I confess I’ve never been on a Zoom call, avoided it during the lockdown, so I skipped the homework. Note to myself, find someone to do Zoom calls with.

What’s this that’s hit my inbox? Goals for w/c 17th Jan. Hmm, I’ll skip that, I’m just getting going.

We’ve got Ken Gagne talking about his podcasting and public speaking experience this week. Not sure what to expect here, but I guess listening to someone who is a podcaster would be useful.

Decided that I would plough through the remainder of Module 2 making notes as I go, which is exactly what I did do, a tick in that box. Here are some of the main points I made a note of.

Editing Basics

• You edit to remove the umms, errs, pauses, things that don’t make sense, anywhere you drift into another subject, and you must remove the boring bits.
• Trust your gut, and be brutal, if it’s not interesting – delete it.
• Businesspeople don’t have much time; the podcast needs to be the right length of time for the audience. What is the right amount of time for my audience? Who is my audience, same as for Maximo Secrets?
• LinkedIn feed seems to be a couple of minutes and in video form – what could I do in less than 3 minutes, and would it work if it was just voice? The trailers for the podcast would be suitable.
• Editing seems to take a lot of time; preparation will save time surely. If I’m looking to do Solo might as well create a script first and act it out.

I did the homework and found only one other person doing Maximo podcasts, that’s good news, not much competition then. Interview style, probably unedited, should let the interviewee speak uninterrupted, but without the rambling. A bit of background noise, and umms/errs but not too many. I didn’t listen to the end and tried another episode with a similar fate. While they seemed to be having fun, subject matter to me was a bit boring, too technical. How do I avoid the same fate for my podcast?

Like everything in life, you probably must practise lots before you get to your acceptable level. Perhaps I shouldn’t set the bar too high.

Waveform Editing

• Audacity is being used, I expect editing will take a long time, my one experience of using it in the past proved that.
• Zoom creates a .MP4 and you need to convert to .MP3 (audio file) – Google – Online Audio Converter.
• Auphonic.com is free for 2 hours/month, it can also improve the sound quality during the conversion. Remember to set a better bit rate when exporting.
• Audacity can also do the conversion to .MP3, but it is a bit fiddly to get set up.
• Easy to add in Introduction, an Ending, and to fade in/fade out the music.

Text-based Editing

• Descript is being used, it is free to some extent, so can be used for practising before you commit, but the free hours do not give you the best quality.
• Upload .MP3 and it has a go at transcribing, but not perfect. It will identify the speakers, but again not perfect. Now you are effectively using a text editor to cut out the bits you don’t want and there are functions to – Remove Filler Words – cool.
• You can record your introduction, and ending, and add in music same as for Audacity, but the fade in/fade out looks a bit more complex.
• This can be done after you have recorded the podcast.
• Don’t forget to talk about your next episode at the end of your current one.

Music

• Music boosts your podcast, makes it more professional sounding.
• Copywrite means you can’t use other people’s music without written permission, essentially you need a license. 
• So, a no-go area unless you are using royalty free music (YouTube Music Library) or you create your own (now that’s an idea).

Reaching Out

• Get involved in the podcast community – OK, might be fun, will learn something no doubt.

I checked out the first couple of episodes of Richard’s podcast www.CanIMakeAHitPodcast.com – very interesting indeed, will need to listen more next week.

Office Hours with Ken Gagne

That was interesting and time flew by. I didn’t make as many notes as I should have done. I wonder if it was recorded. So, what did I make notes of?

• Ken started out reading scripts (solo), that’s encouraging, as that feels the safest way for me.
• Pause instead of umm and err
• When you are interviewing in podcasts you can build your audience quicker because you have the connections of your guest as well. Obvious, but I would never have thought of it.
• Ken uses Twitter and Facebook. Hoot Suite can be used to schedule tweets. I wonder what social media sites are used by a typical Maximo user. I guess I need to be on some to find out, I’ve avoided them like the plague up to now, with exception of LinkedIn, although I do have a twitter account for MaximoSecrets, I took it out in case I needed it.
• Schedule your posts on different social media at different times of the day.
• You can use social media to promote your podcast, but it needs to be mixed up with other stuff that you’re posting or commenting on, otherwise you will be ignored.
• Find a co-host, it is more fun doing a podcast with someone else. I know someone who is ideal, Martin. Him and his wife were here for dinner last Saturday, they had to try out my pie-making skills.
• Apple Podcast is a good one to start with as it feeds out to other podcast directories.
• You might need to be on the 6 large ones to hit your audience, Google, Amazon, Stitcher, Spotify, Pandora.
• Ah, and Richard made notes too Here’s what you missed – Office hours

And, finally

More emails. Feedback Frenzy, more encouragement for everyone to engage. Now Dr. Rita has called out for newcomers not to be shy. Now Richard has called out the newcomers in person on another encouragement email – What is your show about? So, I got engaged in the community and while I was writing the reply I realised that within the first 3 weeks the reason for thinking about doing the podcast had now changed.

And, finally, I decided that I would learn a piece to play for my podcast music. I dug out the music for FRIEDRICH GULDA Play Piano Play No 1. The first decision made then, lots more to make along the way, no doubt about it.