David Kamerer

Associate Professor of Communication, Loyola University Chicago

Podcast as art form – The Traneumentary

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traneumentary.jpgThe Wall St. Journal says Joe Vella “aims to be the Ken Burns of the podcast world.” He’s completed massive audio 
documentaries on some of the leading lights of the pop and jazz music worlds, including a 33-part epic on John Coltrane, featuring interviews with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Cobb and Sonny Rollins. 

Hit his website for a complete rundown on his oeuvre. You can follow the links to listen online or at iTunes. 
Here’s a nice feature on him at Apple’s website. In production: works on Stephen Sondheim, Miles Davis and Motown.
Load up and listen. 

The value of one customer: $8.49

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As a public relations professional, I’m always thinking about relationships. That’s my stock in trade. But for most of the world, it’s money that does the talking. You gotta have that do-re-mi. 

Of course, smart businesses build relationships and make money. I was reminded of this the other day, when I attempted to return something to The Bicycle X-Change, a store in Wichita, Kansas. I had purchased a cable for a vintage three-speed English bicycle that I’m restoring. It turned out my existing cable was OK, so I returned to the store to claim my $8.49. I had with me the cable in its unopened package and my receipt.
The kid behind the counter told me he could not give me a refund, only store credit. I protested, so he got another employee to tell the same story. He pointed out that the receipt says “no cash refunds.”
I told him that I understood that the business made that choice, but that it was unacceptable to me, and that I could also make a choice. I walked out of the store.
So who cares? What’s one little customer?
Maybe nothing. But I do own six bicycles, one of which always seems to need some sort of attention. I am a former president of a bicycling club. I have organized 100k bicycle touring events. In college I worked in a bicycle shop. I once built a recumbent bicycle from scratch. When my friends are thinking about buying a bicycle, they ask me what to buy, and I go along with them to the store. In a very local way, I am a bicycle opinion leader. 
I gotta think that somewhere there’s a bicycle shop that wants me to go home happy. 
Here’s another way to think about my failed attempt to get my $8.49 back. The shop wins. They get to keep my $8.49. And every month, they’ll turn around and spend crazy money on marketing to try to get people to walk into the shop. Yellow pages. Newspaper ads. I’ve even seen television ads for this modest shop. 
And they could’ve had me for free.
This is the lesson of the world-is-flat-social-media environment in which we live. In the old days, businesses sent a stream of messages to their customers, who listened. Today, many of the messages about a business come from its customers, who tweet their experiences. Blog about them. Write reviews on social media sites and message boards. Search engines organize this stream of information and make it easy to find for other customers. Research validates this concept: these messages are more credible than traditional ads. An entire industry has sprung up to manage these new online relationships. Social media marketers and public relations professionals help businesses understand this interactive environment and optimize their performance so the messages work for them, not against them.
I’ve started riding my bicycle to work, and am saving up for an Electra Amsterdam Royal 8. Know any good dealers near Wichita, Kansas?

Obama iPhone app engages, organizes voters

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The book I’m looking forward to reading will detail how the Barack Obama campaign was built in large part with expert use of social media. I attended an Obama event last winter, and have been impressed with the almost daily updates on how I can participate in his campaign for President.
Now the campaign has created an Obama-specific application for the iPhone. It allows you to participate from one easy portal. For example, it organizes your contacts by state, so you can first call your friends who live in so-called “battleground states.”
Of course, iPhone users are likely to be social media-savvy and Democrat-friendly, so it’s the right message for the right medium.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, there is a “Donate” button.
McCain’s response: “iPhone? What’s an iPhone?”
Sticky, sticky, sticky. Well done!

Formatted print documents are at home online – with Issuu

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Here’s a nice way to give life to formatted print documents online. Upload your PDF file to Issuu, and it becomes part of a social media sharing site with other print-based documents. The Issuu viewer preserves some of the modalities of print while delivering content online. Great for the online portfolio, for showing proofs to clients, for bringing some zazz to lifeless PDFs. And yes, it’s free. The example, above, is One Small Seed, a South African magazine of pop culture.

Create word clouds at wordle.net

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Here’s a word cloud created by the fun web site wordle.net. To create your cloud, provide a URL or dump some text into a window. Then you can control type, colors and arrangement. That’s five minutes you’ll never see again!

Some time for friends, some time to be alone

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Of course I’m interested in Twitter. So I signed up for an account, found some friends, and started watching … and tweeting. But the thing is, I really have nothing to say. I’m happy to share my life with my friends, but reluctant to share it with the world. 
My interest in Twitter stems from using it in workgroups, for professional applications, to document a one-time event in real time. I see lots of uses.
But if you want to know “what I’m doing” you’re sure to be disappointed. I may be organizing my sock drawer. Or something else equally boring. Or I may be doing something positively brilliant. But it’s not for sharing. At least not with the entire world.

Frontiers of social media: You suck at Photoshop

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This morning on Weekend Edition, Scott Simon interviewed Troy Hitch of the Big Fat Institute about the viral campaign, “You suck at Photoshop.” Listen to the interview, then view the first episode from season one. I found it hilarious and beautifully written and produced. Finally, online rich media feels like it belongs online. This wouldn’t be nearly as effective if viewed on a television. The granularity is right, also; each episode is about five minutes. A good size for a media snack. The Big Fat Institute website is also worth a look. Donnie, I feel your pain!