SparkCasting From The Inside Out

Last week, we pre-launched the SparkCasting.com site to the general public. As a result of that launch, some dialog has started (mainly originating from Kris Krug serving as the mouthpiece for the Vancouver community). They have raised some issues and I’ll tell you frankly that it was certainly expected. But all things are not as they seem.

First some background. In November, I started doing Beercasting with some friends while back in New York. Since then, I’ve jumped in 100% and been moving forward building a community. To do this, I committed to traveling across the country and bringing the concept to as many people as I possibly could. It’s definitely been a success and I’ve managed to find a bunch of really great people that not only wanted to participate, but also to take the helm and run their own shows.

Fortunately, and perhaps unfortunately for some, I’m also a die hard entrepreneur and I am always looking for what opportunities might exist as well. After I embarked on this journey, I quickly realized that I loved doing what I was doing and would really like to find a way to make a living from what I was doing. For anyone that’s never been through this process, I’ll have to warn that it’s quite iterative. I’ll throw a thousand things across my business partner, participants, and other players to see exactly where the flow is. Adding to that, I’m also what I’ll call a “fast prototyper” so I spend loads of time doing and a lot less planning (at least in the beginning). Getting my hands dirty and getting neurons firing is the only way I really get things done.

So on to the dilemma. When we did the pre-launch, we put up a site that was mainly targeted at a specific audience we were planning to serve - the conference organizer. There’s a reason I didn’t make this transition for the general population - because the site wasn’t ready, nor the message.

SparkCasting will provide a bunch of services. One of them is a talk-show format that we are making use of inside of conferences to build a better memory for what happened and what was experienced. We recently completed our second one of these and there are 3 more in the pipe already. Are we violating the trust of the people attending? Certainly not, I hope. In fact, the response has been anything but that and people have actually learned from their participation.

Beercasting is another project within the SparkCasting Company. For anyone that’s not aware, it’s tremendously difficult to coordinate events in multiple cities. Getting people to organize and commit is harrowing and you’ve got to expect the worst but be prepared for the best. Beyond the effort, it costs money and time. In doing this show to date, I’ve (and even some of those helping me) endured the costs as best I can. That’s simply not sustainable. As of now, we’ve got 3 ideas on how to generate revenue to support these events.

First, there’s sponsorship. We’re helping to bring business to venues in lots of different cities. We’re seeking out companies that are willing to sponsor events. This may be the beer company that supplies us with drinks or the bar that cuts us drink specials and some food for the hungry.

Second, there’s the potential for advertising. Beercasting differs from many other podcasts because each podcast is about exactly one topic. If you compare that to Google AdWords, you can see that since things are pretty “narrow” in focus (at the podcast level), there’s an opportunity to possibly sell advertising around specific topics in the show. We’re working slowly but surely to find companies that might want to advertise in the topics we come up with.

Lastly, and this is really the furthest from reality at this point, is the possibility of doing a form of market research. Before anyone gets too bent out of shape, I’m going to make this VERY CLEAR - it always will be OPT-IN on all levels. We’re still working on the details so it’s hard for me to say more when we’re really not sure how it all will work, but we’ll update on that when it is clear. But consider how we think it would work. Right now, everyone that participates in a Beercast has to sign a release. Why? Because I don’t want to get sued later on when we post a Beercast and then someone claims I stole their identity. That’s a basic and necessary protection for myself. I will never force someone to sign it, but at the same time I won’t let them participate either. It’s NOT because I am selling that information in any way, shape or form. Naturally, I can’t control what someone does with what we put out if I don’t know about it, but we do our best to see what happens to the content we are helping you produce.

Assuming we were doing the market research thing, there would be several levels of awareness and opt-in before you ever participated in one. For starters, the organizer of the event is the first marshal. Every week, we’ll choose new topics that we are suggesting for discussion. Organizers will know, clearly, when a topic is being suggested for a client’s research. The organizer can choose to entirely skip these topics. As I said, the weekly topics are suggestions, not requirements. Assuming the organizer wants to suggest it to you, the participant, you have two options - participate or opt out. We’ll most likely have some process in place by which you are alerted that the topic is to be used for research purposes. As a result, even if the organizer wants to do it and you don’t, it just won’t happen. There’s no point if you don’t want to do it.

So you might be wondering why I would even consider doing this. There’s a number of reasons really. I’ve spent a lifetime talking to people and learning from all the things they have been through and how it can prevent me from repeating unnecessary mistakes. In today’s world, we’re seeing everyone and anyone come out of the woodwork and getting the opportunity to build their own soapbox and shout at the top of their lungs. In that vein, more and more companies are starting up with transparency built into their mission statement. I commend that type of behavior and think it’s the way it was always meant to be.

But why help “the man” do research? I’ve thought long and hard about that as well. I’ve operated a research company in the past and when I did, the goal was not to make the company more money but to make sure the voice of the customer was represented. I’m looking for ways to do that again. I’d like to work with companies that value your opinion, unfiltered and unedited, not for their ability to make money but for their ability to be the company you want them to be.

I’m going to build a company like that.

So that’s where we stand as of today. Nothing’s changed except my partners and I are trying to figure out how to sustain and grow what we started. Everyone’s been having a great time and we’ve got to figure out how to keep it alive. I’m always open to comments, criticisms and suggestions. Send them straight to me (greg AT sparkcasting DOT com), blog about them, talk about them.

In the end, if we don’t know, we can’t change.

Best regards, Greg