PodTech Exclusive from IBM's World Headquarters: IBM Supports Podcasting as a New Media

16:33 | Admin | Oct 25th, 2005 6:39am |

PodTech Exclusive from IBM’s World Headquarters: IBM Corporate Podcasting Team Talks with PodTech About Their Views on Podcasting. I travelled to Armonk NY to meet with IBM’s Corporate Podcasting Team, Ben Edwards and Christopher Barger in corporate communications, to discuss how IBM is using podcasting and how they see podcasting as part of their company’s strategy. I was very impressed by the IBM team and its’ approach and strategy toward podcasting and user generated content. IBM continues to lead the business world with innovative practices that truely enable positive change. IBM may be a different company then it was when I worked their 20 years ago, but their values have are still the same - they aren’t afriad to stand up for what they believe in and take meaningful steps to make it real - they put their values into practice.

IBM’s blogging strategy and podcasting views are a major shift in corporate culture and IBM is pioneering new ground that will certainly change peoples lives. IBM is showing the way and I’m sure people will follow. Very impressive.

Correction: At the end of the podcast I mention that Ben and Christopher are senior executives of IBM. Ben and Christopher are managers that head up the blogging and podcasting initiative. Internally within IBM the word senior executives means a head of a business unit or equivalent. Sorry Ben and Chris for the misquote on the title.

Transcript:

Guests: Ben Edwards and Christopher Barger - IBM Marketing & Corporate Communication Executives
Host: John Furrier, Founder of PodTech.net

John Furrier – PodTech:
Welcome to the PodTech.net infoTalk series. We’re here at the IBM headquarters with Ben Edwards and Christopher Barger, two IBM communication executives that corporate communications. Welcome to the podcast.

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
Thanks John.

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
Thanks very much.

John Furrier – PodTech:
I’m psyched to be here in the IBM studio. It’s very professionally laid out and we’re at corporate headquarters here at IBM. You guys are in charge of the podcasting strategy within IBM. You have a blogging strategy already out there with your employees, communication to the world and amongst themselves. What’s your view on podcasting, how do you guys see this rolling out and what’s your view on that?

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
I think there are two broad areas that we and our colleagues at IBM are interested in podcasting. The first is just to take advantage of the utility and the economics of web distribution / web syndication. A lot of things have happened internally over very large, very expensive teleconferences for example it could be and are going to be transitioned to podcasting. Things like education materials for our very large, very mobile global sales force. That can go into it as well. The second broad area is really for our external audiences to dig into IBM and to listen to the wealth of experts we have here within the company.

John Furrier – PodTech:
IBM is obviously a leader in a lot of areas and considered, on the marketing side, the leader. You guys are looking at podcasting now as a user generated content model within IBM. You guys have been doing big production for years. You have high-end production from annual report to shareholders to, as you mentioned, international events but, podcasting is for everyday people. You have 300,000 employees at IBM some who are blogging, but now podcasting is for everybody. How do you see that kind of trend where the employees can start communicating internally with podcasts and then externally? How are you guys going to handle that?

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
We’re in a transition from one mode to another and there’s a lot of communications we do, that we’ll continue to do, that will come out under the old model. For example, if you look at share holder communications we generate as a company a lot of packaged share holder communications that we get out to our inventors on a periodic basis. As our employees become interested in generating their own content, I think the model for us in corporate is to really encourage those who have talent, who have a good voice, and who are going to improve our ability to be able to create markets, make new markets, and win business and to find them and help them set up and enable them to blog and to podcast and to reach out. On the other hand, to try and allow our audiences, externally, to find the things they want to find within IBM. So, to dig into IBM, to dig into our experts, our employees, and to tune in to the voices or the written materials that they are going to find useful and interesting.

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
One of the interesting, or more exciting things is that in a large company like IBM you’ve got a lot of experts, you’ve got a lot who are among the best there is at what they do, but it’s easy to get lost in such a large company. This is a way of democratizing everything. I might not know somebody in our lab in Silicon Valley who’s a particular expert on something and have no way of realizing what they were good at, what they are so smart on, and why I should be paying attention to them. By democratizing everything, by giving them this kind of a utility, it gives them a voice to get their expertise out. More importantly for me, it gives me a way of identifying who our experts are, identifying the people that I need to be paying attention to, learning more about my own country, learning more about what we have that is out there that is deserving of my attention.

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
I think also, to Chris’s point, demand really pulls talent in this area. Imagine that a company, where you have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of different feeds of one form or another…it’s the marketplace of listeners, consumers that’s going to promote the interesting ones and then other people can find them. It’s really a way of allowing interesting things to filter up to the top.

John Furrier – PodTech:
It’s almost a classic long tale within IBM. You have all this content from research to recruiting to business unit oriented content that traditionally was in written form or marketing materials. The consumers are now looking at consumption with iPods, MP3 players, and young people too are consuming things via this new format. You guys are in communications and you have been communication with your current podcast now on the share holder’s side. On marketing communications, how do you see that marketplace and that trend happening? Do you see the IBM business units moving more towards this format? You’ve been talking about it internally, what’s been some of the reactions and feedback you’ve gotten?

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
There’s a lot of excitement and I think you’re definitely going to see marketing jumping on this. Even as soon as we put the internal tool out and began to promote this internally, we were getting inundated with people wanting to know how we could do this externally. Wanting to know what makes a good one, how we could best grab the audience, just trying to tap into the expertise that we’ve developed even in the past couple of months. There’s tremendous interest. They’re definitely going to be using it. Now it’s just a question of making sure that it’s done well and that we’re adapting our tactics to the new medium rather than trying to force the old into the medium.

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
I think there’s a general sense that people are struggling a little bit with the old ways of marketing and selling product services and they’ve leapt on this (podcasting) because it can be so compelling and it can be so powerful when done well. As Chris says, there is a lot of interest brewing and bubbling on.

John Furrier – PodTech:
People are learning too. You can get started, people can get their voices heard, it’s a learning environment right now. People are jumping in and publishing and people are subscribing.

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
Right. There’s a technical barrier so there is some trepidation about how to record, post and create the RSS feed, and so on. I think that we in corporate communications can help with which is why we were talking about the enablement model.

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
I think there’s an excitement about this too, going back to the previous point, I think there’s a realization that old techniques aren’t working so much anymore. There’s definitely a shift, especially in the younger generation, the way you reach them, the way they will listen to you. There’s a realization among…generally among corporate communications that the old ways aren’t working anymore as well as they used to. Everyone understands the potential of this if done well. That’s why they are leaping on it so fast… the realization that something different and new needs to be done.

John Furrier – PodTech:
It’s a different model too in terms of what I am seeing with my podcasts and talking to other folks with the podcast. It’s really influence marketing because, with blogging and now podcasting, transparency and truth really is a big driver in how things react and distribute within the blogosphere. Podcasting is obviously the brother/sister of blogging, but really it is about providing an influence so a product manager to a CEO can podcast their information and influence the young generation of people consuming. Now within IBM that’s a big shift from how they were doing things before. So it really is about adapting. What hurdles do you see and what challenges are you guys looking at in terms of …this is happening very fast, you guys are doing it, you’re communicating about podcasting. In your mind, as communication pros, what are those next hurdles for you?

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
Well, part of it is technical. We want to help with some pilot projects inside the company. You mentioned shareholder communications podcast. That’s generated as much if not more excitement inside IBM than outside. When people listen to it and think for themselves about the possibility of deploying what you call this influence on marketing model. In other words, really what you are facing is a consumer who really has almost infinite choice of what he or she listens to, watches, or reads. That’s just a proliferation of media. You need to make the actual content of your communications interesting and appealing. You have to give value inside the content. It’s very fortunate that we have this huge resource of experts in all sorts of different fields in IBM that we can tap into and get their voices out.

John Furrier – PodTech:
You have a ton of content. You have pros from on the technical side also on the business side as well. Now all of those are being unleashed very quickly so podcasting can happen very quickly. Within the blogosphere on the internet everyone’s connected the velocity of information travels so fast so it’s a galvanizing of a community. What I’m seeing with podcasting is: when someone publishes their voice, like Chris said a researcher could be in Silicon Valley, he’s reaching out on a virtual basis and actually creating a virtual community of “like minds”. It really is turning out to be a very interesting influence, not so much marketing, but community. How is this different? Community models within IBM were mainly the website. This is kind of new. It’s one of those things where you look at it and you say, “How do we harness it or do we stay away from it?” You guys are actually going into it.

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
Yes. I think the website actually plays a big role. We already have those communities in our various families or sites on IBM.com. We can build that sense of community out further using podcasting and using blogging…getting people interacting, join the conversation, listen to our experts.

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
The best part of it is, to the point that John was making about the change, is until recently the communities have been preconditioned, preset. This is a way to bring everything from the bottom up. The communities create themselves. A person doesn’t have to necessarily go sign up for a specific community or go become part of anything specific anymore. He or she can just look and see who’s blogging, who’s podcasting on the subjects that matter to them that they are interested in, that they have expertise in. Those communities form on their own and they form from the bottom up. That’s really where the shift is happening.

John Furrier – PodTech:
It’s a user generated content model but it’s not just for individuals. It’s for corporations because they have individuals. So it’s a combination of bottom up and top down coming together.

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
Right. That’s a big shift for a lot of companies to realize that you can let go of the control of this and allow the bottom up to work. There is a level of trust of your employees that has to come into play here. That’s a bit of a culture shift.

John Furrier – PodTech:
You guys have mentioned previously when we were talking earlier about self-governance. Within your blogging policy that you have, in essence there is a lot of trust and that is a big part of transparency and truth, and trust. Don’t you see the self-governance becoming a big model? Has that been a big part of why blogging has been successful at IBM? There’s almost like there’s a self governance built in. You guys don’t have a command and control blogging strategy. You have an open and trustful strategy. Explain how that’s working with the folks out there.

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
It works very well and you are absolutely right that the communities govern themselves, that they police themselves. One of the big concerns that was originally brought up was if conversations start going in the wrong direction, what if somebody says something bad. And you find that it’s like an old fashion town meeting, the first time the town loony gets up everyone gives him the microphone and pays there attention, and after he says a few crazy things everyone just rolls there eyes and they don’t pay him any attention anymore. But the smart ones, the ones that are well articulated with well thought out ideas, criticism, or whatever - those are the ones that people flock to. The idea to just let go and trust the community to weed itself and to identify who its leaders are that has been real interesting for me to watch and to see it happening.

John Furrier – PodTech:
I think that is a huge success and think that is the model. A final question for you both if you could both answer that would be great. In the next five years what is your prediction, take your IBM hat off, in communications what is going to be different about our world in five years?

Ben Edwards – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
We are really in a lot of turmoil at the moment, we are in transition from on world to another and we don’t know what that new world looks like yet. We have a sense of it, the self-governance, user generated content, the web itself is evolving very quickly, with read/write web or Web 2.0 it is very real, very alive, and the web is information, generation platform. By itself, it’s fascinating to watch and it’s happening incredibly rapidly. To hazard a guess, I am interested in a whole bunch of areas in my field of communications, in the corporate side, there is also in the media side, and what happens to the main stream media and how do they adjust to blogging to podcasting. I think that we have clearly established a direction; in terms of adoption of these new media, new forms of production and consumption of communication and content, I think, you’re going to find the generation gap widening. You see that already. You really have layers of practice, and layers of use and there are some people that are tuning into some things and other people are tuning into others and it is sometimes difficult to bridge the divide. I think that is going to widen, actually.

Christopher Barger – IBM Marketing / Corporate Communication Executive:
I think that you will continue to see the idea of user generated content is only going to get bigger. To Ben’s point, about the main stream media, I think that’s the big adjustment that they’re going to have to make is to understand that everybody has a microphone and everybody can fact check them. They’re going have to adjust that everybody is a player now. And that they have, instead of fifteen or twenty competitors, they got a hundred million competitors. On the technology side I am particular excited about video-casting, vidcasting, or vodcasting, whatever you want to call it. I think that especially as that younger generation starts to come up that is where, they may not have, we were talking about this earlier, they may not have the attention span to listen to 15 minuets they may decide, “I’m used to songs, I want five minuet bursts of information and that is that.” If you add video to it, you double the attention span. I am excited about were that is going to go. I think that’s really going to be a big opportunity for both corporations and for the private side.

John Furrier – PodTech:
We’re here with Ben Edwards and Christopher Barger, who head up the blogging and podcasting strategy. Thanks so much for the podcast. Great predictions talking about your podcasting strategy, how you guys are evolving, very successful blogging strategy. Thanks so much for the podcast.

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