As I don't regularly commute on public transport I don't get a daily newspaper. I rarely see the news so I take information and news updates via the internet and the radio when in the car. Unusual? I don't think so judging by what my friends seem to do.

For political news I also read Ian Dales daily blog. Ian has been commenting over the last few weeks about how many journalist and media commentators seem to be attacking bloggers. Many raise fair concerns relating to anonymous rants by bloggers, perceived lack of high editorial standards and accountability. Others simply seem to be defending the 'closed-shop' special relationship journalists have (or think they have) with politicians. Many politicians seem very uncomfortable about bloggers too. Apart from the technical unfamiliarity of it many fear it as it does not fit in with the established relationship they have with traditional media.

Who does have power? Bloggers? Traditional media journalists? Politicans? I would argue it is anyone who has a message and can communicate it in a way to engage an audience. What social media tools and the internet mean is that everyone can produce and consume content. (Businesses that watch what is happening and start engaging with their customers will do well.)

In the US this means that you do not necessarily have to be personally rich (or have mega rich backers) to run for President. You can run a campaign driven by direct appeals to the electorate. Check out details of Barack Obama campaign on Jackie Hubba and Ben McConnells blog.

What about the UK? Could this mean that we should look at non-state funding of political parties? Let the parties take their message to the electorate and ask for cash. Why not? After all over 1.66 million people have voted on the latest Number 10 e-petition on road use taxing. (I expect this number to rise to near on 2m when it closes today). How many of those people would pay an annual membership of say £5 to form a new party - the Road Users Party. A potential budget of almost £10m to fund a single issue campaign. Now that would get 'special interest' groups noticed.

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing two organisations who podcast regularly. One was a top UK financial institution and the other a small business in rural England. A great variation between them on resource and budget available but both equally passionate about what they were doing and why.

They are both presenting at the European Podcasting Summit in London next month. We have been asked by the organisers to interview some of the speakers at the event for podcasting to visitors before the event (I will provide links in a future blog).

Both had fascinating stories to tell on the success of their podcasting programmes. The critically important thing for both of them was to create programmes that their audience would become engaged with. For the Financial Institution it was advice and managing money and investments. For the small business it was sharing their passion for natural gardening and farming. Both had used feedback and comments to refine and improve the content and hence sense of community. Both were getting audiences of many thousands.

As 'soaps' on radio and TV have shown - audiences care (often passionately) about what happens. They feel a special relationship with the 'characters' and the programme itself - a sort of 'ownership'. Many companies spend large amounts of money of branding, Customer Relationship Management tools and 'loyalty' programmes. Whilst these marketing tools certainly have their place, the early pioneers of podcasting are finding that their audience engagement ROI is massive.

A busy day in the studios.

We had almost 1 hour of video from the shoot last week to edit into 3 videocasts of 5 minutes each. All of them have different target audiences so the story boards and style is different.

One is for an internal audience only. The members of the Company of Information Technologists although working in IT in the City of London are based around a wide geographic area. The Company has the equivalent of a Chairman. They are called a Master and serve a 12 month term. Usually they update the members of progress during their term in office via a letter in the in-house magazine. This is published 4 or so times per year. Why did they want to do a videocast? Speed, authenticity and cost effectiveness.

• Speed – a videocast takes less than an hour to make, a couple of hours to edit and could be ready in less than 24 hours.
• Authenticity – even using a Q&A format a letter in a newsletter or even an interview is not 100% authentic. During reporting some things will get edited. An audio podcast or videocast is 100% real. It is the person speaking their own words.
• Cost effectiveness – there is no print, handling and distribution cost apart from storage of audio or video files on server space.

Another videocast will be used as a ‘virtual’ presentation at the European Podcasting Summit. The client was asked about their interest and uses of podcasts to help their communication strategy. The replies have been recorded and will be used to help explain the application and benefits to an audience of other organisations.

The 3rd vide shoot will be used as a webvideo to be used on the Company of Information Technologists web site so site visitors can get a 'presentation' on the company. This online presentation is a powerful tool.

Finally we were able to film in the oldest surviving church in London - the Priory Church of Saint Batholomew the Great. Started in 1123 it serves the local parishioners of Smithfield’s and the surrounding areas as well as being Church to a number of local Companies. We were given an excellent tour by the Reverend, Dr Martin Dudley. It is a wonderful Church and due to its age it has been used as a location shoot for many TV programmes as well as major movies.

Two of the three will be available to the public. The other one – aimed at members – will be used on the Companies Intranet.

Finally we recorded a podcast with Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers. They are podcasting and blogging veterans. They are a mail order business that has actively adopted e-commerce and web sites plus e-mails and newsletters. They started podcasting in mid 2005 and now have a word wide audience. Heathers answer to my question about the benefits and reaction to podcasting was that the community they had built up previously just loved them. For the audience it was the authenticity and directness of actually hearing the person speaking. It humanised the company and the individual. A lot can be conveyed by a companies web site and the way it does business. A blog can give you more of an insight. But actually hearing them speak puts 'flesh on the bones' so to speak.

Some of the pictures I mentioned from the video podcast we did yesterday are up on Flickr.

What a difference 24 hours makes. Wonderful sunny day yesterday - great for filming!

We managed to get three good interviews done. Now for the editing and sound engineers to get on the job!

Just back from London and recording 3 video podcasts for a client, The Company of Information Technologists. The Clerk, Michael Grant, and his team were brilliant at getting things organised for us.

With all the kit we use being able to unload in London is usually a nightmare. Once we literally left the van for 1 minute to move the equipment into an office reception area. When the crew got back they had been given a parking ticket. How delivery people cope I don't know. Michael had a reserved space for us to unload and park within a few metres of the office. Wonderful!

Within an hour of arriving we had done two video interviews - one with Michael and the other with Colin Knight, The Master of the Company. We had the usual location problems of background noises. We were able to turn-off the room air conditioning but local builders were drilling and the sound vibrates through the building structures and can be distracting. Even with double glazing and in a quieter part of town means you will get some noise intrusion. One of the hazards of working outside the studio but you have to do as much as you can to minimise the impact on anyone watching.

After capturing the two interviews we then decamped to the nearby Priory Church of Saint Bartholomew the Great. For layout and plans plus great photos see here. For more details see the wiki. The Church has featured on TV and films and is the oldest surviving Church in London dating from 1123. It is wonderful.

The footage is now in the studios for editing. As soon as it is available I will post the relevant links.

I also have some stills of the crew in action. I will post those on Flickr.

Just back from a business networking evening. Despite a frosty evening and a 6pm rush hour congestion risking start time it was well attended with 30+ people there.

What was interesting was the attitude and behaviour of people. One or two seemed to be engaged in a 'collect everyones business card' game. Others seemed to stick with the same one or two people all evening and others did circulate around. Some just made a straight sales pitch and only as an after-thought asked the other person what they did. One of two people seemed to be very well connected and introduced people to others.

I guess some people had a clear objective and worked towards it but most would have gone with a unspecific intention to 'meet people' and see how it went.

All-in-all a typical networking evening.

Who will get the most out of it? Those with 3 clear ROI objectives

• Those that plan to keep attending to build on the contacts made.
• Those that took the time and trouble to listen and find out about others and see if they can help by introducing them to their own 'other' network (call it 'pay-it-forward' attitude)
• Those that went with the intention of meeting someone just like them

Seth in his post today draws further attention to poor customer service and what people are often looking for - an acknowledgement and apology.

If you regularly read Seth's blog you will see he frequently gives great examples of how companies mess up and then miss the moment to deal with the failure. The adage 'A stitch in time - save 9' is apt here. Deal with the issue - fast and if you have made a mistake just admit it. Even more important if you make a promise - keep it.

My experience is that most people are not looking for immediate compensation but get frustrated and angry as they are ignored, made to feel they are making a fuss and are then forced to enter some long winded multi-contact complaints proceedure. As the saga progresses that is when they want compensation for all the extra nonsense they get subjected to. (See my earlier posts on some Customer Service experiences of my own.)

Seth then offers a statement that he suggests can be used to express regret (delivered with real sincerity). On the face of it this looks great and I wish many companies would adopt it but let's look closer at what some potential meanings could be.

What Seth suggested was saying was....

"I'm really sorry about the way you feel. We work really hard and do our best to avoid problems like this, but it's obvious you feel mistreated and I want to fix it. I'm really sorry about all this."

How could some people who are already aggrieved receive and process this?

I'm really sorry about the way you feel = they are not really sorry about the bad service but only that I may be over sensative and making a fuss. 

...we work really hard and do our best.... = I just don't appreciate how hard their job is. They are only human. I am being un-reasonable. Get a life.

but =  We work hard but you are such a pain that is just not good enough for you! I wish you have never been a customer of ours.

..you feel mistreated... = you are obviously over sensative. They think I am a wimp! 

I'm really sorry about all this = At last. That's all I really wanted. But it was obviously not what they really feel or mean or they would have said it first.

What would I have rather heard....

"I am really sorry about our failure and its impact on you. We messed up. What can we do to put it right and make you happy?"

That hits all my right buttons.

• They have acknowledged the problem with no excuses
• They have recognised I have been negatively impacted by it
• They do not use the 'but' word
• They give me back control in the relationship (for company they are asking permission to serve me - the customer in the best way possible. I feel valued and personally cared about)

In Seth's blog he gives a great example of how one company is handling a failure of service. I like the idea the customer can choose the level of 'compensation' but I much prefer a more open ended approach where a company wants to know what will make me happy to use them again. It is not without risks but my experience is most people do not ask for the impossible.

Yesterday was SuperBowl. A 30 second slot costs $2m+. Worth it?

That depends on what your objective is. Do you want to sell products or shape peoples perceptions of what you stand for?  

Apple paid $800k for a 60 second slot at SuperBowl 1984. It paid something like that much again to create the ad. What they got was an ad that generated more publicity and coverage than a campaign costing 10 times as much. It also became a rallying call for all Apple customers - we are different and proud of it. The ad itself was only shown once. That in itself made it a talking point.

At the time I worked for a software company that was rapidly seeing the world as being dominated by IBM and Microsoft. This ad really did make us think that maybe 'Big Blue' would have a fight on its hands and we did develop software for Apple as well as IBM. Maybe just maybe - it helped Apple find customer champions who would support them to the ends of the earth. To not become one of the crowd but to be proud to be different. Even today almost 25 years later that message still resonates with Apple's customers.