Latest Episodes for this Channel
Thu August 30 2007
The first podcast in over six months! In this action-packed explosion of erudition Lee shares his experiences on a half-day workshop on Social M...
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The first podcast in over six months! In this action-packed explosion of erudition Lee shares his experiences on a half-day workshop on Social Media, especially his view that business communicators suck at communicating. Allan agrees, noting that the two best ways to prepare for a presentation are to: 1. Don't work out and shape your presentation in Powerpoint; only turn on Powerpoi... read more
The first podcast in over six months! In this action-packed explosion of erudition Lee shares his experiences on a half-day workshop on Social Media, especially his view that business communicators suck at communicating. Allan agrees, noting that the two best ways to prepare for a presentation are to: 1. Don't work out and shape your presentation in Powerpoint; only turn on Powerpoint when you already HAVE your story.2. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Lee praises David Grossman for his superb presentation that obviously met both of the above criteria, and agrees that he is the 'one born every minute', as PT Barnum would say. Allan goes into depth about how to use headline titles in PowerPoint correctly. Allan confesses that he doesn't read blogs these days, preferring to read Twitter, Jaiku and Facebook. Lee is really concerned at the possible death of blogging at the hands of micro-blogging and wonders whether the 'attention deficit economy' means that we are witnesses to the end of long-form creativity. But then again, 'they' all said that children were only interested in multi-colour, fast-paced, interactive blip-style media, and Harry Potter completely blew 'their' opinions out of the water. As Nassim Taleb says, a 'black swan' moment (a 'black swan' because scientific reason held that swans were only available in 'white', because hundreds of thousands of observations had shown only white swans. When black swans were discovered in Western Australia they completely and instantaneously made a mockery of 'scientific experts' and destroyed several 'truths' about swans that the scientific community held dear to their hearts. The differences in blog usage between Lee and Allan reflect their different perspectives. Allan uses his social media tools to engage with a small group of practitioners, to swap ideas and so on. Lee uses his tools as branding and marketing outreach channels. Both of their perspectives are equally valid. Like the 'old fart' that he is, Lee laments over the 'walled gardens' of Facebook, CommunicatorsNetwork, MyRagan, Second Life, MySpace and so on, arguing that these walled gardens are the opposite of the ethos of social media and the internet in general. Allan, quite naturally, sees these as complementary not antagonistic to the ethos, allowing small, like-minded groups of individuals to coalesce and share the conversations they would probably share around the water cooler, coffee urn or friendly pint down at the Queen's Bum & Icepack. Allan points out that there are stylistic differences that the limitations of micro-blogging can actually work to enhance, recounting that one well-known blogger is incredibly stilted and annoying on their blog posts, but warm, friendly and very funny in their micro-posts. Allan even briefly mentions Danah Boyd's paper about the socio-economic differences between the residents of MySpace and Facebook. Agree with them? Disagree? Let them have it - both barrels! Drop your comments on the show blog, or even better send a Waxmail to their Gmail account: commscafe at gmail dot com. All in all, 30 minutes of caffeine-fuelled hyperbole and satire. Until next time (paying clients must always take priority) take it easy, take some risks, take your children to the park.
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Tue April 24 2007
Welcome to the global eruption of erudition that IS the Comms Cafe! This is chat number 25, wherein we erupt on Pensacola, that we are 'Advertising ...
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Welcome to the global eruption of erudition that IS the Comms Cafe! This is chat number 25, wherein we erupt on Pensacola, that we are 'Advertising Free', Twitter versus Jaiku, the blogging code of conduct, and where we will both be (separately) shortly...
Welcome to the global eruption of erudition that IS the Comms Cafe! This is chat number 25, wherein we erupt on Pensacola, that we are 'Advertising Free', Twitter versus Jaiku, the blogging code of conduct, and where we will both be (separately) shortly...
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Tue February 13 2007
Welcome from the global eruption of erudition00:39 A word from our sponsors - GoToMeeting.com01:58 Your two intrepid intellects come clean that Alla...
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Welcome from the global eruption of erudition00:39 A word from our sponsors - GoToMeeting.com01:58 Your two intrepid intellects come clean that Allan & I are only into podcasting for the money. From the advertising revenue we receive we will be renting ajoining penthouse suites at a swanky hotel in New Orleans. Yes, we disclose exactly how much we have received...02:56 Ted Demopoulos' new book "... read more
Welcome from the global eruption of erudition00:39 A word from our sponsors - GoToMeeting.com01:58 Your two intrepid intellects come clean that Allan & I are only into podcasting for the money. From the advertising revenue we receive we will be renting ajoining penthouse suites at a swanky hotel in New Orleans. Yes, we disclose exactly how much we have received...02:56 Ted Demopoulos' new book "What no one ever tells you about blogging and podcasting: real-life advice from 101 people who successfully leverage the power of the blogosphere" is fabulous, but Allan wants the 2nd Edition out pronto! That's because he's not in it. Lee assures Allan that the reason he's not in it, unlike Lee who IS in it [page 25], is because Allan is not worth talking about, unlike Lee. Allan doesn't like the title, but Lee is happy with it because it draws you in, just as good Direct Marketing titles should do. Lee loves Ted's writing style, and also comments favourably on 'Promoting your podcast: the ultimate guide to building an audience of raving fans" by Jason Van Orden.07:35 Allan is jealous of Lee's new Edirol R-09 digital recorder. Lee explains why he received it and again thanks Ross Monaghan at Deakin University for the opportunity.08:28 Lee has been called many things over the years, but is he a "professional?" The question has been keeping Allan up late at night (much to Mrs Coffee's disgust). Jay Rosen and Shel Holtz raised the question a little while ago, Lee blogged about it over at the Marcom blog with interesting answers from Robert French's PR students. Allan thinks that the question for being recognised as a 'professional'; Lee recalls his Sociology studies and attempts to sound authoritative by talking about the 'Professional Project'. Both toss the ideas around about formal, legal accountability versus informal self-accreditation (including the IABC & PRSA), plus the difference between respect for the positional title and respect for the person. Allan suggests that accredited professionals have to go for re-examination or accreditation every, say, 5 years, in order to show that they are undergoing self-development and keeping their skills up to date.Agree with us? Disagree? Let us have it - both barrels! Drop your comments on the show blog, or even better send a Waxmail to our new Gmail account: commscafe at gmail dot com.All in all, 23 minutes of caffeine-fuelled hyperbole and satire, which you can either download and listen to right away, or else subscribe to via your rss podcatcher. And if you are an iTunes user, you can find our podcast in the iTunes Music Store (for free, of course!) Beware, though: iTunes has a funny habit of not picking up all of our chats; you are better off copying our rss feed and then, in your copy of iTunes, go to âAdvancedâ in the top menu bar, âSubscribe to Podcastââ and paste in our rss feed there.Until next time (paying clients must always take priority) take it easy, take some risks, take the garbage out when your wife asks you to.
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Fri January 26 2007
Welcome :-) It's been a while -- and we knew you missed us so we came back! In this cheeky chat we: Craftily reference a YouTube video of Aus...
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Welcome :-) It's been a while -- and we knew you missed us so we came back! In this cheeky chat we: Craftily reference a YouTube video of Aussie satire show CNNNN Let you know that GoToMeeting.com are our sponsors (and we think their product is great, too!) Chat about Allan's recent 'off the grid' experience over the Dec-Jan period -- he loved it, we missed him, and he only thought of... read more
Welcome :-) It's been a while -- and we knew you missed us so we came back! In this cheeky chat we: Craftily reference a YouTube video of Aussie satire show CNNNN Let you know that GoToMeeting.com are our sponsors (and we think their product is great, too!) Chat about Allan's recent 'off the grid' experience over the Dec-Jan period -- he loved it, we missed him, and he only thought of Lee twice but was blown away by how 'matter of fact' some folks in his travels consider podcasting and blogging Talk about the time it takes to create a podcast versus a vidcast versus a blogpost, and Allan has a superb strategy for dealing with the whole 'time it takes' issue for SMEs (Small-Medium Enterprises) -- plus he explains why he rarely listens to podcasts and explains why Auburn University takes a day off to celebrate Robert French once making the 'Coffee Stain at the Bottom of the Cup' section of Allan's blogroll. Link to such luminaries as Mitch Joel, Bryper, Josh Hallett, Robert French, C.C. Chapman, The Divine Miss M (nice new image for your Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter podcast, Heidi!), Donna PepsiCola, Steve Crescenzo, Stuart Bruce, Shel, Neville and FIR, and the IABC Conference in New Orleans And talk about LibraryThing.com and the wonderful scanning mouse you can buy for $15-20 -- well worth it! Along the way we rip the p*ss out of each other (as usual), disagree with each other (as usual) and shed more light on business communication than you will see at an Aerosmith concert. Agree with us? Disagree? Let us have it - both barrels! Drop your comments on the show blog, or even better send a Waxmail to our new Gmail account: commscafe at gmail dot com. All in all, 36 minutes of caffeine-fuelled hyperbole and satire.
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Thu January 04 2007
As part of a series of interviews with great internal communicators that I conducted for Deakin University, Brad Bellaver was kind enough to run t...
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As part of a series of interviews with great internal communicators that I conducted for Deakin University, Brad Bellaver was kind enough to run the gauntlet of my ferocious interrogative style (hah!). I'm not sure why this particular interview fell through a gap, but Deakin forgot to publish it -- so I have instead! Brad's views on the importance of employee communications is STUNN... read more
As part of a series of interviews with great internal communicators that I conducted for Deakin University, Brad Bellaver was kind enough to run the gauntlet of my ferocious interrogative style (hah!). I'm not sure why this particular interview fell through a gap, but Deakin forgot to publish it -- so I have instead! Brad's views on the importance of employee communications is STUNNING! He has so many diamonds within his head that the man is a walking jewellery store! What does he do? "I'm the little sheep dog you see running around cattle, trying to keep them all heading in the same direction." So he explains how he helps 40,000 employees put all their left feet down in front of their right at the same time, including saying 'No' to those who would try to hijack the strategic communication goals. "We need to move from 'message deliverer' to 'meaning maker'" If you're thinking that the easiest way to communicate with 'the troops' is via the intranet, you are in for a rude and powerful wake-up! I cannot recommend this 55 minute interview enough -- even listening to it again now I find myself getting buzzed all over again from the amount of passion and energy that Brad has; he's contagious!
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