For the last few years, many of the most prominent social and new media conferences have focused heavily on sharing skills within the fish bowl to help novices and veterans advance their styles.  We’ve also tried to increase our audience and awareness of out content by trying to turn a long explanation into a tight elevator pitch for those unfamiliar with what we do.

As I start to think about theme ideas for Podcasters Across Borders 2009, I constantly find myself wondering what we can learn about creation, storytelling, communication and people from those outside the community — cinematographers, record producers, composers, directors, screen writers, authors, illustrators and painters, taxi drivers, bartenders, journalists, store managers, athletes, quilters, stand-up comedians, city planners, orchestra conductors, amateur theatre directors, architects, laywers, emergency room staff, landscapers, etc…

The real potential of social and new media has yet to be realized and will be difficult to achieve if we’re insular in our efforts to get to the next level.  If we start to look outward, we’ll discover a lot of opportunity to learn new skills, tap into new inspiration, and appeal to and reach a larger audience.

Who would you like to hear from and what would you like to learn?

Photo: Marvin is Mysterious by bookgrl.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
–Albert Einstein

Over the last few years of growth in social media, I’ve observed an increasing divide between the hobbyist and business communities. In one corner the hobbyists are concerned about the tainting of social media by business interests and can’t see any value in understanding legitimate opportunities to use business strategies to improve and promote their social media projects. In the other corner, the business folks aren’t interested in mingling with the hobbyists and can’t see the value in learning from the the independent content producing pioneers; in many cases dismissing them out of habit for the big media companies.

Both are missing the point. Both are losing.

I believe there is little value in attending events exclusively in your own domain of expertise and interest. In order to push the boundaries you must explore other possibilities, examine how other hobbyists and businesses engage their communities, communicate with others and design their workflows.

Let’s examine my situation. My medium of choice is typically audio. Limiting myself to understanding content development for audio only will limit my creativity and opportunities. Understanding how text and video producers use their tools to tell stories and engage their audiences may help me identify innovative ways to produce audio programs. Consider that Cirque du Soleil isn’t exclusively a circus, theatre production or opera company. It’s a unique combination of elements from each — and other artistic and performance domains — which couldn’t have been achieved if the creators confined themselves to understanding a single art form.

Hobbyists would be wise to attend some business, marketing and media conferences and/or classes to learn how things have been done in a traditional sense and which innovative ideas are being considered now. There is likely to be a thing or two that will inspire them and may re-energize their projects (at the very least, their interest in their projects). Hobbyists might also consider listening to podcasts from a number of categories. They can learn a lot about engaging a community from Six Pixels of Separation, educating and entertaining from the NACOcast, connecting multiple ideas together in each show from Spark and providing significant value from David Maister.

Business folks would be wise to attend social media conferences and listen to hobby podcasts of all categories to gain insight into what’s engaging and successful on a limited budget and how a single individual can create, record, edit, produce, publish and promote multimedia content. There’s a lot to learn from the storytelling style that makes up The Hollywood Podcast, the passion of a male knitter in It’s a Purl Man, the exploratory discussions and topical rants in On the Log and the conversational style to promoting literacy, an industry and its players in Just One More Book!!

In social media, you don’t just miss the phone call when you’re out, you miss the entire opportunity to grow.

I opened my notebook to a random page and found some scribbles I had made in a hurry while at the park with my two daughters this past summer. It took a few minutes to figure out what I’d written:

Things to learn.

ENJOY BEING TOGETHER

As Bayla ran towards the swings, I could hear her voice calling out
“Dad! Can you push me, please?”

Social technologies have been the catalyst for many new friendships that would never have happened because of the three ‘ographies’: geography, psychography and demography. Because humans are social animals (I mean that in the scientific, not rock and roll, sense), we traveled to meet each other, strengthen our friendships and share ideas. We are the ghosts in the machine.

SAVOUR THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE

Lucy took a lick of her ice cream, giggled and said,
“I’m the Queen of Make-it-Last, Bayla’s the Queen of Eat-it-Fast.”

For most of us, a chocolate or ice cream is a quick hit of decadence. Ever since she was a toddler, Lucy (now eight) has managed to make even the smallest sweet last long after the rest of us have given up lamenting the speed at which we rushed through our own. Each of us enjoys things in our own way. No matter what they are and how you do it, be sure to enjoy the good things in life.

WANT IT AND REACH FOR IT

She isn’t satisfied playing on the usual structures.
Bayla pushed herself to the next challenge.

As they learn new things, children always want you to watch and offer an acknowledgment of their achievement. On this particular day, Bayla graduated to a more challenging set of monkey bars and called for me to watch. You could see the determination and concentration as she extended her reach from rung to rung and made it across the river of sand. Find the next challenge, the thing you haven’t tried, and push yourself to conquer it.