by cameron | Feb 2, 2009 | Cuba, Iraq, Podcast, US politics
When I was visiting my girl Chrissy in Seattle last October, I met her best friend Jed Montgomery. The four of us (including Jed’s partner Chris) had some vigorous debates about American politics. I was trying to make my point that for all of Obama’s intelligence and oratory, at the end of the day he’s a member of the Democratic Party. In the last 60 years, the Democrats have provided a pretty appalling list of Presidents:
Harry Truman – Among other things, authorized the only use of nuclear weapons on a civilian population in history
John Kennedy – Among other things, authorized the attempted invasion of Cuba, nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, was sleeping with Marilyn Monroe, etc.
Lyndon Johnson – Among other things, escalated the Vietnam war. Possibly implicated in the Kennedy assassination.
Jimmy Carter – Actually, a pretty good guy, defender of human rights.
Bill Clinton – Bombed and starved the people of Iraq, decided the best way to spend his days in the White House was to get blowjobs and stick cigars up an intern’s vag.
So… will Obama be another Jimmy Carter? Or… one of the others?
Anyway, Jed joins me on the show today to talk about our hopes and concerns for the Obama administration.
by cameron | Feb 1, 2009 | israel, Podcast
You’ve seen it in the news over the last month. On December 27, Israel broke a six-month truce with Hamas (the democratically-elected leaders of the Palestinian people living in Gaza) and launched a three-week long attack on the small, densely-populated region.
Palestinian casualties – 1,400 dead including more than 400 children and 100 women. Israeli casualties – 12 Israeli soldiers and 3 civilians.
My guest on this show is Antony Loewenstein, Sydney-based journalist, author and blogger.
Read more:
David Rose article in Vanity Fair
Henry Siegman, director of the US Middle East Project in New York, former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America, article “Israel’s Lies”
A note about this show:
With the help of my two assistants Tim Grainger and Jonathan Hewlett, we ran a LIVE TWITSTREAM of the interview through the gdayworld twitter account. We asked people to submit questions via Twitter during the interview and I fed those back to Antony during our call. It was my first attempt at podcast twinterviewing and the results were interesting.
Thanks to Darryl King from iReckon for seeding the filthy idea into my head over coffee a few days ago.
by cameron | Jan 30, 2009 | Podcast, Uncategorized
As some of you know, the main source of my income at the moment is producing podcasts for companies and government departments. Check this site for the basic pitch. I can produce podcasts for anyone anywhere in the world. Obviously video podcasts are limited to where I can get with my camera, but I’ve been recording audio interviews with international guests since 2004.
Who needs a podcast? Anyone in:
– Marketing
– PR
– HR
– Training
– Internal Comms
Especially in this time of financial tightening, podcasting is a tool more companies should be using. It’s a very cost-effective way to reach the key members of your audience on a weekly basis. And, of course, if you’re going to produce social media, you should work with someone who has actually some experience producing media for large audiences and isn’t just all talk.
There are a few different kinds of podcasts my clients tend to be using at the moment:
1. The External “Transparency” podcast – this kind of podcast aims to make a client more accessible to their clients. It can be either video or audio and involves me doing interviews with people inside the company about what they (and their division) actually do. This typically suits a very large org that wants to soften or humanise it’s image. The strategy is that their clients/customers will subscribe to the podcast to get a better understanding of what each of the divisions is working on and how best to engage with them.
2. The External “Value-Add” podcast – this kind of podcast usually has content completely unrelated to the actual services and products of the org, but which is designed to be valuable to the target audience. Typically it might involve interviews with world leaders in the same field. Each podcast is wrapped with an audio or video header and footer, “This podcast is brought to you by….”, to keep the client’s message and brand in front of their audience every week.
3. The Internal Management podcast – this podcast involves video or audio interviews with members of the management team (CEO, CFO, COO, HR Director, etc) on a regular basis to go out to the employees via their intranet. It allows the senior leadership of an org to efficaciously communicate business updates with their teams around the country and world on a weekly basis and in a personable manner. It might also involved interviews with employees throughout the business. Who are they? What do they do? What is their focus? This is a great tool for encouraging cross-collaboration in large orgs.
4. The External Product/Service podcast – this podcast has to be handled cleverly. Most people aren’t going to subscribe to a podcast that’s just a marketing vehicle UNLESS it’s actually cool and informative or very funny. Often the best way to handle this kind of podcast is to get your customers involved. Get THEM talking about or demonstrating your products and services. Make it about THEM, not about you.
Demographics: There’s a common misconception that podcast audiences are still only the young tech savvy folks. While this was probably true back in 2004/5, it certainly isn’t any longer. The success of Apple’s iPods and iPhones, combined with the marketing of podcasts by mainstream media like the ABC, has actually skewed the demographic to a 40+ audience (according to the surveys I run on TPN’s audience each year).
So, here’s how you can help – if you know of anyone who might be interested in using my services, make sure you point them in my direction. In addition, if you email me the names, email addresses and telephone numbers of the people in your company that fulfill the above roles, I’ll contact them directly and give them the pitch (ideally using you as a point of introduction but, if you’re not comfortable with that, I’ll leave your name out of it).
Here are my contact details to make it easy:
Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network
tel: +61 400455334
email: cameron@thepodcastnetwork.com
Thanks for your support!
by cameron | Jan 29, 2009 | media 2.0
Tomorrow (that would be Friday Jan 30) at 10am Sydney time I have Antony Loewenstein, journalist, blogger and author, back on the show to discuss the recent and current events in Gaza.
The brave experiment is this:
With the help of my two filthy assistants (sorry Tim and Jonathan, I’ve been reading Transmetropolitan too much tonight), I’m going to be doing a LIVE TWITSTREAM of the interview. You can follow it on the gdayworld twitter account.
If you want to ask questions of Antony during the interview, or debate one of his points, then send a reply to gdayworld and we’ll feed it into the interview!
I’m going to try to take twinterviewing to a new level.
Thanks to Darryl King from iReckon for seeding the filthy idea into my head today over coffee.
by cameron | Jan 27, 2009 | TPN
TPN needs your help. Support indy media by donating a small amount of money towards TPN’s operating costs each month. For the price of a latte you can make the world a better place by supporting original indy media.
Click here for the TPN Pledge.
(Thanks to Bob Seal for the toon!)
by cameron | Jan 27, 2009 | Podcast
Back in May 2007 I was fortunate enough (thanks to Stan Relihan’s efforts) to score an interview with the great Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet. It was a wonderful conversation and definitely one of my favourite interviews. I hope you enjoy it (again).
by cameron | Jan 22, 2009 | Uncategorized
Episode 2 of my new show “A Single Man’s Guide To Cooking Up Great Shit” is online. In this episode, I cook an AMAZING roast chicken stuffed with lemon and prosciutto.
[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AefSb5LzAg]
by cameron | Jan 18, 2009 | israel
I’ve been reading “Zionism and Palestine”, a book written in 1937 (and updated in 1940) by Sir Ronald Storrs. His perspective on Zionism is somewhat unique. In 1918 Storrs became Military Governor of Jerusalem. In 1921 he became Civil Governor of Jerusalem and Judea. From 1926-1932 he was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Cyprus.
This morning I read this passage about the suggested return of Jews to Palestine which I suspect puts the Palestinian view into some perspective:
The injunction, under Article 6 of the Mandate, that the Administration “shall encourage in co-operation with the Jewish Agency close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes” in Palestine, sounded with a curious difference in different ears. To the world at large it seemed a reasonable satisfaction by the bestowal of surplus, unused and unwanted areas. To the Zionist, who had hoped that with the prosperity of British rule his rapidly augmented population would need every possible acre of land in the country, it was the obvious initial minimum of concession unwarrantably delayed by the Government. The thinking Arabs regarded Article 6 as Englishmen would regard instructions from a German conqueror for the settlement and development of the Duchy of Cornwall, of our Downs, commons and golf-courses, not by Germans, but by Italians “returning” as Roman legionaries. For such loss of national and political future repeated assurances of strict and scrupulous maintenance of religious rights and sites (assumed under British rule everywhere) were about as satisfactory compensations for the inviolable conservation of the Court of Arches and of Westminster Abbey. Article 6 has not yet been “implemented”, owing to the lack of available State property, but it still stands in the Mandate, and is still being vigorously pressed by Zionists.
by cameron | Jan 17, 2009 | Mercy Ministries
Ever wondered how to exorcise a demon? There’s a handy publication that guides the uninitiated, with subheadings such as “doing the actual deliverance”, “identifying additional demons” and “what to do with obstinate demons”.
Time to have mercy on the broken of mind and spirit – Opinion – smh.com.au
by cameron | Jan 17, 2009 | Uncategorized
A few of us were talking on Twitter tonight about this famous story – which I’ve always assumed was written by Orson Welles for his 1955 film “Mr Arkadin” – about the scorpion and the frog.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyVvSWvL764&hl=en&fs=1]
I’ve used this as my expectation of people ever since I first saw the film 20 years ago. People will do what their character demands.
