(Episode 94) The role of podcasting in research culture and communications
As a podcast about podcasting this week's episode is a little bit 'meta'.
It is a recording from one of the Libraries Open Lunch series of online talks with a panel of experts discussing the role of podcasting in research culture and communications.
Research Culture Uncovered's own Ged Hall was one of four panellists along with representatives from three other podcasts:
- Research Adjacent is hosted by Sarah McLusky, an independent consultant who interviews research-adjacent professionals about what they do and how they contribute to making research successful and impactful.
- The Leeds University Business School (LUBS) Research and innovation podcast is produced by Hannah Preston, Research Communications Manager from Leeds University Business School, and features the latest thinking on a wide range of business issues, with expert commentary from academics and postgraduate researchers.
- The Business of Policy Making is another LUBS podcast that Hannah has developed with host by Dr Jana Javornik, Associate Professor of Work and Employment Relations in the Business School, to help demystify the world of policymaking, debunk some myths about the evidence-based policymaking process, and shine a light on the impact academic research can have on policy.
The event was chaired by Andy Tattersall, Information Specialist in the School of Medicine and Population Health at the University of Sheffield. An experienced research communication professional, Andy hosts the SCHARR Communicable Research Podcast and offers training on how to create a successful podcast.
In addition to this podcast you can read a blog about the event over on the Library blog (along with an archive of previous talks in the Open Lunch series).
Other podcasts mentioned in this episode:
- Research Records podcast
- The Life of Breath podcast
- The Academic Adventures Podcast
- Fast Track Impact podcast
- How to Fix podcast
- Research Co-Culture Podcast
All of our episodes can be accessed via the following playlists:
- Research Impact with Ged Hall (follow Ged on Twitter and LinkedIn)
- Open Research with Nick Sheppard (follow Nick on Twitter and LinkedIn)
- Research Careers with Ruth Winden (follow Ruth on Twitter and LinkedIn)
- Research talent management with Tony Bromley (follow Tony on Twitter and LinkedIn)
- Meet the Research Culturositists with Emma Spary (follow Emma on Twitter and LinkedIn)
- Research co-production
- Research evaluation
- Research leadership
- Research professionals
Follow us on X: @ResDevLeeds (new episodes are announced here), @OpenResLeeds, @ResCultureLeeds
Connect to us on LinkedIn: @ResearchUncoveredPodcast (new episodes are announced here)
Leeds Research Culture links:
- Researcher Development and Culture Website
- Our Concordat Implemention plans and progress
- University of Leeds Research Culture Statement
- University of Leeds Responsible Metrics Statement
- University of Leeds Open Research Statement
- University of Leeds Research Culture Strategy - launched September 2023
If you would like to contribute to a podcast episode get in touch: researcherdevelopment@leeds.ac.uk
Transcript
Welcome to the research culture Uncovered podcast, where in
Speaker:every episode we explore what is research culture
Speaker:and what should it be? You'll hear thoughts and opinions from
Speaker:a range of contributors to help you change research culture
Speaker:into what you want it to be.
Speaker:Hi, it's Nick, and this episode of research Culture uncovered
Speaker:is a little different, not to mention a little longer than usual.
Speaker:It's a recording from one of our open lunch webinars, which are a monthly
Speaker:series of online talks that cover all sorts of topics related to open
Speaker:research and open education, open practice in general,
Speaker:really, everyone is welcome, and you can find an archive of recordings on the
Speaker:library blog, which I've linked in the show notes below.
Speaker:As a panel discussion about podcasting, rather than publishing this one as
Speaker:a video, as I usually do, I thought we should make it into, well, a
Speaker:podcast. The webinar was chaired by Andy Tattersall from the University
Speaker:of Sheffield and who I'll pass straight over to now to introduce himself and our
Speaker:panel of podcasters. So, just a brief
Speaker:introduction of who I am. I work in the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related
Speaker:Research. I've got a long sort of connection with audio as such.
Speaker:I started making radio shows for friends when I was about 14 years old
Speaker:on cassette and was a pirate radio DJ for about six years in
Speaker:the 1990s and did a
Speaker:journalism degree in the 1990s as broadcast journalism and
Speaker:eventually took the plunge into bringing this kind of stuff into my
Speaker:work around six, seven years ago in my own podcasts, and now
Speaker:produce and host my own podcast called Communicable Research. I'll put
Speaker:a link into all of these, and I produce a
Speaker:podcast called Research Records, which is a cross between Desert Island
Speaker:Discs and the Life Scientific. And it's quite apt that we've had Jim Alkhalili as
Speaker:a guest on there, and also Helen Sharman. So
Speaker:and I produce other podcasts as well and host a podcast
Speaker:course, an online podcast course. But I'm really pleased to be chairing
Speaker:a quartet of experts who are making podcasts
Speaker:at University Leeds and elsewhere
Speaker:that are doing some really interesting stuff in the sphere
Speaker:of research dissemination, sharing ideas, good practice,
Speaker:and professionalism. And I was listening this morning to an episode
Speaker:of Research Adjacent as I was actually coming in.
Speaker:So what I would like is our four panelists to actually,
Speaker:actually tell us who they are and the podcast that they do
Speaker:for a minute or so. But I also want to encourage you all to start
Speaker:thinking about questions and putting them in the chat. I've got some questions lined up,
Speaker:but really, ideally I want to hear from you and we want to hear from
Speaker:you about any questions. And there is no stupid
Speaker:question about making podcasts. If you feel like this
Speaker:is a dumb question, I shouldn't be asking it, I'm sure there'll be plenty of
Speaker:people who will probably have the same question, so don't be shy.
Speaker:It's a really good space and we've got some real expertise here to share with
Speaker:you. So I'm going to go around. I'll start with Jana first to talk about
Speaker:her work. Hi everyone. A warm
Speaker:welcome and thank you for having me on this on this
Speaker:episode, Andy and Nick and the rest.
Speaker:So what I do. So my name is Jana. I'm an academic who keeps
Speaker:popping in and out of the policy world and someone
Speaker:who kind of likes to travel lightly across the world.
Speaker:So currently based in Leeds and
Speaker:what we did, Hannah and I, in the
Speaker:podcast that we hosted last year titled
Speaker:Business of Policymaking, was
Speaker:thinking how to bring the policy world closer
Speaker:to academia. And as you know, academia
Speaker:in the UK, also the Netherlands, but also Slovenia, I know we have guests
Speaker:today from Slovenia, is becoming increasingly
Speaker:invested in making research socially relevant
Speaker:and socially responsible. But how
Speaker:to do that, it's not always easy. We don't know how to speak to the
Speaker:policy world, how to speak to policy wonks and so on and so forth.
Speaker:So our question here was, how can research inform
Speaker:better public policy that is based on evidence? Obviously, that's
Speaker:a perpetual question.
Speaker:But how better to learn about this than to speak
Speaker:to those who actually do policy who work in the policy
Speaker:world? Across policy world. Across the world.
Speaker:Hannah and I had this kind of intense conversation on how to do that that
Speaker:is both eco friendly and also friendly to human beings
Speaker:so that we don't have to fly them from all over the world, but still
Speaker:enjoy learning from them. And so obviously, the most
Speaker:obvious kind of medium for that was
Speaker:the podcast. So we managed to kind of bring
Speaker:all these manic schedules, manic locations into a
Speaker:series called the business of policymaking. And I'll
Speaker:develop this further up as we go. Over to you,
Speaker:Andy. Thank you. Over to you, Hannah. Please.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Hannah Preston. I'm Leeds University Business School's Research
Speaker:Communications Manager. So my job is all about making our
Speaker:research accessible and getting it out to a wider audience. So
Speaker:as part of this, I created the Business School's Research and
Speaker:Innovation podcast. And it's another way of helping
Speaker:to get our researchers worked to different audiences, to non
Speaker:academic audiences. Work that was traditionally stuck
Speaker:behind a paywalls, journal article, helping to
Speaker:share it in different formats, and the episodes
Speaker:are really varied. We've got such different topics, although you might just think business
Speaker:school about business. It's actually massively varied.
Speaker:So some episodes might be on rural
Speaker:entrepreneurship and difficulties that farmers are facing, whereas
Speaker:others about working in childcare, some about
Speaker:how we can do just transitions to greener working
Speaker:environments. So although the topics are really varied, the main
Speaker:theme is that it's all research that's taking place within the Business School,
Speaker:or it's all expert opinion from our thought leaders on something
Speaker:topical. So we're slightly different our podcast, in that we're
Speaker:not...we don't regularly put episodes out. As much
Speaker:as I'd like to be able to say we do it fortnightly. I kind of
Speaker:took the pressure off and said, we'll share something when someone's got something to share.
Speaker:So I very much encourage our colleagues to use the podcast for their own
Speaker:projects as well. So if they're on a three year funded project,
Speaker:I say, well, why don't we aim for a six episode playlist?
Speaker:And I create a specific playlist for them, and then they've got our platform,
Speaker:my support, they don't have to worry about keeping on top of things and sharing
Speaker:it, and they can utilize the audience that we already have with the Business School's
Speaker:podcast. Thank you, Hannah. And
Speaker:over to you, Sarah. Hi. Thanks very much for
Speaker:inviting me to come along. So, yeah, I'm Sarah McCluskey and I am
Speaker:not at Leeds actually, but Leeds have been
Speaker:incredibly welcoming, inviting me to come along today. I
Speaker:host the Research Adjacent podcast, and that
Speaker:is a podcast which shares stories and strategies to
Speaker:help people to navigate a research adjacent
Speaker:career. By research adjacent, if you don't know the
Speaker:term, I kind of. I didn't quite make it up, but I've definitely run
Speaker:with it. It is all the people who are part of the research
Speaker:environment but are not academics. So
Speaker:I've had all kinds of guests on the podcast, including Nick and Ged,
Speaker:who are on the call today, both being guests talking about
Speaker:all kinds of different jobs and things like that, and some episodes which are
Speaker:about some of the common challenges that people in the research adjacent world
Speaker:face. This is not my first podcast, so
Speaker:I am freelance, now freelance research communication
Speaker:specialist. But my first podcast was actually one for a research
Speaker:project that I worked on called Life of Breath. And it came
Speaker:out of the... as a research communication specialist, I've always said
Speaker:that you should consume the content
Speaker:that you want to create. And at the time I was listening to lots of
Speaker:podcasts, so I was like, well, why don't we make a podcast? And some of
Speaker:the things that we had in the research project really lent themselves. There was a
Speaker:lot to do with music and audio content and things
Speaker:like that. So that was my first podcast. And I just
Speaker:earlier this year also helped to create another podcast called Academic Adventures, which
Speaker:is about academic entrepreneurship for the University of the West of
Speaker:Scotland, and that's supported by Scottish Enterprise. So a
Speaker:few different toes in this
Speaker:research podcasting water. Thank you,
Speaker:Sarah. And finally, over to Ged. All right, thanks,
Speaker:Andy, and hi everyone. So I'm Ged
Speaker:Hall here at Leeds, and I'm one of the co hosts,
Speaker:and we have a number of the other hosts on the call, so
Speaker:if I say anything wrong, I'm sure Ruth will jump in and kind
Speaker:of correct me, but we're multi, as I said, multi
Speaker:host. Research Culture Uncovered covers all aspects
Speaker:of research culture. It's interesting what Sarah said in
Speaker:terms of consume the content you want to have,
Speaker:because I hated podcasts
Speaker:before becoming a host, I
Speaker:tried listening to some in my space. I'm a research
Speaker:impact professional. But Mark will probably
Speaker:be not surprised by this feedback that I
Speaker:always felt that he went on a bit too long. So
Speaker:Mark Reed, in his Fast Track Impact podcast, so I kind
Speaker:of didn't engage with that. So that was interesting. But
Speaker:the point of our podcast is that we try to showcase a lot
Speaker:of activity around research culture,
Speaker:and we take also the different viewpoints and we
Speaker:have different themes. Nick is one of the co hosts, so obviously
Speaker:his is around open research, mine's around research
Speaker:impact. Ruth is a careers expert, so
Speaker:hers is around research careers. We've got Emma on the call, so she
Speaker:does stuff around kind of research culture more generally and sort of
Speaker:leadership. Tony Bromley is also one of the hosts, and
Speaker:he does things around kind of talent management and kind of the earlier
Speaker:career research environment,
Speaker:and we're encouraging new hosts. So
Speaker:Taryn joined us a few months ago.
Speaker:We've now just hit our second anniversary,just about to. So
Speaker:Taryn Bell joined us and she also does things around
Speaker:careers. And Emily will be joining us and I
Speaker:think she'll be doing things around kind of responsible research, which kind
Speaker:of overlaps to some extent with my kind of research impact
Speaker:things. So thanks, Andy. Thank you. And it's
Speaker:nice to see there's a plus one. There's a nice commendation here from Izzy, so
Speaker:she's listened to some episodes of Research Culture Uncovered podcast learnt
Speaker:loads. So a thumbs up there, a nice
Speaker:endorsement. So a question for you all,
Speaker:in terms of this ever changing research environment we find ourselves
Speaker:in, and ways to try and disseminate research, to try and generate
Speaker:impact, to reach policymakers, even reach the public.
Speaker:What is it that podcasts bring that perhaps some of the other methods that
Speaker:we've been using a little bit longer, perhaps in academia, such as
Speaker:social media, traditional media, blogs. What is it that podcasts
Speaker:bring to the party that we didn't maybe have
Speaker:a few years ago, maybe start with
Speaker:Hannah? Yeah, I
Speaker:think I definitely don't put podcasts
Speaker:above any of the platforms. I think they're a mix. I think because
Speaker:people prefer to receive information in different ways. So if you prefer to
Speaker:watch things, podcasts might not be great. If you, like me, prefer to read things,
Speaker:that's going to be a preference. So I think it's about offering a variety. But
Speaker:one thing I do think works really well with podcasts is bringing across
Speaker:personality, making them more engaging, actually being able to
Speaker:literally hear the voice of the person who's sharing these insights. I think
Speaker:it's the quickest and easiest way to put, you know, to get that personality there.
Speaker:And particularly when we're sharing academic research, you know,
Speaker:sometimes, particularly when you think of journal articles, it can be very dry and you
Speaker:lose any sense of passion. Whereas actually, people who are
Speaker:dedicated, you know, most of their lives to, you know, this, that
Speaker:they care about the work, you have to care about what you're working on, you
Speaker:know, to be this involved. And I think to be an academic and people
Speaker:are keen to share their insights and I think that sometimes doesn't come across. But
Speaker:when you've got podcasts, particularly when you're being interviewed or you're in a
Speaker:conversation with a colleague, you can bring across that passion and you also get a
Speaker:chance to share the anecdotes as well. The things that don't go into the formal
Speaker:findings but are still important to you or still, you know,
Speaker:important to share as well. Thank you. Great points.
Speaker:Anyone would like to contribute to that? Yeah, I
Speaker:feel offended, as an academic, you know, Hannah, you're saying we are
Speaker:dry! No, but I agree.
Speaker:It's also the language. You have so much more freedom
Speaker:to express very complex ideas when you
Speaker:just talk. But I just wanted to interfere, as an
Speaker:academic, I think
Speaker:what we really like, because I think the podcast that Hannah and
Speaker:I did, the Business of Policymaking, kind of stands out from the rest of the
Speaker:podcasts here, is bringing the external
Speaker:world, which is very often so remote
Speaker:from what we do in academia, is, I think
Speaker:it brings that extra value. And I think this is what podcasts
Speaker:can do kind of bring different worlds
Speaker:to us into academia. But one thing that I
Speaker:thought was an advantage of doing
Speaker:a podcast was the kind of host to listener
Speaker:interaction. And this is something we didn't do quite,
Speaker:quite well in our podcast because this is not how it was set up
Speaker:initially. But that's something that I think it's an added value of a
Speaker:podcast. I think Sarah was trying to raise before
Speaker:I protested Sarah, over to you.
Speaker:You're muted Sarah.
Speaker:Oh, there we go. Sorry, too many mute buttons. That's my problem.
Speaker:You would think I knew what I was doing by now. I was just going
Speaker:to add, I mean, I think, as Hannah and Jana have said,
Speaker:the way you get across the personality and the relationship, I think is really
Speaker:important. And there's an intimacy about it, which I think
Speaker:builds bridges incredibly quickly between the listener and
Speaker:the person who's talking in the podcast,
Speaker:much more than any other form of relationship. I think even than,
Speaker:face to face, I think you build intimacy much quicker. And I
Speaker:think that is really valuable. And then I also think there is the fact that
Speaker:it's pretty much the only way of consuming
Speaker:this information when you're not sitting at a desk. So I
Speaker:think so many people listen to podcasts when they are like, I've just been
Speaker:out walking the dog and listening to podcasts while I was walking the dog. You
Speaker:know, they might be tidy in the house, they might be cooking, you know, whatever.
Speaker:And there's so much information out there in the world that giving
Speaker:people that option to consume it in a way that fits in with
Speaker:their life, I think is really valuable. Yeah, I think everybody's kind
Speaker:of not stolen my points because, yeah, we're
Speaker:all not competitive here
Speaker:in terms of the research culture, but I think just to
Speaker:add on to that, I think there's a range of views you can
Speaker:have in terms of where a panel at the moment, we can
Speaker:disagree with each other. I mean, in doing that,
Speaker:we can expand the range of views and actually we can debate. So you can
Speaker:get a debate happening on podcasts, which
Speaker:is, which is less likely, I think,
Speaker:with other things. And also debate can be a bit
Speaker:more confrontational in some of the other
Speaker:mechanisms. So I think that's the thing, I would add.
Speaker:Thank you Ged. I think that's interesting about the idea of debate as well, something
Speaker:that perhaps we do overlook. And having multiple voices. This
Speaker:is quite an apt question that's coming from someone, because I was down at, say,
Speaker:Sheffield Hallam talking about Open Educational Resources and
Speaker:the issues relating to that. This is very similar. Someone's asked, how does the
Speaker:university administration i.e. such as the legal department? I'm thinking
Speaker:probably issues around reputation management, view podcasts.
Speaker:Do they scrutinize them beforehand, or are you free to broadcast anything
Speaker:you want? Would they be under review, whatever
Speaker:that might involve? Or are they largely autonomous
Speaker:to talk about what we choose to talk about?
Speaker:And I think this goes back to earlier point about academic freedom, etcetera. Has
Speaker:anyone got a particular thoughts on those?
Speaker:Yeah. Jana?
Speaker:Thanks. No, I was. I think it's a really, really good question,
Speaker:particularly now in this really highly politicized
Speaker:period, where I think that there is a very
Speaker:contested issue between academic
Speaker:freedom, as well as some self censorship that
Speaker:also academics and others do. And I think our
Speaker:podcast was particularly slippery slope
Speaker:because we hosted people from the world of politics, not
Speaker:just policymaking. And you
Speaker:never know as an academic, perhaps,
Speaker:what could trigger...what could be the wrong
Speaker:thing. And we did have a good example of that. Perhaps
Speaker:Hannah can highlight that a bit later on.
Speaker:We hosted an expert from one of
Speaker:the governmental
Speaker:offices, and obviously, the opponents
Speaker:of that particular political area
Speaker:really contested what was said in a podcast.
Speaker:So there was some kind of a potential reputation
Speaker:issue there, which I think was handled really, really
Speaker:well. But to answer that specific question, we
Speaker:had some internal checks before it was aired.
Speaker:But in this particular podcast, I think it was really more important
Speaker:to have it checked by those who came onto the
Speaker:podcast, because it turned out it was far more a slippery
Speaker:slope for them than it was for us, because when they have an open conversation
Speaker:with an academic, they tend to open up more than they
Speaker:probably would if they were not exposed to that kind of
Speaker:imagined freedom. Hannah? Yeah,
Speaker:it was a mixed reactions day, because I saw that the podcast had
Speaker:been mentioned in....it was the Scottish Daily Mail. My first
Speaker:reaction. Oh, podcast got a mention then...oh, Daily Mail,
Speaker:what's happening here? So that was unexpected.
Speaker:Some things, like, you see, you can kind of
Speaker:expect might happen. You can do a bit of a risk analysis,
Speaker:but some things come out of the blue. It was fine. The speaker was fine
Speaker:with it. We didn't get anything further. But that was just a bit of an
Speaker:insight into...even with those internal checks. Yes, I
Speaker:think there are two points here. There's one that Jana's raised with the
Speaker:internal checks of making sure your speakers are happy, because that's the main thing, making
Speaker:sure that what they've said they're all right with. And for the
Speaker:policymaking podcast that we had, we had a peer
Speaker:group with similar interests who we
Speaker:checked in from. But as my position as a communications manager in
Speaker:the university, I should. I think my official advice would be
Speaker:to check in with your marketing teams. I don't know how other people are
Speaker:doing it here and I'm cautious of saying anything that might get us into trouble
Speaker:because I'm very much of the hey, let's just roll with it. Let's do it.
Speaker:And if it's wrong, they'll tell us later. But I think my official bottom line
Speaker:is please check in with your marketing teams because there are
Speaker:things....so the literal answer, sorry to your question, is no,
Speaker:no one's going to be checking. There isn't someone in central who says we need
Speaker:to listen to every episode before it goes out. However, if you
Speaker:are going out there saying you are a University of Leeds podcast, if you're wanting
Speaker:to use the branding and the artwork, there will be certain checks you need to
Speaker:do. So I would encourage anyone who's considering doing it
Speaker:to go off and say, just speak to your marketing team or the
Speaker:central communications team. I mean, it's a bit like with social media pages, you know,
Speaker:there's never an exact clear line of people who have
Speaker:academic social media pages. And then they say, work at the
Speaker:University of Leeds, views are my own. And you think, yes,
Speaker:absolutely. Freedom of speech. But the same time, if you're talking about what you do
Speaker:at work and, you know, some of your opinions are perhaps
Speaker:questionable, or they're bringing in line the institution's reputation, then, you know, that's.
Speaker:There's a conversation to be had there.
Speaker:Sorry, Ged, were you going to say something? Yeah, I think in terms of
Speaker:that, it's probably wise. We didn't do that. So.
Speaker:And two years in, nobody's come back to us.
Speaker:We do know that, you know,
Speaker:people, people further up do listen, but from
Speaker:an interest point of view, which is great, that's
Speaker:not from a censorship point of view. The
Speaker:other thing to bear in mind is that our central comms team also
Speaker:got involved in podcasting over the last
Speaker:year with a podcast called How to Fix. So that was really
Speaker:publicizing some different areas of
Speaker:research. So there was one that I spotted which had an old
Speaker:undergraduate mate of mine doing stuff
Speaker:around quality and things like that. So I think
Speaker:if your central comms team is involved in it and kind of really
Speaker:thinking that this is a great thing to
Speaker:do, I kind of really don't think that
Speaker:there's too much... I mean, we do think through,
Speaker:what is it that. What is our angle? As Hannah
Speaker:said, we mention this with our guests, whether they're internal
Speaker:or external to the university, we make sure they're happy with how it's
Speaker:edited and all of those things. The show notes
Speaker:replicate, the points that they've made and
Speaker:any links that they want to do. So all of that gets kind of
Speaker:internally peer reviewed, if you will, with the guest.
Speaker:Sarah, do you want to add anything regarding that? I think,
Speaker:well, not especially because I'm in a slightly different situation where I'm freelancer. I can
Speaker:put out whatever I like. Which in some ways makes it a lot
Speaker:easier. But obviously when I have guests on, they may
Speaker:feel that they're representing their organization. So sometimes when I
Speaker:have guests on, they sort of say, oh, I need to just go and check
Speaker:with my comms department that it's okay for me to do this and then I'll
Speaker:be able to kind of confirm. And I always do give people, I
Speaker:don't let people listen to it beforehand, partly
Speaker:just because of the logistics of if they come back and say they want things
Speaker:edited, it can be a bit of a headache. But I will let them have
Speaker:the transcript after the call so that if they
Speaker:say, can we take this out? The same goes in the conversation. If they
Speaker:say something and they say, oh, that came out wrong, can we, can we
Speaker:re record it then? I'm absolutely happy to do that.
Speaker:But, yeah, actually, as far as I'm concerned, once it's out in the world,
Speaker:it's out in the world. So. Yeah, but I don't talk about anything very
Speaker:controversial, really. Sort of like following on from this. And
Speaker:there's kind of this, this question. Two things here. One about
Speaker:momentum. How do you maintain momentum, you know, so how do you
Speaker:keep sourcing guests and producing and Hannah, how do you do the same
Speaker:and how do you have that momentum? But also from terms of the institutional
Speaker:perspective, the issues where you may be doing more thorny,
Speaker:contentious issues, and that you do feel a little bit edgy and nervy, that that
Speaker:in itself could breed some kind of inertia, that actually making the podcast
Speaker:becomes a bit of a pain because you're, you're actually treating these particular
Speaker:areas and have to be very cautious. So two things here, and I'll ask
Speaker:Sarah, first, in terms of the process of momentum, just
Speaker:keeping a series going. Yeah, sure. So
Speaker:it is really hard. Yeah. One thing I will say,
Speaker:so research adjacent has been going for over 18
Speaker:months now, and that I
Speaker:initially started doing it every week, and after about
Speaker:15 episodes, I decided to drop down to doing it once a fortnight just
Speaker:to make it a little bit more manageable. But otherwise, from
Speaker:that point of view, you just. I just always am thinking, you know, I'm always
Speaker:having to work a few episodes ahead who do I want to talk to. Looking
Speaker:at the balance of the program, I mean, partly I love it, so.
Speaker:And I find it, for me, I just love talking to people and find
Speaker:I'm really curious and I love finding out about them, what they do. So
Speaker:actually doing the interviews and things like that. For me, that's the
Speaker:really fun bit. Sometimes doing all the editing and stuff afterwards can
Speaker:be a bit of a chore. But I would say, yeah, if you're
Speaker:worried about momentum, don't get into it unless you've
Speaker:got a sense of like, there's this whole thing of pod fade
Speaker:where people do like three episodes and then it's never heard of
Speaker:again. I was told that before I started, so
Speaker:I initially went in with ten recorded,
Speaker:so I didn't put any out until I had ten ready to go. I think
Speaker:that's a really valuable piece of advice.
Speaker:It's fine to do things in seasons, so it's fine to say, I'm going to
Speaker:do ten episodes. The Life of Breath podcast, as I mentioned, the first one
Speaker:did that, actually, we only ever did ten episodes, and that was,
Speaker:you know, all we ever intended to do was ten episodes. It was within the
Speaker:scope of the research project and that was fine. So maybe it's about being
Speaker:clear about your goals for it, whether you want it to keep going or whether
Speaker:you want it to be a limited time thing, but have a plan. I would
Speaker:say don't just record a couple of episodes just to see.
Speaker:And colleagues at Leeds, because one of the problems is often you have
Speaker:this great energy to get these things going and you've got to try and
Speaker:get colleagues to buy in. So again, that must be. Is that an issue as
Speaker:well in terms of momentum? So
Speaker:I think we're finding that we've got way more content
Speaker:than we can probably deal with at the
Speaker:moment. We have a LinkedIn
Speaker:presence for our podcast, and we put it out there in terms
Speaker:of who wants to be a guest. It's kind of open access.
Speaker:So we're currently kind of going down that list of
Speaker:meeting those people, having a quick chat, and kind of going,
Speaker:what might be your angle for that episode? And then there's kind
Speaker:of like, oh, yeah, that does make sense. That does
Speaker:fit with our aim and what we're hoping for
Speaker:from our podcast. So I think that's
Speaker:that crowdsourcing has been useful in terms of
Speaker:generating us momentum. I remember in our early
Speaker:days, we did the let's do it weekly and then
Speaker:went to fortnightly. And I remember we also did
Speaker:seasons. You know, when we started off, we did seasons that. When
Speaker:did I put my hand up? I didn't actually touch
Speaker:my keyboard, so I didn't actually put my hand up. It's just zoom
Speaker:thinking I'm talking, I'm guessing. So
Speaker:when. When we did the series initially, we
Speaker:did series, so each of us would do eight, nine episodes.
Speaker:And that was tough, especially because that's when we were doing
Speaker:the weekly release.
Speaker:And I kind of thankfully did follow Sarah's
Speaker:advice, even without knowing it, and kind of tried to get almost
Speaker:all my episodes in the can. But
Speaker:one of the hosts, who I won't name and shame, kind of
Speaker:was a bit more last minute and felt quite
Speaker:pressured by that. So I think it's kind of
Speaker:like work out. What's your method?
Speaker:Are you happy with that, kind of just in time
Speaker:delivery? And if you're not, don't do it.
Speaker:Anyone else? Hannah, want to contribute?
Speaker:Yes. So I'll leave Janna to talk about the business policymaking one, because they're two
Speaker:very different ones, and that was a set series for the number of episodes, whereas
Speaker:the research innovation one is a rolling one. And again, I don't know whether we
Speaker:were weekly, but certainly fortnightly. And now it's not. I couldn't even tell you it
Speaker:was monthly. It's...sometimes you might have three in a month, sometimes it's
Speaker:one in three months. But I think it's, again, knowing the
Speaker:purpose. So if you, for example, you want
Speaker:to do it on a particular project and you think, well, actually, we just...there are
Speaker:so many different things we can talk about. Why don't we say, let's do six
Speaker:episodes and just release it as a series? You don't have to have this pressure
Speaker:to be ongoing. You can think, you know, we've got six
Speaker:experts involved in this, different stakeholders. Why not feature all of them as a guest?
Speaker:And you don't have to set yourself up for this ongoing process.
Speaker:The way we do it with the business school is, like I said,
Speaker:I'll share it in the chat now, but we use it for
Speaker:projects. And again, people don't have to have the pressure of doing it at
Speaker:a certain time. But the downside of this is, and I'm sure we're going to
Speaker:go into this, it's really hard to build up a regular
Speaker:listenership. So if you know that you're going to release something every week, people can
Speaker:tune in, they can go, it's Tuesday morning, I'm going to be listening to this.
Speaker:And that's probably the better way to growing. Whereas we
Speaker:might not have great listening figures for that, but we know we're going to
Speaker:reach a target audience. So, for example, if people are using the podcast for
Speaker:a project, they might say, oh, we're really trying to get on with this certain
Speaker:department somewhere, and we can send it directly to them, and that's more
Speaker:valuable for that person. So for us, not having this
Speaker:regular element isn't as important. So if you're trying to perhaps grow yourself as
Speaker:a brand or a reputation, you want to see yourself as experts, then
Speaker:yes, you want to be thinking about your frequency and getting your
Speaker:fortnightly weekly episodes out there. But if you're using it as
Speaker:a way of disseminating particular information and trying to reach a specific
Speaker:audience, then you don't necessarily have to put that pressure on yourself to be
Speaker:doing these regular episodes, if that makes sense.
Speaker:Jana, do you want to add... Yeah, that's such a good point, because in
Speaker:our podcast, again, it stands out from the
Speaker:others presented today, was that we had some really big
Speaker:shots coming onto our show and
Speaker:managing the incredibly busy schedules of
Speaker:those big figures who work in
Speaker:different time zones and so on and so forth.
Speaker:There was a lot of work, and this is something I think very
Speaker:often ignored or overlooked by some zealous,
Speaker:enthusiastic podcasters or people who are thinking about
Speaker:doing a podcast, is that there's like
Speaker:ten times more time that needs to go into doing a
Speaker:podcast than we anticipated. And I think Hannah and I
Speaker:spent about a year before actually releasing
Speaker:the podcast series, and there was always a plan of
Speaker:having kind of them organized in series, as both Jed and
Speaker:Sarah already mentioned, because we just didn't know how many people we
Speaker:would be able to secure what, you know, what the timing would be. But one
Speaker:thing that I've learned from other podcasts, and also as a
Speaker:podcast listener, is that what I
Speaker:appreciate is a consistent release
Speaker:schedule. Doesn't matter the frequency, but it has to be
Speaker:consistent. And I think Sarah has already mentioned,
Speaker:even if you decide to have it just once a month, just make sure that
Speaker:you actually do put it out once a month,
Speaker:because the competition is fierce. And
Speaker:I'm quite sure your podcast isn't as jazzy,
Speaker:as sexy as we who kind of put our
Speaker:sweat and tears into making it actually believe.
Speaker:So make sure you are there. You're out there, and if you're serious
Speaker:about it, just be consistent in putting it out there.
Speaker:So a similar sort of following on question from Catherine, which I
Speaker:think obviously you all give some thought about and have alluded to in your previous
Speaker:answers, but how do you advertise and situate your podcast so that
Speaker:they can be sure people will tune in or at least give them as good
Speaker:a chance because it's an increasingly crowded area.
Speaker:Not just that, it's all the other means of dissemination. So how do you
Speaker:actually tackle that? I don't know. Who wants to go first?
Speaker:Ged, yeah So one point I was just going to
Speaker:follow on from Jana, which actually situates with your with
Speaker:your next question, Andy, is that we've tried to
Speaker:avoid being competitive. So, you know,
Speaker:Sarah's podcast could be seen as competitive to ours in
Speaker:terms of the research careers bit. But, you
Speaker:know, we've had Sarah on our podcast and as she
Speaker:said, I and Nick have been on hers.
Speaker:So we are kind of doing a promotion for each
Speaker:other. We've also done that with another podcast
Speaker:called Research Co Culture,
Speaker:which was organized by some...they were when they
Speaker:started the podcast, postdocs at Oxford.
Speaker:Now, one of them works in the Government Office for
Speaker:Science and another one works for a pharma
Speaker:company, but they're carrying on with that, with that podcast. So
Speaker:again, we did
Speaker:that co promotion, if you will. The other
Speaker:thing we've done heavily, we're really consistent in terms
Speaker:of where we tell, I know Sarah's kind of
Speaker:dropped off Twitter. We've carried on
Speaker:mainly because we've still got people picking it up
Speaker:from that direction. And it's
Speaker:also really important that you you know, when you have a
Speaker:guest, that they utilize their networks.
Speaker:So if the guest is really passive in advertising
Speaker:their own episode, then you
Speaker:do kind of notice that in the listening figures. But if they're
Speaker:really active in promoting their own
Speaker:episode into their own networks, however they do it, you know,
Speaker:you do notice a real big uptick for that kind of
Speaker:guest. Yeah, that could be quite infuriating when you've had a guest
Speaker:and he's got quite a lot of followers and you tweet at them and then
Speaker:they just like it at best and you kind of go, oh, no. Yeah,
Speaker:that was an opportunity lost. Anyone else want to contribute
Speaker:to follow that up? Yeah, I can see a little bit
Speaker:about I mean, it's in terms of sharing it, promoting it, it's just all the
Speaker:same stuff you would do with any thing. You know, it's social media,
Speaker:it's email newsletters, you know, it's all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:As Ged says, I don't use Twitter anymore, but, you know, LinkedIn is really
Speaker:growing now that Twitter has fallen away in the
Speaker:podcast apps themselves, people sometimes search so in, for example, in
Speaker:Spotify in particular, people can search for topics and things and find
Speaker:podcasts that way. I don't know Apple podcasts well because I don't have an
Speaker:Apple device. And, and then, as Ged says as well, this
Speaker:cross...if you've got a podcast that interviews
Speaker:people, then that's amazing for increasing the reach,
Speaker:provided that they share with their networks. Being guests on other people's
Speaker:podcasts, I've been guests on quite a few different related
Speaker:podcasts, talking about it at events, conferences, all that
Speaker:kind of stuff. Yeah, all of that usual kind of thing.
Speaker:Anyone else? Yeah, I had Hannah,
Speaker:whose brain is kind of like always around...how do we
Speaker:make the best of what we produced? And kind of Hannah had
Speaker:a strategy. I'm so far from strategizing, kind of making
Speaker:plans and all that. So I think one of
Speaker:the really added value here was that we worked in
Speaker:tandem, kind of like we paired up and we brought to that podcast
Speaker:a completely different perspectives, completely different experiences.
Speaker:So it wasn't just adding up and stacking up the same kind of skills and
Speaker:same knowledge. It was really completely different kind of
Speaker:components. And I think it really, really, really
Speaker:worked. In terms of promotion as an
Speaker:academic, you know, like how you get an email invite to an
Speaker:event two weeks before the event, and two weeks before
Speaker:the event, you get another 100 invites to another 100
Speaker:events. So I think being in people's faces all the time,
Speaker:not all the time, kind of striking the really fine balance between being there all
Speaker:the time and kind of not being there is you
Speaker:don't underestimate, not so much
Speaker:competition as for the content, but the competition for attention
Speaker:and time that people are able to invest into what you
Speaker:produce. So I think good reminder, this is
Speaker:something we slightly failed to do. Kind of like, we launched
Speaker:it, we put it out there and then thought, oh, people will pick it
Speaker:up, but no, you have to kind of keep repeating, kind of putting it
Speaker:back out there. So I think that's a very good
Speaker:strategy if you're serious about that, just kind
Speaker:of don't shy away from promoting it in
Speaker:regular intervals as well.
Speaker:Just sort of following on, because I know some panel do this. How important
Speaker:are trailers and clips, things on social media, things that kind of hook people in
Speaker:with a 30 second clip? How do you use those in any
Speaker:particular way? I'll just say, to
Speaker:be honest, we don't, but I'd like to. But is another example of
Speaker:things taking time, like with the Business of Policymaking.
Speaker:You know, it was very much Jana leading on the content, and we were both
Speaker:doing it. But with the R and I podcast, it's just me and it's part
Speaker:of my...I only work, 70% part time anyway. And the podcast is
Speaker:one of another 95 things I'm expected to do each week. So I'm not
Speaker:expected to do. I want to do. I love it. They're all these things are
Speaker:my passion projects that end up being kind of an integral part of the strategy
Speaker:because I make them that way. But there is so much more we could do
Speaker:with it. There's so much more I'd like to do. I'd like to do more
Speaker:trailers. I'd like to do more detailed show notes. I'd like to think more about
Speaker:the SEO. I'd like to do more visuals. I'd like to make sure we've got
Speaker:great speaker headshots as well as having our own kind of podcast visual identity,
Speaker:which we use. I'd like to make sure we've got more teasers in the run
Speaker:up. I'd like to do series summaries. So I do
Speaker:think they're important. Basically, I don't anyone to go look at the R & I
Speaker:podcast and think she's not doing any of those things there. So I think
Speaker:it's. But it's an important, you know, this panel is to share experiences.
Speaker:An important part of that is, you know, I'm sure we'll discuss this is. How
Speaker:much time does it take? Well, the recording part, you cannot be done within an
Speaker:hour. Recording the podcast is not the thing that takes time, it's
Speaker:editing. We do know a couple of people, so they don't do much editing with
Speaker:the podcasts. I do do a lot of editing on ours, and that's because
Speaker:some of our academics aren't very comfortable speaking on the podcast. For most of
Speaker:them, it's the first time they've done it. A lot of them perhaps haven't spoken
Speaker:at events yet, and they're quite nervous. And as part of that reassurance, I say,
Speaker:look, don't worry, if you want to say something five times, we'll do that.
Speaker:A lot of people have the ums and ahs in there, which again, I don't
Speaker:delete all of, but I do go through that a bit. So editing
Speaker:takes me a lot of time. Again, going back to an earlier point
Speaker:about checking people happy with it. Some of the research we talk about is externally
Speaker:funded, so they've got to have that cap on and think, actually, would my funders
Speaker:be happy with me? That. So there's time taken to do that. Checking the
Speaker:transcript, everything else, uploading it, coming up with the social media, things
Speaker:to share. So not trying to put anyone off doing this. Absolutely
Speaker:not. But just as an awareness of. Yes, start thinking about social
Speaker:media strategy. Teasers will help, trailers will help. But factor
Speaker:in time. You think it's only going to take you five minutes to draft something
Speaker:for LinkedIn, but when you've actually gone, oh, I need to find the profile to
Speaker:link the right person. I need to see which hashtags are the popular ones the
Speaker:most. Let me just double check the spelling of that. Oh, the picture's not pulling
Speaker:through for some reason. A five minute job's taken 40 minutes, and those kind of
Speaker:things, they can add up. Can I jump in,
Speaker:Andy? Just Hannah and I had, you know, months long
Speaker:conversation around a vodcast versus a podcast. Kind of like, do
Speaker:we do video with the podcast? And it would
Speaker:be so good if I could hear your thoughts on that as well, because
Speaker:as someone who's losing hearing, as someone who's losing eyesight, kind of like I
Speaker:prefer having it all, having everyone in my screen and just shouting
Speaker:out both visually and using sound as well,
Speaker:and as a listener, kind of like, I prefer
Speaker:those with videos. Although that goes against your point, Sarah. I think
Speaker:people kind of listening everywhere, anywhere
Speaker:at all times, whereas video cast doesn't have that.
Speaker:But Hannah and I decided against it also because
Speaker:it does require a very experienced
Speaker:guest as well as a host. And, you know, some
Speaker:would come in onto a show wearing just plain t
Speaker:shirts, and for a big shot who is supposed to be wearing a tie
Speaker:and whatever attire and uniform, I
Speaker:think that felt far more relaxing than it would with a camera. But I wonder
Speaker:what you think about the future of podcasts in that respect?
Speaker:Thank you, Jana. Anyone want to contribute? It sounds like Hannah, though, it sounds like
Speaker:you need a job doing the podcast at the University of Leeds or someone needs
Speaker:to clone you. That'd be nice. That'd be good.
Speaker:Anyone want to add in terms of that? Well, yeah,
Speaker:I don't do videos, actually. I think this was one of the questions we thought
Speaker:we might talk about, and we haven't. I don't do videos for the
Speaker:reason it puts people off. Being a guest actually, is one of the
Speaker:reasons I don't, because there's a lot of people who kind of don't mind the
Speaker:audio, but actually they're less keen to be
Speaker:on video, at least for them to be on video, like the whole time, through
Speaker:an entire podcast. And it happened to me once
Speaker:recently, I was a guest on a podcast and they didn't warn me that they
Speaker:were going to use the video. And suddenly I went on social media and
Speaker:there was my face, you know, and because I hadn't known they were going to
Speaker:record it, I hadn't been making sure I was looking at the camera, you know,
Speaker:all that sort of stuff. So, to be honest, doing just the audio is a
Speaker:pretty big job in itself. If you then add video in as well, it starts
Speaker:to become more difficult for somebody to do it as a
Speaker:side gig, if you know what I mean. Like, if they're not a professional
Speaker:videographer or podcast maker, you know, when you start to add in
Speaker:all those extra things, you're adding extra complexity. So if somebody just
Speaker:wants to. Sometimes we give ourselves all kinds of reasons not to get
Speaker:started. And if video is something that's holding people back from getting
Speaker:started, just forget about it. Yeah, I think just coming in
Speaker:on that, we got some training from a
Speaker:podcast coach who, lovely guy from the States, you know, so
Speaker:he was, he was logging in
Speaker:to help with the training at about 04:00 in the morning for
Speaker:him and things like that. And one thing he said
Speaker:to us was, in terms of that, Ruth's just
Speaker:put the point in terms of authenticity, is trying to
Speaker:have it as almost like you're listening in on a really interesting
Speaker:conversation in the coffee shop or the pub or something like that.
Speaker:So anything you do that makes it less
Speaker:easy for the guest to be, be in that relaxed
Speaker:state. Like they're just having a really interesting
Speaker:conversation with a, with a colleague,
Speaker:maybe soon to be a friend in a
Speaker:relaxed environment. You know, avoid,
Speaker:avoid doing that because, you know, ultimately, people
Speaker:can get blown off course. And we've
Speaker:certainly had to work with guests, even on the audio side of things, in terms
Speaker:of getting over their, kind of things like imposter
Speaker:syndrome, things like, do I sound stupid? You kind of
Speaker:go, you're talking to a person from Blackburn, you know, I've got an
Speaker:accent, and I'm not going to hide it because I went
Speaker:through that pain as an undergraduate at university
Speaker:in London in the eighties, and I'm not doing it again as a
Speaker:56 year old. So, you know,
Speaker:let's just be honest. This is our voices, and let's just have a really
Speaker:interesting conversation and allow others to hear it.
Speaker:Just building on that. Something that we've kind of talked about without explicitly
Speaker:mentioning is to factor in who your host is going to be.
Speaker:So I'm the odd one out on the podcast here, and I'm the only one
Speaker:who's not a host, and there's a reason for that, apart from
Speaker:getting, I was going to say roped in, but I wasn't roped into this at
Speaker:all. I was delighted to be invited to be on this panel, but I'm very
Speaker:much normally behind the scenes. I always say it's ironic that for someone who works
Speaker:in communications, I struggle to communicate things when it's not coming from my own
Speaker:mouth. But I don't host on the R
Speaker:& I podcast. I ensure that it's between two academics or an
Speaker:academic and someone involved in the project or one of our postgraduate
Speaker:researchers or someone else. But if you are going to be a host,
Speaker:you've got to allow some more time. I think everyone here does a fantastic job
Speaker:of that, but it is a skill set. You've got to be confident, you've got
Speaker:to be comfortable. You've got to make your guests comfortable, but you also have to
Speaker:allow a bit of time to do the research. You know, you can't invite, and
Speaker:I'll let others speak about this, but you can't just invite someone on and then
Speaker:expect them kind of do the heavy lifting. You kind of need to know what
Speaker:they're about and what questions. So I think if you are for people on
Speaker:this, on this webinar who are thinking about doing their own podcast, I think thinking
Speaker:about who is going to be the literal voice of your series.
Speaker:And I'm sure the Research Culture Uncovered team would probably want to talk about their
Speaker:roles being team players rather than just one person. And that's different with
Speaker:Sarah's podcast. They can of pros and cons of that. But I think it's just
Speaker:worth highlighting that the role of the host is a really important
Speaker:one. Jana, did you put your hand up?
Speaker:Yeah. I think this is such a great point
Speaker:because obviously, if you have an idea to do a podcast,
Speaker:then have a think. If you actually have, if you have the skill to be
Speaker:a host and be hosting it as well. And my advice would be to
Speaker:really know the content, and especially if you're doing
Speaker:a kind of like what we did in our was
Speaker:talking to people. And even though it's very useful to have a
Speaker:rough plan and a lot of, you know, people would want to have
Speaker:questions in advance, it should be a conversation. So
Speaker:it's not kind of like an undergraduate interview where you
Speaker:get straight questions and, you know, you don't expand.
Speaker:The good podcast expands on that. And
Speaker:for that, obviously, you need to be knowledgeable, you need to know
Speaker:things. So it's not just the research, it's also you feeling comfortable
Speaker:about having those sometimes really tough conversations and
Speaker:kind of being on the journey with your guest.
Speaker:Thank you. And just to say, Ged, you've got a great voice for podcasts. The
Speaker:Blackburn accent's very nice. Sounds very much like
Speaker:Graham Massey from 808 State, a nice accent.
Speaker:A colleague of mine says, yeah,
Speaker:face for radio. I think I've got that.
Speaker:A quick question here to go around you, because I know we haven't got a
Speaker:lot of time and there's questions coming in, so it's just really a quick
Speaker:one. What's the one thing you wish you'd known before you started
Speaker:your podcast journey?
Speaker:Who would like to start with that? Maybe Sarah, yourself,
Speaker:running your own podcast, etcetera? Oh, goodness
Speaker:me. I think if the one thing. Oh,
Speaker:I can think of lots of things...
Speaker:And my mind's just gone. Come back to me. My mind's just gone slightly blank
Speaker:because I just answered a question in the chat and my mind was still on
Speaker:that, so come back to me. Okay, so
Speaker:who would like to pick up, Ged? So I think
Speaker:the. I think the thing that
Speaker:was really interesting for us,
Speaker:that because we had some coaching, we didn't kind of,
Speaker:we kind of talked through all of those, all of those things. So there was
Speaker:nothing that was kind of a surprise, but there was the, how do
Speaker:you control multiple people when you're
Speaker:on a situation like this, when
Speaker:you've got the panel, when you're doing a fantastic job of handling
Speaker:as, because we are all quite chatty.
Speaker:I know the five of us are, sorry, four
Speaker:of us are quite chatty. So talking over each other and that
Speaker:being difficult when it comes to editing and things like that.
Speaker:So it's that when you go past more than just you and
Speaker:a guest
Speaker:is the one that's always been challenging and then
Speaker:keeping that short enough, you know, we have an aim to try
Speaker:and hit sort of 20 to 30 minutes as
Speaker:a rough guide for our episodes. And, you know, I had two
Speaker:guests on the podcast that's going out next week and
Speaker:I was fully interested in it, and we've hit 70
Speaker:minutes. So, you know, if you're a subscriber to
Speaker:ours, make sure you set some time aside for that coming out next
Speaker:week.
Speaker:Yeah, I just wanted to say that I'm a professional
Speaker:guest on podcasts, but definitely not a professional
Speaker:host. And as you know, as a
Speaker:newcomer to being a host on a very short lived podcast,
Speaker:I completely underestimated the amount of effort,
Speaker:energy, and time that goes into producing a good
Speaker:quality show. Everything from
Speaker:identifying a perfect guest, identifying
Speaker:a pitch idea, really, please don't
Speaker:underestimate. There's so much time that goes into that. And I
Speaker:wasn't even doing the post production because the technical part was left to
Speaker:Hannah. So kind of like, I did my, I was the
Speaker:front woman of that podcast. But there's a lot of
Speaker:energy that goes into preparing your guests,
Speaker:kind of getting them ready, and not all of them are experienced
Speaker:guests, so don't underestimate that.
Speaker:But they may have, you know, like, a really true kind
Speaker:of valuable information to share, and you
Speaker:really want to bring them on a podcast. But for a podcast, it needs
Speaker:to be, you know, it needs to have an energy, it needs to breathe. It
Speaker:needs to kind of have the vibe. So
Speaker:have that conversation with your potential guest ahead of time.
Speaker:See how they respond, see how stiff they are or how
Speaker:flexible and dynamic they are and how their voice works as well.
Speaker:Because if there's no video, voice will be the main
Speaker:medium. So I think these were all things I
Speaker:completely ignored and overlooked, as
Speaker:I said, as a professional guest on podcasts.
Speaker:Yeah, I think just adding on to that, I think my bit would be,
Speaker:don't make assumptions about your guests. I think
Speaker:because there are some people who seemed nervous
Speaker:beforehand, hadn't done it before. Maybe when I've seen them around the business school, they're
Speaker:quite quiet and in front of the microphone, they were just brilliant. They were on
Speaker:it. Like Jana said, that vibe was there. But then vice versa,
Speaker:there are some people I thought would have been, you know, seasoned pros. They've been
Speaker:to all the conferences they've talked, and they kind of got there and go, well,
Speaker:what do I do now? Also, I think it maybe I
Speaker:naively thought that everyone would have listened to the podcast who came on. Like, I
Speaker:always try and do my best. I always explain it. I say, the format, I
Speaker:say, like with ours, make sure you've got a colleague to do it. I say
Speaker:it's 15 to 20 minutes. You need to ask each other questions. It's informal,
Speaker:etcetera. And I always try and send them a specific episode that
Speaker:theirs might be most similar to or they might be interested in. And then I
Speaker:have had quite a few occasions where I'll turn up and some will say, all
Speaker:right, what questions you can ask me then. And I say, no, no, no. You
Speaker:know how we had this email trail about how I'm not going to be doing
Speaker:the questions and you kind of need to do that homework. And I get it,
Speaker:everyone's busy and everyone's got loads of emails. But I think, just don't
Speaker:underestimate that pre recording stage of thinking
Speaker:what your guest is going to be like, making sure they're aware of what it
Speaker:needs to be like and. Yeah. And just, just not having those assumptions.
Speaker:Thanks, and to you Sarah. Yeah, thanks. Sorry about just going
Speaker:blank a minute ago. I would say I totally agree with what Emma's just put
Speaker:in the chat, which is you have to get comfortable with hearing your own voice.
Speaker:That was difficult at the start when you've got to listen to, because you have
Speaker:to realize that as you're editing, you probably listen to every episode maybe three or
Speaker:four times in the process of kind of getting it all together. So,
Speaker:yeah, getting used to your own voice is definitely one thing. Things I wish I'd
Speaker:known before I started. I could have made it a lot simpler. I
Speaker:overcomplicated it. I don't think that's unusual. I started doing really
Speaker:long shows notes. I've used quite...I've got quite a
Speaker:complicated, like, the way the music and the sound goes together at the start is
Speaker:you might not know if you listen to it, but it's quite complicated. There was
Speaker:no need for me to do that and now I'm stuck with it. And so
Speaker:that's a bit of a note of caution. But the other thing that I wish
Speaker:I'd known before I started is actually a positive thing. I had no idea
Speaker:how much it would grow my network.
Speaker:And that has been incredible. The people that I've met, the
Speaker:opportunities that it has given me. If I had no idea when I
Speaker:started that that's where it would go, and that's been amazing.
Speaker:That's a real positive output. So I know we're getting close to the end, so
Speaker:just a couple of minutes and just one question, I think, which kind of fits
Speaker:quite aptly at the end of the process in terms of
Speaker:how do you try and measure, and this may be one of those jobs that
Speaker:you want to do and goes back to what Hannah says, it's something you want
Speaker:to do, and it's having the time, and I totally get that. I'm sort of
Speaker:in that same position. But what about measuring impact
Speaker:and obviously making cases for doing these things and
Speaker:potentially using it as a way to generate the funding as well, to
Speaker:support. So, you know, we can have two Hannahs instead of
Speaker:one by making those cases, because clearly
Speaker:podcasts are growing in their potential and in their
Speaker:number. So I don't know who wants to pick that up. Maybe you, Hannah,
Speaker:in terms of this. Yeah, it's really
Speaker:hard, as with any communications, to be honest, it's difficult. I mean, you can have
Speaker:numbers, you can look in a blog post, you can look at your Google Analytics,
Speaker:social media engagement, podcasts, you look at number of listens.
Speaker:But it can be really, they can be quite arbitrary. Like
Speaker:you've got 50, you've got 500, you've got 5000. Well, are you
Speaker:comparing with someone else? Are you comparing with another season?
Speaker:For me, and to be honest, maybe this is just me saying it's a bit
Speaker:of a safety net to cover ourselves, but I try not to focus on the
Speaker:listeners, the numbers, but try and see if any of our
Speaker:speakers have had some impact from it. So, for example, for one of the episodes,
Speaker:someone shared it with their stakeholders and the leader
Speaker:of that stakeholder group said how much they appreciated it because the group wasn't very
Speaker:data literate. But to be able to have that episode meant that they could all
Speaker:share it within the organization and people could take it on board more. And for
Speaker:me, that's what it's about. If that episode only had 30 people, but
Speaker:there were 30 people in the organization who then took away, well, that means more
Speaker:to the, then a thousand people have listened to it and then instantly forgotten it.
Speaker:So it's kind of an unsatisfactory answer because really what we all want to go
Speaker:is, oh yeah, you want x amount and you go do this and it increases
Speaker:it and that'll be great. And then your boss will love it and then you'll
Speaker:get more money to increase it. Unfortunately, I don't have that magical answer.
Speaker:But for me, it's, you know, it's impact, isn't it? That keyword, it's
Speaker:are people implementing your findings? Are they engaging? Are
Speaker:they enjoying? Are they sharing? Are they spreading the word? So I
Speaker:try and avoid setting yourself any limits, saying, we're going to launch this
Speaker:podcast and we're going to aim for 500 listeners every month because you're kind of
Speaker:setting yourself up for fail. It's good to monitor it, it's good to see what's
Speaker:working. And maybe the ones where you have multiple guests on, they
Speaker:perform higher. Or maybe you've learned that the ones you release on a Tuesday morning
Speaker:do better than the ones you do on a Friday afternoon. The metrics can help
Speaker:you in that way, but I just try to say, not get too caught up
Speaker:with the numbers. That's a great answer and I think some really good points
Speaker:well made. Thank you. Does anyone have any final comments or anything? Because I know
Speaker:we're at time and Nick will want to wrap up. And for anyone
Speaker:who's asked any questions, I do apologize. We've not covered them at the moment, but
Speaker:I'm sure you can contact any of your colleagues or if, you know, if you're
Speaker:from external to Leeds, I'm sure they'll still be happy to hear from you. If
Speaker:you've got any burning questions you want to ask. So they'll all be
Speaker:discoverable on the web through various means. So if you've got any burning
Speaker:questions, please do. And I apologize that we've not covered them all, but I think
Speaker:there's been a really good conversation here today. A lot to cover
Speaker:and it shows a lot of potential. Is there any kind of closing points from
Speaker:anyone that they'd like to make?
Speaker:I think for me, I was....hen Ruth
Speaker:suggested it was Ruth's bright idea, I kind of thought she was
Speaker:nuts. I still do think she's nuts in a really, really
Speaker:enjoyable way. But I'm loving it,
Speaker:so just give it a go, you know, and I'm really
Speaker:enjoying speaking to interesting people
Speaker:who were, who were out in outside my network but are
Speaker:now inside it. So just to kind of, you know, it's been real
Speaker:fun. Can I just add
Speaker:that one thing that I, you know, I would advise
Speaker:myself was give your listeners far more time and
Speaker:engagement because, you know, they've taken half an
Speaker:hour from their incredibly busy schedules to listen to your
Speaker:show. Try to engage them afterwards as well.
Speaker:Anyone else? Final comments? If not, I'll hand over to Nick, say thank
Speaker:you all for coming today. I think it's been a fascinating discussion, really a lot
Speaker:of useful information. Hopefully it's inspired some people to maybe take their
Speaker:journey or contact colleagues to actually record their own
Speaker:podcasts.
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