"And - Look at Eckersley - Shocked to his Toes!"

This blog has been circling around the question of value. Where does it come from? What is it? Who creates it? How do you monetize it? How do we deliver it?

Well since it's October and Fall baseball season, I thought I'd share a baseball analogy that might serve to illustrate this discussion.

Television was the technical medium that showed Los Angeles Dodger hitter Kirk Gibson's game winning homer with two out in the 9th inning against the Oakland A's Ace reliever Dennis Eckersly in 1988. But it was the voice of Vin Scully making the call on NBC TV and the image of a crippled Gibson running the bases and pumping his fist that made it memorable.

So what is the value of a broadcaster and image maker to a baseball franchise? Well, the talent who looked at a devastated star pitcher and said, "And, look at Eckersley - shocked to his toes" is now making 3 million dollars a season. The current Dodger manager, Grady Little, is estimated to make about $650,000.

(My Canadian friends could just as easily tell you where they were when Canada beat the Soviet Union for a gold medal in hockey at the Olympics - and they could tell you at the drop of a touque who made the call on the air.)

It's only a matter of time before the web becomes the medium with that kind of power. It will then be up to talent to create the value - the sounds and sights we remember forever.

The big BIG Monetizing Picture

When I worked in radio I used to hear the same old sorry story every month about how the radio station (read: every station I ever worked for) was losing money. The boss would point out that all the value went out the door in paychecks to talent and admin. staff every two weeks. It pained him to a greater extent than I will explain here in polite company.

Then a funny thing happened. They sold their radio stations based on the market value that a larger company (like Clear Channel) was willing to pay and they walked away with a nice cash payout which more than made up for losing a couple grand a month for a few years. Me and the boys and girls in programing and production? We got zip.

Flash forward to the startup of YouTube and a little seminar I was at today.

Lorrie Thomas is a genius. How do I know? I've seen her speak and I've seen her hourly rate. Her genius is inherent in her confidence and her knowledge of internet marketing. I was inspired by what she said today at the SABER breakfast meeting at the University Club in Santa Barbara. It's what she didn't say that is the subject of this post to you.

Flash back to 2005. YouTube went from a bootstrap startup in February, 2005 to a 1.65 BILLION dollar company in November, 2006. How do we know that this is the value of YouTube? Because that's what Google was willing to pay for it. Did YouTube lose money month to month in the interim? Who cares? They cashed out for huge money in a matter of months.

Flash Forward now to your online presence and the value of your business.

I've spent more than a year interviewing and meeting with clients about their online presence and the value of investing in online media content to build the value of their brand. I've often received applause for laying out the case for online development as a means for increasing the value of an online or local business. The applause is followed by deafening silence.

What's the deal?

The deal is, most companies don't realize the value that webmedia creates for them. They are totally hung up on the question of "monetization", as if it were the same as employee paychecks or the month to month cost of electric and telephone service.

Think about it. The goal of venture capital, small business and entrepreneurs the world over is to generate the perception of value that they can use to cash out for big profit when the time comes.

So how do you create value in your business? Ask YouTube.

And you want to know something else? The available time my company has to sell has just been bought out by a media production company. Why? Because they want to create value that they can sell on the web.

Hmmmm.

And there's more. The value of online media translates into new fields for those of us who have been involved in traditional media production for these many years. How will we integrate our services to the new new media presence?

We need to prove our value as professional talent and continue to do what we do best. It's going to take a couple more years, but soon enough, the business world will be calling on media professionals to deliver the goods in an increasingly competitive arena.

It's Technorati Time

Hi there sports fans! And welcome to the future. Or a least a step along the cowpath that leads to it.

Frankly, I feel a bit the guy who has to get out and crank start his Ford in a blizzard. All I want is to get things running. Instead, I'm standing in snow up to my butt turning over an engine with a metal rod.

When is someone going to make this thing as turn key as they say it is?

Technorati Profile

If Everybody Is Special, Nobody Is

My double life has flipped back into the land of sunshine, fake boobs and serious mortgage debt. I've once again traded the pastoral for the profane and am in the studio in Santa Barbara, California. (For those who enjoyed my summer notes from the farm, please stand by for a new blog featuring our adventures and photos from Prince Edward Island.)

Over the summer, I worked on media projects coming mostly from our clients in California. In Canada, I'm set up with a voice over booth, recording gear and the same mic I use in Santa Barbara. I was pleased that on several continuing projects I was able to match voice tracks from both studios to the satisfaction of our clients. It was a wonderful demonstration of the flexibility the internet gives us to work where we want and how we want. But...some weird science is happening online and all may not be well in the land of professional talent.

To learn more and join the discussion, please start with this link:
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/15558

(Summary: The End of Artificial Scarcity - The New York Times? The New Business Model is Here - by Robert Paterson.)

"It is clear, at least to me, that the web destroys any business model based on artificial scarcity. Content will be all but infinite. What will be scarce in a world of limitless content will be people's ability to find what they value and to help them find more meaning when they find it."

I think Mr. Paterson's statement is a clear look at what I think of as the "popular sovereignty" model of the internet, one that is already influencing those of us who provide or use professional services online.

Now listen to this NPR interview with Andrew Keen, author of, "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture".
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11131872

(Summary: Mr Keen presents an indictment of web 2.0. He explains how he sees the rise of user generated content causing a crisis in professional journalism, professional recorded music, newspapers, radio stations, TV and publishing.)

With those two points of view you can see a long way down the cross roads we're all standing on.

To take a closer look at how these issues of on-line service and technical capability are impacting production from the point of view of the people who read copy for a living, please continue.

Todd Schick is a busy man. I know because he had to jump off of his call from me to take another call for a paying gig. Being a pro and a Canadian, he also had to call me back and apologize. Todd works full time as a voice talent in Toronto, one of North America's busiest media hubs.

Please go to:
http://www.toddschick.com/VoiceTalentFAQVoice123.htm

(Summary: Todd describes the pluses and minuses of working with Voice 123, an online casting directory of voice talent and demos.)

Now check out this posting from one of the busiest voices in Hollywood, Corey Burton:

http://www.coreyburton.com/sennheiser.html

(Summary: Corey's post, "The World's Most Tasteless Microphone" sums up his experience in the brave new world of, "one size fits all" solutions in modern digital production.)

And finally, here's my take on these evolving issues. At first glance, Robert Paterson's "Artificial Scarcity" struck me as the kind of airy froth that social optimists are bound to embrace. But on closer look I saw something more concrete in his view. "What will be scarce...will be people's ability to find what they value..."

Oddly, this might explain and support Andrew Keen's premise. Perhaps it's not so much that expertise will cease to be, it's whether or not you can find the expertise you value that is the issue.

If everyone can join the thousands who have listed themselves on Voice123 as professional talent (or some kind of virtual equivalent)then who will spend the time separating the garbage from the recycling? That job used to belong to an experienced producer or a casting director who got paid to evaluate talent. These days the job of casting could just as easily go to a first year production assistant or account executive. No doubt she'll be casting voices on her lunch break.

In any event, I'd like to think that Robert Paterson has it right. If everyone is special, then it's simply a matter of taking time to find the people you need to create the results you want.

If Andrew Keen is correct then perhaps we'll reach the logical conclusion of a society-wide social trend which makes everything acceptable. In Keen's view, If everybody is special, then nobody is.
The Cult of the Amature

Life on the Farm

Wow,

I just realized it's been over a month since I posted here. That should give you some idea of what the harvest season is like in farm country.

So here I am in PEI, Canada, harvesting, selling, canning and freezing the work of the last four months as the harvest of produce comes in and the days get shorter in the north country.

Hundreds of pounds of fresh produce have been picked, packed and sold by yours truly as we wind our way through a land that actually has seasons you can't ignore!

Good reading for anyone who is interested in what we do here and what meaning it might have is Barbara Kingsolver's book - "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." The premise is her family experience moving from Tuscon, Arizona, to eastern Virginia to raise children and food on a few acres of farmland.

Could you eat only home grown and locally produced food for a year?

Your chances are pretty good in Santa Barbara with glowing farmers market produce and
a growing season that delivers four crops a year. But try that in the heartland and you face a different challenge. Still, the rewards are large and the food is great!

And we did it all on about $150.00 of fossil fuel for the tractor (some of which I'm wearing now as the diesel spilled while I was filling the tractor from a plastic gas can.) and we maintained our organic certification under strict supervision and inspection.

In fact our largest fossil fuel expense (besides off farm transportation) was for mowing! No need for irrigation - it rained a LOT and we have the lawn and field mowing to prove it!

More mowing, compost pile building and picking to come as we close up the summer and look ahead to more healthy soil, weeds and crops in the spring.

I'll be home to lovely ash covered SB in a couple of weeks.

Summer Sunshine and Blue Skies

Summertime brings us so much to do. Sometimes it's tough to keep both eyes on the ball when the kids are out of school, we're working overtime to earn a summer break or even just a day at the beach.

One issue that comes up often these days is how to create time efficiency and cost effectiveness for our clients while meeting important business deadlines.

Here are some things we suggest to clients who need to complete projects on time and on budget. This can help especially when summer time and production money is at a premium.

We work with clients to include their input on budgets for talent and studio time. We offer consulting and up front planning on studio costs and talent fees. We often include careful script review and session planning. We find we're able to identify script questions and problems in pre-production that we might otherwise have to solve on the clock in a recording or editing session. We offer thirty day billing for our established clients and we now accept credit card payment for ISDN service and clients who want to establish credit.

Getting the right voice and the right read is critical. We invite clients to join us in the studio or by phone to session direct talent with us. This helps avoid expensive additional time and talent fees to re-track projects. We also think it helps clients appreciate having professional voice talent on each session we do. It simply takes less time to work with talent that can take and hold direction.

Script and talent issues are the most common reasons that projects go over budget.
Sometimes these costs simply cannot be avoided. But the best way to manage costs is to have a bullet proof script and a clear understanding of your production needs before recording begins. And as always, you can't expect to buy a Mercedes Coupe at a Chevy price. So if you need all the bells and whistles, it's best to plan for that up front.

We work for our production clients and our job is to represent your issues on every project. We're happy to have you put the job in our hands and trust our judgememnt to complete it to your satisfaction. But if you need to manage a complex project on a tight budget, plan on working with us from the start to help you get the most for your money.

A Little Horse Sense For Media Producers

In the modern world, we are used to dealing with machines and the fickle whims of technology. We approach most things as though they ought to work to satisfy us and be completely reliable and predictable. Gone are the days when a city boy like me depended on animals to get things done. But the lessons I'm learning from my two buckskin geldings, Dakota and Casey, have the same steep learning curve as an Iphone might have for you. They also carry some interesting information about creating good working relationships with the human beings in our lives.

I'm hoping that a few of the lessons that have tried my patience and have on occasion caused me pain are worth sharing. A little horse sense can serve a man pretty well in the modern world as he tries to work well with others.

1) Unreasonable fears can cause real problems. My horse Casey took a shock to the nose from an electric fence. Now he's afraid to go through gates. How many of us find ourselves dealing with the unreasonable fears of others?

2) You've got to have more time than the horse. To move past Casey's fear of gates, I've spent days just standing or working with him, to ease him past this "fear barrier" so he can see that there is no danger. How many times do clients react to creative ideas with this kind of unreasonable fear?

3) Leadership requires earning the trust and confidence of others. Dakota spooks pretty easily. I've spent a lot of time with him earning his trust with calm handling and steady riding. At times I have to push him past obstacles that scare him so that we can move forward together. How many times as creative talent, do we get frustrated when a client backs away from our direction? Sometimes you've got to take time to learn what bothers a client and stay constant with some gentle pushes to work through it. These challenges also force me to stop and reconsider what I'm doing. Can I take responsibility and find an innovative answer to the problem?

4) Losing control. When I get irritated with a horse, I often lose the initiative and trust I've worked hard to create. I've had to remind myself to be a calm, firm leader to get us where we need to go. As soon as I lose patience, I lose control.
My modern, by-the-clock mindset is often the trouble here. Horses don't wear watches. So again, takng the time to understand the problem and see the solution is more productive than simply getting mad. How many times have we let some bit of creative frustration hurt our progress with a good client?

5) Reward. We usually look to results alone as our measure of success. This is clearly important in business. But we work as a team with people who call on us to serve them. It's important to recognize and congratulate our creative partners for their work on a job well done. Sometimes we have to give a little to get more done.

Fresh carrots or apples seem to work for the horses.

A sincere, "Thank You, you did a great job on this." might work better for us and our working partners.

You might have some horse sense of your own to add to my list of suggestions for dealing with people in the creative process. I hope you'll share what you've learned.