Giving iPods to the sales force

On this topic, Cerado has had great response from our customers as well, for whom we do competitive intelligence (CI) research. Historically, we've delivered the CI information in document format, but have recently begun to augment that capability by delivering competitive intelligence via podcast as well. 15 minute briefings, by competitor, covering everything from the competitor's management team, to product positioning, to pricing, to recent news.

This enables sales and marketing teams, in particular, to receive and listen to customized competitive information while in the car, while traveling, etc., and frees them up from the drudgery of reading yet another report. Another plus: at 15 minutes in length, it's possible to listen to a quick refresher on the competition on the way to visit a prospective customer.

More here: http://www.cerado.com/solutions02.asp

Video podcasts are the next generation and they are coming quickly.

People keep forgetting that podcasting does not require an mp3 player. If you have a salesforce spread out all over the world you can podcast and those that want to can listen on a player, but it might be just as easy to listen on the web or downloaded to their laptop.

It's a great idea and it's fun to watch the business world jumping on board what I think is a great trend.

C.C. it's not that people forget -- they don't know! When we started podcast.paradyne.com one of the biggest hurdles was overcoming the assumption that iPods were required. There is enough benefit in distributing mp3 broadcasts via RSS to laptops alone to make podcasting a worthwhile coporate communciations tool. But if we put an iPod into a busy sales person's hand, hopefully it becomes even easier to listen while working out in the hotel gym or standing in line at the airport terminal -- places where its not convenient to get out the laptop.

hey ya i don't get this...