msb-0102 Paraphrasing Lord Tyrell ...

msb-0102 Paraphrasing Lord Tyrell ...

"We take pride in observing that there is not a single episode that deals with the burning issues of the hour."

And that's something to be "proud" of? What a [expletives deleted]!

Feedback comes first, so ...

I'm running my promo once again because I'm so friggin' thrilled with it.

---- MSBPodcast promo by: Don Lafontaine

I've sent it out to a few of fellow podcasters, too:

Josh Jacobson of "The Just Joshin" Podcast,
C.C. Chapman of "Accident Hash", (he's run it already! :-)
Keyz of "The Awful Show", (he's run it already! :-)
Travis Goss of the "UnRadio show",
Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff of the "PacificCoastHellway," (he's run it already! :-)
and, of course, my first and my main inspiration for taking up the gauntlet of podcasting in the first place, Adam Curry of the "Daily Source Code" (he's run it already! :-)

I am going to send it to Mat Frazer at the "BBC Ouch Podcast," maybe to P.W. Fenton at "Digital Flotsam" and I'm going down the list of the podcasts I'm subscribed to seeing if there is, or might be, any interest.

Its not everyday that you get a podcast promo done by Don Lafontaine.

It sounds great doesn't it?

I took a quick look at my download stats and I am holding steady, slowly climbing, dipping a little now and then climbing back again.

Its still "day one" so, I'm a bit hopeful.

My name becoming known, and I'm achieving fame, not notoriety.

I seem to be keeping some people happy, which keeps me happy.

---- California by: Barb Carbon

Feedforward come next.

Two discoveries this podcast.

The first comes from "Can You Hear Me Now?" (for the link disabled, that's at http://donna.innereyes.com/).

In her blog entry for 2007/01/15, here's a link to an MS Disability Simulator. (For the link disabled, that's at http://www.ms-gateway.com/understanding-ms/ms-simulator-53.htm )

It gives you a real feeling of what I go through when I have an exacerbation. If I have one complaint its that you aren't experiencing the "noise" (its the only way to describe it, even though I get noisy "skin".)

Of course, none of these sites and tests can give you an appreciation of how it actually "feels" to be , uh, mobility challenged, nah, make that schlepping around with a cane.

The second, I'm in fact going to reserve apart from giving you the title and ISBN:
It deserves its own show and I'm going to return to the topic next episode because it deserves its own episode.

"Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything." by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, ISBN: 978-1-59184-138-8.

This book is fuckin' "brilliant".

It gives examples of collaboration which I can directly relate to my own efforts (As it turns out, I am not too far wrong. The phenomena that are Linux, Yahoo!, Flicker, Google, PodShow and a host of other sites were created by reaching a certain a tipping point of acceptance.

Everything depends on reaching "critical mass" of MSers and others wo work in health care (the real thing, not health "don't" care.)

Seeing as, until things improve, ten percent of the world population is disabled, that's six hundred million people, twice the entire population of the United States, we can take that as a base line for the size of the market.

---- California by: Lost In Rome

We, screw it, "I" have no real competition in this space because the ads for "Viagra" and "Cymbalta" (and all of the fuckin' spam I'm getting for "Viagara") that clog our airways are aimed at ailments, real or imagined, that aren't "disabling".

The costs per person are over four buck four direct mail, per single packet.

The costs are up $15,000 a page for something that only appears once every couple of months in specialized newsletters ( < 500,000 issues") and those publications are usually couched in such esoteric terms, (read jargon a.k.a. "med school speech",) or hold out hope, (but not for "you", they're selling 'someday",) that they might as well be written in "Arameic" or some other dead language.

The costs on this podcast are so low that I am able to do it myself, with the help of fellow MSers like MDMHvonPA and Allison Reynolds. (co-content producers.)

Look for an interview, by me, with her as a shameless act of self promotion on her part.

And why not?

We're both trying to raise some visibility for MS.

In her case, she's also being ambitious and trying to raise a million bucks for MS research.

Its better that sitting down and shutting up, so MS doesn't notice and rain down its wrath upon us for getting "above ourselves."

Screw that!

I am a Québecois and we put up with that crap for 300 years, fighting "La Guerre des Berceaux" (The war of the Cradles) until we'd screwed enough to screw up the demographics in Canada.

Say it now and say it loud!

We got hit by a bus with the license plate MS and we're still proud!

And if we have to drag the pharma cos and other goods and services providers by the hair, kicking and screaming into the internet enabled and enabling twenty first century, then they'd better all watch their scalps, 'cause I'm reaching and I'm just the first.

---- California by: Ryan Smith

So how are you all doing? (Email me charles (at) MSBPodcast.com)

We're putting the 'heck" in hectic, 'round the ole homestead.

As I said, I'm getting some traction with the promo recorded by Don Lafontaine.

I'm so happy with that.

Now if only I could speak like that instead of this nasal squeak. I can do somethings with a console but it can't correct the basic fact that I don't have a voice.

We've started a new year. We're counting down the weeks until the next one.
A year of challenges and hopes.

A year of whines and mopes.

A year of stumbles and lopes.

A year of crimes and lousy rhymes.

I'm still looking for a contract, a customer, a bill payer.

What can you do? Life is tough.

If it wasn't, everybody'd be doing it, uh, that didn't come out right... [sigh]

---- california FEAT Jackson Browne w/p-tac by: pc muno

As is my want, I was listening back at my filler episodes. (I had recorded the episodes but I hadn't really had the time to really hear them because I was taking off the next day and had to put three shows on the server "fast".)

Damn. "The Muggs'" "White Boy Blues" really rocked on X-Mas Filler 02 - "White" (msb-0096.)

Actually all of the bands I played on those shows were stellar.

I'm a bit depressed about that actually.

It seem the less I talk, the more rushed I am and the less I can sculpt a show around a theme, the better it sounds.

Maybe I'll do that some more and give you a rest from me.

---- Stop writing songs about California by: gentlemens gun club

I have been thinking of advertising.

I got the rates for "Inside MS" and its about many more times than I though. ($1,333 for one of those of those marketplace ads, for 6 ads. Do the math. That $8.000 for a year. That's a lot of money.)

Now apart from the fact that my significant other, Lee, gave me a l-o-n-g talk about why we can't go about wasting money when my employment is so uncertain, I've decided that I just cant afford it (unless I discover a rock sitting a huge pile of cash, of course.)

Damn mass media. I can't buy a TV ad because the rate of return would be too small and I can't afford a print media ad in a specialized magazine because, despite the fact that these bozos only come out six times a year and focus on other things than I do, their rates must be utterly outrageous.

Not to mention that this would place certain other constraints on me.

While I could cope with even twice the number of actual questions I'm getting and would be delighted with having a slow and controlled growth of my audience, the problems of barely controlled growth is that it would require me to change.

Unplanned change, organic change, paced change is a great deal easier for me, and for us all, to cope with that the quantum jump that the kind change that advertising in that magazine would impose.

----

That's for me this episode.