ABCtech Productions – Multimedia Project

Short Summary: ABCtech Productions is developing a multimedia project – “enterPrize: The People, The Passion.” featuring the entrepreneurs’ realities and the implications of emerging technologies. The initial project will be a series of short (2-4 minute) interview programs for public radio, to be distributed by The Public Radio Exchange (prx.org). By broadcasting stories about entrepreneurs across a wide range of industries, revealing their successes and their failures, enterPrize will both entertain and educate, showing both the curious and those already embarked on the journey of starting a business, about the range of challenges entrepreneurs face, opportunities in new fields of technology, emerging industries, and new vocations and what it takes to succeed.

The pace of change is accelerating – new technologies, new social trends, new ideas. Amidst the confusion the question keeps arising: “Who can you trust?” Our goal with this series is to help you find out by bringing you in depth interviews with the innovation leaders and entrepreneurs: Who are they? Where do they come from? What drives them? What promises do they see in what they’re developing and what risks? Perhaps most importantly, will these advances come in my lifetime? You’ll learn all that and more.

About ABCtech (www.ABCtech.ca) We are living at a time of austerity – governments and institutions, corporations and taxpayers are cutting back. When that happens the future is put on hold – research and development, the advances and brilliant ideas that hold the promise of both vast economic growth and raising our standard of living.

At ABCtech, we don’t cut or sacrifice – we hold onto and keep promoting the future. Because we’re volunteers, not taxpayer funded, we never need to take our eyes off the goal. We’re a non-profit dedicated to promoting growth through advanced technology. Each year we’ve picked a developing field (fusion energy, data analytics, cleantech, electrifying transportation and cell therapies). Through seminars, symposium, conferences and other educational and networking events we bring together research/academia, policy/ government, business/industry – facilitating growth and innovation. This time we want to go farther, bringing the general public into the discussion by creating a trusted source for better understanding emerging – potentially disruptive, technologies that are just on the horizon and hold extraordinary potential to change our lives.

What We Are Seeking: ABCtech is seeking partners who are promoting innovation through entrepreneurship, for helping us with promotion and endorsement, for telling their social media audiences about the project and encouraging entrepreneurs to audition for the show.

The Impact: By helping us you’ll not only help to promote a fun and informative public radio program, you’ll be helping to support sustainability – economic diversification in Alberta. By exposing our entrepreneurs and innovators we’ll be supporting their interest in advancing their business. We’ll be exposing prospective entrepreneurs to the realities and lessons learned for growing a small business. And we’ll be educating the public about emerging technologies and the relevance of small and medium size enterprises.

Alberta is on a global economic stage – but the world’s perspective is limited to what is most controversial. The world needs to know – in fact, wants to know, what’s happening in this province – the commercialization of emerging technologies, the innovations in financing, environmental stewardship and research, the relevance of management and marketing. We need your help!

Content

The program we are producing will consist of a dozen short radio interviews of 2-5 minutes each, bundled into seasons on a single topic. The first topic we have selected is “Cell Therapies – in Our Lifetime?” The promise and the problems are already receiving media attention: breakthroughs in addressing degenerative disease, improving the quality of life and even extending life itself. The research is receiving significant investment for the commercialization of cell therapies by major pharmaceutical companies. The second topic, commencing in 2014 is to focus on the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises.

Each program will be structured to be highly listenable, attention grabbing, and thought provoking. The goal is to produce the “NPR Driveway Effect” – a program so interesting that the listener stays in their car after arriving home so they can hear the end of the broadcast.

Template

This is a prospective template for the program, designed to fill 2-5 minutes of air time.

[Title identifier, lead question] – Reading the title of the program and thanking a sponsor (if any), then asking the question which drives the episodes.

[Music] – A brief identifiable musical piece, no more than 10 seconds, serving as another identifier.

[Frame – Question – identify] – Two to three framing vignettes, highly evocative images to do with the topic and lead question both lasting no more than 30 seconds. A provocative question and an identification of the person being interviewed about it.

[Answer] – The response of the interview subject.

[Question] – A second question, following up on the first, designed to elicit a more thoughtful response.

[Answer] – The interview subjects second answer.

[Concluding remark w/ question – “but that’s a question for tomorrow. Till then, I’m Perry Kinkaide, and this has been [title]”] –

[Close music] – The introductory music played again, to signal the end of the program.

Distribution

The initial program will be distributed of 3-12 episodes of 2-5 minutes each. via the Public Radio Exchange (prx.org), the primary source from which American public radio stations draw their content. More than just a repository, the listeners PRX actively rate and review content, ensuring a lean startup program like ours a chance of broad exposure.

The payment model on PRX is per-listener royalty – content providers are able to set a royalty rate for their content which is then paid for each download from the site and, if the show is picked up by a station, a rate set by the stations listenership.

This low cost, low risk distribution method does not exclude distribution through other channels like a registration-based site through which additional content (articles, transcripts, videos of the full length interviews) can be made available to subscribers.

Demographic Research

Based on market research we believe that the program we are developing would be ideally situated for our initial audience: listeners to American public radio (NPR).

US Public Radio Listeners

	On Air	Podcast
Size (millions)	26.4/week	24.7/week
Median Age	49	36
Household Income (2012)	$93,100	$83,501
% BA, MA, or PhD	69%	81%

Key Points:

1. Above US average in eco-friendly and health activities – this is an audience that pays attention to scientific and medical research in the news and adjusts their behavior accordingly
2. 90% of On-Air and Podcast audience has health insurance – further evidence they take their health seriously and will be interesting in health and wellness related news, particularly as it relates to emerging technologies and the question of whether their health plan will cover new treatments.
3. Largest share of Public Radio listenership is for News/Talk/Information programming – 49%

Sources:

http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/audience.html

https://cache.trustedpartner.com/docs/library/000316/NPR%20Jazz%20Demographics.pdf

http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/27/section-4-demographics-and-political-views-of-news-audiences/

1. 60% read books for leisure (vs. 38% US average) –
2. Distinguished by high educational attainment and professional success

There is every reason to think that this audience would value a program about health and emerging technologies.

Production Team

To create the series ABCtech Productions has brought together a diverse team of professionals from audiovisual, creative services, sales, and IT. Sharing a common goal of informing the public about emerging disruptive technologies, they are working to make “enterPrize: The People, The Passion” a hit.

Perry Kinkaide, Host

As founder and past president of the Alberta Council of Technologies, Perry Kinkaide has been at the forefront of advocating for economic diversification in Alberta. With experience in academia, government, and consulting he brings a wealth of experience and interviewing skills to our program.

Don Barnes, Content Adviser

A sales manager at CKUA Radio Network, Don brings years of experience working with publically funded radio and a keen understanding of formats and presentations that appeal to listeners.

Benjamin Ryder & Chris Yip, Recording/Mixing

Benjamin Ryder & Chris Yip are two of the co-founders of Edmonton’s Co-operative Communication (www.co-opcom.ca), a worker owned media production co-op. They bring years of experience with recording and editing audio/visual materials to the team, as well as the production facilities necessary to create the series.

Brendan van Alstine & Kees den Hartigh, Public Relations/Social Media

To promote the program through social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter) ABCtech Productions is retaining the services of Brendan van Alstine (also a member of Co-operative Communication) and Kees den Hartigh, founder of Organic Social Media. Brendan brings extensive knowledge of public relations and a keen eye for emerging social issues, and Kees supplies the team with up to the minute monitoring of the social media landscape.

Michael Flood, Content Writer and Researcher

With experience in writing and editing for corporate communications, Michael knows all about writing for diverse audiences. As owner of Michael Flood Writing Services, he helps management consultants and corporations with their communication and marketing needs. A member of the Writers Guild of Alberta, Michael Flood brings in-depth research and polished writing to the show.