Day 1 at the New Media Expo
September 28th, 2007 by Alec McNayrPosted in Media, Online, Strategy | No Comments »
Bob and I headed to Ontario, CA for the Podcast and New Media Expo. “New Media” has come a long way from the days when I worked for Jupiter Media Metrix, which hosted huge events attended by thousands of eager entrepreneurs, and featuring the rock stars of the late 90’s, dotcom analysts. The conference I’m attending today is a smattering of individuals, and not huge corporations… people that want to find a path of achieve their dreams… of creating media that matters and, hopefully, making money from it.It makes me realize why I’m in this. To make a living creating content and communicating well. One of the best speakers of the day, Michael Geoghegan, prefaced his talk about monetizing your podcast by simply clarifying goals. Is your goal to make money? Or to establish yourself as an expert? To engage an audience for a reason separate from the podcast itself? It makes me realize that Flipper Nation, though funny, was a project didn’t have the right goals in place to create more than three episodes. We just didn’t plan ahead, which is fine, because it was our first foray into online development, and it has led to other opportunities. So it has served its purpose. As I move forward, I must keep goals in mind, lest I become a old man with many ideas that “could have worked” if only I had tried them.
Eric Schwartzman led a great session on integrating podcasts into your existing marketing and PR budget. This seemed to resonate with most of the people at the conference, as this session had — easily — the most in attendance. At the heart of Eric’s message is the idea that while you cannot hide from media coverage of any type, you should additionally take a proactive stance on media creation. Since the value of many companies, organizations, and universities rests in experience, they should all be creating media to draw prospects and customers to themselves. Providing some real perceived value before a customer ever makes a transaction with you assured them that you’re worth investing their time, money, and energy in.
Why am I here at this event? I am spending this time thinking about answers to problems that I have and and have not yet faced. I come back to what I am doing — using words, images, and creative interpretation to encourage action.
