I’m 38-years-old and I’ve never been to Vegas. I’m regularly told how absurd that is and so when a friend asked if I was going to #NABShow (National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention) and mentioned it was in Las Vegas, I saw an opportunity to right 38-years of wrongs. I also saw the opportunity to travel to the borders of podcastdom and crossover into the broad expanse of the larger audio world that surrounds it.
Most podcasters (myself included) come to the medium with no experience in audio whatsoever. We’re creators, individuals with something to say and enough technical aptitude to figure out podcasting well-enough to say those things and put them out into the world for others to discover and hear.
We are not, and I feel confident in speaking for the broadest majority of us on this, audio professionals or audio-tech professionals by any stretch of the imagination.
NAB’s conference serves a segment of the professional audio space that podcasting has only been significant enough to be a part of for the better part of a decade. That is to say, NAB serves the mature part of the professional audio space – and the television broadcasting space as well. That means the spectrum of professionals at NAB – and that includes presenters, exhibitors, and attendees – is broader and more colorful than the one we see at most podcast-centric events.
And that means we podcasters are missing out on some really cool things. Things like emerging audio technologies, fresh advertising and marketing tactics and tools, and exciting startups ventures that might one day have a huge impact on how we create, distribute, or monetize.
So for the next few days, I’m going to be conducting interviews at #NABShow with individuals and brand representatives who are doing awesome things in audio that we at Podcast Magazine think you ought to know about. It is our hope that by introducing you to these individuals and brands, we will give you information and insight you didn’t have before and, hopefully, inspire you to think bigger and more broadly about what you can do with your own podcast and how you can make it better.
