downloads in the last 18 months; an average of 2,100 downloads per day (more than 2 million downloads since we launched in July 2006).
623: the number of regular episodes published
21: the number of shows in our Rock Stars of Reading documentary series
392: number of review episodes published
220: number of interview episodes published
$0.00: the amount of money we accepted for JOMB (we self-funded the full production as well as all travel, accommodations and expenses and donated all of our time)

Very impressive and all for the love of reading!

iTunes and podcast directories are full of business podcasts that will help you sell more, invest wisely, and heck, even make you a more effective leader. Most, but not all, business podcasters have concrete objectives like selling more products, raising brand awareness or recruiting new clients. But not surprisingly, my favorite business podcasters also present an authentic passion for their subject matter and in the spirit of social media are willing to share their knowledge and experience with their listeners.

I’m listening to the 500th episode of the FIR (For Immediate Release) podcast as I write this. That’s an impressive milestone for this twice weekly, hour long, always interesting podcast which is cohosted by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, two experienced public relations executives/consultants. Their wide ranging discussions on PR, marketing, digital communications and social media and their cast of regular contributors make this podcast informative and invaluable to anyone interested in navigating this dynamic communication space. While they are not explicitly selling listeners anything, they are raising awareness of their own individual personal brands as well as FIR’s organizational. Shel’s seemingly relentless consulting/speaking travel schedule and Neville’s new job would indicate that it’s working for each of them and the recent discussion about exploring an FIR “conference” would indicate it’s working for FIR.

Mitch Joel is the president of Twist Image, a digital marketing agency and author of the Six Pixels of Separation book, blog and podcast. (You can hear Mitch talk about leadership with me on Weekly Leader podcast episode 25.) In a recent episode of the Six Pixels of Separation podcast, Mitch talked about the ROI of his various social media initiatives. Mitch has successfully established himself as a thought leader on personal branding and in the digital marketing arena and he practices what he preaches. If Mitch lands just a couple new clients for Twist Image as a result of blogging, podcasting and public speaking, then his investment of time and effort has been worthwhile and Twist Image’s ROI goes through the roof.

What do Just One More Book, FIR and Six Pixels of Separation podcasts all have in common? Passion.

So if you’re thinking of starting your own podcast, first and foremost make sure it’s focused on something that you are passionate about and, in the spirit of social media, you want to share.

Podcasting Basics: How I Became Involved in Podcasting

2009-11-18T02:16:39Z

My first experience with podcasting dates back to December 2005 when my parents gave me a video iPod for Christmas. Prior to that I wasn’t really familiar with the concept of podcasting but soon after loading iTunes on my laptop, and rummaging around the iTunes store, I stumbled upon some very interesting content and the best part was that it was all free! Not only that, but I could press one little button and get fresh stuff automatically delivered to me whenever I plugged my iPod in for charging.

Soon after this “iPodiphany,” I started to think about how I might be able to use this tool at work. At that time I was the executive director of the American Sail Training Association and we produced a rather large public event each summer called the TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE which is a series of tall ships races and maritime port festivals. One of the problems we had was how to effectively educate the general public about our organization’s mission as well as the diverse missions of the participating ships. Inspired by the Acoustiguide experience that many museums offer to their visitors, but having no budget for this type of thing, we began to look into producing our own podcast audio tour of the ships that visitors could download before coming to the event.

So I handed off the project to a new, young team member to produce the podcast. Being that a sigfnificant part of ASTA’s mission is oriented toward youth education, our narrators were several summer interns who had experience sailing aboard the ships. We worked with renowned tall ships photographer Thad Koza and invited each ship captain to regale us with one of their best sea stories.

While it certainly wasn’t Acoutiguide quality, I think it serves as a useful example of how podcasting effectively fit in the overall organization mission and created a richer visitor experience in the process. The only real cost involved was junior staff time and from that perspective it was a project that they could take pride in. Athough not a perfect solution, podcasting became a new communication channel for the American Sail Training Association. We very inexpensively created a richer educational experience for people who came down to sea the ships. (pun intended.)

If you have iTunes installed on your computer and want to listen to this podcast tour of the ships, you can do so by clicking here.

Podcasting Basics Series

2009-11-18T01:48:45Z

On Monday I’m heading down to Virginia Beach for the first U.S. Coast Guard Podcamp, which is part of the annual USCG Innovation Expo. I’m really looking forward to catching up with some great Guardian friends that I’ve made online over the past few years. The event is free and open to the public so if you’re in Virginia on Tuesday, come participate.

I’ve been asked to present a session on podcasting basics and thought it would be a good idea to flush out my material here. So over the next few day’s I’ll do a series of posts about podcasting.

A few points to consider.

While I’ve been involved in podcasting in one form or another since early 2006 when I was the executive director of the American Sail Training Association, I’m not exactly an expert in this area. Then again, this is social media and things like podcasting are so new that nobody can (or should) really call themselves an expert and keep a straight face while doing it. Basically, in the spirit of social media, I’ve got some experience and I’m willing to share it.

What I present here is totally based on my experience. Warning: there might be much better and more effective ways to end up with the same or better results. If you know of any, please, in the spirit of social media, share them with us in the comments below.

Things change. In fact, things change nearly every week. So if you’re reading this post and it’s more than a few weeks after publication, chances are that it might be as useful as month-old milk. While I can’t promise to constantly update this post every time some new tool or technique arises, again in the spirit of social media, I will respond to every question that you leave below or send to me at peter[at]seaz[dot]me.

I’m thinking of breaking this series into bite size pieces focused on (1) hardware, (2) software, (3) process, (4) distribution and (5) strategy with the first post in the series being how I become interested and involved in podcasting.

So, I hope somebody finds this post interesting and useful and maybe even inspires a couple people to launch their own podcasts.

Blogging Every Day

2009-11-13T00:35:44Z

It’s a little odd that I haven’t written a post here in MONTHS and today I chose to title this post Blogging Every Day. Well, I haven’t been here for a number of reasons with one being pure neglect. But I have been extremely busy over at Sea-Fever and Weekly Leader as well as with the WL podcast. Not to mention a number of other fun projects with some great clients.

I do blog nearly every day over at Sea-Fever so I’m not really out of my depth on this topic. But social media rock star Chris Brogan wrote a great post today titled How to Blog Almost Every Day where he shares some of his ideas and techniques about keeping things fresh on his great blog. Any time you can learn from a successful leader like Chris, you should take advantage of the opportunity. So if you’re new to blogging or a veteran, check out Chris’ great post and subscribe to his blog because nearly every day you’ll learn something valuable, whether you blog or not.

Launching the New Bedford Port Society website

2009-03-11T18:14:27Z

Our latest project involved creating a web presence for the New Bedford Port Society, a nonprofit organization located in the New Bedford National Whaling Historical Park which has served mariners and the greater New Bedford community for nearly 180 years. The original and continued mission of the Port Society is “to bring moral and spiritual improvement to those who work along the waterfront and in the fishing industry.” The Port Society owns and manages two historic properties, The Mariner’s Home and the Seamen’s Bethel, the latter which was made famous as the “Whaleman’s Chapel” in Herman Meville’s classic novel Moby-Dick. In addition to providing services to mariners, the nondenominational Seamen’s Bethel is also the site of many weddings, christenings, funeral and memorial services each year.

The Port Society has never really had any significant web presence and the organization relied on the National Park and several local tourism and business websites to tell its rich history.

For the sake of full disclosure, my cousin Phillip Mello was recently appointed the president of the New Bedford Port Society and he asked me to join. seaz media undertook this pro-bono project as part Sea-Fever Consulting LLC’s corporate social responsibility program.

Let’s take a look at the Port Society’s new website and our thoughts behind it.

Design

Our objectives for this project was to create something quickly that was clean looking and easy to maintain. We decided to use the WordPress blogging platform for its ease of use and installation, and the endless number of themes and plugins that can add functionality and enhance user experience.

For the Port Society’s main website, we chose Derek Punsalan’s unique and beautiful Unstandard theme which we felt was in keeping with the aesthetics of the Seamen’s Bethel, the organization’s most prominent property and the only one open to the general public. If you ever visited the Bethel you will be struck by the simple yet beautiful, utilitarian design of this house of worship. We also liked how The Unstandard theme is laid out in a graphic-rich grid system which allows the visitor to take a tour through space and time just by landing on the site’s frontpage. We eliminated commenting functionality since this will be the Port Society’s main static website and they have minimal staff and volunteers to monitor and reply.
We added a RSS widget to the footer of the Port Society website that will update news headlines. The “Port Society News” section is actually a traditional blog using Derek Powazek’s minimalist DePo Skinny WordPress theme which can be accessed via the navigation “News” tab at the top of the Port Society’s website’s frontpage or by clicking on any of the headlines in the footer.
Video can really enhance the user experience in visiting a website and since several significant chapters of Melville’s Moby-Dick take place within the “Whaleman’s Chapel”, we thought it would be fun to embed Orson Wells classic portrayal of Father Mapples, a character in the image of the Bethel’s own Reverend Mudge. We found this video on Youtube but unfortunately there is a sync issue with it so we will be working on finding a replacement. We used the free and full featured video hosting service Blip.tv for the video embed.
The Seamen’s Bethel is an active church with lots of public and private events taking place throughout the year so we created and embedded a Google calendar in order to let the public know the upcoming schedule.
New Bedford is the home to a very diverse community and the Port Society’s rich maritime history represents sailors from around the world. Therefore, using Nothing2Hide.net’s great Global Translator plugin, the Port Society’s website and blog can be read in thirty different languages.

Photography

Photography plays an important part in telling the Port Society’s story and we will continue to add it to the website and blog. Much of the vintage photography was generously donated by the neighboring New Bedford Whaling Museum while most of the contemporary images were provided by Phil Mello, the current Port Society president. The calendar photo on the frontpage was donated by professional mariner “Tim the Sailor” Ruttledge and we shot several photographs for the project as well.

Things Still To Do

While we wanted to launched the Port Society website, like every project of this nature there’s still a number of things to do including adding content to the Services and Events page, filling out the calendar and creating a photo gallery. Most importantly, over the next few weeks we will be working on a “Support” page since the Port Society is a nonprofit organization that relies for the most part on individuals and organizations that believe in and want to support the organization’s important mission.

We’d love your feedback on this project. Likes and dislikes, things missing, etc. Thanks.

What’s your boss think of social media?

2009-02-11T17:05:15Z

Not much probably. Don’t get too down him or her though, it’s part of a leader’s genetic makeup. They can’t help it, but you probably can.

Steve Borsch of the Minnov8 blog wrote an interesting post titled “Why Executives Don’t "Get" Social Media” in which he shares a valuable personal experience and some useful insights about how to “talk” to executives about social media.

First, Steve’s story was about an executive workshop that he participated in several years ago in a prior company. Part of the workshop included doing an assessment to get a better understanding of his “motive profile.”

This assessed profile was based on the work of the late Harvard professor David McClelland, in which he proposed that an individual’s specific needs are acquired over time and are shaped by one’s early life experiences. Most of these needs can be classified as either achievement, affiliation, or power (or what McClelland apparently wished he’d called that last one: influence due to "power’s" often misconstrued meaning) and are hard-wired into each of us by the time we’re 4 or 5 years old.

Steve assessment indicated that he was a ‘power V” which basically meant that he was high on the outside factors (achievement and influence) while lower on the middle one (affiliation); his profile was similar to most other organizational leaders. Read Steve’s post for a better understanding of what this means.

So how can you use this new knowledge about your executive’s probable motive profile to move social media forward in your organization? Steve has a few suggestions.

1) Factor in low need for affiliation when you’re pitching your boss, executives or client leadership on internet or web innovations that you think are a no-brainer to move forward on. Chances are they’ll be less-than-interested in what you’re proposing if it’s all about social media connections vs. promoting efficiencies (i.e., achieving better results) or for ways in which people can be persuaded en masse.

2) If you’re a ‘power V’ yourself and are the decision-maker, understand your own motives, needs and perspectives as you listen to the pitches, and factor that in when you listen to the vision being proposed.

3) What works to get me engaged with social media — and might be one you’ll find useful too — is when people who are connectors and love doing so — see the connection between people and the value it could create by putting us together and they do so. This is always highly valuable (and I so appreciate it) when others do it, and I’d recommend that if you’re low on affiliation, ask the connectors in your life to make those connections.

4) Finally, if you’re contemplating social media for you or your organization to use or harness in some way for marketing or community building purposes, consider that you — like every other organization trying to leverage existing social media connections — that attempting to reach and leverage influencers is going to be a challenge. Chances are the leaders and influencers you want to reach (even if they are online and participating in social media) could care less about playing in your sandbox unless you are overt, are a good host and provide them with ways to achieve or influence rather than just connect.

Social media is like any tool, it’s what you ultimately produce with it that matters, especially to your boss. Managing up the organization can be challenging but knowing what to focus on is more than half the battle. In the future, we’ll give you some strategies to help build your case.

Please visit the Minnov8 blog and read the entire post and comments.

Via Mashable on Twitter.

The Yellow Page Killer

2009-03-10T17:38:31Z

Remember the good old days when you actually got excited when the new edition of the Yellow Pages was dropped on your doorstep? It was great because now you could look up a number to call that new store to see what time they opened and if they carried a specific brand you’ve been searching for? But it really wasn’t that “good” when you thought of this at 11 PM as you were planning your next day before going to bed. And if you ran a business I bet on at least one occasion you dodged a “friendly” call from the Yellow Pages salesperson offering you a “great deal” to increase your visibility in the community. It was definitely a good tool in its day.

But today if you think of your static website as your White Pages listing, then your organization’s official blog is the powerful Yellow Pages display advertising the salesperson was trying to upsell to you.

Yesterday, we presented Shel Holtz’s 4 great reasons why a blog is a business requirement as well as some basic guidelines for effective corporate blogging. Today, we’ll complement Shel’s with a few of our own.

The Yellow Pages Replacement – There’s no denying it, more and more people use the Internet each day to search for the products and services that they intend to purchase. Even if they don’t plan on buying online, they will still end up doing their research there; if your organization has an official blog it might be one of the places they may visit.
Inexpensive – You can actually get started with an official organizational blog for no money down. Services like WordPress.com, Blogger.com, Tumblr and Posterous provide powerful free tools to get your message out there. Of course, there are real benefits of creating a custom blog that matches your organization’s branding and has more functionality.
Dynamic platform – That Yellow Pages ad will look exactly the same in a year as it did the day you gave handed over the copy. Unfortunately, your business might not. You may have added some new sought after product’s or services recently or you might have created a special opportunity for customers. An official blog is one effective way to deliver the message.
Tell a story - Your story is your competitive advantage. It’s yours and nobody elses’, tell it! It might encompass your organization’s history, your employee’s dedication and service, client success stories or a combination of all of the above. As long as man has been on Earth, he’s loved to tell and hear stories and research has shown that brand that tell a story can charge a premium over those that don’t.
Conversation – Finally and most importantly, an official blog offers the unique opportunity to engage and converse with your stakeholders. People like to know that they have a voice and are being listened to. The feedback loop made possible by social media is invaluable and will help you serve your customers better and make your organization stronger.

While the Yellow Pages is not going away anytime soon, social media, like blogs, are just getting started.¹ Don’t delay, launch a blog, tell your story, engage your customers and “let your fingers do the walking” across your computer keyboard.

See: Social Media is just getting started