Learning a New Language
Written Oct. 13, 2008 by Tom Webster in Technology with 4 Comments
The current economic crisis is a scary one for the radio industry, and there is no doubt that not everyone is going to emerge unscathed. Certainly if you are managing or programming a radio station, you are getting comfortable with the term "do more with less," and you are grappling with just how much more you can squeeze out of your day.
Here's a tip, both to cost-effectively improve your station's capabilities, and to develop your own careers. Learn a new language. Not just any language, but HTML. PHP. XML. The language of the web. One of the great things about the Internet is that it is possible to build great looking, functional and effective web sites with your own hands for small investments of money--if you can invest the time. Your cluster's webmaster is a bottleneck to getting content out of the heads of your creative people and on to your station's website. You can drastically streamline that process by hitting the books and learning code.
I'm completely serious about this--HTML is the language of TODAY, not tomorrow. You might react to this, as many already have told me, that "I don't understand all that technical stuff," or "my web guy handles it." In 2008 that's like saying you don't need to learn how to drive, your horse-and-buggy works just fine. Learning the language of the web is de rigeur for stretching your resources and removing the barriers between the great content you have and getting that content to your listeners on the web.
You can't afford not to know. It's a whole lot easier to learn than a foreign language, so don't use that as an excuse, or make the fact that you don't have a "technical" job a crutch to avoid the challenge.
Want to learn more? Need some tips to get started? Pop me an email.
Reader Comments
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There are also graphics-based editors that can bridge the gap between content and code. I use NVU, which is freeware based on the old Netscape Composer software. Works well for a non-geek PD like me.
NVU--wow, that takes me back!
I learned in Notepad. Today I still use a text editor (TextMate for the Mac) but often wireframe things in Dreamweaver.
Actually, I've found that the strongest of the three-letter acronyms for web exposure these days is RSS. Even just adding a simpler blog-format jock page system that syndicates will help you immensely, because MySpace both reads and syndicates RSS feeds, and Facebook reads RSS feeds and auto-publishes. RSS allows the jocks to update ALL of their potential storefronts to listeners with one update, freeing them up to do things other than use cut/paste their content over and over. And of course, RSS + MP3 = Podcast.
Tom's right.
Sure you can use Dreamweaver, FrontPage, whatever, but the ultimate freedom is the ability to write code. It's the mother-lode. I'm working on it now. It's like learning a foreign language.
Go to a foreign country with - and without - knowing the language. Completely different experience.