Podcasting To A Niche Market Or Podcasting To A Professional IT Audience In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure - Bill Cosby #

Why Niche Markets Tend To Be Different

• Must have an agreement with the audience

• Audience is hard to identify

• • Highly specialized

• • Tend to be dispersed

• • Highly international

• Busy therefore the content must be highly appropriate and targeted

• Interaction tends to be hit or miss

• May or may not naturally the IPod age group

Develop An Agreement With The Audience Standard Customer Satisfaction Model What Should The Focus Be? I am not Mitch Joel or even Joe Jaffe Not an advertisement but information

Target Audience: Highly Specialized Highly Specialized Target audience(s)

Target Audience: International Focus

• International Audience but . .

• • Must Be:

• • • English speakers (for me)

• • • Aware of podcasts

• • • Actively engaged in continuous learning

Highly International

Coverage: Strategy and/or Execution? Strategy Execution

Building An Audience

• Knowing something is only the beginning of an equation that culminates in action.

• Awareness helps provides a spotlight of attention that filters unwanted information.

• If you are not able or interested in taking action, you really do not want to know.

How I Identifying Topics

• Create a monthly topic ranking then filter

• Current Top

• • Kanban

• • Technical Debt

• • AGILE

• • Project Management

Local topics or international? Publications Conferences

Building Awareness and Getting Attention

• Interviewing people that are willing to promote themselves

• Some cross promotions with other podcasts

• Mailing lists from speaking engagements

• Quite promotion at industry conferences

• Social Media: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

But I do not think is enough and I am still looking!

Interviewees

• Tim Lister, co-author of Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies

• Suzanne Robertson author of multiple books on requirements

• David Anderson the author of Agile Management for Software Engineering

• Kent Beck, pioneer in Agile Methods

• Scott Ambler, though leader in Test Driven Development

• Ivar Jacobson, developer of Use Cases

• Capers Jones, prolific author and measurement pundit

• Nicholas Carr, author of the Big Switch

• Grady Booch, discussing Life, the Universe and Development

• And many, many more

Critical Success Factors in Interviewing

• Learn how to interview

• Do your research!

• Shut-up and listen

• Examples of great interviewers and storytellers:

• Terri Gross Fresh Air

• Larry King

• Ira Glass This American Life

How To Get The Right Interviewees

• Need to be able to ask . . .

• • Credibility

• • • Who are you and why are you asking?

• • Referrals

• • • Ask you interviewees who they think would be a good interview, ask them to introduce you.

• • Professionalism

• • Tell what you can do for them!

Podcast and Personal Branding

• • Personnel branding increases reach and online visibility which enhances day job if coordinated!

End Notes (So Far)

• Creating good, targeted content builds an audience!

• Promote at all possible venues to help an audience self-select

• Who you interview reflects on your credibility

• Selling and interviewing skills are critical

Factoids and Successes

• Goal is to provide information not for interviewee to sell his or her wares except at the end of the interview where they can promote anything . . .

• The podcast is independent of my day job (except through karma and inference)

• Factor in approximately $1.5m of business in last three years

• Snagged book deal

• Used as course material in at least one Scottish University

Contact Data Questions . . . . Tom Cagley [email_address] (440) 933-8768 Office (440) 668-5717 Cell www.spamcast.net - Podcast Call me, beep me if ya wanna reach me When ya wanna page me it's okay I just can't wait until I hear my cell phone ring Doesn't matter if it's day or night Everything's gonna be alright Whenever you need me baby Call me, beep me if ya wanna reach me - Kim Possible Theme Song

APPENDIX

• Software Process and Measurement Cast Information

This Presenation

• Building a podcast targeted to a technical audience presents challenges both in terms of content and actually identifying an audience. In the past fourish years as the editor of the Software Process and Measurement Cast (SPaMCAST) I have experienced most and either surmounted them or run screaming from these issues. I use my experience as examples of how I have dealt with the challenges of podcasting to a technical audience.

What Is SPaMCAST

• The Software Process and Measurement Cast provides a forum to explore the varied world of software process improvement and measurement. The SPaMCast covers topics that deal the challenges how work is done in information technology organizations as they grow and evolve.

• The show combines commentaries, interviews and your feedback to serve up ideas, options, opinions, advice and even occasionally facts. In a nutshell, the cast provides advice for and from practitioners, methodologists, pundits and consultants!

Show Format And Packaging

• Two show formats

• • Interview Show

• • • Introduction

• • • Interview

• • Essay Show

• • • Association News

• • • Essay

• • • Conferences and Speaking Engagements

• Why does this format work?

• Provides variety in voice

• Provides variety in ideas

• Reflected creditability

• Production

• Segments produced and edited as components and assembled

SPaMCAST History

• The first episode of the Software Process and Measurement Cast was uploaded into the podoshere on January 17, 2007

• Listenership has grown from a few dozen download a month to thousands and the goal is to continue to grow it.

Quality Sound: The Studio Alesis 8 Mixer Netbook MXL 990 and Boom Sennheiser (headphone and boom mic) Audacity Skype Pamela IBM Laptop Books Absorb Sound

Expansion Plans: SPaMCAST

• Evolutionary Plans

• • Teach people listening options

• • Focus on SEO to drive traffic (blog and show notes)

• Revolutionary Plans

• • Added programming:

• • • Metrics Minute Podcast (expand audience)

• • • Association Outreach

• • MIS / IT Academic program outreach

Suggestions From Audience For Building Audience and More?

• Publish a newsletter

• Use Dragon Naturally Speaking to create text to embed in XML for SEO

• Render audio to YouTube with or without animated GIF

• Join a network

• Link to libraries

• Mention on blogs other than own

• Add additional content

• Read Larry Kings Art of the Interview (resource for interviews)