Podcasting is an increasingly popular choice for disseminating corporate communications, training materials, and marketing messages. The engineering issues are fairly straightforward, but in most cases, IT should push content creation tasks back to the business unit that requires the podcasting.

Solving the Engineering Problem

Podcasts can be created with a computer, some free software, and a cheap microphone. This has uses for intra-departmental communications and hobbyist efforts. These are not likely to involve IT (unless IT is creating its own internal podcasts).

At another level, the business (perhaps the Marketing or PR departments) may need infrequent audio recordings or true radio-broadcast quality. In these cases, enterprises will prefer to outsource or rent local studio time instead of investing in rarely-used or expensive equipment. Again, IT is not likely to be involved.

A third scenario involves a business department that wants to regularly create audio content at near-professional quality aimed to satisfy C-level or external podcasting-appropriate expectations. Because podcasting uses computers to capture and edit digital signals, IT leaders may find themselves procuring appropriate equipment to outfit the enterprise’s “studio.” In these cases, the IT leader will need to understand the basic podcasting technical workflow: