On Podcasting

Here is the tension that gives rise this blog post:
1) I have become pretty good lately at producing interesting corporate podcasts;
2) almost nobody in the firm seems to be listening to them!

I was thinking of subtitling this post "If a podcast is played in the forest and no one tunes in to hear, has the speaker made his point?". (Bet you're glad I didn't.)

I want to believe that the answer to the above riddle is yes. Even though podcasting may not have caught on here at PwC Russia, judging from the lack of response, I think it is a worthwhile exercise and I encourage others to try it.

 Now, I will readily admit to being a podcast junkie. My Sunday is not complete without an evening walk with Bill Moyer's Journal on my iPod.  My week doesn't settle in until after my Monday installment of This American Life. And one of the things keeping me Canadian and sane here in Russia is a steady dosage of CBC podcasts. You might think that I began doing podcasts at work out of a prior love for the medium. In fact, the opposite is true; I started listening to podcasts for pointers and only then became hooked.

When asked to give a short presentation on podcasting for the Social Media module of the Internal Communications Black Belt course this past spring I quickly agreed. I am no expert on podcasting, but was glad for the chance to structure some of what I had learned as I stumbled along in my first year of internal communications. For your reference, here are the PowerPoint slides of that presentation: Download on_podcasting.ppt

The first couple of slides—largely "stolen with pride" from the PwC in-house podcasting manual—cover the very basics. The second half of the presentation is a list of insights that I gained through experience, categorized into before, during and after recording. Now that I look back on them, most of these "insights" are just ways of eliciting from the speakers a confident, honest tone—without which podcasts become unlistenable or unwatchable, in my opinion.

The advice on slide 5 for dealing with pre-recording nerves might need some explaining.

"Perfect-person theory" refers to the tendency to trust someone in a position of authority a bit more after that person has made an innocuous little mistake. (At least, I remember an anecdote to that effect from Psychology 101 and it has not failed me yet.  Want to win over a room? Spill your coffee at the start of your speech.) When coming to someone on staff with fancy recording equipment and a job description that includes the use of it, I find a quick way to build trust and rapport is to make a false start or two. "'Welcome to the Smart Way podcast on office'—cut. Just a sec, sorry, let's start that again. 'Welcome to the Smart Way podcast on audit efficiency.'"

The "slippery sound check" is, as you might expect, a sound check that slips right into becoming the actual recording. I have found that nothing says stress out and clam up like "Ready? Aaaand rolling."

But, anyway. I am sure that many of you know a lot more about podcasting than I do. I would be very interested to read some of your top insights or podcasting tips. And from those of you  who have yet to try podcasting, I would be more than happy to field your questions or concerns.

Let's return to the paradox with which I began this blog post. It seems the better I get at producing podcasts the lower the number of listeners tuning in.

In the short term, I think podcasts are worth the effort anyway because they encourage speakers to reflect on and deliver their message in a new way. They also give listeners the experience of hearing it "straight from the horse's mouth", as the saying goes. When done right, this can foster a deeper and more intimate connection than the written word can, making podcasts great for executive communications. In the long term, of course, podcasting will only be worthwhile if people here at PwC Russia get into the habit of regularly watching and listening to what we produce.

It could be a cultural thing. Perhaps podcasting is as of yet a western phenomenon. PwC Russia is a solid 93% Russian in its staff composition and, let's face it, maybe you can't blame my Russian colleagues for having an instinctive skepticism toward the media—corporate media included. I wonder what the experiences of my colleagues around the world have been. Do podcasts resonate further in some necks of the woods than in others?

Jeffery

Comments

[Simon Garcia]

Hi Jeffrey,

It’s really interesting to hear that in your experience, recording Podcasts encourages speakers to reflect on and deliver their message in a new way, ensuring they are interesting and concise. We’re soon going to start our senior leaders down this route (help!) so your presentation will be very helpful.

I’m not sure Podcasting, or indeed any channel is of value if nobody’s listening, but it certainly sounds as though there’s real value in the discipline they bring to creating the piece of comms in the first place.

As for culture, in a 2007 Aperian Global study of working cultures, they found that the core value of a Russian workforce was order. Perhaps Podcasting is simply too unstructured or informal for your audience?

Here are a few practical questions too: What % of staff understand what a Podcast is? (They’re also referred to as Webcasts, Netcasts, Screencasts, Vlogs) …Have audio capability on their PC? …Have earphones at work? …Have an mp3 player? …Have the time? …Prefer traditional? Your HR and IT team should give you a good idea of most of the answers to these, from simple staff demographic and IT asset reports.

Good luck!

Simon.

[Jeffery McMillan]

Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Simon, and apologies for taking so long to respond.

The questions you list at the end of the comment have been very useful. I have used them to help understand why there has been such a modest response to the podcasts we have put on our portal lately.

Turns out our people have the technology but they lack the time. There is a perceived lack of time, at any rate.

On second thought, isn't "perceived lack of time" just another way of saying "lack of interest"? Hmm... This leads to the other major factor I have discovered: not enough promotion on our part.

We have tended to announce podcasts in Lotus Notes messages ("broadcasts" we call them) and provide a link to where we have uploaded the podcasts on the portal. It seems that these messages get ignored more often than I suspected. Often they are put aside for later and forgotten about.

Time to create a central podcast directory or page of links on the portal and make sure people know about it. If it is order that my Russian colleagues crave, this will be a big help.

Good luck with your upcoming podcasts involving your senior leaders. Would be interested to hear how it goes for you!