Pod casting - Communications Tool Change Agents Must Embrace
July 24, 2006
As part of our efforts to bring a fresh point of view on leadership, change and being a change agent in the government, we recently started pod-casting. As with blogging , podcasting is easy to do and very effective in reaching audiences to share best practices.
Podcasting will continue to mature and we plan to add many more interviews to our blog over time.
What strikes you as you listen to various pod-casts is how different organizations are using this new communications channel in innovative ways. Now once sleepy museums are waking up to the benefits of pod-casting. This article from The Denver Post caught my attention. Here are some excerpts:
The Boulder museum believes itself to be the first in Colorado to offer podcasts. Its offerings - tours of three simultaneous shows - became available May 31 at www.bmoca.org. They were produced in-house, under the supervision of associate curator Kirsten Gerdes, for approximately $5,000. A donor provided the museum with six iPods so visitors can listen on site, if they don't have their own to bring.
"Amazed" by results
Since the podcast inception, Gerdes said, the museum has had 14,222 total "feed views" - website visitors listening online - as well as 304 downloads of the files to personal listening devices and 107 subscriptions to a museum service that will automatically download new podcasts.
"As a contemporary art museum, we need to be moving forward," Gerdes said by phone. "This is our first look at how to direct our education program to a more technically inclined crowd."
After compiling the first month's numbers, she added by e-mail, "We are amazed and pleased by this result."
As with all articles we comment on, the question becomes what can and should the government do with regards to blogging. Here are some predictions as to how pod casting will unfold:
- Pod casts will become a widely accepted mode for government to disseminate information from as early as 2007 (internally first and then externally)
- States and local government will innovate pod casting into their communications faster than Federal government
- Generations Y and X will drive adoption of federal pod casting
- Pod casts to Gen Y will become a powerful tool for attracting talent to join the government
- Within 2 years, pod casting will adapt to much more interactive experiences involving video and training across the federal government
- Pod casting will drive down costs for transacting with federal customers as it will help citizens to facilitate better online (low cost) experiences
What do you think? Please let us know.
Thoughts or reactions? Please send them to us.