Prizes for all

I spent last night (and the early hours of this morning) celebrating at a marketing awards ceremony in London. To anyone who isn't familiar with these industry awards I can say that these awards are like any other competition, highly regarded by the winner and derided by those who don't win. Our winning entry was for Switch On MK which is a podcast that goes out to electricians. It was dreamt up and produced by London based Facta PR and MK Electrics marketing supremo Joanne Reynolds as a way of reaching electricians with important technical information. The Podcast has now picked up three awards and is attracting interest from other companies in the industry. In many ways the podcast is an ideal medium. Like radio it has better pictures. In fact I don't even like the idea of publishing photographs of those taking part because I think when you hear someone on the radio you have a picture in your head and it is always a disappointment when you see the person behind the voice. When I worked for LBC on the Fixit Phone In I well remember the look of disappointment on people's face when I met them at a road show or similar event.
That isn't false modesty on my part it is simply that our imagination is so much more powerful than we give it credit for. It is the reason why a film hardly ever does justice to a book. How could it? The reason that those who read books love them so much is because they are collaborating in a creative process rather than passively sitting on the receiving end.

Much of the audience we reach with the podcast will never listen to speech based and those that do probably listen to Talk Sport. Statistically there is little chance that they would have had the pleasure of listening to a radio play on BBC Radio 4. This is probably a good thing because when you get into a good radio play the work rate gets slower and slower and you find yourself transfixed. On several occasions I have parked around the corner from my destination because there is still ten minutes left on the afternoon play. If Radio 4 plays ever grab a mass audience the productivity of the nation will fall during those 45 minutes or whatever.

So if you have a site where the guys like to play the radio the best bet is to keep it tuned to something upbeat and inane. On one site recently the ceramic tilers had a ghetto blaster playing CDs of trance music. It sounded like Ibiza. Oddly enough I could see exactly why and how it helped them to lay tiles and it echoed brilliantly against the hard walls and floors. It got me thinking that different trades could be suited to different music because it fits the activity.

Bricklayers. Pink Floyd Another brick in the wall. (too obvious) but you could lay bricks to it.
Plasterers. Dire Straits (money for nothing)
Plumbers. Tricky this but probably Handel's Water Music.
Roofers. The Beatles. Fixing a hole where the rain comes in.
Carpenters. If I were a Carpenter. A bit of an insult to carpenters really because it is saying if I were just a lowly carpenter. It is a great tune though but the Tim Hardin original gets a lot less air plays than the Four Tops which is a shame.
Electricians. Anything by AC/DC.


Roger Bisby
www.selfbuilder.net