Kennedy-Spaien, Dot Com

Michael Bailey of MobaSoft is a great guy. I first met him at PodCamp Boston where he was networking and promoting his service MobaTalk (formerly MyChingo).

MyChingo is a voice commenting system for blogs, kind of like a public VOIP answering machine for your site. The name came from CHAT+LINGO. As it turns out, that name is strikingly similar to something very naughty indeed in Spanish. To fix that, as of later this year (when video support is added) the new name will be MobaTalk.

In the world of blog comments, audio is a great feature. I have tried using a dedicated phone line on some of our GNMHealth shows and I have also used MyChingo. What I have discovered is that the audiences for our shows don’t like sending audio comments as much as we enjoy getting them. Or even at all. In ANY format.

I see a lot of the people in the New Media Twitter circles sporting the MyChingo player on their sites, all filled up with comments. So it seems that perhaps it is a matter of demographics. Assuming that is the case, this blog may be a good place to try it again, as the audience here is quite different from the show sites I run.

I’ll be putting it up within the next week, and once it is in place, I’ve put the MobaTalk player up in the sidebar, so please feel free to drop me a line! In the mean time:
A) Have you used the MyChingo commenting system? How has it worked for you?
B) If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a whirl and let me know what you think of it.

Although Seth Godin is quoted so often these days, it is not because he is the flavor of the month - it is because the man is bloody brilliant at seeing the hidden obvious and summarizing it with great clarity.

So here’s today’s Really Good Seth Godin Quote™:

Media rule of thumb: if people wouldn’t miss your ads/ content/ noise if it went away, you should find something else to sell to advertisers. Not because it is ethically wrong to annoy people just because you can, but because in a world with a bazillion channels, people will just ignore you if they choose to.

For the record it IS ethically wrong to annoy people just because you can.

Do you read Seth’s Blog? Even if you are NOT a marketer, I recommend it!

“Extending the conversation” is what New Media is all about. We should be doing everything possible to facilitate this. There are interesting things being said that you may be missing! The fix is a two way street for bloggers and blog readers.

Bloggers: Do you have a comments feed? If not, get one, pronto. On WordPress it is as simple as putting up a link to:
www.yourdomain.com/yourblogdirectory/comments/feed/. You can even burn it at feedburner!

A caveat:
Chris Brogan has a WordPress blog at www.chrisbrogan.com, BUT if you really look at it, he’s using an URL redirect to:
www.grasshopperfactory.com/cbc/.
Don’t try to use the vanity address to hack this. Instead use:
http://www.grasshopperfactory.com/cbc/comments/feed/

For other blog platforms, you’re on your own, but it can’t be that hard.

Blog readers: Look for comment feeds and add them to your feed reader of choice (I still prefer Bloglines over the more newfangled Pageflakes or Google Reader). If you can’t find a comment feed listed and the site in question has the text “Powered by WordPress” in the footer, you can subscribe using the above-mentioned URL formula anyway.

So, let’s ALL extend the conversation!

Stepping out of my “Mr. Producer” shoes and putting on my “voice talent” hat (gotta love those moderately mixed metaphors), I tried something new at the HHX (A.K.A. Health Hacks) podcast this week.

I don’t normally work from a script, but extemporize on a theme I’ve been contemplating for a while. This week I basically used my bit from earlier this week on “The Secret” as a script. You may have read that article here at this site.

I noticed that I sounded very different when reading. I made a real effort not to sound “flat” as reading often does. So instead I sounded “affected” — kind of faux-stentorian with a Captain Kirk kind of abrupt, jerky verbal lope.

On YouTube, Ira Glass has a great set of talks on podcasting. He talks at length about how terribly unnatural he was on air for many years. This gives me hope!

My other big gripe — I hate it when others so this — is that when I was quoting text, I slipped into a sarcastic tone of voice. Real professional, that. Maybe I can do punditry for FOX.

On the subject of recycling blog posts as podcast segments, it never would’ve occurred to me to do it, until I realized that many podcasters I respect (and a few I produce!) do this all the time. It still seems a bit weird, but then again, the audiences are not 100% the same, and there is something to be said for “working smarter, not harder.” I actually did the blog post as a dry run for the segment, because I wanted to take the time to really articulate my thoughts as clearly as possible.

I think that despite a “snack culture” where a million little projects like podcasts, blog posts, Tweets, etc. are churned out and many otherwise rational people are saying that “editing is dead”, there is still real value in doing a thoughtful post-mortem on what we put out for the world. It isn’t just an exercise in navel-gazing to evaluate the HOW of self-presentation.

So, new media types, do you recycle your content? How do you feel about your voice/presentation? Most importantly, do you look back at your work, or only ahead?

I podcast, therefore I must have a professional sounding voice, yes?

Well, let’s see:

Ah, good for radio and TV. Well, that’s close enough for me!
Found via Banannie on Twitter.

Escargot: The other gray meat.

I have had a major, life improving experience this week, and it has opened me up to a world of new possibilities. I feel refreshed and empowered and ready to conquer the world. I feel like Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, or “over-man”. “How did this come to be?”, you may ask. I’ll tell you.

I read, then rejected The Secret. Then I ate Escargot.

First , let’s look at The Secret.

When I say “read”, that’s shorthand for “listened to” in true Audiodidact fashion. As I listened, I found myself nodding along saying, “yes, yes this is just a collection of truisms and old-time pop-psychology.” Most of this stuff is just “power of positive thinking” recycled for a new audience. I believe in this stuff, and am actually grateful to the Secret for reminding me of it. I had backslid into a habit of dour sarcasm and gloom and self-doubt as a constant low-level hum in my psyche.

However, about every ten minutes I would start to jump out of my seat wishing I had a passenger in my car to hear me shout, “Oh my god! Did you just hear that nugget of utter B.S.?”

The main problem is that I could accept almost everything in the book if they framed it as: “This is metaphor. Act as if it was true and you can derive much benefit from it.”. This is not what they do, though. The people involved KEEP stating “This is Literally true.” Even the incredibly lazy metaphysics. They try to use scientific terminology to “prove” unprovable statements, and use really bad logic.

Example:
Thinking about having money will make the universe manifest money for you.
This is because what we imagine is real.
Tests on athletes show that when they visualize running a race, the same muscles get stimulated as would be if they actually WERE running the race.
This Proves that what we imagine is real.

I have no idea what the technical name for that variety of fallacy is (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, perhaps?), but it quite obviously is not clear thought.

How I could envision this working is:

1. Visualize what you want.
2. Psych yourself into believing that having it is inevitable.
3. This then frees you from stressing so you can focus on making it happen.
4. With a clear mind, you are able to see and seize opportunities you wouldn’t have been open to before.
5. Free of stress, what used to seem like insurmountable obstacles can now be seen in perspective as solvable.
6. You end up getting what you want.

So I resolved to jettison away the “Magic thinking” and lazy rationalizations of The Secret and embrace the few kernels of psychology buried within. I have decided to put my fears and dreads to bed, to frame all my thoughts in the positive (Think: “I want A,” not “I don’t want B”), and to visualize the ends I hope to achieve.

Strike that — the ends I EXPECT to achieve!

I am something of a gourmand. As I teen I thought about going to the Culinary Institute of Pittsburgh, rather than music school, but I couldn’t stand the thought that I would be forced to try Pate de Foie Gras, Escargots, tripe, etc.

Last night I took my family out to a nice dinner and saw Escargots on the appetizer list. Without hesitating for a moment, I ordered them. They were fine. The sauce was so strongly flavored of Garlic and Vermouth that the taste was hidden, and the texture was masked by the copious amount mushrooms and gobs of melted Gruyere, but it was basically unobjectionable. The feeling of empowerment I got from conquering this long-standing fear was priceless.

I’m thinking about getting a T-shirt made saying, “Escargot: The other gray meat.”

So I didn’t make it to PodCamp NY ‘07. While I wish it would’ve been possible to go, at least I can take solace in the fact that I am in good company: Justin “Rob Sharp” Kownacki didn’t make it. Neither did Barack Obama, for that matter!

While it would have been a great networking experience, and I would get to see The Mayor (Who lives 10 minutes from me!) and Whitney Hoffman plus all kinds of new friends, I did get some networking in via Twitter.

With an event that big, if you add yourself to the event twitter group, people just seem to assume you are there! I scored a few new twitterfolken, including jMoonah of Uncle Seth (we met fleetingly at PodCamp Boston ‘06) and Tiil who is working on a new video aggregation channel.

On the flip side:

Since Ben Yoskovitz has sadly left Grasshopper New Media, Whitney, Megin Hatch and I have been doing some talking about exciting new directions to take our various properties (together in one way or another, I’m pleased to say). It will be a lot of fun to boldly forge a new path for all our great shows and blogs!

I’ve also decided to outsource my record label’s retail fulfillment operations to CDBABY, which will free up a lot more time at the Kennedy-Spaien homestead!

Working on my taxes, it seems that for the first time, Disc of Light is operating at a profit! Woot! Well, except for paying the taxes on that profit, but hey… what are you gonna do?

Other things I’m grateful for are that we’re 2 episodes in to a great new show - Yoga: It’s a Gas! and that Michelle at Healthy Helpings TV has managed to recover from a broken camera only missing one week!

So, in retrospect “Takin’ Care of Business” was probably the better choice for me this time around, but I really hope to make PodCamp Pittsburgh ‘07 (If they can set a date, already!) and wild horses won’t keep me away from PodCamp Boston ‘07. I hope to do VON Boston as well!

If I don’t see you there, add me as a Twitter Friend!