Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.tv from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

The host of GeekBrief.TV also offers 7 secrets to pod­cast­ing success

If you travel in tech­nol­ogy cir­cles, chances are you’ve heard of Cali Lewis, the extra­or­di­nar­ily gifted, per­son­aable and suc­cess­ful Web show pio­neer who hosts and co-produces GeekBrief.TV. She’s about to top 50,000 fol­low­ers on Twit­ter at @calilewis.

Geek Brief, launched on Dec. 23, 2005, now boasts more than 600 episodes (I’ve watched most of them), done on loca­tion or at Cali and her hus­band Neal Campbell’s stu­dio in Dal­las. I don’t know how they keep up the pace, given the show’s high pro­duc­tion val­ues. Over the years in my talks on new media, I’ve often held up Cali and Geek Brief as a spot-on exam­ple of how to “break” into new media — and of how the next gen­er­a­tion of Web video shows will look: fast-paced, inter­est­ing, fun, personality-driven, pas­sion­ate and polished.

In this inter­view, con­ducted at Word­Camp SF shortly before her talk, Cali dis­cusses the gen­e­sis of Geek Brief (after 5 months, “we were done with our day jobs and began doing the show full time” — liv­ing the dream), podcasting’s place in the medi­a­s­phere (“What pod­cast­ing offers is that any­body can do it. They don’t have to be told by ABC or NBC or any radio sta­tion that they have the tal­ent to do this. The audi­ence is pick­ing and choos­ing who is suc­cess­ful.”), and how she chooses which tech news to fea­ture (new tech­nolo­gies that excite her and her viewers).

Social media’s role

We spent most of the inter­view dis­cussing social media and how to engage an audi­ence. The most impor­tant rule of audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion is “you par­tic­i­pat­ing back,” she said. Putting ques­tions to the users is a good tech­nique, through Twit­ter, blog com­ments and directly on the show itself. She’s on a cam­paign to coax peo­ple to com­mu­ni­cate via Twit­ter rather than email (“You can have a great con­ver­sa­tion in 140 char­ac­ters.”) She’s also par­tic­u­larly adept at using live video stream­ing dur­ing some of her episodes, call­ing it “a great way to interact.”

Her advice to those just start­ing out: “Think about what you want, and then just go for it!” I often echo her advice to not get tripped up by the tech­nol­ogy. GeekBrief.TV offers some train­ing mate­ri­als on its Pod­cast­ing Tips page.

The light­ing on this 9-minute video was sub­par because it was bright out­side and my LP-Micro fill light wasn’t up to the task.

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Shortly after­ward, Cali gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on Build­ing an Inter­ac­tive Audi­ence to a packed house, and I tweeted her advice & the tweets are all gone now, of course — but she gave a very sim­i­lar pre­sen­ta­tion at Word­Camp Dal­las recently, capa­bly cap­tured by the MSP­men­tor blog:

7 secrets to pod­cast­ing success

Rule 1: Under­stand your core brand value.

GeekBrief.TV’s brand value is “hap­pi­ness,” Cali says. She wants her 3-minute tech­nol­ogy prod­uct views to leave view­ers feel­ing good.

Rule 2: Start com­pelling conversations.

Cali says you need to look around your daily life to cre­ate com­pelling con­ver­sa­tions. Examples:

• The other shoe falls for for­mer Com­puter Asso­ciates executive
• Memo to Jet­Blue: Change your WiFi strategy

Rule 3: Be an asset.

Cali says your sites and com­mu­ni­ca­tions need to “add value. If you want to build an online com­mu­nity, it can’t be about you. It has to be about your community.”

Rule 4: Make friends, not fans.

Cali advises: “Don’t speak at the com­mu­nity. Speak with the com­mu­nity. Ask ques­tions and answer ques­tions. Loyal audi­ences will tell other peo­ple about your sites.”

Rule 5: Show appreciation.

Thank read­ers over and over again.

Rule 6: Take breaks.

Cali admit­ted she breaks rule 6 all the time.

Rule 7: Always be upgrading.

Cali says “Never let your­self you get stale. Show your com­mu­nity you’re vying for their attention.”

All of it good advice.

JD Lasica works with major com­pa­nies and non­prof­its on social media strate­gies. See his busi­ness pro­file, con­tact JD or leave a comment.