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TALKERS | October 3, 2012

By Holland Cooke
Radio Consultant

BLOCK ISLAND, RI – Even pre-recession, before The New Normal taught us all to work smarter, my TALKERS coverage of the January 2009 Consumer Electronics Show reviewed that year’s Shiny New Object, the under-$300 netbook computer.

It was smaller/lighter than laptops/notebooks, and had longer battery life. And back when many Windows users were cursing Vista, those new machines came pre-loaded with trusty Windows XP, since netbooks’ processors couldn’t run memory hog Vista.

“But,” I cautioned, netbooks were “light on word processing, spreadsheet, and other productivity software that comes pre-installed as MS Office on notebooks and desktop computers. Even some low-end notebooks give you Works instead of higher-octane Office.” Not to worry. As I also discovered at CES2009, “before you spend for the Office upgrade, at least try out the same functionality FREE, by downloading the suite of look-alike programs from www.OpenOffice.org.”Unlike a radio industry that clings to “We’ve always done it this way”/”We’ve never done it that way,” the Consumer Electronics Industry delights in obsoleting whatever new-new-thing got all the “ooo’s and ahhh’s” at last year’s convention. And, sure enough, along came tablets, most notably iPad; as software evolves into apps.

I cover conventions for TALKERS – and now for RadioInfo – and because you can’t hit ‘em all, I try to. So I wanted to offer some highly recommended reading I found at a recent conference: Upgrade to FREE (TSTC Publishing) by witty Beth Ziesenis.

Or as she’s better-known to a couple thousand Twitter followers, @AskBethZ, “Your Nerdy Best Friend, the chick you call when you want to know if there really *is* an app for that.”

Engaging, quirky Beth now makes her living as a public speaker. Topic: Free apps you can find on the internet; and hers was the most useful session I attended at the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Association Executives. When you’ve howled-through her presentation – taking notes as fast as you can type – you’ll see why she’s doing so well. The videos on her website will crack you up…and were effortlessly produced with? Yep, a free app.

WARNING: You will spend much-too-much time at www.AskBethZ.com, for three reasons:

She’s a character, and her website conveys that. (Does YOURS, and your social media, humanize you?)
You WILL find lots of free, useful online tools there.
And, as Dan Rather says, “pull back and take the wide-angle shot.” Beth’s act walks-the-walk I’ve been talking-up to anyone making a living on-air who’s willing to listen: Decide what you REALLY enjoy doing, even more than your day job, and create Internet content about THAT. Do it with gusto – and employing the skill set you’ve accrued as a broadcaster – and your Internet sideline could become your day job!

See/hear/read more from consultant Holland Cooke at www.HollandCooke.com; and follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke. HC will present “Database Your Tribe…NOW” at the Talkers Los Angeles New Media Seminar on Thursday October 11.