Episode 78: “I’m a Baby Boomer; what’s a Podcast?”

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Synopsis

Though listeners from all over the world tell Dr. Misner how helpful the podcast has been, many BNI members ask “What’s a podcast?”

Some important things to remember:

• All you need to listen to a podcast is a computer and an Internet connection. Just click on the triangle to listen.
• You can read the transcript or print it out for your chapter.
• Listening to this podcast (and others) is part of immersing yourself in a culture of learning.
• You can get an e-mail reminder to listen (sign up in the box to the right).
• You can subscribe and get new episodes automatically. (Click that big orange “subscribe” button.)

Action Item

Go to your chapter and share this information. Tell them how easy it is to listen to the Official BNI Podcast.

If you are doing something creative to get these podcasts heard in your chapter, please post a comment!

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 078 -

Priscilla:
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the Net for working downloadables.

I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California , and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I am doing great, and I am actually home. I have been traveling so much at BNI headquarters doing this recording today.

Priscilla:
Now, that must feel really good.

Ivan:
It is; it is. It’s really great to be back.

Priscilla:
So what is this topic on the baby boomer, and what’s a podcast?

Ivan:
Well, you know, this podcast has been great. I have members from all over the world talk to me about listening to it and leaving comments on it and telling me how it has helped them. But I still get a lot of people who don’t understand how a podcast works.

And so I found that when I go to speak in BNI regions and I am asked to talk about education and training and materials that are available, that is how I lead in, I say “Hey, I’m a baby boomer. What’s a podcast?” I talk about going to BNIpodcast.com, and a lot of people do not understand what a podcast is.

And still to this day, people go, “Well, don’t you need an iPod to do a podcast?”

I tell them, “Of course, no, you don’t need an iPod!”

If I am doing a presentation here at BNI headquarters, I will go down with a computer mouse and say, “Here’s what you need to listen to the BNI podcast.” And I will just hold up the mouse and say, “This is it! A mouse, a computer, and a speaker and you have everything you need to listen to the podcast. You don’t need an iPod; you don’t need any special equipment; just a computer and a screen, and you go there. And there is this incredible little thing, a triangle, laying on its side and all you have to do is take your mouse and click on it, the play button. Just play it. You don’t even have to play it. It has transcripts right there; you can read it!”

How great is this for education coordinators. They can listen to it, and they can print it out, and they have notes to do it. There is all of this that is so easy to do on the podcast, and you don’t need any special equipment. You don’t need iTunes.

You and I were talking about subscribing to iTunes at one point, and I think I shared with you that I had someone come in and they actually set up my iTunes so that everything would — I guess it’s like an RSS feed. It just kind of goes over to my iTunes account. They did it all. They spent 30 minutes setting it up. I still don’t know how to use the darn thing! I don’t know how to get to it; I don’t know how to listen to it; I don’t know how iTunes works. But guess what? It doesn’t matter! I can just go to BNI podcast and click on it. I think that is great.

Here is why we are doing this as a subject today. If you are in a chapter and you want that chapter to be the most successful chapter it can be, you have to immerse in a culture of learning.

One of the podcasts that I just did was a quote from Benjamin Franklin, “You have to empty your purse into your head. You have to commit time and money to knowledge.” Well, a podcast is free, so there is no money, but you do need to commit some time. And if you can get all of the other members in your chapter to also immerse in a culture of learning and to immerse in a culture of learning in the same subject, how much more powerful is that?

I had an education coordinator come to me with this great idea. He went to his chapter, and he said to everyone, “Look, I can come to each meeting and do a few minute lecture on a topic, or we can have a discussion on a topic. But in order to have a discussion on the topic, everyone needs to do the reading or listen to the podcast so that we can actually engage in a conversation as opposed to a lecture.”

And everyone went, “Oh, yeah, that’s a great idea.”

I said, “Super. Y’all agree?”

Everybody nodded just like those dogs on the back of the windows; their heads bounce up and down.

Everyone went, “Yeah, yeah, great idea.”

I said, “Great. I am going to pass out this handout. I need all of your e-mail addresses, and I am going to punch in your e-mail address on the weekly reminder of this week’s podcast. And every week, you are going to get a simple e-mail reminder that says, ‘Here’s what Ivan talked about on the podcast this week.’

“And you look at it and say, ‘Hey that sounds interesting. I’m going to click on it and listen to it’ or ‘What’s Ivan talking about this time? I don’t want to listen to that.’ And you don’t have to, but you don’t even have to go to BNI podcast. You will get the e-mail.”

I said, “You’re not going to get spam. They don’t sell the list. They don’t give away the list. You are just going to get one e-mail a week, and it is just going to be this topic. And all you need is a mouse, you click on it, you listen to it. Then, next week, you won’t get a lecture. We will have a dialogue.”

I thought that was such a brilliant way to get his chapter to immerse in a culture of learning, and so my recommendation, my request to everyone listening to this podcast is to do that with your chapter. Get everyone to hand in their e-mail address and give permission to get one e-mail a week so that the entire chapter can have a discussion about these topics as opposed to a lecture from the education coordinator or someone else who read it.

Priscilla:
So this is a direct link to the podcast?

Ivan:
Yeah, you get an e-mail that says “BNI podcast” it is sponsored by Constant Contact. They do the e-mail, so you will get one e-mail. It is usually after the podcast comes out on Wednesday, so it will be Wednesday or Thursday, and it will simply say, “Here is what the topic of the podcast was this week.”

And so, when you get the e-mail, you can say, “I know enough about that. I don’t need to listen to that one” or “Yeah, that would be interesting to listen to.” And you click on it, and it will take you right to that podcast, and then you can listen to it.

You don’t need an iPod. You just click the play button or you can read the transcript. Either are very easy. So you don’t need to remember. That is the problem if you have to remember to come to BNIpodcast.com every week. Look, we have a life; we have things to do. Without that reminder, it is easy to get sidetracked and be working in the business instead of spending a little time working on the business. That is what the podcast is all about, to help you as members, learn how to work on the business through networking and building your business referrals.

Priscilla:
I am going to add a little bit to this. If you are subscribed to the podcast through iTunes, you do not have to remember anything. As soon as the podcast is posted, it automatically downloads to your account on iTunes. So that is the advantage of iTunes, in that you don’t have to think about it; it just automatically comes to you.

Ivan:
And I have seen people do that, and I am really impressed with that. But unfortunately, I am a baby boomer, so I have struggled with that. But clearly, if you can move around in iTunes and that whole arena, it is a great thing to do, and it makes life really easy.

I wanted to talk about this from the perspective of those people who…

Priscilla:
Who don’t have it.

Ivan:
Yeah, they maybe aren’t as technologically savvy, and I consider myself reasonably technologically savvy. But I do not listen to a whole lot of music, so I do not get around iTunes that much. For those of us who haven’t worked with it, I just want to make sure everyone knows it is really simple, and you don’t even have to know iTunes, and you certainly don’t need an iPod.

I have a BNI director who downloads it. I have no idea how he does it. I am sure half the people listening to this will go, “Ivan, give me a break; it is easy.” But, he downloads it to his telephone.

Priscilla:
Oh, interesting.

Ivan:
He plays little segments of it when he goes around. He is a director, so he visits chapters. He might have a one minute segment, but he plays it for everybody right from his telephone. How smart is that? It is just brilliant. I have no idea how he does it, but he just does it. Simple things like that can be done, but again, I don’t want to scare people.

You don’t need to learn how to do this. All you need is a computer and a mouse. There is a little play button; just click play. It is that simple. The people who are listening to this know that. That is the problem. See, it is the people who aren’t listening to it who don’t know that. So you are listening to it, and you get it. Help us out. Go to your chapter and share this information. It is that simple. A button that they click, and they, too, can listen to this. And what is in it for you is that you can get your entire chapter immersed in this culture of learning so that you have real dialogues about the process rather than just passing on information in a one way communication.

Priscilla:
Great. Can I just share this story quickly about my chapter?

Ivan:
Absolutely.

Priscilla:
I had my ten minute presentation, and I did bring my iPod and some speakers, and I played your podcast on how to refer difficult professions for the whole chapter. And they loved it. They were taking notes and asking me where the links were and everything. It was very impressive.

Ivan:
First of all, I would like to thank you for doing that. I think it is a great way to show the kind of services that you can provide and that would be certainly beneficial for you, and that is good. But I think that education coordinators should be doing this at every chapter. I don’t recommend that they necessarily play a whole podcast; ten minutes of a recording doesn’t always work well. But segments, I have seen many education coordinators playing segments. I think it is a brilliant idea. I appreciate you doing it, and I would love to see more chapters doing it because this is a free service for BNI members that is really, really value added and helps people build their business.

Priscilla:
And it is a great way to get to know you.

Ivan:
That is really a good point. So many people around the world, and I have had a lot of them come up to me and say, “I feel like I know you.”

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
“I hear you every week,” in these short segments, ten minutes long. All of my podcasts are very conversational, and they say “I feel like I know you. I recognized your voice before I recognized you in person.” I think that is great, you know. I am running a networking organization. I want people to feel comfortable in talking to me and feel like they know me, and this is a great way to help that happen.

Priscilla:
Well, good. I think that is probably as much time as we have.

Ivan:
It is. Your action item, if you are listening to this, is to take it to your chapter and get your chapter to immerse in a culture of learning by getting them to sign up. It is right on the right-hand side of the official podcast. You will see a little thing that says, “Podcast e-mail alerts.” You just punch in the e-mail there. And of course, for those of you who aren’t baby boomers, who know how to get around the iTunes, the “Subscribe to iTunes” button is right below that a little bit.

Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Oh, you are so welcome. Thank you, Dr. Misner.

I want to just remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.