msb-0015 The Domino effect

Tiling things, butting things side by side, edge to edge on some surface, is the principle behind mosaics. Don't worry, I won't go into the four color map theorem, tesseracts, R. Buckminster Fuller's dymaxion spheres or any obscure topological stuff. I just wanna discuss the principle of juxtraposition.

Tiling things of different size, different colors, different shapes is how the Etruscans, Romans and Greeks adorned some of their buidings.

The beauty of Roman baths still has the power to dazzle, even a thousand years after the last Roman bather dipped a toe in.

Canada has always been considered to be a cultural mosaic.

Its never been a melting pot, where individuality is burned away, melted in the crucible of intolerance for difference into a slag of commonality.

Okay, that might be construed as a slur on my current home and chosen place of residence, so before you show up with pitch-forks, tar and feathers, lets me say it isn't.

It is instead a cautionary tale on the effects of mass media.

Broadcasting a single message with a single voice is how mass media works.

One voice with one message is what Lenie Reifenstal used to sell the Nazis to the world.

One voice with one message is how most dictatorships keep control; they speak with the one voice, which has the effect of stifling the dissenting voices.

A dictator's power structure is also faced with the silencing of all other voices, but that is usually acceptable colateral damage to a dictator.

We MSers are faced with the same de facto situation, but in economic terms.

There are now a thousand TV channels on cable with a focus on slightly different demographic, psychographic, geographic and/or behavioral appeal, but they are still lined up to extract the most money from the most people.

That means we're still left out.

All the MSers on the planet, the two hundred and fifty thousand of us is the 'States, or even the two and a half million of us world-wide, don't add up to the potential audience of a local cable channel in New York City or Los Angeles or Dallas/Fort Worth.

Okay, the potential audience might be more when heath care providers and health care workers are taken into consideration, but it still doesn't add up to as many people as might catch a used car ad on whatever TV channel you choose.

Never mind that the audience is not in the market for a used car at that very moment. They might be at some point and they'll at least know the name of the dealership. Advertising is an entire industry built on that hope.

The medium of podcasting is self-focusing.

Nobody is likely to come here for the content unless they have an interest in MS.

Now, nobody is going to spend their money in trying to reach 0.0833% of the population when 99.9166% of the population is making so much noise that we can't even hear ourselves think.

But podcasting cuts through the noise.

It is a self-selecting communication channel where people who need to subscribe to get the information they need.

Podcasting is just what the, uh, doctor ordered.

You can catch the used car ad on any chanel, so I don't want their sh-, uh, stuff. I want MS products and services.

Since I use intend to use Kiptronics for delivery of the ads, they can be localized for a specific market. They can be tracked down to a specific IP range and/or area code so the Texas-only ads don't run in California or vice versa.

This podcast is my attempt to become the man in the middle.

The person who will listen to you, my audience, and will 'cast to you what products and services are available to you.

The cost reversals of the current economic situation and the cost savings of podcasting are like forces of nature, 130 to 1 and the proposed postal rate increace only makes it more so.

And when this takes off, and it will, I hope to repeat my success in setting up this podcast by helping other organizations creating their own podcasts, perhaps establishing an umbrella group to help us achieve some economies of scale and finally getting channels of communications open where we have had none before.

And I hope that I'm playing some tunes that you like.

And if you don't like 'em or if you have any requests, email me or Skype me. The links are right on the web page of MSBPodcast.com . Feedback. Yea...