Audio driving tour: the Mississippi River in Wisconsin

Radios were put into cars because audio is so good for multitasking, and that's the same reasonpodcasts are now giving radio stations a run for their money.  People want something to listen to while they drive and if what they're listening to is about the world they're seeing around them, all the better!

Thus, audio driving tours are such a natural part of the placecasting concept.  Here's a set of audio tours from my neck of the woods: the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  Thirty-three towns along the Wisconsin side of the river have banded together to create 33 podcasts about the environment and history in their area. They're calling the project Great River Road Stories and the site is full of other information about this beautiful stretch of country.  (What's really impressive is that it looks like they created the audio tours 4 years ago, when podcasting was still very much in its infancy.)


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From Prescott to Keiler, the tours are 4-8 minute overviews of the history of each town the listener is about to pass through.  Some towns have more interesting histories than others, of course, but by the end, a listener should have a good sense of what this landscape used to be like.  I will definitely try to do this drive sometime this summer.

As I try to use my radio training to create this kind of place-based environmental journalism, I'm going to start collecting best (and worst) practices from the tours I hear.  So, with all respect to the hard work of the team that put this impressive series together, here's my critique:

• Pro: While most of the tour is a narrator reading a script, the tour occasionally breaks up this monotony by cutting to local experts who talk about geology or history.
  
• Pro: The narrator gives clear but brief guidance about how to use the tour...in each case saying to pause the podcast until you've passed through the town just talked about
• Pro: There is a simple, unobtrusive music bed under all the sections.  I think it's always the same music, which is too bad, but it adds energy and momentum to the items and makes them seem less like lectures
• Pro: There is a great diversity of information!  History, environment and geology are all rolled in here and it's packed with facts and statistics.
• Pro: There are good human stories in many of the towns.  Clearly, the writers made an effort to tell stories of particular events.  

• Con: The narrator's pacing never changes.  He doesn't pause when he switches topics from, say, history to geology.  This leaves the listener no time to digest the points just made.  A lot of the great facts and stats will never stay with a listener at a pace like this.  The narrator uses no vocal tools to set off particular pieces of information.  When everything has equal weight, everything becomes the lowest common denominator.
• Con: The script is not written for the ear.  The narrator does a nice job navigating some long, clunky, passive sentences, but ultimately the script sounds like text lifted from a guidebook or museum display.  Ears need short, active sentences written to paint pictures in the listeners' mind.
• Con: The script rarely references what the listener is actually seeing, or suggesting where to look when the listener gets to a particular location.  This neglects one of the great advantages to this kind of journalism...you know where the consumer is and you can use that to enhance the story.
• Con: Too many numbers.  It's hard to work numbers into a narrative.  Distances, addresses, ages all need context for a listeners' brain to really understand what they mean.  If that rock is 8-thousand years old, tell me why that's impressive.  Don't tell me the address of the historical society...tell me where to turn when I drive through town.  I'll be there shortly, after all.

No matter the technology, storytelling is key.  These Great River Road Stories are a wonderful service to visitors and residents alike, and they're just a re-write away from really engaging listeners' imaginations and connecting them with the environment of this beautiful part of the country.

Link: Great River Road Stories audio tours

Plotting radio stories using Wayfaring.com

Here's what the last two weeks of stories from my show, All Things Considered, look like when you plunk them into a map.

Mousing over a marker displays the story's headline.  For more details, you'll have to double-click the map and see them at the host map site (Wayfaring.com).

I only placed the stories that actually happened in a location or that were about a topic that has a particular location (for example, the Target shareholders meeting is plotted on the Target Headquarters building in Minneapolis).  Stories about concepts were left off the map unless they had a scene of a specific place illustrating that concept (as any good radio story should have, given time enough to report it).

I created this map using Wayfaring.com, which is a simple do-it-yourself map-making Web site, with a clean, no-frills interface.  This takes the programming out of map mashups.  It also takes out a lot of the flexibility.  I couldn't find a way to embed hyperlinks to the stories in the descriptions, much less audio.  But it's a good start.  

Ideally a map like this on a journalism Web site would be sortable by date, topic and reporter, too.  But the most important function of a feature like this is that someone can zoom in on their community and find the journalism being done about it.  Using a map like this over many months could also help editors find gaps in their coverage of a particular region.

Translating this kind of map to be viewable on a mobile device should be the easy part.  Generating compelling content, as always, is what's so tricky.

New layer for mobile GoogleEarth

With the marriage of geospatial mapping + mobile Internet devices + GPS, users on-the-go can finally get answers to these questions: 

1. Where am I now?

2. What's near me?

Google's has made the answer to #2 even more robust by adding another layer to its iPhone app.  Google's blog about it:Google LatLong: Businesses layer for Google Earth on your iPhone

"You'll find businesses like restaurants, bars, banks, gas stations, and grocery stores all just a touch away."

Of course it offers address and telephone information, too. 

Adding this feature to GoogleEarth original "spin the globe" functionality, the mobile app becomes a LOT more practical than it was before.  I'll use it more in the real world than I did. (All this information is available for desktop GoogleEarth, too.)

Now, as any good journalist does, I want to ask the next question:

3. WHY does my world look like this?

That's a different layer for a different time.

Update: Hello Neighbors!

I talked to the person who came up with the Northeast Minneapolis Walking Tour project.

Jennifer, with ARTSHARE, is a performance artist who is experimenting with "performing community." The walking tours are a way to let everyone in the neighborhood get in on the performance. She also says she's "really digging" sound as a medium.

The team is made up of 10 adults and 10 teens. The sound they've gathered includes a lot of music, in addition to interviews and oral histories. Now, the task is to mix it all into compelling audio. The latest post is here: ARTSHARE: Interviews and Recording Sessions!

I was struck by a point Jennifer made at the end of our conversation. She said the group wants to structure the tours to embrace "the physical act of walking."

Most walking tours are a series of snapshots ("pause the tape until you get to the next stop..."). But how can sound voice and music be used to enhance the space between tour stops? I'll be curious to hear the answer in Northeast.

Hello neighbors!

I knew searching the Internet for audio walking tours would turn up loads of tours of London, New York and Rome (of varying quality and mission).  But I didn't expect to find one in my own back yard.

Turns out a group of residents in Northeast Minneapolis are also teaching themselves to placecast . The project's mission (it's put on by the community group ARTSHARE) is simply stated:

The Audio-Guided Walking tours will show Northeast as a collective of many experiences and a vital neighborhood with a past, present and future!

That's a tall order.  Past, present OR future could generate hours of audio in any particular location.  But this group seems to be working hard to zoom into a handful of topics that represent larger themes in their neighborhood.  The three tours they plan to produce focus on:

1. Bottineau Park -- along the river in the heart of old Northeast
2. Eccentric and Eclectic -- visiting some of the neighborhood's iconic restaurants featuring foods from all over the world
3. Trolley Tour -- follows an old street car line down 13th Ave, past art galleries, restaurants and a LOT of churches.  These folks say this street has more churches than any other in the world.  Now that's worth a tour!

View ArtShare NE Walking Tours in a larger map

The group working on the project looks like a mix of ages and backgrounds...the kind of mix the Northeast neighborhood is known for here in the Twin Cities.  From their blog :

It is our plan put together tours that show Northeast as a collective of many experiences and not a singular voice of the past, present or future.

These probably aren't walking tours for tourists.  While a scan of their blog didn't immediately reveal a target audience, it seems like they're putting together placecasts for the people who already live and work there.  This is part of the promise of placecasting...it's a tool not just for informing newcomers, but also for enriching the relationship residents have with the world around them.  There is a lot of fascinating history and energy pent up in homes, churches and businesses that isn't spilling forth into the streets.  It takes a project like this to collect it and present it to people.  Sometimes people need help getting to know their neighbors.

I'm excited to watch this project progress.  I'd like to pay them a visit as they produce the audio they're gathering from festivals, street scenes, business owners, long-time residents, new immigrants and more traditional oral histories.

I'm proud this project is going on in my home town and I wish the team good luck.  Final podcasts are due out in August.  

Knowing where you're pointed

Lest we think "interactive mobile devices" are new to this generation, let's reflect a moment on the original...

While our new age devices can tell us where we are via WiFi triangulation (a la iPod Touch), 3G cell towers (a la iPhone) or GPS (a la Garmin), most aren't so great at knowing where we're looking when we're standing still.  This is called "orientation" and it's probably not the number one feature people are looking for in a gadget, but it has interesting implications for the idea of placecasting.

Compasses, while terrible at holding address lists and taking blurry photos, have always had the orientation thing nailed.  Standing still or on the go, this device has told mankind which direction he is facing...where to expect the sun, where to orient the temple, where to steer the ship or where to seek the stellar constellation.

That astronomical aspect is the point of a new Google program for Android-based devices that the folks at LatLong blogged about this week.   Since new Andriod devices have a compass built in, they know not just where you're standing, but also what direction you're facing. From LatLong:

Once you have a phone with a compass ("magnetometer"), a plumbline ("accelerometer"), and you can pinpoint your position (using GPS) and your time (using a clock), that's enough to work out which direction you're pointing in the Universe.

SO, with a relatively small data file, this allows the program to show you the stars you should be seeing in the sky in front of you on this date at this time.  This kind of technological convergence is really exciting, and the practical applications for the consumer will soon go far beyond stargazing.

Here's what it means for placecasting.  The curious New York visitor, looking at New York Harbor at, say Castle Clinton will likely have questions about what she sees across the water.  A device that knew her orientation could show her images like these (from GoogleEarth):

Sure, she knows that's the Statue of Liberty in the distance.  But she probably doesn't know that's the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the distance behind it.  A short podcast about it's relationship to the harbor in front of her would heighten her experience of the place.  For that matter, a podcast about the statue of liberty could enhance the experience of the visitor who doesn't have time to catch the boat out there.

When she turns to the South East, here's what she'd see.

A tap on the low building in front would tell her its the Staten Island Ferry Terminal (South Ferry).  Maybe it would even let her know how long a walk it would be to get there.  Maybe it would tell her there's a coffee shop inside or which subway line runs there.  A link to the ferry schedule would make sense, too.

If she cares about architecture, a tap on the building would let her know it's One New York Plaza , the southernmost skyscraper in Manhattan.

Turning back to the south, she'd see an island full of old buildings.

If the question is, "I wonder what all that is."  A tap on the image on her device would let her know it's Governor's Island and link her to information about the place and a short overview podcast about it in relation to the harbor and the city.  Maybe it even lets her know that she can download a more detailed audio walking tour of the Island if she wishes to go there and explore it firsthand.

Here's my point:
"What's that?" is not a question the Internet is very good at answering.  But the combination of GPS/compass devices along with tagged photos and audio information should finally be able to make finding that answer almost as easy as asking it.  Taking a tiny virtual world into the physical world should enhance real life, not distract from it.

Walking and listening in Washington, DC

It's hard to make a good walking tour.

As I try to explain the placecasting concept to people, the easiest example to use is a walking tour.  The audio tells you where to go and then explains some of what you're seeing there.  It uncovers hidden history and makes sense of the current landscape for you.  Maybe more importantly, it connects different locations together.

I've listened to several examples of audio walking tours and Cultural Tourism DC has one of my favorites so far. Sure, finding history in DC is like shooting fish in a barrel, but it's still easy to make history very very boring. A lot of the walking tours I've heard are simply people reading the text of a written walking tour. A lot sound like they're lifted from guide books.  Few have more than one voice in them.  In short, most of what's out there doesn't engage the ear.

That's why part of my thesis is that good placecasting must use the tools of good storytelling.  Assuming the medium is audio, this means crisp, conversational writing, spare and careful use of numbers and dates, and compelling voice or voices. And, because we're talking about narrow-casting, you can use a one-on-one speaking style, too.  

Cultural Tourism DC gets it right, using a first-person writing style, hints of humor, (mostly) unobtrusive sound effects and a great voice talent (NPR newscaster Korva Coleman).  Most importantly, the narrator doesn't sound like she's reading.  She's telling a story, as if she was talking to you in a conversation.  It's hard to write this way, but when it's done right, it unlocks the door to a listener's memory and imagination.

Personally, I would love to hear the voices of some actual experts (obviously historians in this case) revealing the information to us, but that's simply a different style of documentary storytelling.  These podcasts are highly-polished and excellent.  They're available in iTunes and through CTDC's Web site, which offers a LOT more text-based tours of DC, too, though the site a little clunky to navigate.

P.S. -- One other slick feature of the audio walking tours is the downloadable, printable PDF map they somehow make available through iTunes. (I didn't know iTunes could handle documents)  My gut tells me a good physical map is critical to a successful walking tour.  Even though I think the narrator should tell you where to go next, people will easily forget or change course.  It's easier to consult a map than to rewind the tape (so to speak).

From my real job

Here's an example of what I do every day at the office.

As a producer, my voice isn't on the radio very often, but I'm working behind the scenes to mold interviews into conversations that are easy for busy listeners to hear and remember.  Most of these are about today's news stories and we record them over the phone.  But I always love getting the chance to take our microphones out of the studio to let the listeners hear stories about a particular place.

This week it was White Bear Lake, Minnesota.  If you're from here, you know that the Walleye Fishing Opener is the unofficial start of summer in Minnesota.  The Opener was on WBL this year.  But I don't care much about fish and neither does our afternoon host, Tom Crann.  So we went to the shores of White Bear to hear about its history from the head of the town's historical society .  Turns out the lake used to be a major destination for St. Paul residents to spend a summer or a raucous weekend.

That was 100 years ago.  It has since turned into the quiet bedroom community most of our listeners think of today.  So in this interview , I wanted to give the listeners a chance to imagine the grand hotels, the noisy trains and the squeals from the amusement park that made this city much more fun back then than any fishing party could make it now.

This is place-based journalism, edited for a broad audience.  But it would have been easy to edit this 32 minute interview in a different way, so it would apply specifically to someone standing on the shore line.  "See that clump of trees straight across the water?  That's where the roller coaster used to be.  Turn around and look at the white house with the porch.  In 1890, that's where the Williams House stood.  Its glamorous summer visitors were the talk of the whole town. Meanwhile, the ground beneath your feet was the croquet yard."

There are historic photos from this time period at our show's Web site.  In a podcast, though, the photos could be part of the presentation.  You could compare what you're seeing now to the image from 100 years earlier.  I've seen some walking tours use this "slide show"technique even as the audio is playing, though I don't currently know how to pull it off.

Making geography ordinary

Turns out digital mapping has a better name.

"Geospatial technology" is way cooler, and a lot more intimidating.  And things that are cool and intimidating get documentaries made about them.  Case in point: PennState Public Broadcasting is creating a multi-part video series called the Geospatial Revolution Project.  This trailer is on their Web site now (in higher quality, too):




I can't quite tell if it's a documentary or an academic infomercial, but the project looks fascinating either way and (more important) it seems accessible to a general audience.  That is, it's an introduction to the power of place-based technology.  It will highlight the military , political , humanitarian and environmental applications of geospatial technology, among others.  Though it doesn't look like it will delve into journalism.

And that's probably because journalists are desperately behind the times when it comes to embracing the promise of mapping technology.  Maybe it's because the opportunities for profit aren't immediately apparent...but I'm convinced the opportunities for providing a public service are vast.

The last line of the trailer has stuck with me since I first watched it. It's Penn State scientist David DiBiase talking about what this science has done for people outside the field of geospatial science. He says, "It has made geography ordinary.  Which is the most revolutionary thing of all."

So my question for journalists and podcasters is: when instant self-mapping becomes ordinary, will we be a part of it?

Placecasting the environment

A family member pointed out to me an ad in Mother Jones Magazine for an environmental reporting fellowship at Vermont's Middlebury College.  I've been to Middlebury before and found it a beautiful place.

The fellowship's definition of "environment" is especially intriguing:

We interpret the environment broadly—reporting projects dealing with economics, culture, global issues, and the like are fine, as long as they center in some way on the human relationship with the physical world.

The human relationship with the physical world is what I see changing so dramatically as a result of mobile computing. Technology is finally small enough that we can take it with us into the physical world and use it to help us understand that world.

That iPhone commercial where the hiker uses her device to identify the bird she's watching and the poison ivy she should have avoided is both creepy and extremely tantalizing.  

The promise of this growing information-anywhere mentality is that it can help us understand our world while we're in our world. This idea of Placecasting marries digital information content to a location in the physical world.

I admit that my impression of "environmental reporting" is usually limited to stories about changing ecosystems, corporate polluters and anything with "green" in the title. But Middlebury's broader definition is both logical and liberating.

Have phone, will podcast

Turns out a microphone isn't required to create podcasts.  Services like GCast.com let you literally phone it in.  Here's GCast's idea:

Start a phone-based audio journal of your life. Record your new baby's voice. Podcast jokes, tips, deep thoughts, or whatever. Record a "voice intro" before a song. If you're a musician, leave phone messages for your fans to share stories from the road or new lyrics from the studio. Your imagination is the limit!

Subtext: whatever the use, keep it brief.  It's hard to tolerate telephone audio for very long, and I can't really imagine subscribing to a phoned-in podcast, but there are some applications I can imagine.  Specifically, I think there is a Web 2.0 opportunity within the concept of Placecasting that hasn't been explored.

As we've learned in the radio business, "phone tape" is good for short and/or time-sensitive nuggets of information.  Urgency excuses poor quality.  Brevity conceals it.  And in brevity, there is freedom and accessibility.

What if you're sitting in a notable public place...say people-watching in Union Square , New York, or outside the Louvre in Paris ...and you're curious to hear what other people sitting in the very same spot had experienced in days or weeks before.  Using your mobile Web device and it's locational tools, you find a geo-tagged podcast of short commentaries recorded "on the spot" by people there before you.  One caller describes the mime performing for school children last fall.  Another describes how people scattered when rain started to fall in March.  Maybe another describes the sandwich she bought from the vendor nearby last week.

Now it's your turn to contribute.  Dial the toll-free number.  Enter the code specific to this location.  Tell your short story.  No more than a minute, say, so there's no pressure to be comprehensive.  Brevity.  Hang up and let the technology do the rest.  The next person to sit on your bench with their device, a measure of curiosity and a few minutes to spare, will hear your story.

It's micro-prose, all based in place...people sharing a common space but across an expanse of time and experience.