I want to invite all my readers to the March 26 Nashville podCamp 2011. Below, I’ll describe a little of what I want to talk about. But first… I was at the monthly meeting of the Nashville Instructional Designers Meeting today. The topic of discussion was motivation and learning. The speaker today was Michelle Alcott who spoke about the concepts behind the Daniel Pink’s acclaimed book Drive. According to Michelle, three main concepts underlie true motivation:
- Autonomy -Â self-direction or the ability of a member to make their own choices
- Mastery – a natural outcome of engagement
- Purpose – involvement or being of service to a cause greater than themselves (this could also be the loyalty we feel towards our teams)
I had the opportunity to invited everyone there to Nashville’s podCamp on March 26 at the Cadillac Ranch on Broadway in downtown Nashville. I’ll be presenting a session on Designing for Multimedia. Several people at the meeting said that they were just getting ready to investigate how to create podcasts, so this announcement was timely. Why all the interest in podcasting?
I was struck at the how Daniel Pink’s observations apply to most podcasters. Most everyone has something to say. And most of us know more than we think. As an Assistant Professor in Multimedia Design at Nashville State Community College, my students have made a personal choice to enroll in the Multimedia Design program. They do so with the intent of creating content about a variety of subjects. Some have an affinity towards visual expression and want to be videographers, film-makers, game designers, web designers, or video podcasters. All of those media are different ways to engage an audience audibly and visually and tell a story.
Podcasting is special in that is provides a way to quickly and easily create that message and publish it to a global audience without the burden of creating physical media. The power of podcasting lies in its distribution method; i.e. someone subscribes to your podcast and are automatically notified when a new episode is available. The podcast aggregator takes care of the transmission for you. You don’t have to contact your subscriber. The RSS mechanism takes care of it for you. You just create, upload, and update the RSS file.
Both video and audio podcasting each have their strengths and weaknesses. Video can be very compelling if done right, yet the file sizes are larger, take longer to download, take a device that can play video, and the audience has to be still in order to watch the presentation.
Audio podcasting is a much lower file size, can be played over a wider assortment of stationary and mobile devices, and can be listened to while the audience does other activities. I listen to podcasts when commuting, exercising, walking, doing chores, and sometimes even while drifting off to sleep.
Regardless of the chosen media, you want a firm grasp of what you want to accomplish. Otherwise, it is easy to ramble on and loose the attention of your audience before you have engaged them, and therefore missing the opportunity to fulfillment of your purpose – to reach your audience with your message. My goal during my session is to outline some steps that podcasters can take to make sure they get clear on the outcomes, stay on point, and make their presentations more engaging.
Everyone brings their own experience to the table. Please come and join us in the discussion at the Have a Plan: Designing for Multimedia session. Hope to see you there.