Monday, January 12, 2009

msb-0350 A New Beginning.

msb-0350 A New Beginning.

Mocean Worker - Shake Ya Boogie
..

Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen
..

intro

Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

MSBPodcast is "not" any kind of a medical podcast.

It is by and for MSers.

Its purpose is to keep us entertained, to explain our symptoms, to remark on our discoveries, and to raise the general consciousness about our disease.

The path to illness is shadowy, murky and rough strewn.

The path to wellness is lit by the lamp of knowledge.

----

I have a quick and easy, painless and not too figgin' nosy customer survey that I really, really, really need you to go and fill out.

You can go to my podcast "page" [ http://msbpodcast.com/ ], click on the button on the left hand side of the page and anonymously answer a few simple questions.

I really need this.

----

Feedback comes first, so...

Okay I've been away for a month and people are still downloading the show's episodes. I "must" be filling some form of need out there... What's weird is that people were downloading the ThymeWarp episodes almost as much as the indie music episodes. (Okay maybe half of you were picking up the episodes but there genuinely seems to be some interest, [ though the audiences were different and coming from different URLs. {Neat huh?!?}])

I've been gone for a month and today, I feel good.

I'm using new software to put together the 'casts, "Übercaster" from "Pleasant Software of Offenburg/Germany" [ http://www.pleasantsoftware.com ] as well as doing a version on GarageBand, plus "Transmit" [ http://www.panic.com/transmit/ ] and "OmniOutliner Pro" [ http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/ ] to compare the two and see if there is any benefit to using "Übercaster" apart from using it more 'cast specific interface.

I'm still putting
  • the text of the casts on "Blogger" [ http://multiplesclerosisblog.blogspot.com/ ],
  • the text and the audio of the casts on "LibSyn" [ http://msb.libsyn.com/ ]
  • the whole mess on my "wiki", [actually at http://msbpodcast.pbwiki.com/TheShows ]
  • and is referred to from "MSBPodcast.com" [ http://www.msbpodcast.com/ ].
I'l try this out for a while and let everybody know which is easier to work with.

You should never know which is which by listening, though you will know because some episodes will be repeated and labeled with msb-xxxx-Ü

This week, I will be making changes to the scheduling of this show by getting it on the school roster.

MSBpodcasts will be on Mondays for an hour, along with ThymeWarp which will be on Wednesdays for an hour and P34k O1l which will be on Fridays for an hour.

This also means that I have access to the music schools licence and licencing agreements, (yay I can use "any" music I want,) and access to their equipment when putting together the shows.

I'll also be able to host 'call-ins' and/or 'call-outs' over the phone and/or over skype. "You" can now become an active part of the show.

Being web cast/streamed means immediacy while being podcast means permanence.

Today I'm in a jazzy mood. Since I am covered by the school radio's copyright license, I no longer have to put up with my 'indie only' rules.

---- "Lighten Up Francis" and "Hey Baby" by: "Mocean Worker" http://www.moceanworker.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop us an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Siss Boom Bah!" by: "Mocean Worker featuring Rahsaan Roland Kirk" http://www.moceanworker.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Everything I've been reading, (like "Secrets of Social Media Marketing" by: "Paul Gillin" ISBN: 978-1884956-85-0), is still, and always, geared towards the widget makers of the world; not for the generation of web-o-nauts like Leo Laporte's, Adam Curry's, and me who are starting to get our message out there that podcasts, webcasts and other web 2.x ways of connecting people together.

There are books out there that tell you how to sell your widgets to your first-time or existing customers on-line (that was and is the promise of web 1.0) and that tell you how keep in touch with them (that was and is the promise of web 2.0), though you sometimes have to do "damage control" when you over promise and under deliver.

Books on bloggers and blogging, on podcasts and podcasting, on vidcasts and vidcasting, on wikis, on twitter style IM, on IM, on email, are fine at giving people the "how to's" of the nuts and bolts of point to point communications but they don't help much with something essential.

They don't ever answer the questions related to "How do you get the word out about you and your products out there in the first place?"

How do you find some audience out there who might be interested in whatever you're selling because they're interested in the content of the show.

A well informed public is a joy to behold but for the most part,the educational system does not inform their students about anything but the origins, the early history, of whatever they teach.

Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, St.Thomas of Aquinas et alia may be fine but they don't help in the least with whatever problem you're coping with in this, the modern world.

In this, the modern world, we don't necessarily have the luxury of sitting down and figuring out the best approach to the solution. (There's lots of problems that are way over my head to even define, so never mind finding a solution. Jeesh...)

---- "Tres Tres Chic" by" Mocean Worker" http://www.moceanworker.com/

"Thesis:"

Over the past three years, I have operated this podcast because it was an opportunity for me to work through my deep and soul-smothering anger at having MS (okay its wasn't the only thing I took very personally, I'm still a bit pissed at some sociopath thinking that it was okay to stage a bit of "Arab Street Theater" in Manhattan and kill about three thousand people, some of which I worked with, and to tear a hole in my sky.)

It has morphed into a wider purpose.

As the broadcast media have imploded fiscally while their content has exploded all over the internet, I have become one of the "early adopters" of the new focused-casting.

---- "Chick a Boom Boom Boom" by: "Mocean Worker" http://www.moceanworker.com/

"Synthesis:"

Since February 2006, episodes of the MSB Podcast have been downloaded, as of this 'cast, over 110,00 times.

That's "downloaded", not just "one my web pages was discovered by accident by somebody looking for Microsoft's B class stocks" (I use separate counters for tracking webpage hits,), but the entire episode was fetched through iTunes, or, far more interestingly, downloaded by somebody actually clicking on it after reading the show notes.

This was an active choice that was made by someone, an MSer or someone who interested in the program.

Okay, its a small community. What else could it be? We MSers only represent 1 in 1,200 or 0.0833% of the general population. Add caregivers plus the occasional visitor and you could get some spikes to occasionally double the figure over time.

There are lots of 'casts which get download numbers which dwarf this.

But there are some communities which this would dwarf.

There are some communities which are so small they only exist as footnotes in some encyclopedia.

From tribal languages with only a few hundred speakers to diseases with only a few hundred sufferers, there are minorities which make us, we MSers, look like a multitude.

I just saw a Barbara Walters special with "Patrick Swayze" on his struggle pancreatic cancer.

Each year, this disease affects about 38,000 people in the United States, usually fatally.

Each year, MS affects many time more people per year, but thankfully not fatally.

But it does point out that Patric Sayze, those afflicted with pancreatic cancer, and the other people afflicted with other rare diseases, are in the same boat as us.

In a world "without" an internet to weave us all together with a fiber-optic glass thread, we are all marooned on separate desert islands, isolated, scared, lonely and, to be blunt about it, dying (, like a Saturday Night Live skit about post-phenomenological philosophy in the Nixon era, [funny "not!"]).

But in a world "with" an internet, the economics of scarcity become replaced by the economics of wealth, of information richness.

"All" share in the discoveries of any.

In the battles with our separate battles with our respective diseases, we can all benefit.

Just like the battles with AIDS, primarily begun after Rock Hudson was struck down with that disease, have yielded, if not a cure, then at least treatments for MS, who knows what "we" might discover that could be of help to Ms. Swayze and other people afflicted with other diseases.

---- "Float" by: "Mocean Worker" http://www.moceanworker.com/

"Conclusion:"

Over the past three years, over the past 100+ thousand downloads, I have operated this podcast because it suited my needs.

It has morphed into something with a wider purpose.

I'm staying out here because, I am needed by people who don't know me, or even of me, yet.

---- "Que Bom" by: "Mocean Worker" http://www.moceanworker.com/

Outro

This where it will get interesting.

I hope to feature a guest, a disabled person who's attending this school, St. Peter's College.

Apart from the usual gripe fest and showing off our sacred and respective scars, like a bunch of Yorkshiremen:
"I was hospitalized for three days before a nurse came into our room."

"Room? Luxury. I had to sleep in a corridor."

"Sleep. Oh we never slept. We used to get woke up at three in the morning by the nurses who would ask us if we needed sleeping pills."

"Well, of course we had it tough. The nurses used to come around with wooden mallets and if you uttered a word, they used to play "Whack-A-Mole" on you."
Apart from that hilarity, I hope to provide some insight into health care policy, disabled mobility issues, disabled access issues, disabled employment issues and whatever else my guests want to talk about.

----

No comments: