TITLE: Language matters AUTHOR: Tavia DATE: 6/08/2008 09:18:00 AM ----- BODY:
Just got an interesting "Making Selling Fun and Profitable" email from Leesa Barnes. Leesa is the Author of Podcasting for Profit and a self-professed podcasting expert. (I'm not using that term to be snarky - I've just not yet read her book, so I'm not sure if I agree with the label.) Leesa shares an email exchange with one of her podcast listeners. You can read the whole post here: It's Called a Podcas Silly. The listener wrote Leesa to encourage her to use a pop filter, and to point out that she constantly says "podcas" instead of "podcast." Leesa listened to a few of her podcast voiceovers, and completely brushes off the note. She writes that she will, in fact, always leave off the T on podcast. Her articulation of language is influenced by her culture, nationality, education level, or geographic placement, she says. I agree with Leesa about what influences have created the idiosyncrasies of her delivery of language. We've all got language patterns that grow out of our particular culture, whether it's a pronunciation we grew up saying in our family (my mom says "ChIvy" for"ChEvy"), our region (the Philadelphia "wuter" for "water"), or on a national level ("foy-er" instead of the original French "fwa-yay"). I love unique language qualities like these, and rely on them to help create character and add richness and depth and realism to my audiobook work. But Leesa Barnes is a professional podcaster. She plays herself, the podcasting expert, when she makes media appearances. So she needs to know how her character plays to the audience. The listener wrote that even though the content was great, he found the dropped T's really difficult to listen to - in fact, he struggled through the podcast. Leesa is confounded. How can he say the content is great, but he struggled through it? The listener is absolutely right. Content can be fantastic, but if the delivery grates, an opportunity is lost. That's why voice is so important - and why the right voice delivering the right message to the right listener is so powerful. This should be helpful information for Leesa. I certainly don't believe that a performer must change their performance based on every note they get - that would be madness - but this note gave her the opportunity to become more aware of her habitual delivery of language and the effect on one listener. Leesa was only offended that these were pointed out to her. In fact, she completely dismissed the listener's comment, hitting back that there were more important things to worry about, like global warming and thousands of lives lost in China. So she's missing a great marketing opportunity - not only to grow in her voice performance, which is as important to the listener as the content she's producing, but to harness the power of her blog and podcast to grow her brand. She is building her business with blogging and podcasting, and she's selling products about podcasting. The tools with which she is a supposed expert have the power of interactivity. The opportunity is that the blogger/podcaster gets to engage in an authentic way with her audience. When she received the note, she had a chance to build a real relationship and to grow in the spirit she is bringing to her work - even if she still pops her P's and drops her T's. But in choosing to respond with sarcasm, she probably lost a subscriber, and certainly didn't sell me any more firmly on her brand.

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----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blogger Leesa Barnes DATE: June 8, 2008 at 10:14 PM I read your comments with great interest. First, just to clear it up, I'm not a self-professed podcasting expert. A journalist called me this back in 2006 and it stuck.

Also, the point of the post was to poke fun at myself, not to dismiss the listeners comments.

I coach people everyday on how to develop their own podcast and the biggest issues isn't how to record or how to create compelling content. It's language and accents.

I agree that language matters, but it should never stop anyone from podcasting. Just like I won't let a missing T stop me from podcasting either ;) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Blogger Tavia DATE: June 8, 2008 at 11:47 PM Thanks for commenting. Definitely don't let anything stop you from podcasting. I agree with that.

I'm a little bit confused by this:
"I coach people everyday on how to develop their own podcast and the biggest issues isn't how to record or how to create compelling content. It's language and accents."
Are you saying that the biggest issue for which people come to you for help is language and accents, not how to record or create compelling content? That's fascinating. If that's what you mean, I'd be interested in hearing more about what the issues about language and accents entail. ----- -------- TITLE: Know Thyself AUTHOR: Tavia DATE: 6/05/2008 08:23:00 PM ----- BODY:
Yesterday I listened to a really disturbing hour of documentary radio, an episode of Chicago Public Radio's Resound, which was written and voiced by the writer A. H. Weatherman. While her content was interesting - and wicked twisted - I was disappointed in the overall production. There's a problem I'm picking up on in public radio, and it's the This American Life effect. Ira Glass has branded his show brilliantly, and there's a TAL voiceover sound that is consistent. It really WORKS for his production. But it isn't for every production. Not every bit of content sounds right with the restrained energy, undercut, quiet, nearly blase approach that sounds just SO for his program. And while I love the fact that so many people are fiercely committed This American Life fans, it should be said that their production is not the RIGHT way to do radio, it's just THEIR way. To me, it sounded like the whole production was influenced by the TAL mindset, even though the stories Weatherman shared were deeply personal, pretty shocking, and not stories a few steps removed. Voiceover is incredibly challenging. There are so many things to consider. It's the technical - mic placement. It's the emotional - how much do you emote and how far back do you need to pull in order for the audience to have room to feel what THEY'RE feeling? It's the creative - pacing, volume, musicality, tone. Adding in the layer of a writer reading their own work, especially a writer who's not a voice performer, and that just made the production all the more precious. Finally, rounding out the whole shebang with not just a bit music, but full musical scoring, and you've got either a recipe for a great success, or something that just falls short. This show, for me, didn't reach its potential. Still, I'm glad I listened. Because of the power of the writing, "Confessions of a Child Beauty Queen" is definitely worth hearing, even if the execution is awkward. (But don't listen with children in the room.)

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