At the start of the week, the nagging doubt got louder. Why am I doing a podcast, and what’s in it for me? I currently write about Maximo most of the day, so why do I want to spend more time on this in the evenings and weekends, whether writing or recording, and I can’t/won’t work on this during business hours.

Last year during Covid lockdown I started a second blog or rather a portfolio of blogs, an electronic scrapbook. My new year’s resolution for 2021 was learn how to use the camera I had bought the previous year. What photos should I take? I needed something immediate, January in Devon doesn’t provide much in the way of photographic opportunity unless you like grey skies and getting wet, cold, and windswept. So, my resolution soon multiplied into several others; learn how to make pies, quiches, and tarts, learn how to make ice creams and sorbets, and mixology, the art of cocktail making, then take photos of what I made. I was successful at this for the first 3 months and also successful in putting on a few pounds, and during this time I was thinking where do I put my thoughts about the pies, ice creams and cocktails, the recipes, but also what I liked or didn’t like about them – the electronic scrapbook. The blog was created, but it soon petered out, relegated by lockdown gardening project 2.

It may be a crazy notion, but I started thinking if my podcast is essentially my weekly life with Maximo, then why not also talk about my weekly life outside business hours. Not what I did, more things that I want to remember. A podcast with two halves. Someone said, I think Richard, that there might only be an audience of one, yourself. Well, if I am going to sustain the podcast into the future, and it might only be me that’s listening, then I need to be doing something for myself – I am indulging myself.

During the week we teased Tanya away from lurking in the depths of the community to contributing, and soon Dr Rita’s sleuthing had found out something about her. I confess to Googling Tanya just to see how Rita had done it, and soon found the same photo as that on her WordPress profile. Then I thought, does Google know me? It seems not. It knows my ex-colleague from Capgemini who would get my emails and vice versa, and a look on the images showed plenty of pictures of a certain Prince who shares my first name and his friend who shares my surname although the spelling is different. I’m anonymous in the digital world. 

But if I am going to have a podcast and I remained anonymous I surely would have an audience of one. So, I have concluded that I need to break out (a little). I need to at least be known for my own identity, rather than someone lower in the ranks to Andrew and Jeffrey.

The more I thought about the second half of the podcast, the more I thought that other people know Maximo Secrets, and a few have looked at my LinkedIn profile, but nobody knows me. Listening is more personal than reading business text, and my articles can’t be personal. So, if the podcasts were just about Maximo, I think they would be dull. 

I’m thinking I must show a personality with the podcast. Would I listen to someone I don’t know, perhaps for a while, but the podcast communication line is one way. I think I need to know more of someone for me to continue to listen to them, even if there was value in what they were saying. The audience must want to return to you as a person, and not on the off chance that they are going to hear something which is useful to them. In my Maximo world, what I am saying is not relevant to every industry, it may also be something which the listener already knows. What if the only thing they didn’t know was 10 minutes into the podcast, would they have stayed listening that long? I need to try to get my audience through the whole Maximo piece, would a piece of me, my non-Maximo life, at the end of the podcast work?

When I introduced this thought to the community, I sensed some doubt over this second part. Richard suggested that I used my Maximo experiences in the second half. A good suggestion, but I think it would still be dull, besides most of my implementation experiences are disappearing into the past, and you can’t talk about a client or allow the client to be guessed, due to confidentiality. The business examples of why you would use a Maximo feature, the value a feature would bring, will be in the first part of the podcast and near the beginning. 

I am sensing that I have found the formula for my podcast, one that I hope and think I can sustain over time, another tick in a box.

You might, from this, think I achieved very little this week, apart from my eureka moment. Not at all. I’ve been documenting “My Podcasting Journey”, all 5 weeks. I explained why I am doing this in week 1, but you may have noticed that I am highlighting pieces of text, these are the bits I think I need to revisit, it will help me create a To Do list. Writing My Podcasting Journey is certainly helping me to get into the 1-hour rule habit. As I proofread this, the kitchen timer is ticking, and Led Zeppelin are beating out their tunes.

I did have a go at Descript and listened to some of their tutorials. I did attempt my first Zoom recording, but then my colleague couldn’t hear my voice. A nice WordPress support agent helped me to get access to the theme Twenty Twenty-Two which does have the Full Site Editing capability and now my other blog site needs some major surgery.

So, what are my goals for next week?

• Complete the documentation for my podcast weeks 1 through 6, unrealistic I know, but I must attempt to catch up. 
• I need to fix my Blue Yeti mic and achieve a first successful Zoom recording.
• Start Module 3 and listen again to Richard’s podcasts http://www.CanIMakeAHitPodcast.com making notes this time.
• Start rebuilding my electronic scrapbook and getting used to the Full Site Editing on WordPress.
• Revisit the objectives I set in week 4.
• Do a trial record of my podcast Maximo Bite Size – Episode 1, just so that I can hear my voice and work out how much editing I would need to do. Thanks, Dr Rita, for the tip in listening to your own podcast.
• I must remember to buy some energy drinks at the supermarket on Monday, and drink one 30 minutes before the recording, another tip courtesy of Richard.