Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

We wanted to do our part to help the wireless nation celebrate and share their thoughts on the inauguration. So, at the last minute(last Thursday) we created the Inaugural ALL CALL Cellecast as a way for the millions attending to have handy access to on demand radio for the mobile phone. Of course it works fine for those elsewhere, but the point was to make a program that suits people on the ground who don’t have smart phones, nor time to sit still and read. Having a radio is such a good idea in a place crowded to the gills, but who would carry another device?

Well the experiment worked pretty well. One of our partners, Jon Elliott from Air America jumped on board and gave us a couple updates to it and some on-air promotions. We got great feedback from a lot of people saying that if we had only had more time to prepare, it could have grown into a big hit. Well, it was a medium hit, and doing it spawned us putting up our own official twitter page, and getting lots of followers right away. We met some great people this way. More than I normally do through my personal twitter account.

We also tied new program updates and talkbacks to twitter in a stronger way, leading us to further explore the concept of the audio tweet. Micro-podcasting is not just smaller audio bytes, but audio responses and mini-reports tied to others in a meaningful way. Our talkback tool is a perfect fit for this. I will blog ore about this soon and what it means to radio’s evolution. Suffice it to say the concept already has legs as far as we are concerned.

We also made our system so we can empower field reporters to post full-fledged episodes from their phones with a simple push of a button. No need to have a special code.. All they have to do is leave a talkback just like everyone else, but just choose a different sending option based on their account being tied to a program partner. It works great too! Afi Scruggs from Cleveland brought a busload of schoolchildren to the inauguration and posted some cool reports in an audio journal style that will mean much to her and the parents on the trip. Also, Marianne from Mass reported well as she, like many there, tried to get a good view on the mall.

We look forward to developing these event based cellecasts even further in the new year, and always welcome your feedback.

Oh yeah.. why the picture of the cat? I know it is completely irrelevant to the post. We really would hate to think that businesses across the country would ever have to knock on the door of government to prosper. I just got off track while searching trends on twitter and discovered the Obamacon. Fun stuff.

There is a reason the local news channels go into full tilt aggrandizement mode when the bad weather hits. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are having a rare sub freezing weather week, and our local channel 8 News has branded it “Arctic Blast 2008″. Not that I blame them. My wife being a teacher and my kid being a student, we were watching the news with unusual interest last night to make sure our school was indeed closed like most of the rest of them this morning.

This makes me think of one of the more inspired reasons why we started CelleCast, which is to make notifications much easier for schools, corporations and more in times like these. Instead of watching crawlers on TV screens, waiting for your name to show up, what if any organization could push that information to your phone in a reliable manner? Well in 2009, watch for VMCast service to rollout, which will allow any group with a list of phone numbers to send important messages to their members. We think churches, schools and more organizations will turn to this service we offer, which will save consumers a lot of time and fuel, helping them to avoid wasted drives and more. The consumer will be in control of how the message is delivered.

Sorry for the gratuitous headline, but I don’t mind jumping on the soap box once more to help radio leaders become aware of our desire to help.

With the August radio revenue numbers being down 11%, the already troubling situation facing radio’s leadership role in media has become more acute. In talking with various heads of networks over the last few months, we see the clear trend is that their capacity to look long term and to consider innovative ways to develop new revenue sources keeps shrinking. Of course, there are many on the fringes that not only decry the situation, but have stepped into the role of the detractor. Some would say that radio is endemically non-innovative, and I find it hard to disagree when I hear radio leaders over and over again state that they are looking outside the industry rather than inside for radio’s next iteration.

The resulting situation is that although there are many great new media innovations being presented, radio executives mostly see them as a blur, if they can afford to look up from quarterly pressures at all. Mike Agovino declared in a recent interview that Triton has “kissed the frogs so you don’t have to”, suggesting that their initiatives are an effective filter determining all that is worthy for the industry to consider. Great marketing Mike. I applaud both your success and your metaphor. The truth is however that the innovations presented to radio both from the outside and by newcomers like CelleCast are not something to delegate to others to filter out. They are opportunities for any entity to avoid being painted into a corner.

Bottom line is that we love innovating, and are happy to do so for an industry that is being squeezed out of its ability to do so. We love building new ways for radio’s great audiences to listen, gather as a community, share radio content, and speak back to your on-air talent. We do all this not as outsiders, but as a full Radio 2020 partner, operating within the all-accessibility standards that sets radio apart as a leading media industry.

The biggest challenge of this post is that exposing the narcissism of this generation is kind of like describing to a fish the ocean in which it swims. So although some of my points may seem general and at times crotchety, try to bear with me as a reader here. I need to provoke you a bit to shake you into an awareness of the emotional matrix of these times.

In this world that is changing so rapidly, it is becoming commonplace to see conference rooms full of people riding the wave of technological novelty, because the attraction levels are quite high to be in on the latest and greatest. As the turnover rate increases for what ‘the latest and greatest’ actually is(hence the new term, ‘that is so 2007′), the race to lead gets more intense. Interestingly, much of today’s thought leadership has come from a more nuanced style. It is a counter to the top-down models of the past, for which we are thankful (see clue train manifesto), but this doesn’t change the fact that novelty still accounts for 90% of what is going on. People latch on to be significant by being in the know. The new social media leadership is generally determined by how many friends you have on Facebook, and how much traffic you are getting on your blog. Again, nothing inherently wrong with that, especially in contrast with the command and control models of the past. The problem occurs instead when you combine a novelty fascinated culture with an untested model for selecting wise leadership. Writing and reading is just a component of leadership. Writing, friending, and other forms of online networking, at best, create fame principally within a sub-culture that is self-fascinated. The online fame of various high-profile geeks seeking to inherit the earth does not make them experts in other areas (and to their credit, most would be the first to say it). There is in reality a great big world out there populated by very wise people doing wonderful and amazing things offline, but rather than interviewing these people and honoring their work and sacrifice, the technorati of today prefers to blog their own reports, from their own perspective and go before their online peers where the news is welcomed on the scale of them having discovered the new world. If you don’t get anything else said here, beware of this new elitism.

Adding to this, the post-boomer generations have been told in every Disney movie since 1980 that the most important value you can possess is believing in yourself, followed closely with the notion that all expressions of belief have equal value. Face it, there is just no valid counterargument to the fact that this is likely the most self infatuated generation in US history. Not that my generation of the 70’s was much better, but now that most of us who have survived are parents now, we at least have learned what it means to lay self aside for the sake of those coming next. What worries me is that the next generation just might not get started in that path until a much later time. Read on…

So where is the ‘perk’ I refer to wryly in the headline? It is in the fact that today’s technology has enabled us to indulge in self in ways previously unheard of, by minimizing exposure to criticism, and enabling self-congratulatory environments. If you need to find a community of people who agree with you, it has never been easier. Confirmation bias is the term we use for it, defined as seeking out media, friendships and information that confirms our own prejudices, rather than being challenged by hearing ideas from those with different experiences and opinions (parents included!). Today, people just don’t have to hear anything unpleasant to their ears. If you believe global warming is man-made and has doomed us unless we all turn agrarian, there are those who will console you if you are rebutted, and posit reassuring statistics. Of course it works in both ways and in any direction, conviction, opinion and prejudice. Certainly confirmation bias is not new to this generation, but what is new is our ability to isolate ourselves from our conventional neighborhoods where we would otherwise have to process varying viewpoints.

So I hope to do more here than just give you a moment of pause, but instead to give you a chance to reflect and think about how the world of technology affects you, and how you value all the people in your life, as well as the people throughout history, on which your life is indeed built, no matter how non-tech they are. If you don’t buy my assessment, then be in bliss. The narcissist community is growing rapidly.

Industry. Product. Market. Culture. Meaning.

When you get fully buried in the adult life of keeping your promises to family, friends and clients as a husband, father and entrepreneur, it is easy to let the myriad tasks at hand take over your life. In my case these last few months, they have even taken over my personality. Knowing the industry, building a product and awakening a new market present a huge and exciting challenge to me as we work together to introduce the world to CelleCast. In your case, if you, like me have found yourself overabsorbed and in need of a break, I first encourage you to take a great vacation this Summer and recharge.

As noble and exciting as our pursuits are, there are higher pursuits that need to be talked about and celebrated. Without them, we can lose our sense of ultimate life purpose. Especially today, as the speed of life continues to accelerate for those of us in technology innovation, social media, etc. We are seeing hot investment bubbles grow and pop at an increasing rate all around us. If we get too caught up in these things, and sink our trust into ideas and trends that are built on less established prior trends, we can lose more than a business edge. We can lose an identity edge.

I say this thankfully as a guy fortunate enough to indeed have a transcendent life purpose. Win or lose with CelleCast, I know my contribution in life will be more inline with advancing culture and highlighting life’s meaning. I am very fortunate. For me, business success is merely a means to a higher end, that I discuss on my personal blog. I don’t say this to self-promote, but to open up more with our readers here, whether they be contacts in media, cellecast users, mobilephiles or friends. As I am about to embark on a trip to India with my wife, I find myself this year being whisked to a new level of being pulled from all sides, and all I can say is that I am grateful to be able to choose to pull back from the tasks at hand and spend time on life’s larger issues.

As I watched some great tributes to Tony Snow this morning, I realized that no matter how busy we get, there need never be a shortage of kindness and gratitude to those around us. Tony exemplified that, and even in a high stress job, he influenced people on a level that cannot be attributed to talent and drive. It happened on a higher, more human level, that I can only aspire to. I have wonderful, amazing and talented people all around me, helping to make great success a reality. To each of you, a sincere thank you.

Andrew

I am only taking credit to a small degree, but I must say that their well demonstrated approach reflects what I have been hearing myself say for a long time now to radio network execs and show hosts, as we build out our all-accessible media network.

The walled gardens we see so readily among the cell carriers and more recently Facebook and MySpace are nothing new to radio.

So FriendFeed, I salute you in hailing the value of media finding new outlets and new audiences! Let us join our rings of power together to amplify the message that the universe is indeed expanding. Media wealth is still being created. The new consumer is daily more empowered and sharing information between the newsmakers/pundits and the consumers will uncover an unprecedented yet-to-be-appreciated market awareness in the months ahead.

Andrew

P.S.
I got inspired reading and listening to these posts today…

/why-friendfeed-deserves-a-one-billion-dollar-valuation/

http://gillmorgang.techcrunch.com/2008/05/29/gillmor-gang-052908/

http://gillmorgang.techcrunch.com/2008/05/31/gillmor-gang-053008/

We are finding the process of rolling out the community features to be more incremental than first intended. The chicken/egg factors so common in most social media sites seems even more pronounced in CelleCast, as we have so many users already in the system just there to consume audio, and others coming in to have yet another social profile first, and see where it takes them.

The dynamics are a bit more complicated than I want to explain in this post, but suffice it to say that we are rolling through the soft-launch a bit longer while we see more latch on to the concept of community around radio listening. We expect to see participation grow, and look forward to seeing your profile there and your feedback however you want to send it.

Of course, as always I am talking about the cell phone, and about the voice channel.

What bears re-iterating in this post is that with all the intrigue about the next manifestations of New Media, the elemental success factors cannot be separated from what the mainstream can access and adopt.

We are finding that our competitive advantages are emerging in how we are not only innovating ways to make it easy for people to get radio media easily on demand, but in innovating around the power of the natural, familiar advantages that are inherent with the telephone.

As we are about to go from soft launch to the actual launching and announcement of the CelleCast Community version 1.0, and deliberating with team members, industry friends, and early adopters about what we are building, I am amazed by the advantages we have. We have made on-demand audio and sharing a no-barrier deal for all.

Having said that, we have a lot of work to do on messaging focus, so features and benefits are not too long of a laundry list. It is good to have great people and partners around me with who we can share problems and solutions with.

Thanks Mark, Israel, Geoff, Jim and the team for your great input this week as we are about to announce what radio is longing for.. a way to bring their listener communities together to opine, share info, and meet up with others around the shows they are loyal to.

Andrew