Those of you that have been following my journey into learning Mandarin are familiar with the fact that I have made a daily podcast the centre of my personal learning plan. Given that I am having such a positive experience with this, it is natural that I would begin to explore how podcasting might fit into the learning plans of the clients I work with.

One of the more interesting uses of podcasting that we have come up with is the CEO Cast. What we do is film senior executives (at their office or in our production studio) as they share leadership thoughts, stories and insights. After we complete filming, we do some quick editing and post production, and then distribute to employees. Employees can view the CEO Cast on the device of their choice (desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, iPod etc).

Why, you ask, would a senior executive want to do this? Here are a few compelling reasons:

Share your leadership vision
• Senior executives can communicate with employees in a personal and compelling way.

Share success stories
• Tell the stories that have made your company successful.

Keep it current
• Communicate the results of key meetings and corporate events.

Communicate globally
• Allow your global and distributed workforce to access senior leadership thought and expertise.

Succession planning
• Capture and internally distribute the thought leadership of senior executives before they retire and before that experience is lost to the company.

Look for more CEO Casts to be coming to an iPod near you.

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Paul is a New Media Superstar!

Later tonight, before he goes online to do his nightly lesson with his Chinapod tutor, Paul Dillon will be interviewed by a journalist by the China Economic Review.

The interview will cover his experience with ChinesePod, thoughts on trends in learning, and generally cover the topic of podcasting.

Stay tuned for the full interview and more of our shameless self-promotion!

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Amber MacArthur has created a Video Podcast using a cellphone. The quality is quite acceptable for the current state of internet video a la YouTube. One of the neat things is that she used a standard CityTV microphone and taped a cheap earbud/mic combo inside! Very cool… It shows that it isn’t about the equipment!

Check it out here.

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I’ve had a few emails from folk that don’t know where to find the resources and media file from PodCamp Toronto 2007.

Here are the links to the:
Google Group
Blog
Media Files — This is great for catching up where you missed a session because you were at another equally interesting one.

Enjoy!

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This took a little while to put up as I’m a bit behind…

Last weekend, The Learning Guys went to PodCamp Toronto 2007 at the Ryerson Communications Centre. The event was billed as unconference– “a 100% free, volunteer, sponsor-supported event. It is born out of the desire to share information and learn more about audio and video podcasting and related subjects.”

The venue was great with plenty of web access through wifi access points. The people was an eclectic mix of hardcore podcasters and newbies; twenty-somethings, and…um…the rest of us.

Some very impressive speakers attended and shared their expertise. I especially appreciated the talks given by:

- Mitch Joel, a new media visionary that is very good at communicating with his audience. I’ve read in Marketing Magazine that he’s “Canada’s Rock Star of Digital Marketing.” Wow! We really have to spend some time trying to get press like that! Very nice guy to boot…

- Chris Penn, the host of the FinancialAid Podcast, and CTO of he Student Loan Network. One of the founders of Pod Camp and super smart.

- Chris Brogan, a self professed lapdog for Jeff Pulver but in reality, a founders of PodCamp, and is passionate about New Media and Social Media. His blog is definitely worth a read.

- Mark Blevis, of Just One More Book — a podcast that he and his wife Andrea Ross does to review children’s books. I love this site! From the conference, I liked his take on podcasting and blogging…and not having a need to “monetize” it. The podcast is something that he likes to do, and if he gets some side benefit from it in terms of consulting contracts etc., that’s great…but contrary to what some of the other presenters were spewing…it isn’t all about making money off advertising!

It was also a great networking event, I met some very interesting people that are passionate about their work as well as people that I now consider my friends.

If you get a chance to attend one of these “unconferences”, give it a whirl. As it is all volunteer and participant driven, you’ll get out of it as much as you put in. You’ll have a blast!

Now, if you are really into it…you can try and do one yourself. Check out this post by Chris Brogan

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