My Podcast Objectives

This is week 12 of my podcasting journey and it is about time I tried to agree with myself what the podcast is about, why I am doing it, what my motivations are, how I believe the podcast can be sustained and anything else that springs to mind as I start writing.

What are my podcasts about?

I have two or three podcasts to consider.

The Diary of a Digital Nobody – A weekly diary of my non-work life.
Maximo Bite Size – A series of approximately 100 short (5-10) minute duration episodes that will provide the knowledge required by someone wanting to take the Maximo Functional Certification, that I was involved in writing.
My Podcasting Journey – I have no ambition to develop this into a podcast about making a podcast, but I am including it here because I want to continue writing the weekly diary.

Why do I want to create a podcast?

A difficult question for which I couldn’t find many answers:

To learn a new skill. It is likely that I will move to developing training material for Maximo and I need to learn to speak to an imaginary audience to make the training interesting. The content is important, but it is how you engage which will determine whether it is considered good or mediocre. I used to do a lot of classroom training, but that was 30 years ago, and video-based training is not the same.
I have a subject that I think would suit a podcast format, the history of Maximo, it was this idea which got me to subscribe to the Podcasting for Beginners course in the first place. It is a subject that could help me branch out into interview style podcasts rather than solo. I’m thinking ahead here, a 2023 project.
The longer I stay on the podcast journey, the more I feel that I could get to enjoy it. I had zero experience of podcasts before subscribing to the course.

What’s in it for me?

Diary of a Digital Nobody

I think it will be fun to do this podcast, and to write the weekly posts.
It will be part of the digital scrapbook that I started last year. A website with a page for each of the obsessions I have, or have had, to help me resurrect the ones that I’ve lost the habit for. These are typically based on New Year’s resolutions, Pies, Quiches and Tarts, Ice Creams and Sorbets, Mixology (cocktails), Garden projects, and a place to remind me of the paperbacks I have read. Paperback Secrets was the first blog I started back in 2013 which lasted for several months. The motivation to create the digital scrapbook seems more important to me, than a podcast currently.
A lot of the ideas behind a digital scrapbook come from a desire to get to grips with a camera I bought a couple of years ago. Not the first camera investment, I confess. I want to move from taking snaps to taking photos. The obsessions give me a reason to attempt to create a photo.
I think it will be interesting for my family and friends to see what I am up to. I don’t spend too much time on the phone, so it is a way of me communicating to others.
It will allow me to look back at the past and remember events or things that happened, rather than just scratching my head at the end of the year as I try to recall anything I did.

Maximo Bite Size

To provide a different dimension to learning for my viewers of Maximo Secrets, the website that will host the podcast episodes.
From the episode transcripts there will be links to existing articles that will provide the detail.
To increase the volume of traffic going through to Maximo Secrets
To widen the Maximo Secrets audience from Maximo practitioners to Maximo users and potential clients.

My Podcasting Journey

It’s quite interesting writing the articles, although I wonder whether it is taking up too much time.
I wonder if there is the potential for a podcast about developing a podcast.
It gives back to the P2 community that may follow in the years to come.

What are my priorities if I have limited time?

The digital scrapbook aspect of The Diary of a Digital Nobody.
The podcast for The Diary of a Digital Nobody – to learn the process of podcasting.
My Podcasting Journey articles – I don’t want to give this up yet.
Maximo Bite Size. However, this could ride off the back of other work I am doing on Maximo Secrets, or my day job, so that writing the transcript and then recording the episode could take little effort. I think that realistically I am not going to spend hours of time after work doing more Maximo stuff, by the time I have finished work, I am done with Maximo for the day.

How sustainable do you feel each element is?

80% – The digital scrapbook. I need to get each of my areas of interest established as a page, so that it becomes easy to add a new post. As it grows, I think it will become self-sustaining, I will be reluctant to leave any page empty for a while, and I’ll get more enjoyment from looking back, just as others do with a photo album.
70% – The podcast of The Diary of a Digital Nobody. I am going to enjoy the recording process and the accomplishment and the learning experience. If I can get through the first 10-15 episodes, I think it will just continue, and I will start to look for items of interest especially if there is a photo opportunity.
40% – My Podcasting Journey, I’m afraid doesn’t have a long-term future, especially after I have launched a podcast. I don’t think I am near the end yet, and the longer it goes on I may be reluctant to give it up. Will I reach a point where I have little to say? I could move it to bi-weekly, then monthly, then what is the point? I will need to find a use for this for me to sustain it.
50% – Maximo Bite Size. This could be easy to write and record, especially after I have the podcast for The Diary of a Digital Nobody established, and I can reduce the recording and publishing time. It is Maximo Bite Size which will give me an opportunity to branch out into other forms of podcasting.

Do you want an audience?

The Diary of a Digital Nobody – hmm, that’s an interesting thought. No, but, no, but, maybe. I am doing this for me first, family next, but it could be quite interesting to see what happens, I’m certainly not expecting much, who’s going to find me?
Maximo Bite Size – Yes, there would be no point doing the podcast otherwise.

Are you going to link the two websites, and why?

You are asking tough questions! Probably, yes. I’ve got to work extremely hard to build personality into Maximo Bite Size. When I look at Maximo Secrets, or LinkedIn hardly any of my 2,500 followers know me and I don’t know them. Will they listen to a voice? I think many will start out listening, if anything for interest, I will be a relative novelty in the Maximo world. But will they continue to listen, I think so if the episodes are short, if I can avoid it sounding too much like I am reading a script, if they can get to know the person behind the voice. I will aim to provide a link from Maximo Secrets back to The Diary of a Digital Nobody, sometime over the summer, once I have the podcast for The Diary of a Digital Nobody established.

Dream Big Time

What is your podcast vision for the year ahead to 1st April 2023?

Digital scrapbook established and being used weekly.
The Diary of a Digital Nobody podcast is now past 50 episodes and has escaped podfade. It has a regular audience of 20 persons, with one episode having had 75 listeners. I just can’t imagine that people will be interested in this, and I have a small family and circle of friends.
Maximo Bite Size now has 30 episodes and is being churned out at least one episode per week. The articles have added 15,000 views, the podcast episodes have been listened to 2,000 times.

Note. My Podcasting Journey wasn’t in the grand vision.

Short Term Goals

What do you want to have achieved by the end of April 2022?

Copy across all the posts from Paperback Secrets to The Diary of a Digital Nobody and write a post on the one book I’ve read this year, may be two by then!
Maintain weekly articles for My 2022 Diary and My Podcast Journey
Add photos to each of the weeks in My 2022 Diary
Record at least the first week of My 2022 Diary as a podcast, so that I am happy with it being published.
Start writing and publishing the articles for Maximo Bite Size on a regular basis. I’m thinking if I publish them, that will give me momentum on this, and I can record later. I should aim for at least one/week.

Are all the short-term goals measurable and realistic? Yes, looks like it, on both accounts.