The Melcrum Podcast 8th August 2007: Shownotes

The 8th August edition of the Melcrum Podcast (17.8Mb) is now ready for you to download.
This week we've got the second of our special IABC conference editions, with three interviews recorded live by Internal Comms Hub editor, Annie Waite, in New Orleans.

First up is Hub expert, Angela Sinickas (begins at 1:33), who talks about the fine art of measuring the effectiveness of internal comms efforts.

Next is Shel Holtz, the principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, who talks about how social networking is becoming increasingly important for company communications (begins at 7:22).

Lastly, Roger D'Aprix of ROI Communication gives us a sneak preview of his keynote presentation for the upcoming Melcrum Strategic Communication Management Summit 2007 in Chicago this September (begins at 13:43).

Comments

[Annie Waite]

It was great fun to put together and there's a few more interviews to come at some point soon - Darren Briggs, Brad Whitworth and David Grossman.

Shel makes an interesting point in his interview about the increasing use of widgets...Alex M, what's your take on them?

[Annie Waite]

Forgot to say there's also some kind words being said about the Melcrum podcasts on the Communicators' Network Comms In India group board:
http://www.communicatorsnetwork.com/?page_id=4&cat_id=26&thread_id=16&post_type=4&group_id=26

[Alex Manchester]

Hi Annie,

Widgets are increasingly popular, whether they be html code that you install on your own blog (As Shel was mentioning), or whether they're part of your computer operating system - Windows Vista has "gadgets", but long before that Apple's OS X Tiger did indeed have "Widgets" included. Both incarnations form a "dashboard" of personalised information for the user that's effectively a much more visual version of RSS.

Currently, widgets are limited because someone else with tech knowledge has to create them (so you, the user, can then install them wherever). But just around the corner in October is Apple's new operating system "Leopard" which features an advanced widget maker, meaning you can copy and paste parts of a web page you like into your dashboard and it will automatically update. This removes the current limitations as you can literally highlight the bit of the web page/site you want and paste it in to your dashboard - very, very simple! It's also another way people can circumnavigate advertising, centralised websites and mainstream media sites, which as Shel also said is increasingly what people want to do.

For more information on the widget maker visit Apple's page on it but it really is something quite special.

So, in summary, yes to widgets!