Jenkins goes quiet

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As many of you already know, my arch rival and nemesis, that international man of mystery Allan Jenkins, is going ‘quiet’ on us for a while as he reconsiders what his online strategy should be.

As per his request, I have already emailed him a lengthy missive on the ideas that have rattled around in what has laughably been called my brain.

And at risk of breaking a confidence, but as I found out today through other offline reading (yes, a novel is a wonderful thing), as the author I still own the copyright, I will post here just a snippet of what I sent him:

Is ‘blogging’ a fad, a PR/Comms ‘must-have’ that will go the way of Demming-like Quality initiatives [or name your own management guru initiative onanism of the last four decades]?

OR… is having a micro-niche voice the new order of the day? As Seth Godin argued a few months ago, is ‘Small’ the new ‘Big’?

Endurance Radio, the podcast, attracts sponsorship not because of its audience size but because of its audience psychographics. Perhaps DRC or the DRC Podcast can attract sponsorship / funding not because it attracts Curry-like audiences but because it attracts a core audience of senior level communicators.

Already I have seen in the blogosphere a backlash against the amateurism of A-list podcasts like Drew and Dawn; now that the audience is growing, the larger audience expects the audio sophistication of mainstream radio production, even though it may reject the mainstream radio content. Hence the reliance on podcasts of such personality-led radio ‘given’s as signature music, outro music, article-linking fx, etc.

All of this means that production values will have to rise. Cheap microphones, unless delivering great content, will have to make way for more expensive ministudio technology. Add to the mix the video capabilities of the iPod and it won’t be long before pornographers start podcasting pay-per-download material and we business podcasters will have to follow suit if we are to convince our clients that they need to be paying attention to both the medium and us as their advisors.

What this means for us working stiffs is that we will have to invest not only in new and expensive technology to keep playing in the game, but also we will invest more and more time in pre- and post-production of our free- or cheap-to-air content. Leaving us less time to devote to the other facets of our business. You know, that tedious stuff like actually delivering what we have promised our clients, or making sales calls, or doing the books, or paying sub-contractors or employees an’ stuff. Marketing of ourselves will evolve into an advertorial / marketing mix, leaving less time to devote to the other parts of our lives.

As a result of such labour-intensive demands, consolidation or partnership / outsourcing of skills will increase; Communicator X will hire in or barter services with AV wizz Y to produce a podcast that has many of the production values of current commercial output. I can’t do it on my own, but I will ask Joanne Bloggs to put together the editing wizardry in exchange for my voiceover talent over her show reel or podcast, as an example.

Allan has indeed gone quiet — and I for one miss his ‘voice’. I look forward to his return with both anticipation and high expectation.

And I know I will not be disappointed. My mother disappointed me once.

Once.

Tagged as: blogging