Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

Author: Christopher S Penn

  • Podshow's Gold Mine, the RIAA, Sound Exchange, and sucking less

    Time to turn the Podshow discussion more positive with an idea they can execute on, instead of just complaining. One of my many causes is helping podsafe independent artists as much as I can, and this year I’ve been fortunate to be part of two projects to do that – Bum Rush the Charts (yes, still waiting on IODA to get me sales data) and Virtual Hot Wings.

    A few friends and I were standing around in CC Chapman’s U Turn Cafe in Second Life the other night and had an idea the other night that I would LOVE for someone at Podshow to steal/use/borrow/make. Podshow is the only company that can legally execute on the idea because they own the PMN.

    From the PMN license for artists:

    “Broadcast” means Work or an acceptable Derivative Work thereof that is played publicly for the benefit of interested listeners, and particularly when such Work is played by a listener accessing a digital file such as a podcast or streaming media file.

    3. You hereby waive the following rights to any and all musical compositions:
    a. the right to recover performance royalties under blanket licenses, including the right to collect such royalties individually or through a performance rights society.
    b. the right to recover mechanical rights or statutory royalties.
    c. the right to recover any royalty that may be applicable for public digital performance of the Work, such as webcasting or podcasting.

    From the PMN license for podcasters:

    “Broadcast” means Work or an acceptable Derivative Work thereof that is played publicly for the benefit of interested listeners, and particularly when such Work is played by a listener accessing a digital file such as a podcast or streaming media file.

    2. Subject to these Terms of Use, You are hereby granted the following world-wide, non-transferable, non-exclusive, royalty-free rights
    a. the right, and to access the Music database and reproduce each Work included therein for the purpose of Broadcasting the Work, including the right to use and incorporate each Work into a Collective Work, which may itself be Broadcast.
    c. the right to create and distribute webcasts and Podcasts that contain the Works

    What am I getting at? The PMN contract overrides the statutory royalty issues that SoundExchange and the RIAA have been nailing Internet radio/streaming radio stations with. By my read, as long as you are a valid, registered podcasting member of the PMN, you can play podsafe music and NOT have to pay SoundExchange/RIAA. If you run an Internet radio station, record all your shows with podsafe music from the PMN and publish them as podcasts as well, and you get to stay in business and not pay SoundExchange a cent.

    Pandora’s been making noise about going bye-bye due to increased web radio rates. A lot of other small Internet radio stations are saying the same. The law around SoundExchange is that it is a compulsory license – if you don’t have any other form of licensing, you MUST pay up to the RIAA, whether or not the artist ever sees a dime of the revenue. The law also states that the compulsory license can be overridden with a license directly from the artist, and Podshow has that license with the PMN.

    So the idea can go one of three ways:

    1. Give/sell/rent/grant Pandora a license to use the music on the PMN under the terms of the PMN license. This effectively ends their liability for royalties to SoundExchange, AND provides a great tool for exposure to podsafe artists.

    2. Built an equivalent Pandora-esque system using PMN artists.

    3. Alert every single streaming internet radio station in the United States and wherever draconian RIAA-sponsored laws apply that with a registration to the PMN as a broadcaster, they too can eliminate SoundExchange royalties as long as they only play podsafe music from the PMN.

    It also almost goes without saying that Podshow should be negotiating playlist time with lots of small, independent internet radio stations for its contracted podcasters, because those podcasts on the air also incur no SoundExchange penalties. Get Accident Hash or In Over Your Head on the hundreds of college radio stations, web stations, etc. so that not only are more people exposed to podcasting, but the Podshow family of podcasters also gets more promotion.

    So, to Joe Carpenter, Adam Curry, Jersey Todd, and everyone else involved in music at Podshow who was party to the last discussion about Podshow, here’s an opportunity to single-handedly save internet radio, earn goodwill, promote the PMN, and most of all, help podsafe artists all at once.

    This one’s on the house. Go to it, guys!

  • Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

    Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

    I’ve been collecting Twitters from folks about Podshow’s campaign:

    Mike Yusi: Is anyone else on Podshow getting emails complaining about the new openings?
    P. W. Fenton: Better question: Is anyone not?
    P_Dub: Some podcasters have avoided putting out podcasts until the one minute “suck less” goes away.
    Mike Yusi: P Dub: I actually got someone that said they weren’t going to listen to any more of my shows until they change it.
    C. C. Chapman: @UCRadio – I have already lost some listeners due to it.
    Rob Usdin: Podshow needs to use the radio model – have 5-10 different spots ready to go at the get-go – rotate them. Less listener fatigue.
    Rob Usdin: @P_Dub: See my comment to noebie re: having multiple spots ready at one time. Want me to listen? Make it so I have a reason to.
    Ranslow: I listen to a lot of podcasts from Podshow. The new intro is annoying after awhile. How about some variation on the theme.
    Matthew Ebel: Hey PodShow… the 60-second Suck Less crap is making me stop listening to your podcasts. CC and R&RG are all that remain on my iPod
    Britney Mason: Wondering if i listen to too many, PodShow Podcasts…They can suckless by coming up withnew plug for Suckless, tired of hearing it already
    Britney Mason: I do luv My PodShow friends, but not sure what knowing how much I make per year has to do with suckingless…
    Britney Mason: PodShow should put together a podcast like bluberry does.. let people know whats going on..be open!
    Britney Mason: Okay then not to turn this into a PodShow pick on session..where does the $25 mill VC go? equipment?

    All of these comments were made publicly on Twitter. They indicate a serious problem in the marketing department and in many ways, in the corporate culture of Podshow. Here’s what is broken about Podshow: Podshow believes it is the most important part of its network.

    It isn’t. Not by a long stretch. What is?

    The podcasters. The people who are providing the content for the network. Podshow has some of the finest, best podcasts online – Lifespring, Managing the Gray, Digital Flotsam, UC Radio, the Jersey Todd Show, Pacific Coast Hellway, Accident Hash, Phedippidations, Geek Brief, the ReMARKable Palate, U Turn Cafe… I could go on for quite some time. The network derives its value from the content its members are providing it, and by extension, the audience that is attracted to that content.

    What’s broken is that Podshow treats its content producers as commodities. What do I mean?

    Example: the Super Panel. You don’t need a Super Panel to tell you what listeners want. Listeners do that already with each of the shows they listen to. Look at the comments on AccidentHash.com. Look at the sales of tracks in iTunes from podsafe artists. Look at the subscriber base, server statistics. Listeners are already telling your content producers what they want, and the most successful shows are listening and changing to fit their audiences’ needs.

    Example: Suck Less. This may have been funny in a conference room somewhere, but hearing Suck anything in front of shows like Lifespring, which has a dedicated, super-family friend focus, or in front of Managing the Gray, a business show that has executives (like myself) listening, is just inappropriate. Asking your producers, “Hey, what do you think of this new campaign?” before you start putting it in front of their shows is not only a good idea, it’s also professional courtesy.

    Example: Podshow Plus. I’ve asked many Podshow-contracted producers about the tools they receive when they sign onto the network or how it’s performing. I’ve been told that frankly, there really aren’t any. There’s no indicator of how large the network actually is (44,067 as of 1:50 PM ET 6/1/07) or how fast it’s growing. What’s more, Podshow controls the Podshow Plus platform – why do their content producers, especially the ones under contract, have to manually DIG people like any other user? Why wouldn’t you give them special tools to reach the entire 44,067 registered users to promote your premium shows?

    Example: Contract. Keith and the Girl made quite a show about this, but fundamentally, why wouldn’t Podshow publish a standard contract for everyone to see? At the Student Loan Network, our affiliate contract is public, open, and a matter of record, so prospective affiliates can see what the terms are and whether it’s worth their time to sign up.

    Example: Sirius. Did anyone ever explain to the podcasters WHY the Sirius contract vanished so suddenly?

    How do you fix something like this that’s broken? Change focus. Your podcasters need Podshow for its ability to aggregate advertising dollars across a network, broker deals, do promotion, and provide tools. The function of the podcast network is a lot like a well-run, ethical record label like Binary Star Music. They take care of all the administrative functions for the artist so the artist can focus on making music. They even help the artist improve their music.

    A podcast network needs to do exactly the same and more so. Provide podcasters with great marketing tools – MySpace data managers, mailing list software, podcast widgets, chicklets, blog themes, anything and everything you can use for guerrilla digital marketing. Heck, I give away most of my tools when I present podcast marketing at PodCamps – Podshow should be doing the same thing on a network-wide scale.

    Treat your podcasters not as commodities, but as talent, as rockstars. Make them the rightful stars of their shows with tools like inexpensive press releases, search engine optimization for their show notes, webinars and seminars for them to learn how to improve their shows, and more.

    I have no plans to start a podcast network. I don’t have enough free time as it is. If I were to, however, I’d invest the bulk of my time helping podcasters who joined the network with so many tools that any independent podcaster who wanted to grow their audience as fast and as large as possible would be insane NOT to join the network. Tools, metrics, advertisers, everything I could find to help them be insanely successful immediately, because the more listeners they gathered, the more advertising dollars I could raise.

    Let me also be clear about this: I hold no animosity towards Podshow or any other network except for what it earns. I very, very much want Podshow and ALL podcasters to succeed, to grow, to be able to QYDJ if they so desire, or become new media rockstars. To that end, I want Podshow to suck less by helping their rockstars instead of focusing on the organization itself. The network is nothing without the people who produce for it.

    Bottom line: help your podcasters become the very best they can be, and network growth will take care of itself.

    THAT is how you suck less.

  • How To Suck Much Less

    For anyone who listens to Podshow podcasts, like Accident Hash, In Over Your Head, the ReMARKable Palate, and others, and is tired of hearing the 59 second pre-roll ad for their Suck Less campaign, I just posted directions for skipping right past it or any other pre-roll ad using iTunes on a Mac. No idea how to do this on Windows – if you know, post it in the comments at Marketing Over Coffee!

  • In a World of Warcraft, I Script Tetris

    It’s funny, being a weird blend of developer, manager, and marketer, how people perceive your abilities. I was reflecting on this when I was looking over both the Facebook Development Platform and some of my work at the Student Loan Network. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a snack coder, a snack developer. In a world where video games are Hollywood-style productions with casting, special effects, and workforces greater than some investment firms, I’m the guy who can whip out Pong in an afternoon – but not much beyond that. Tetris, probably.

    The thing is, for a lot of what I do – prototyping, idea generation and early implementation, experimentation – snack coding is exactly what’s called for. Create a wireframe, create a simple implementation as a proof of concept so we can decide to see if pouring scarce resources into a technology is a worthwhile investment or not. I’m the guy you want writing up that widget or wireframing the new web site, but I’m definitely not the guy to build you World of Warcraft or Second Life.

    I used to think that I was an amateur compared to professional developers, but realized that I’m a snack builder, not a buffet chef. Both have their place in the ecosystem of development and marketing, and both can create a TON of value – just ask PopCap Games, developers of casual games like Zuma, Bejeweled, Heavy Weapon, and more. Sometimes you want to sit down for a major campaign battle, and sometimes, you just want to shoot at things for five minutes.

    What’s your niche? Where do you operate best? Do you know? If you do, how did you find out?

  • What is Podshow doing with your kids?

    This is a serious question. After hearing their promos for the Suck Less program, which appears to be listener demographics, I decided, what the heck, I’ll fill out the survey just for fun. So far, standard stuff – where do you live, what do you do for work, how much money do you make, all things you’d want to do to target marketing to someone. Then we get to the odd questions:

    • Are you of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin?
    • Please indicate your racial/ethnic background (select one or more)
    • How many children do you have: [insert number]
    • Please enter the following information for each of your children:
    • Child #1 Year of birth: [input] This child lives with me [ ]
    • How many children live with you other than the above:
    • Child #1 Year of birth: [input]

    A couple of things. Why not put Hispanic/Latino in the racial background instead of splitting it out? Probably just survey design.

    But this is the big one: Why do you need to know the date of a survey respondents’ childrens birth, and why do you need to know whether they live with you or not?

    If I were a parent, that’s not information I’d willingly divulge to even casual acquaintances, mainly for security reasons. God knows the headlines are full of stories about kids being abducted. Certainly, it’s not information that a security-minded parent would want to divulge on a faceless survey (privacy policy be damned), especially after being asked where you live.

    Even stranger, if I had kids living with me who were not mine, as a responsible custodian, why would I reveal both their presence AND their age?

    What -is- Podshow doing with this information, and who gets access to it?

    Inquiring minds want to know.

    Updated: Download a printout of the survey here.

  • A Quick Sketch Biography of Christopher Penn

    Based on Chris Brogan’s masterful template.

    The thing most people know me for depends on how you know me. As Stephen K. Hayes says, we all wear different titles to different people. You might be Mom to some, but Daughter to another. Chances are you probably know me in a few forms:

    – As the producer of the Financial Aid Podcast and Chief Technology Officer of Edvisors, Inc./Student Loan Network.

    – As the co-founder of the PodCamp UnConference movement along with the aforementioned brilliant Chris Brogan, and now Executive Director of the PodCamp Foundation along with co-Executive Director Brogan. Also organizer of PodCamp Europe, speaker at Podcamp Toronto, PodCamp Boston, PodCamp NYC, the PESC conference, and more.

    – As a New Marketing guy involved in a lot of projects, from Marketing Over Coffee with John Wall of The M Show to a regular at Coffee with Crayon to the producer of Virtual Hot Wings with someone and C.C. Chapman.

    – As this guy who leaves odd comments on your blog or podcast, or makes comments on Twitter directed at you, or adds you as a friend on MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Virb, and other social media sites du jour.

    – As a 14 year practitioner of ninjutsu at the Boston Martial Arts Center.

    Which is the real me? All of them. None of them. It depends on who you are and the context in which we interact. If any of them are a surprise to you, then welcome to context switch.

    The people I associate the most with includes you. Because if you’re reading this, you associate with me.

    People who have influenced my life are countless. There’s an expression in my martial art – shikin haramitsu daikomyo – that is recited before and after every class. Loosely translated, it means every experience contains the potential for the enlightenment we seek. This could be it. Everyone has something to teach (even if it’s how NOT to do something) if only we’re paying attention.

    My early years, before you probably got to know me were unremarkable.

    You might not know this, but I used to be terrified of public speaking, and was TERRIBLE at networking. A few things along the way changed that – necessity, along with the rush of speaking onstage. My junior year of high school was the turning point, when I found that I could influence people reasonably well with my words, and ended up being voted Senior Class President, which was hilarious. Ever since then, being onstage has become a love hate relationship which has evolved to love over the years.

    I’m passionate about new media and martial arts. Actually, I’m passionate about a lot of things. I love good music – I wouldn’t have played so much of it on a financial aid radio show if I didn’t love it. I love good food – occasionally, too much. I love the power and reach that new media and the Internet give us that a generation ago would have been impossible to even fathom, much less take advantage of. It’s the project closest to mind right now but it’s also an important one – can you imagine a decade ago a bunch of fans of a musician not only bootlegging concerts, but reselling them on behalf of the musician and directing every dime to the musician?

    I love the martial arts because it’s so grounding. In a lot of other areas, your ego can run away on you, get out of check, but when you step into the training hall, if your skills can’t back up your words, you end up getting the crap kicked out of you, and that’s an absolute necessity to stay focused, stay on the path, wherever it leads you. The martial art I practice focuses on winning under nearly impossible conditions, beating the odds so you can get home happy and healthy.

    In the next year or two, I hope to meet you.

  • Book Review: The Dip, by Seth Godin

    Some thoughts after reading a copy sent to me by superhero Whitney Hoffman. The Dip is an interesting book, but a lot of the ways it’s been marketed don’t really work with the subject matter, at least not for me. It’s marketed… well, poorly. Every review, every interview I’d heard prior to receiving the book had convinced me this was one to definitely skip, and buy something else instead.

    Had the marketing said, “In addition to all the feel good motivational stuff, you’ll also learn how the Dip relates to the Long Tail, and which strategy makes sense for you” I think I would have been in line the day the book went on the market.

    The Long Tail, if you haven’t read it, by Chris Anderson, is a book about power law curves. We know them primarily through cliches – 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, 1% of the world’s population has 99% of the wealth, etc. The Long Tail proposes different thinking in a digital marketplace – in a realm where you have infinite shelf space, you can offer infinite products and do very well – better, in fact, than a brick and mortar shop that can only serve the short head. The Long Tail is about the power of aggregation.

    The Dip is about the short head. It’s about the top of the powerlaw curve, because being #1, even if the tail is really long, is more profitable as an individual because you cannot aggregate some things. Can you be #34 – #447 in your job? Not really, unless you can clone yourself. The Dip is about scarcity, while the Long Tail is about abundance. Be #1, because #2 experiences drastically fewer benefits than #1, and #3 – #infinity are pretty much screwed.

    The Dip is also a strategic warfare book. The phenomenon known as the Dip, the barrier between top performer and dabbler, between #1 and everything else, is a filter – it’s the barrier that ensures that whoever is #1 in any given niche is there for a reason. Because we’re talking an economoy of scarcity, it’s also zero sum – if you are #1, no one else can be, and vice versa. In the book are a number of tips which will allow you to make the Dip a deadly quagmire for your opponents and competitors – ways to distract them, divert them, so that while they’re tilting at windmills, you’re going to the bank. I’d recommend combining the strategic aspects of the Dip with a more warfare-oriented book like the Art of War for best results.

    Finally, the Dip and the Long Tail plug into each other. Take the Long Tail of careers, for example, and figure out which careers pay the income you want to earn (red line on graph 1). Even the best, top of the food chain career in some fields will still not pay out like it will in other fields; for example, you may be the best poo pet crafter in the world, but if the #1 position in poo pet manufacturing doesn’t fall above the baseline income you want to make, then that’s not the niche for you. Ideally, pick a career or field in which there’s a decent amount of cushion between what you want to earn and what the #1 person in that niche earns.
    Book Review: The Dip, by Seth Godin 1
    Then, if you’re #2 or #3, you’re still making what you want to make while clawing your way to the top. That little slice of the short head is where you want to live.
    Book Review: The Dip, by Seth Godin 2

    Overall, I’d recommend The Dip. It’s a good read with marketing that didn’t touch me at all.

  • Turnaround: Who has exceptional customer service?

    Still steamed about US Airways, but I made a ninja play and we’ll see what happens.

    In the meantime, let me ask you this:

    Who has exceptionally good customer service? What are the absolute BEST customer service experiences you’ve ever had that immediately destroyed the competitors’ chances of winning you over?

  • US Airways Customer Service Sucks

    This would be funny if it wasn’t me.

    I’d booked Flight 1091 at 6:30 AM out of Boston to Dayton, Ohio for the Stephen K. Hayes Full Moon of May meditation seminar. Everything seemed fine – e-ticket booked, confirmation email received (Travel Confirmation: B4P74G, ticket 03721357878361, passenger name Christopher Penn in case anyone from US Airways eventually reads this), etc. I get to Logan Airport this morning an hour and change before my flight is supposed to depart, great. Get to the self-service counter to check in, and the machine says, “No seats could be found for this reservation number. Please try again.” A couple more tries of this, and the machine finally spits back, “No seats could be found for this reservation number. Please see an agent at the booking counter.”

    Of course, being Memorial Day weekend, the lines were on the long side, so after a 40 minute wait in line (getting really worried because the flight’s leaving SOON), I see an agent who brusquely tells me, “I’m sorry, we have no record of your reservation.”

    [insert profanity here]

    After expressing things internally, I said, “Okay, so there’s no ticket even though I booked one. When’s the next flight to Dayton?”

    “4:30 PM, getting in at 9 PM.”

    Not much good that will do me, since the 2 day seminar begins at 1 PM and concludes the first day at 9 PM. I head home after cancelling a bunch of reservations and calling my teacher to let him know briefly of the foul-up.

    When I got home, my wife urged me to call the airline and get a refund. So I called them up – 480-693-6735. The audio voice response unit kept telling me to submit a refund request online, and then when I queued up to speak to a customer service agent, the helpful prompt said, “Due to unexpectedly high call volume, your estimated wait time is 47 minutes.”

    I bailed out of there, unwilling to wait 3/4 of an hour on the phone, and instead headed online to submit an electronic refund request. Here’s the email response I got:

    Thank you for submitting your refund request via e-mail. We are experiencing an increase in customer e-mail and are working diligently to respond to all inquiries; however it could take between 45 and 60 days to review your request. If this schedule will not provide a timely response, please contact our Refund Department directly at 480-693-6735. When calling, please have your 13-digit ticket number beginning with either 037 or 401 available.

    Your refund request is subject to additional audit and final approval by the US Airways Refund Department. All refunds are credited to the form of payment of the original ticket.

    Thank you for choosing US Airways.

    I’m sorry, 45 to 60 DAYS to review an email? I could send the email by carrier pigeon one word at a time faster than that.

    Needless to say, I’m beyond pissed at US Airways for terminally poor customer service, and on top of that, I don’t anticipate getting a refund without a struggle, which I’m not looking forward to.

    I’m most amused by the closer: Thank you for choosing US Airways. Yeah, that’s a mistake I won’t make again.

    US Airways, and any airline that’s currently worried about staying in business, here’s a tip: if your business is in trouble, improving the quality of your customer service is the only thing that will save you. Take your entire marketing budget – all of it – and dump it all into customer service, because frankly, that’s where you need the most help. Pay your staff to not be surly, or hire people who aren’t surly, figure out a way to communicate with customers that doesn’t involve hold times approaching geological epochs, and make your damn computers work correctly.

    Here’s my last bit of petty revenge. According to the web site, the customer service fax number is 800-892-3447.

    FAX: 800-892-3447

    I hope junk fax spam bots send you Caribbean vacation offers endlessly. May the junk faxes and scams all use US Airways to book their fraudulent, non-existant offers.
    us airways
    usairways
    us air
    usair

    customerservice

    Epilogue: US Airways eventually extended me a credit for the flight… and a $150 fee to use it. #!@# you, US Airways. I’m glad to see this post is #4 when you Google US Airways customer service.

    Did you enjoy this blog post? If so, please subscribe right now!

    US Airways Customer Service Sucks 3 US Airways Customer Service Sucks 4 US Airways Customer Service Sucks 5

    Get this and other great articles from the source at www.ChristopherSPenn.com

    10 most recent blog posts of mine:

    Subscribe to RSS headline updates from:
    Powered by FeedBurner

  • Virtual Hot Wings Now Available

    I’ve been a part of a project called Virtual Hot Wings, which is a fan-generated virtual CD for indie musician Matthew Ebel, who you’ve heard on the podcast a whole lot. I respect Matthew greatly for being a fantastic musician AND for breaking out on his own to do what he loves most, and helped with the creation of this CD. Here’s what is on it:

    • 300 DPI cover art for printing your own jewel case insert
    • 300 DPI label for printing your own CD label
    • 4 complete free concerts of Matthew’s at various venues in Second Life
    • 13 pre-ripped MP3s for use in iTunes or the MP3 player of your choice
    • Matthew Ebel’s press kit – if you know of anyone looking to book a gig with the new hardest working man in music (with respect to the late James Brown), or is looking for corporate music production, please feel free to distribute Matthew’s press kit
    • Two 30 second ringtones for your phone or Skype – Drive Away, and Coffeehouse Interlude

    It’s available at https://www.VirtualHotWings.com right now.

    Please buy a copy of Virtual Hot Wings. It supports an independent musician and absolutely every penny/Linden goes to him, no middlemen. This distribution model has the potential to help indie musicians everywhere earn a living doing what they do best, and what we love them most for – playing music.

    Virtual Hot Wings Now Available 6

    Check out the press release here.

Pin It on Pinterest