PodTech Needs More PodTact (Update: PodTech is working on it)
[Update (7/13/2007): I have been notified by PodTech that they are now trying to find out who still hasn't received a Vloggie award, so they can send them all out.]
There has been a lot of discussion lately about the company PodTech. In the past few months, it was revealed that they: dropped popular online interview show Geek Entertainment TV (who have since been able to secure an independent sponsorship with web host Go Daddy); disregarded the creative commons license of photographer Lan Bui, and; still haven’t delivered Vloggie awards to everyone who won at the ceremony last November.
None of this is a surprise to me.
Last year, Rudy and I were invited to attend the Vloggies. PodTech promised us $1000 ($500/each) to cover our travel expenses. Though we won five awards that night, we were never invited on stage to accept our awards and, therefore, the news media didn’t realize that we won the second most awards that night. During the after party, John Furrier (PodTech CEO) was conducting interviews with the winners and so Rudy went to say hi and make ourselves available for an interview. Just after Rudy introduced himself, John turned his back to him and started talking to someone else.
Later that week, things didn’t get any better. PodTech put out a press release about the event with information stating that Ask A Ninja received 5 awards and we got 4 (the opposite is true). I e-mailed them about the problem but it was too late to fix since it had already been sent out by their public relations team.
Later that month, we were contacted by PodTech because they were interested in getting a sponsor for Galacticast. At this point we were weary of working with them, but since we were still open to new ideas on how to monetize our passion I made an appointment with their representative Paul Sherer at 3pm EST (clearly stating 3pm EST/12pm PST). After waiting all day for the call to no avail, I finally e-mailed Paul to say that “perhaps” he mixed up the time. A few hours later I got an e-mail saying “Oops.”
Angry at his disregard for courtesy, I realized that PodTech still hadn’t sent us the $1000 check for our travel expenses. I had been informed a month before that the check would be sent out and had seen that their Accounting department was carbon copied on the message. I immediately wrote a follow up e-mail again asking them to send the check.
But, it was too late… the straw had already broken the camel’s back.
After lying awake for hours, I finally called my dear friend Eddie Codel (an employee of PodTech at the time) to ask him for his advice. He said that I should write a blog post of my discontent and send it as an e-mail to Robert Scoble. I felt that this was a good idea, and I wrote an e-mail as suggested:
Dear Robert,
I just got off the phone with Eddie, I called him because I am upset with PodTech and I’d like to tell you why because it’s 3am and I just can’t seem to get to sleep:
- Today I had a phone meeting scheduled with Paul Sherer at 3pm EST. He never called so I called him (no answer) and then emailed him at 3:15 telling him I was waiting for his call. I never got a response. By 4:30pm I gave up on him and sent an e-mail suggesting that perhaps he forgot about the time difference and that we could reschedule for tomorrow. He replied saying “oops” and suggested a new time. I did not get an apology for the time wasted by waiting for his call.
- Today I also realized that I still hadn’t got a check from PodTech for our flights to the Vloggies. We got an e-mail from Irina on November 6th saying that we would get a check of $1000 in the mail, but I have yet to see or hear anything. I sent a follow up e-mail to Irina and Maryam this evening to ask them for an update and I truly hope I get a response as soon as possible.
- After the Vloggies, PodTech sent out a press release that contained faulty information saying that Ask a Ninja won 5 and we won 4. I sent an e-mail to PodTech asking them to amend the mistake and although they did make the change on their web site, I never received any e-mail response.
- I told Irina that we were disappointed not to be interviewed by John Furrier at the Vloggies after party and she said it was because we never walked up to him to introduce ourselves. After I gave this explanation to Rudy he told me that he actually approached John to talk with him and he was completely snubbed.
- We are upset that we didn’t get to accept any awards on stage even though we won the second largest number of Vloggies. This is the basis for our episode entitled Five Vloggies, a comedic commentary of our disappointment to finally thank the people who deserved to be thanked.
If PodTech didn’t owe us a check for $1000 I would have blogged about my discontent a long time ago, but I’m a professional and I do not want to cause the company any problems or get a reputation for ragging on someone’s faults. However, we feel like we have been treated like second class citizens and it is rude and unacceptable for any company to do business this way.
I do not blame anyone personally, but if PodTech continues the way they have been going they will end up being disliked far and wide. I like you, and I don’t want to have this hostility towards PodTech, but something needs to be done for the company to treat us - their colleagues - with more respect.
Thank you for reading, I would appreciate hearing from you on this matter.
Casey–
Casey McKinnon
Executive Producer, Galacticast
http://www.galacticast.com/
Robert responded very quickly and apologetically and told his people to start taking care of this:
Casey,
I’m VERY sorry for how you’ve been treated by PodTech. I expect better.
John, can we get Casey paid ASAP? Thanks!
Robert
I was very pleased with Scoble’s support and professionalism and replied to him saying:
Thank you, Robert. I truly appreciate your taking steps to fix the problem.
Best regards,
Casey
Unfortunately, I later received an e-mail from CEO John Furrier denying his actions:
Casey,
Thanks for sharing with us your concerns. Paul Sherer has been very ill this past week and has been unavailable.
I’ll take care of this situation on the reimbursement with Irina personally. I was very excited about you guys being at the vloggies and I apologize about not interviewing you guys. I actually was looking around for you guy but got kinda burnt out toward the end. I’m sorry if it came across as being snubbed. I know personally that the folks at itunes where impressed as well as others about your work.
I really loved the ‘army of the five vloggies’ piece! I’m really sorry for all the missteps that affected you. We did our best to have a great event and you guys were a big part of that success. Thanks so much for bein involved.
Keep on making media…
John
I immediately responded clarifying his offensive actions:
John,
Thank you for your reply, I’m glad you enjoyed our Five Vloggies episode we had a lot of fun making it.
Unfortunately, regarding the after party, Rudy actually walked up to you and introduced himself. After showing a lack of interest, you turned your back to him and started speaking with someone else. From our perspective, it doesn’t seem like you were looking around for us at all. This was the reason we felt snubbed.
Regards,
Casey–
Casey McKinnon
Executive Producer, Galacticast
http://www.galacticast.com/
I received no further response from John.
A week later, I received a check in the mail and a kind letter from John’s wife Linda Furrier apologizing for the communication problems at PodTech. I was grateful for her honesty and her ability to humble herself unlike her husband.
For months since this incident I’ve felt disappointed in PodTech, but mainly for two reasons:
- John Furrier should have admitted his mistake and apologized accordingly
- Communication with PodTech is difficult since they do not answer their e-mails in a timely or professional fashion.
Though I am no longer in talks with PodTech about organizing a sponsorship, PodTech is still having issues responding promptly to their e-mails. Lan Bui, a photographer friend of mine who is struggling to get paid for a creative commons-licensed photo of his that was used for profit by PodTech at SXSW, is still trying to contact PodTech to speak directly to them about the matter.
I look forward to the day when PodTech contacts Lan Bui about settling and they send out all the Vloggie Awards they promised to send eight months ago. I also hope that PodTech will smarten up and learn more about business courtesy and how to treat people (we, their colleagues) with common respect. That said, I would like to reiterate how professionally Robert Scoble and Linda Furrier handled the situation… I can only hope that they will lead the rest of the pack out of this dark cloud that is settling over the company’s image.
Link: PodTech
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Wow. Sorry to hear you had so much trouble with them. After all this time, this is the perfect place for this to go.
[...] Casey McKinnon, my future wife the co-host of Galacticast (which promises to have a new show some time in the next eon) is speaking out about being burned by PodTech. [...]
Thank you for posting this, Casey.
I wish no one ever had to post things like this, but I think it’s very important to stand up to companies who are taking advantage of our talent and treating us this way.
It’s interesting how certain people in the company are actually on the defensive about these things. Seems that they want us to feel like we owe them something, because we were able to go to the Vloggies event for free. What would the Vloggies be without vloggers? What would the Vloggies be without vlogs? I recognized, what seemed like, a majority of the crowd that night- from.the.internet. Nominees- perhaps?
My husband, Lan, truly loves documenting the community’s events, like he did that night, giving quality shots to remember things by. The way he is treated by Podtech (yes lack of e-mail/phone reponse being a big part) makes me feel very sour towards them. I think I stated that rather kindly.
Your story about trying to get paid (sad I have to put it that way) is so messed up. Not that Galacticast should be treated better than others, but, if PodTech wanted you there so bad, that they were willing to help pay for travel, there is no reason anyone from the company should have treated you that way. Employees’ mistakes have to be accepted, humans are human, but repetitive disrespect, in the words of Super Nanny, is simply unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.
I believe everyone now has their Vloggie. If anyone still is owed one and hasn’t received one, please call me on my personal phone at 425-205-1921.
The price over Lan Bui’s photo is in dispute. Professional photographers I’ve asked about it say the photo is worth $200 to $300. We offered him $1,000. He wants $3,000. So, we’re at a disagreement there.
I’m sorry about all these issues.
I read that article , as you requested, in fact I read it twice.
In the UK we have nothing like the vibrant and energetic community that the pod community appears to have generated for you guys. So I have no base point to reference how we can expect groups such as Podtech to operate. However there is a general buzz on the net that something is not going well in their administration of artist. Your experiences described above are clearly not pleasant since your up late into the evening to write letters of complaint.
I am one of many fans who enjoy the work that you guys put together and broadcast and I can see how such things as this can impact on your desire to contribute, clearly not a good thing .
If one thing stands out in this conversation its the comment
“Communication with PodTech is difficult since they do not answer their e-mails in a timely or professional fashion.”
Whilst this is no defense of their actions I begin to feel that email is less and less a relevant and useful tool for communications. I dont have any fixes for it but I am seeing this become almost common place. Emails are not working for communication.
It is a pity that Channel 4 ( an Arts and Independent cultrure channel ) over here in the UK are not making inroads to the PODCommunity since your content would be a fantastic match to their content and their character
I wish you guys the very best with all your future activities especially A Comic Book Orange and it is a shame that experiences like this can only lower your enthusiasm to produce new and interesting content.
To Podtech, I quote from a earlier Galacticast
“murmur,murmur, murmur , mumble Do Your Job !”
Casey -
So sad to hear this. When the storm began brewing with Lan, I was afraid we were going to hear more stories like this. This market is so new that the possibility of things going sour (to steal a phrase from Bonny).
Even though we may not be “journalists” in the traditional sense, and therefore don’t have the same duty to ethics, I think that as a community we need to realize the importance of being ethical and good business people. Unanswered emails to people that are either owed money or have been contacted is clearly not professional. I’ve had the same experience with Adam at PodShow. It is hard to know the why’s and how’s of correspondence that goes unanswered, but as we all try to set this medium up as a viable, profitable arena, we get knocked down a peg when “stuff” like this happens.
Nicholas - I think that “Emails are not working for communication.” is not really a valid defense of the experience Lan and Casey have both had. It’s not the tools fault if the craftsman doesn’t use it, and here it is not the failure of email that people don’t respond in a timely manner.
Again, shame that this happens, but I think it puts emphasis on that we have to proceed into New Media with open eyes or content creators can be taken advantage of.
PS - San Dimes High School Football rules!
Michael: for my part email is TOTALLY broken. There is absolutely no way I can get back to all the people who send me email.
I have hundreds of thousands of people who are in my audiences. If even a small percentage send email it’s overwhelming.
Today I answered a ton and TWICE AS MANY CAME BACK with even more conversation.
This is totally not scaleable and not workable.
Photographic proof that I got my vloggie after Podtech found out that I never got one:
Photographic proof that I got my vloggie after Podtech found out that I never got one:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegarfield/770704875/
Hi Everybody…Hi Casey
One reason that there is a dispute may be that this is all seen as a zero sum game, where there is a limit to advertising dollars, acknowledgement or attention.
I’m sorry to see this fight. Hopefully everyone can get on the same side of the table and work things out.
Seems a shame that all this is going on. Sounds almost like new business growing pains to the nth degree.
Funny Casey, your email dealings with Paul Sherer sound exactly like my dealings with Tim Shey over at NNN. Except, instead of trying to get a sponsor for g14, I was trying to brainstorm how the companies I work with can sponsor shows like yours. So, I suppose that poor direct communication is happening everywhere, people are just overwhelmed. My question is, if people have time to Twitter and blog and post etc., then why don’t people have time to directly communicate with current or potential business partners? Taking more time to communicate general messages to everyone instead of keeping up with your one on one communications may not be the best business strategy. I’m not saying that people should disappear altogether, but finding that balance is key if you’re trying to be a professional.
Speaking of not getting their Vloggie, Casey, where’s our Vloggie part that you promised to send us? You know which part I’m talking about.
Matthew
Just so everyone’s clear, my own issues with PodTech are over. All that’s left now is:
- For Lan to be properly compensated for the breach of his copyright and creative commons license. Though Robert says above that the photo has been appraised at $200-300, the going rate for a breach of copyright for a photo like this is $3000. Therefore, Lan is STILL trying to contact PodTech to negotiate his fair share. I’m sure he will be posting an update sometime soon on his blog at http://lanbui.com/blog
- Regarding people not getting their Vloggies: We were told at the awards after party that everyone who collaborated in our award-winning collaboration Node 666 would receive a Vloggie. On December 8, 2006, I sent PodTech a list of all collaborators along with their e-mail addresses so they could get their mailing addresses to send the awards. Steve Garfield, one of the most well-known of our collaborators, still hadn’t received his Vloggie up until last week.
- My only real beef with PodTech now is that John Furrier still hasn’t got off his high horse and apologized for snubbing us… nor has he even admitted his mistake.
Robert: For audience communication, I completely agree. Even just having the same account for more than 2 years seems to clog up my inbox. Once you get into the large numbers, you’re right, signal to noise becomes overwhelming. Public facing email addresses have never worked well for me at all, exactly because of what you said - not scalable. When trying to conduct business there has to be a way to do private communication that is easy to track. Especially in a realm where bad publicity can be crippling, more so when you are trying to help a community grow. A community can be become very vocal if they feel an “injustice” has happened.
It seems we need to find something that works to keep lines of communication open. I vote for smoke signals, but in LA signal to smog might be a problem. See you at onAir on Monday.
As I said to you in our personal conversation the following day, I apologize for missing the call and causing you to wait for over one hour. Also, all of us at PodTech sincerely appreciate your participation in the Vloggies. You are a creative individual and a pioneer in the video blogging community. We wish you all the success in the world. Please call anytime 650-543-5250.
Hey Casey: I was a fan but you are sour grapes for some reason. I read this post and the response from the CEO was all class. He apologized and didn’t deny anything. I’ve been following the valleywag and now your post. Your weird and I’m no longer a fan. Also from what I heard John Furrier financed Eddie and Irina when they had no money and carried the show while they repaid their debts. PodTech did nothing wrong other than not mailing a few vloggies and taking a photo off flickr by mistake. You lost a lot of credibility with the entire community and so does everyone else who is piling on PodTech. From the cheap seats its’ obvious PodTech has been helping vloggers. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Here is your post where
—
Unfortunately, I later received an e-mail from CEO John Furrier denying his actions:
Casey,
Thanks for sharing with us your concerns. Paul Sherer has been very ill this past week and has been unavailable.
I’ll take care of this situation on the reimbursement with Irina personally. I was very excited about you guys being at the vloggies and I apologize about not interviewing you guys. I actually was looking around for you guy but got kinda burnt out toward the end. I’m sorry if it came across as being snubbed. I know personally that the folks at itunes where impressed as well as others about your work.
I really loved the ‘army of the five vloggies’ piece! I’m really sorry for all the missteps that affected you. We did our best to have a great event and you guys were a big part of that success. Thanks so much for bein involved.
Keep on making media…
John
Casey - Thanks for putting this out there. Our show won 3 Vloggies, and we too were excluded from the stage and publicity. I stood around afterwards trying to pick mine up, had to ask several people, and it took about 30 minutes. It seemed strange really that there was such a click atmosphere. People on stage for single awards who had produced fewer than 20 episodes, winning one award, compared to you (5!) and us, with over 200 shows and 3 awards from the judges and the people.
But heh! You got travel money to attend? Nothing was offered to us at Beach Walks.
John Furrier missed 4 scheduled conference calls with us set up by Robert Scoble, nor did Paul S or Steve G reply to us on emails initiated by Robert. Robert does an amazing job communicating with people; I wonder how long he’ll want to stay considering he spends considerable time apologizing for the “bad behavior” of his co-workers.
I think transparency is good. Especially when it is about the facts as we see them and not emotional tirades. Thanks so much for how you handled this.
Casey;
Thanks for detailing your situation. Also, thanks for waiting a few months to do so.
In the world of instant media, situations like this can be blown out of proportion when knee-jerk reactions occur. By waiting for all the loose ends to be tied up (more or less), and then reporting on the situation downstream, it has the kind of clarity that most “I’m angry and this is why” blog posts tend to lack.
As for anyone who believes Casey, Lan, etc., are making mountains out of molehills or should be grateful to PodTech for all they do — you’re confusing the big picture with specific incidents. PodTech may help hundreds of people, but when one person is slighted, that one person still deserves a timely, professional and COMPLETE response — and that COMPLETION is what’s lacking here.
It would be easy to dismiss the lack of completion if this incident happened yesterday, but it didn’t. This would be an example of the negative impact of the long tail — the longer it takes for an issue to get resolved, the deeper the divide… and the more people who can form an opinion about it midstream.
@Paul: Thanks for your second apology, but it’s all cool now. For those who don’t know, Paul was sick in this time and after this all blew up at PodTech apologized profusely.
@your weird: John Furrier in his e-mail said this: “I actually was looking around for you guy but got kinda burnt out toward the end.” This is a lie… Rudy walked up to him and introduced himself. Be a fan, or don’t be a fan, my guess is that you’re actually John Furrier using a fake name and e-mail address
@rox: It was definitely a big disappointment for all of us. But it’s funny… everyone was against the Vloggies at first. It wasn’t until they started paying people to attend that people started getting excited about the event. My guess is that people will not be so excited about it this year.
@Justin: I definitely posted this for other people in our situation. Call it the “Better Business Bureau of the Interweb”. If you ever want to be a credible web entertainment company, you need to make sure no one ever feels the need to write about bad dealings with you. It was hard to hold this story back for so long… it irked me on so many levels.
To Matthew, I’m really sorry that I missed your last email and a chance to talk with you. You raise some really good criticisms, and I’ll take them to heart - I’ve had some awful lapses in communication with people the past few months. Hopefully you’ll still want to talk to us here, as we can’t afford to miss the chance to work with people like you.
That goes for anyone else here, too — if I’ve been out of touch, I am sorry, and will work on it, I promise.
Tim, it’s really no problem. I completely understand where you’re coming from. But a lot of the compaines that I work with, the ones that content creators want to sponsor their shows, expect a certain level of professionalism from anyone that they have dealings with, and there are opportunities being missed because content creators can’t keep up. My point was illustrating that there seems to be a lot of poor one on one communication happening, because people are overwhelmed. Rudy and Casey also have this problem sometimes, Paul Sherer obviously did, it seems like it’s the case for a lot of people in the “community”. Again, my thought is that people are involved in so many Web 2.0, social media applications and communities; posting, blogging, vlogging, twittering, jaikuing, pwnceing, MySpaceing, Facebooking, etc. etc. that all they’re doing is communicating generalities to their masses, instead of focusing on the more important one on one communications.
I recognize that we use these avenues and applications to expand our audience and communicate with them, that’s great, that’s what they’re there for. When we try to cross that line and establish ourselves as professionals, then the time comes to pull back on the general communications and focus on the specific ones that move our businesses forward. As a freelancer or small business, it is key to maintain business relationships. This should go without saying, but strangely, is one of the first things that trips up new freelancers or small businesses.
We can all work better to find that balance. In fact, the only people who I know that are able to juggle all of the social networking and business are the folks at Blip.tv and Chris Brogan. But I’m pretty sure they all work in tandem to bend the time/space reality to be able to accomplish all of that.
There you go Casey, I just came up with the idea for the next ep of Galacticast.
Matthew
Oh, and Casey, for what it’s worth…I was talking about the vloggie crotch that you were going to hacksaw off and send to us.
I want to see video of you sawing that vloggie up! Yeah!
Matthew
I remember, Matthew… but seeing that you should be getting your own Vloggie from PodTech for the Node 666 collaboration, I figured it’d be enough for you. See! You can have a WHOLE body, not just the penal region
The only problem is that it’s obvious that PodTech hasn’t contacted you about sending you your Vloggie even after I sent them an e-mail with your e-mail address in December. Perhaps you should be blogging about it too!
Casey/Matthew: if we still owe a Vloggie to anyone my phone number is 425-205-1921. I haven’t gotten a single call on the issue yet, so I assume everyone who wants one (who earned it) has one. If not, please call.
Man, am I glad I didn’t win a Vloggie!!
@Robert Scoble: I’ve just forwarded you the e-mail I sent to Irina back in early December so that PodTech could send Vloggies to all the winners of the Node 666 collaboration. Irina told me they would all get the statuettes, but the only update to the list of about 13 people was that Steve Garfield got one last week. Have a look and go over your records to see if you have other updates on your side.
Wow. I have really been off the map on all this. Sorry I didn’t write in support earlier, Casey. I knew PodTech was a shitbird for Lan’s piece but did not know of all that was going on. I am glad it is getting sorted out.
A little late to the party, thanks Steve Elbows for the linlk.
2 Things I learned, Don’t deal with Podtech and don’t mess with Casey.
Podtech’s growing pains!
My (free and irreverencial) advice to Robert: Don’t chew more than your mouth can hold
[...] And for him, that’s before breakfast: Where does Furrier find the time to blog and argue with his many malcontents? Lord knows he’s not working all day. One videoblogging team says Furrier managed to miss four conference calls. [...]
[...] And for him, that’s before breakfast: Where does Furrier find the time to blog and argue with his many malcontents? Lord knows he’s not working all day. One videoblogging team says Furrier managed to miss four conference calls. [...]