“Got a few minutes?” The Master suspected he’d find The Old Webmaster working on something or another there in the small storage room on the top floor of the lodge.
“As long as it doesn’t involve another project…. I can see that look on your face – even though it’s pretty dimly lit up here.”
“Help me out on this and we’ll get you some higher wattage light bulbs!” The Master grinned broadly. “I’ve decided that our lodge needs a podcast. Can you help me? I don’t have a clue….”
“I’m curious, Worshipful: why do you want to have a podcast? To be honest, I’d have thought that if anyone had been clamoring for one they have asked me about it first – not that I’m jealous or anything….” He slapped his friend on the arm as the Master sat down in the straight chair beside the desk.
“Well, someone showed me this – geeze: I don’t know if it was a blog post or a discussion group message or what – but somebody was blathering on about how a Grand Master wasn’t doing his job properly because he wasn’t doing a podcast. Well, I thought that if he should be doing that then….” The Master was still trying to conceptualize the problem.
“There are several issues here, Worshipful. Let me address the most basic first: what is it that you’re going to be talking about? Do you want to provide education, lodge information, or something else? And who’s going to be your target audience? After all, you do get to talk with us in lodge on a pretty regular basis. Is there something more you need to say? While there are a number of folks who are enthralled by podcasting, for most it’s completely unknown. Frankly, to me it’s not even as pervasive as audio books. With those, there are some real adherents but if it weren’t for those who have difficulty seeing or who are need stuff to fill their daily commute and don’t want to listen to a public radio pledge break, there’d probably be a pretty small audio book market, not that it’s all that large to begin with. Don’t get me wrong: there are a couple of very good podcasts out there but sadly, like blogs, they tend to be or become very personal. You can get some very good information from some but in many others, it’s a total and complete waste of time. How will yours be different?”
The Master turned away and stared at the door. He really didn’t have a clue as to why he wanted to do this. It seemed awfully important when he’d read about the Grand Master who didn’t….
The Old Webmaster continued: “I don’t know of a single Grand Master who’s doing a podcast – and I’m pretty darn active online. Now if I posted that statement online tonight, someone would pop right up to point out that Grand Master X of a particular jurisdiction has created three podcasts. But so what: that’s like sending out three newsletters, in my opinion. It’s not enough to make an impact and if 99% of the Masonic world doesn’t know about it, what’s it worth? That’s not to say that everyone won’t be doing it in 10 years. It’s a great concept but heck: right now, precious few Grand Lodges even have a formalized means of sharing information quickly through their websites or a dedicated e-mail list. So I’d suggest that whoever it was writing a rant was doing nothing more than that: writing a rant.”
The Master looked absently up at the dim light on the wall. “Perhaps my time would be better spent doing things I know will have some value to the Craft….” His voice drifted off. Why did he come up with these crazy whims, he thought to himself.
The Old Webmaster chuckled. “From what I’ve seen in my online travels, some of those who rail the longest and loudest about the ‘evils’ of Grand Lodges have never done the basic work of running a lodge, much less anything more broad. Much like the military sometimes, they just have to gripe because they know they’re not in charge and probably won’t ever be. A complaint that a Grand Master isn’t podcasting is a ‘cheap shot’ at best. That notwithstanding, there’s a place for everything on the internet and, sadly, few Grand Lodges are capitalizing on the potential they have for free or very low cost advertising, information sharing and membership development. I think, though, what’s needed at a lodge level is quite a bit different than what you’d want/need for a Grand Lodge.”
“OK. So now I’ve got back the free time that would have gone into my podcast.” The Master grinned from ear to ear.
“If I may make a suggestion: I’m wondering if we shouldn’t be instituting an old-fashioned calling tree to check on our elderly members…. I think we could probably get about three times as many members into that sort of thing than listening to a podcast. And we’ve got an important lodge anniversary coming up in a couple of years: perhaps a couple of the guys could be talked into researching what was done at such celebrations at the lodge in years past.”
The Master looked up at the dim light that had been on the wall for probably the past 50 years. “So I wonder where they do conversions of whale oil lamps….”
They both smiled at each other, sharing the warm familiarity that is Freemasonry.
Technorati Tags: The Old Webmaster, freemasonry, Masonic, scholarships, podcasting
0 Responses to “The Old Webmaster and the Internet’s importance”