I'd Rather Be Writing » Podcasting

New Content Strategy Podcast and Other Good Resources

Tom Johnson — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:49:25 +0000

Content Talks is a new podcast from Brain Traffic

Hey podcast listeners, check out Content Talks, a new podcast by Brain Traffic on content strategy. The first episode features Kristina Halverson interviewing Ann Rockley about content strategy issues. It’s a great interview, and Ann sounds lively and engaged.

Kristina steers Ann towards detailed stories and experiences as they make their way through a host of content issues. Kristina says they will be producing a weekly podcast show. The audio quality in this show is superb, by the way.

While you’re listening to podcasts, check out several others as well. The Spoolcast from Jared Spool is full of relevant discussions for designers, communicators, information architects, illustrators, web managers, and more. In particular, check out one of his recent shows, Stephen Anderson, the Quest for Emotional Engagement.

I also enjoy Tech Nation with Dr. Moira Gunn. Moira is a skilled interviewer, and her topics are engaging with a general technical interest. In particular, I especially enjoyed The Internet Age of Journalism episode.

If you also enjoy webinars, both Scott Abel of The Content Wrangler and Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium produce regular webinars. You can listen to Scott’s interview with Richard Hamilton on Managing Technical Writing Teams. And check out Scriptorium’s DITA Best Practices webinar on Scriptorium with Tony Self.

I’m also planning to produce more regular podcasts. My most recent podcast was an interview with Donna Spencer on Information Architecture.

Do you listen to other podcasts you enjoy? Let me know in the comments below.

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Podcast: Finding and Creating Relevant Content — Strategies for Social Media

Tom Johnson — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 06:21:18 +0000

Download MP3
Length: 70 min.

In the barrage of information created by all the social media channels, how can you find relevant content? How can you move past forms of noise to actually produce content that engages users? What forms of social media do students respond to the most? These are some of the questions we explored in a presentation I gave to Brigham Young University Provo students earlier this week. This podcast is a recording of the presentation.

The podcast is about an hour long, and I bookended the presentation with some thoughts before and after.

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When Social Media Becomes Hollow

Tom Johnson — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:09:02 +0000

I attended Podcamp Salt Lake City (Podcampslc.org) on Friday for the third year in a row. The attendees have fluctuated. The first year, about 30 attended. The next year, about 90 attended. This year, the attendees decreased to around 45.

Sometimes events just suffer from poor timing. We are all so busy. But I noticed another trend: more and more sessions focused on social media, almost as much as podcasting. Here are a few of the session titles:

Client Attraction with Digital Media
Using social media to promote your content
Leveraging New / Social Media for Personal Branding
5 Killer Press Release Strategies For Your Podcasts

At one point I wondered if the social media club had infiltrated the podcasting crowd. Among the audience, it seemed everyone was genuinely interested in using social media to grow their business.

Thom Allen, the organizer of PodcampSLC, is even considering changing the name and focus of the conference to broaden the scope next year. I mentioned that we could change it to a “Social Media Camp” and include podcasting as a subtrack, fitting it into the larger trend of social media. If we changed that focus, I’m confident we would have 95+ bouncy people attending.

Many of the topics around social media included strategies for increasing your visibility and followers. One presenter laid down a social media methodology: get the reader’s attention, ask permission to interact (via a newsletter sign up), build trust with content, and then use that trust to influence decisions. It’s the same strategy Jason Van Orden teaches.

Other social media tips recommended by presenters included registering domain names in every social media space available, responding to every Facebook, Twitter, and email reply you receive from readers, and maintaining a presence in all major social media spheres, even the untrendy MySpace.

I’m not a huge social media fan, and during one IM moment with Jane, at home with the kids, she said, “I hate social media.” She says she uses Twitter because she wants to interact with her friends, not to “promote her brand.” She wants any “fame” to follow naturally from the content she produces rather than from spending 10 hours a day doing social media networking.

Me too. It’s not that I dislike Twitter or blogging or podcasting or Facebook or the infinite number of new social sites. For me, it’s the idea that social media’s only purpose is to grow your business and readership. I dislike the idea that it’s all essentially a business motive. You build trust so you can influence others and get them to follow you and subscribe to your newsletter. You engage in social media so you can increase your visibility, so people will link back to you, buy your products and services, and so you can take in more money and increase your product offerings. You engage in social media so you can expand your reach and little by little dominate the world.

When the discussion about social media revolves around this end game, I start to feel uneasy. It’s the same ill feeling I had in college when I would speak with business majors. Whereas most of us were engaged in literature or science, business majors seemed to focus only on schemes to make money. Is that how they interpret social media? As another scheme to make money?

I didn’t tweet much during the first half of Podcamp because I simply didn’t feel like it. After my presentation, I was a bit more relaxed and exhausted at the same time. My brain was numb from having stayed up too late the night before preparing my presentation and fulfilling other assignments. But after I ran into an old mission buddy at Podcamp, things started to turn around. I found a second wind and became much more alive. I started asking questions to the presenters, began posting a few tweets, and overall became more engaged.

When I post a tweet, publish a blog post, record a podcast, or engage in any other form of social media, I don’t consciously do it with the intent of growing my readership and increasing my brand or business. I don’t engage in social media for the business-motivated end game. I’m not trying to build trust with readers so that I can later influence them with product or service decisions. I’m just expressing and communicating about things I’m interested in. If the consequence is that people follow me and we interact, great. But my actions aren’t a ploy for influence. Influence comes from being passionate about something that captures you entirely, not from calculating SEO techniques to maximize visibility on every social media platform.

This year may mark the end of PodcampSLC and the genesis of a “Social Media Camp” of some kind. Businesses looking to increase their social savvy will send their marketing team to learn all about the rules of transparency and authenticity. They’ll discover the need for openness and unfiltered interaction with readers and clients. But if the entire social media strategy is built up with an end game of increased sales and customer followers, it will be a hollow endeavor.

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What’s the Best Microphone for Screencasting?

Tom Johnson — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:47:38 +0000

The other week I visited Performance Audio in downtown Salt Lake to see what recommendations they had for microphones. The clerk asked me what audio interface I was using. I said I was just plugging my mixer directly into the computer. He looked shocked and said no matter how good of a microphone I bought, the real increase in performance would come with an audio interface.

The Audio Interface

An audio interface converts the analog signal to a digital signal. It turns out that rather than buying a fancy audio interface for $150+, I could just use my Zoom H4 as an audio interface between the mixer and the computer. Here’s what that setup looks like:

Sound travels from the mic to mixer to H4 to laptop

That’s a Shure SM58 microphone plugged in to a Behringer Xenyx 802 mixer. The mixer plugs into the ZoomH4, which connects to the laptop through a USB cable.

Listen to the difference:

Without the audio interface

With the audio interface:

The audio interface example has some more clarity and crispness to the voice. It’s more apparent with gaps of silence — listen to the static background at the start of the sample in the first version compared with the complete absence of any static background in the second example. The Zoom H4 is really quite a cool solution for an audio interface. Just switch it to Audio I/O mode and voila, it converts the analog signal from the mixer to a clearer, digital one.

The Zoom H4 in audio interface mode

Inexpensive Mics

Sometimes it helps to hear contrasts in order to evaluate sounds. If you’re on a tight budget, you could just use an inexpensive Plantronics headset, like this:

Inexpensive Plantronics headset

And this is what it sounds like:

Here’s a Logitech USB headset. It sounds even worse:

Here’s a dynamic omnidirectional lapel mic attached to my collar as I record:

Yikes.

Why the Mixer?

If I take the mixer out of the equation, the audio still sounds good. Here’s an example with just the Shure mic connected the H4, and then to the laptop (with no mixer):

Not bad. If it sounds pretty good, why add the mixer? The mixer allows you to adjust the low, mid, and high frequencies of your voice. So you have more control over how your voice sounds.

You can also increase the level of the voice with a mixer. I find that if I just use the Zoom H4 with a mic, the level is unacceptably low unless I’m speaking directly into the mic in a close, focused way. In that last recording, I cranked up the sound level to the max just so it would sound normal.

You can also record directly into the Zoom H4′s built-in mics (what look like a taser) without connecting an external microphone. When you do that, here’s what it sounds like:

Can you hear the difference in sound? The built-in microphone with the Zoom H4 is a condenser mic, which is a higher quality, more sensitive microphone than the Shure SM58′s dynamic mic. Most high quality studio mics are condenser mics rather than dynamic mics (the physics is vastly different, but not worth explaining).

The condenser mics, however, tend to pick up more mouth noises (breathing, swallowing, opening or closing your mouth, etc), so it’s a little trickier to record well. Recording 101 is to get your mouth close to the microphone, but when you get close, you also get the unwanted mouth sounds.

Speaking of getting close to a mic, one cool benefit of the Shure SM58 mic is its ability to amplify the base frequencies of your voice when you get close. Here’s a sample of how that sounds:

I’m not sure I would want to listen to a ton of video tutorials in a late-night-DJ type voice, so I usually don’t get that close, but it’s nice to know the effect is there if I want it.

Acoustic Environments

I’ve been toying with the idea of better acoustics, so I created a cardboard box lined with old eggcrate foam that some friends left in our basement. This is what it looks like:

Homemade eggcrate foam wall

It doubles as a sleeping mattress if you’re homeless. Just add some newspaper on top and you’re all set. By the way, if you think carrying this around an IT department is cool, you’ve probably spent too much time in your basement.

The eggcrate foam isn’t really acoustic dampening foam, so its effect is negligible. I’d probably be better with some blankets draped around.

Here’s how the mic sounds without the foam wall:

And with the foam wall:

Not much difference.

Instead of the egg crate foam, I’m thinking of going for a Reflexion Shield like this:

sE Electronics Reflexion Filter

Much cooler. By the way, this wall is actually smaller than it looks. It’s about the size of two and a half computer monitors. They cost $300 and require a mic base stand to keep them propped up.

Plosives, Pop Filters, and Windscreens

Can you identify what’s attached to the mic in the following photo?

Homemade pop filter

It’s pantyhose stretched across a bent coat hanger. Classy, I know. That’s apparently how to make a homemade pop filter. Pop filters cut down on plosives. Removing plosives can make a dramatic difference in the quality of your recording.

To understand plosives, put your hand in front of your mouth and say “penguins puffing on the patio.” Lots of puffs of air hit your hand. Now put your coat sleeve in front of your mouth (or, if you’re wearing pantyhose …), and try again. The puffs of air are gone.

Puffs of air aren’t a big deal in everyday conversation, but microphones register puffs of air like giant gusts, or like a truck releasing its hydralic brakes. The sound waves jump to the top of the range. It’s hard on the ears.

Apparently windscreens (foam covers for mics) are meant to reduce wind noises when you’re outdoors, or to protect your mic from germs when you pass it around. But in my experiment, the windscreen cuts down the plosives just as well as the pop filter.

Here’s the sound without any windscreen or pop filter:

Can you hear the plosives? I picked a sentence that is packed with them, so they will be more apparent.

Here’s the sound with a windscreen:

Here’s the sound with the pop filter:

Could you really tell the difference?

As a bonus, the windscreen makes the mic look a lot cooler than it does with stretched pantyhose.

What Really Matters

I was talking with my colleague Mike today, a former DJ, about tips and tricks with sound. He explained that adding an element of music takes some of the focus off the voice. He also recommended that if I add music, I should pan the music a little to the right and the voice a little to the left so the sound isn’t competing for the same space.

But, he added, although as a DJ he often did little tricks here and there to increase the quality of the sound, he found that people didn’t notice and … just danced.

And that’s really what it comes down to. Not the little tricks and tweaks of the voice, but the ability to create an interesting, conversational voice in spite of insipid instructional material that you may be reading.

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Quick Poll on My Podcast Topic

Tom Johnson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:39:40 +0000

I’m rethinking the focus of my podcast, and I’d like to get your feedback. With each of the following poll questions, you can see the results immediately. If you have responses that don’t fit the yes or no answers, please use the comments field below the post. Thanks for the feedback.

[poll id="5"] [poll id="8"] [poll id="6"] [poll id="7"] [poll id="11"] [poll id="9"] [poll id="12"]

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Sailboats and Cruise Ships, or, How My Work Podcast Was Dwarfed by a Mega Work Podcast

Tom Johnson — Thu, 21 May 2009 04:16:30 +0000

A couple of months ago, I wanted to start a podcast at my work, and so I interviewed someone who has been in our IT department for 28 years about the evolution of the department over the years.

The podcast took about a month to get approved, and the week before it was posted, as I was tracking down the person who controlled our iTunes feed and Feedburner, I found that another department, Digital Media, was in the process of launching a full-scale dedicated radio station with 24/7 programming and more than a dozen new shows, with new episodes published weekly, also downloadable as podcasts. Radio.lds.org allows you to listen to a live stream of programming online or, if you have an HD Radio in certain cities, you can listen in your car. All the shows also have feeds in iTunes, so they double as podcasts on your iPod.

The podcasts at radio.lds.org target a Mormon audience, but you may find the Everything Creative show interesting. Some of the other podcasts include informal conversations with leaders, stories related at conferences, a history of hymns, scripture stories, and other topics. The focus on conversations and stories is right on target.

Seeing this full-scale podcasting effort (I hope they haven’t underestimated the work necessary to keep this going), made me rethink my work podcast. There’s no longer a need, because it is being fully filled elsewhere, through another department.

A few years ago, as I was transitioning from a startup to a large company and feeling a little frustrated by the bureaucracy of approval required for nearly everything, an older colleague explained this metaphor. She told me small companies are like sailboats, nimble, quick and able to turn sharply, without much notice. Large companies, on the other hand, are like cruise ships. Massive and heavy — it takes them half a mile just to turn around. But while slow, they can also do incredibly powerful things.

I apply this metaphor to the podcasts. My little work podcast, which strangely seems the product of an IT startup, even though it is part of the same organization, is buried in the shadows of Radio.LDS.org’s gigantic all-consuming 24/7 radio station/media outlet/podcast deluge.

While on the topic of podcasts, the other day Gordon McLean of One Man Writes asked listeners what their favorite podcasts are. Here’s what I listen to regularly on my iPod right now: IT Author, WordPress weekly, Boagworld, The WordPress Podcast, This American Life, InDesign Secrets, Brain Sparks, NPR Technology Podcast, This Week in Tech, and Grammar Girl.

My favorite podcast of the week is the IT Author interview of Geoffrey Pullum, an English professor who debunks many assertions in Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage. I learned some interesting things about grammar from the interview. First, the that versus which rule, using “that” for restrictive clauses and “which” for non-restrictive clauses, appears to be an invention by Fowler in the early part of the twentieth century.

And Strunk and White’s enforcement of singular verbs with certain pronouns (for example, “None of us has an umbrella” rather than “None of us have an umbrella”) also seems to be a rule invention, not in keeping with the accepted grammar of his day.

I consider myself fortunate to live in a time when so much information is available and consumable for free.

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Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and the Real Reason You Are a Successful Writer

Tom Johnson — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:39:38 +0000

Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success challenges assumptions about innate genius and natural-born talent. Through a series of detailed examples, Gladwell explains away these gifts by attributing them to practice, timing, circumstance, upbringing, culture, and opportunity. In other words, those really smart, successful people we admire—Mozart, Bill Gates, the Beatles—weren’t born with natural talent. Instead, they had the right upbringing, were in the right place at the right time, and through 10,000 hours of hard work and a few lucky opportunities, landed success.

Although Gladwell’s Outliers has been criticized for drawing generalizations from a “flimsy selection of colorful anecdotes and stories,” and his argument borders “social predestination,” according to the New York Times, Gladwell’s conclusions do provoke a lot of thought and self-reflection. If you look at the reasons why you’re a successful writer, you may find it was due more to circumstance, practice, and upbringing than any gift you were imbued with from birth.

For example, rather than this model of success:

Common misconception about how success happens

This is really what’s going on:

The real story of success

Practice

Gladwell says most experts accrue about 10,000 hours of practice before they develop their talent. For example, the Beatles spent two years in Germany playing long hours each day (8 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a good chunk of the year) before they became famous. Bill Gates spent hours and hours programming (20 to 30 hours a week), skipping athletics and even sneaking out at night to get in computer time. Although Mozart was skilled at the piano, he didn’t start writing his own compositions until he reached 21 years of age (prior to that, he mostly played compositions that others wrote). If you add up all the hours of practice from those who possess talent, and compare them to those who lack talent, the numbers explain a lot.

Timing

Gladwell relates several examples of people who were successful because they had the right skills at the right time. For example, William Joy (who wrote Unix) learned programming before it became popular. Just about the time he accrued 10,000 hours of programming practice, personal computing arrived, making the scene perfect for someone with his skillset to exploit the market.

As another example, in the 1940s and 50s, lawyers skilled in dealing with hostile takeovers and litigation suddenly became highly sought after, whereas years earlier the practice was considered shady. Those lawyers who accrued the practice before the skills were valued after became wildly successful.

Culture

To illustrate the importance of culture in success, Gladwell relates a story of a Colombian pilot who most likely crashed a plane because, even with diminishing fuel, he wasn’t assertive enough to stand up to the intimidating control tower agents and demand to land. Cultures that encourage passive submission to hierarchy, or who phrase their questions in subtle, vague euphemisms, may find themselves at a disadvantage in some situations, such as the airplane cockpit.

Other times, your culture works for you. For example, Gladwell explains that Asians who spent centuries working in rice paddies, a type of farming that requires meticulous care all year long, passed on this work ethic to their posterity. Many of the inheritors of the rice-paddy culture apply the same diligence in their schoolwork. This diligence, of course, brings more success.

Upbringing

The way you were raised, namely with wealthy or less fortunate parents, also plays a role. Gladwell explains that when wealthy parents drive their children to the doctor, they tell their children things like, “Johnny, now if you have any questions, be sure to ask the doctor. This is your opportunity to talk to him about any health problems you’re having….” And so on.

In contrast, the children of poor parents may feel less entitled to this same questioning. Instead, they accept what the doctor tells them straight out, without surfacing concerns or criticisms. Gladwell then uses Chris Langan, a genius with a 195 IQ who wasn’t able to succeed in college, as an example. Langan failed to get a PhD (his goal) not because he lacked intelligence, but because he had a mentality to passively accept the conditions and limitations others imposed on him. Langan ended up dropping out of college because he couldn’t convince his teachers to accommodate a simple change in his schedule (a change he needed because his truck broke and he could no longer get to campus early in the morning).

My Story

I found it impossible to read Outliers: The Story of Success without looking more closely at my own story of “success.” Obviously I’m not a success like the people mentioned in his book, but I am a professional technical writer with a well-known blog and podcast. How did I manage that?

First, I wrote extensively in junior high, high school, and college. My father, a lover of literature, frequently put books in my hand, established a model of reading, and shared his passion for literature and ideas. My mother made every effort to open opportunities for me, sometimes working two jobs to help pay for my undergraduate education.

After college, I continued writing daily through a three-year MFA program at Columbia. Rather than study fiction or poetry, I studied literary nonfiction, particularly the personal essay. It was my good fortune that I graduated with the degree I did at the time I did. When I graduated in 2002, the blogosphere erupted. It was the perfect time for someone with skills in short personal essays to flourish.

My foray into podcasting follows a similar pattern. Although I don’t have an audio engineering background, much of my success in podcasting comes from my interviewing skills, from my ability to find people and get them to open up. From 1994 to 1996, I spent two years as an LDS missionary in Venezuela, interacting with strangers ten hours a day. Each morning we ventured out into unknown barrios, knocking on doors, talking with people in the streets, talking with people in their homes, befriending members and anyone we came in contact with. It was a social immersion in another culture, but it was also training ground for podcasting, because although I’m generally shy and will keep to myself, I feel completely comfortable approaching strangers and interviewing them in a conversational, natural style. I developed a skill that became extremely useful at the right time.

My facility with WordPress also fits into the equation. I’m comfortable with WordPress and can create websites fairly easily, but it wasn’t always this way. As a composition instructor at Columbia, I created a website for my students because I saw the value of student-to-student interaction. I then created an elaborate website teaching at the American University in Cairo. I spent months painstakingly figuring out how to do technical things. I also had a sister in graphic design and a brother-in-law in interaction design that I could occasionally rely upon for information.

More valuable than specific technical knowledge, though, I learned how to solve technical problems. I learned patience to search forums, persistence to query search engines, and a trial-and-error mentality that encouraged experimentation as a solution. This ability to continue plugging away at a problem, especially when the answer isn’t easy, is a skill incredibly useful for IT (and it’s what enables people to excel at math, according to a study Gladwell cites). When I stumbled upon WordPress, I already had hundreds of hours working with websites, and I brought that skillset to the existing scene and combined it with my writing and interviewing skills.

Besides timing and practice, I also attribute some of my success to lucky opportunities. When I applied for my first job in technical writing, the writing portfolio I submitted included an article about protein, which I’d written as a copywriter for a health company (a job I got through a connection from my techie sister and brother-in law). The hiring manager had a PhD in biology and could see that what I wrote about protein was, in fact, clear and accurate. Not only that, she knew it was a difficult concept to write about. It was precisely because of this article on protein that I was hired, even though I had no experience in technical writing. It was a lucky connection that opened up an opportunity for me.

I’ve also been fortunate to never have technical writing jobs that required more than 40-hour work weeks. I frequently hear about people routinely working 60-hour weeks, which would preclude any spare time for blogging and podcasting. Instead, even with three kids, a wife, and other commitments (such as being a scout leader), I manage to have most evenings and weekends free.

And speaking of that wife, she turns out to be another huge factor in my writing, since she not only writes in an engaging way that motivates and inspires me but also helps create a safe writing environment in our home. When I turn on my computer, she doesn’t pull me away to mop the floor (not usually, anyway). Instead, she joins me and we write together on the couch, sharing thoughts and experiences with each other. When I married her, I never anticipated that our lives would be this way, but it did and has made a significant difference in finding time to write.

Not all of my background, however, works positively toward success. If there’s one thing I’m conflicted about, it’s my lack of a sense of entitlement. For example, I’ve always felt hesitant about returning items to stores, about raising my hand to offer criticisms or complaints in large groups. I sometimes devalue my contributions at work. Frequently I’m content to accept my surrounding conditions and the status quo because either I don’t think I can change it, it requires too much effort, or I don’t care.

After reading Outliers, I find myself acting more assertively. I catch myself when I’m being passive, or when I don’t feel qualified or entitled to something.

I realize that a sense of entitlement is usually looked at negatively (certainly it can lead to arrogance and pride), but not having any sense of entitlement can be stifling. People who don’t feel entitled to anything lack confidence and self-esteem. They accept their conditions. They do what their superiors tell them. They lack ambition and don’t challenge the status quo. They second-guess their worth, attributing any modicum of competence to other people and circumstantial factors. It’s a self-defeating, trapping mentality that limits your ability to succeed because you don’t feel entitled to success.

My point is not to give a biography of my life, but rather to illustrate Gladwell’s point: if you start looking at the underpinnings behind your success, you can start connecting the dots to see how you arrived where you did. It usually isn’t that you have a knack for a certain profession, but that you acquired the necessary skills through practice, upbringing, environment, culture, and lucky opportunities.

Outliers reminds me of a scene from the movie Good Will Hunting, where Matt Damon, playing a poor teen from the South side of Boston confronts a rich MIT student. Damon tells him, You were born on third base and you think you hit a triple. In other words, we often over-attribute our writing successes to our natural talents. But really, those talents and abilities came about through a series of explainable, fortunate circumstances that we should recognize and be grateful for.

Resources

Buy Outliers: The Story of Success from Amazon

See Malcolm Gladwell’s blog

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Some Notes from Podcamp

Tom Johnson — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:39:38 +0000

Attendance at PodcampSLC tripled from last year. More than 100 people attended, filling the main conference auditorium at Neumont University in Sandy, Utah. I especially enjoyed the opening address from Scott Johnson of MyExtraLife.com. He recommended that you try throwing everything against the wall and see what sticks. As a cartoonist, he showed dozens of cool figures he’s drawn, including one drawn with a sharpee on a toilet seat. He loved drawing cartoon figures. It was his passion — and it totally shined through. He was without question the most successful.

Thom Allen is a natural-born conference organizer. Everything from the setup to the schedule to the recording and orchestrating was smooth and flawless. I was thinking about the name “Podcamp,” though. My understanding is that a camp involves more spontaneous, informal, unplanned sessions. It’s a mentality difficult to pull off. During the time scheduled for breakout sessions like this, everyone just talked with each other. The only unconference I’ve ever attended was one Ann Gentle threw together at the Doc Train West 2008. She asked participants to write something they could share for 15 minutes on a white board, and then we moved through the topics. It actually worked.

One thing I love about Podcamp is the tech-savvy audience. 95% of the attendees have laptops and are on Twitter. When the wireless is down, it’s almost like the power is out. I also liked the 30 minute time length for sessions, with 10 minute breaks between sessions. I learn just as much from a 30 minute session as I do from a 50 minute session. And I could probably learn the same from 20 minute sessions too. The time is long enough to get exposure to an idea, method, or topic the speaker is introducing. That’s really the benefit of a conference: exposure to new ideas. And meeting new people.

I also enjoyed my brief exchanges with Jason Alba and Joseph Scott. Jason recommended that I increase my WordPress consulting fee to $250 an hour. People assume that price correlates with expertise. This is what he charges (for business consulting), and gets it. He also recommended that I write a book. When you write a book, people assume you’re an expert, he said.

The book idea stuck with me. I really should write a book, even if it’s only a short self-published e-book. At the very least, I could use it as an enticement to get people to subscribe to my blog. If I did write a book, it would be an irreverent, thought-provoking one that presented a nontraditional, radical perspective on the tech writing industry.

Joseph didn’t present, but he shared that WordPress is working on a plugin for uploading and sharing video using the same service as WordPress.com. Right now, the only way to get HD videos onto your WordPress.org blog is by increasing your space on a WordPress.com blog, uploading and posting the video on your WordPress.com blog, and then inserting the embed code into a WordPress.org blog. Joseph said to keep aware of some upcoming developments with WordPress and video.

I had to miss a couple of Podcamp sessions to attend a lunch with our IT department’s CIO. I was as nervous about the lunch as I was about my presentation. The lunch went well, but to do justice, it would require an entirely new post. The events that take place in one day are too much.

Jane and me at Podcamp Salt Lake City

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Interviews that Shaped My Podcasting Style and Approach

Tom Johnson — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:56:05 +0000

At Podcamp SLC, I’m giving a presentation about how to interview remote and local guests for podcasts. Rather than going into the technical details of my recording process (which I would be happy to do), I’ve decided to share stories of memorable podcasts that changed my interviewing style and approach.

Of the 80+ interviews I’ve done, a dozen of them made me rethink my method in some way. The following are five principles I learned from these experiences.

1. Find Knowledgeable People to Interview.

In the Minneapolis STC Summit, I brought along my new H4 Zoom recorder and interviewed, at random, about twenty people. I chose my interviewees with the assumption that everyone has a story to tell (a common assumption writers have).

Unfortunately, none of these interviews lasted more than five minutes. Their stories remained buried. I had to push the interview forward, asking more and more questions to help the interviewee find something to say. Content just didn’t flow freely. Here’s an example:

Despite my long-held belief about unraveling hidden stories, I learned that it doesn’t quite work when interviewing people for podcasts. In contrast, it’s much easier to interview someone who already has something to say. Look for someone who recently published an article or book, gave a presentation, posted a long entry on a forum or blog, or did something notable. With these people, content is already on their mind. It flows freely when you ask simple questions.

2. Don’t Give Questions to Interviewees Beforehand

As I did more interview podcasts, especially over Skype, I fell into the habit of always giving interviewees the questions beforehand. I feared they wouldn’t feel prepared otherwise. But this resulted in stiff podcasts, where the interviewee would sound rehearsed and predictable. In some cases, the interviewee actually read a script. If I veered off the pre-stated path, they seemed a bit hesitant.

After some research, I decided to stop giving questions to the interviewees. To my surprise, even though I hadn’t given interviewees any questions beforehand (just general topics), they answered flawlessly and intelligently. They were aware of the issues I brought up. And they already had answers. Here’s an example of a question I asked Paul Pehrson:

If you find the right person, someone passionate and knowledgeable about a topic, you need only to let the interviewee know the topics you plan to cover. Then go with the flow. You’re not locked in to a set of predetermined questions. You’re free to go outside the path you planned. (If you do give the person questions, make it clear that you’re not limiting the interview to those questions.)

As you go with the flow, ask questions based on the interviewee’s answers, and don’t fear that the interviewee won’t have an answer. It might surprise you how prepared and knowledgeable he or she is (again, see principle #1).

3. Ask Questions in a Natural Order

Even though I advocate a free-form style of interviewing, this doesn’t mean I don’t prepare beforehand. I always prepare at least an hour before the interview, reading what the interviewee has written, or researching the general topic. I gather a list of questions I want to ask.

I may arrange the questions in a natural order, but once I start the interview, I completely scrap the order. In fact, I rarely even look at the questions. They’re on my mind, and based on the interviewee’s responses, the next question naturally comes to me. The flow of the interview determines the order of the questions.

For example, in my last interview with Richard Hamilton, I had read his book (most of it, anyway) and pulled together about 15 questions. When I started the interview, I jumped around, asking the question that naturally connected with his last answer. It worked well, and one listener later commented that the interview sounded more like a conversation than an interview. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

To be sure you ask questions in a natural order, don’t be afraid to leave your questions folded in a notebook. The interview will take a shape of its own, a path based on the interviewee’s responses, which you can’t totally predict. If you force the direction of the interview, the result will be a less natural exchange. In fact, it may come across as more of a job interview than a podcast.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Tough Questions

When you interview, it’s important to ask the questions you want to ask. Sometimes these questions may be tough to answer, but if you skip them, you do yourself, your listeners, and the interviewee a disservice.

I once interviewed a vendor spokesperson about his product, and because it was a sponsored podcast, I refrained from a few questions I normally would have asked. I thought they would make him feel uncomfortable. Afterwards, I regretted omitting the questions. The interview came off as light.

During my next interview, I asked the hardest questions I could think of (and which I wanted to ask). Here’s an excerpt:

I was a little surprised at how well the interviewee handled them. Difficult questions, it turns out, aren’t always so difficult. Sure, you may want to ease into them, saving them for the latter half of the interview. But give your interviewee some credit. These questions are often what your listeners want to hear. It’s what you want to hear. And it shows your confidence in the interviewee’s subject matter expertise.

5. Get the Best Possible Audio Quality

Shortly after I moved to Eagle Mountain, a little community tucked in the West bench of Utah Valley (where the bandwidth is limited), I recorded a podcast with someone in Michigan. The Skype connection was terrible, and we had to reschedule. The second time I called, we continued through the interview, but the audio fluctuated. At times it cut out and then came back. Here’s an excerpt:

After the interview ended, it was a nightmare to post-process the audio. I postponed it for weeks. It took me hours to salvage it. At that point, I knew that I couldn’t count on Skype for the recording. Some conversations would go well, others would be sketchy. I needed a more stable platform, especially if I was setting up interviews with well-known experts.

As a solution, I turned to a technique called the “Double Ender,” which I read about in Tricks of the Podcast Masters. The Double Ender technique involves both you and the interviewee recording on your own machines. You ask the interviewee to download Audacity and press Record, and you do the same — then you have the conversation over Skype. Afterwards you sync the two separately recorded tracks together.

The Double Ender Technique

The effect of using the Double Ender technique is that you seem to be in the same room. If the interviewee has a good mic, it can sound as if you’re in a studio.

Here’s an example:

At first, I had hesitations about this method. I thought it might be too technically challenging, or too much of a hassle. But it turns out this isn’t the case. Almost everyone has a headset and can download Audacity in a few minutes.

Before launching into the interview, I ensure the interviewee’s Audacity project rate is at 44100 Hz, that the right recording device is selected in Preferences, and that sound waves appear as they talk. Then I tell them to press the red button to start recording, and I do the same. After the interview, I send them the LAME codec so they can export the recording as an MP3 (I walk them through this on the phone). They then send me the file through a generic account on yousendit.com.

I do apply some post-processing to the file they send. If their audio has any background noise, I run it through Soundsoap to clean it up.

Here’s a file that has a lot of background static.

Here’s the same file after cleaning it up with Soundsoap.

I then balance both audio tracks with the Gigavox Levelator, which increases, balances, and enriches the sound. I then sync the two tracks together and voila, magically we sound like we’re sitting right next to each other.

Here’s another example of a successful double-ender recorded podcast.

If you try this technique, I highly recommend using Soundsoap from BIAS. The Levelator increases the volume and richness of the voices, but also increases any background noise as well. Soundsoap allows you to remove most of that background noise so that your podcast doesn’t have sounds of rushing static.

A Few Other Notes

Finding Your Natural Podcasting Style. As I was interviewing people for podcasts at the STC Summit, someone pointed out that I had a knack for approaching people, that I was personable and not shy. I’ve since reflected on this. Maybe it’s a style I learned from my two years as a missionary in Venezuela. I don’t know. But interviewing, I’ve decided, is my natural podcasting style. It’s what I do best.

Interviewing isn’t everyone’s style. Some people find co-host shows more natural. Others find it natural to deliver the entire show themselves. Others are excellent at bantering with a group of people. Although I’ve tried these formats, I always come back to the one-on-one interview. That’s me. That’s how I function best. It’s important to embrace the style that comes naturally to you. Those are the best podcasts you’ll deliver.

Being Interviewed Is Exhilarating. Although I had recorded more than a dozen podcasts, it wasn’t until I was actually interviewed for a podcast myself that I realized what an exhilarating experience it is to be interviewed. Being interviewed is fun. It makes you feel like an expert. The interviewer listens intently, asks follow-up questions, wants to know your perspective and opinion. It makes you feel important.

Here’s a podcast in which Alistair Christie of ITAuthor.com interviews me:

When I realized how fun it was to be interviewed, it made me less shy in asking to interview others. I knew it made them feel knowledgeable and important, even honored. It’s an experience people never forget.

When I meet these same interviewees in person at conferences or other events, we have a connection. I can see that the interview made an impression. It’s an experience people highly meaningful. Because of the value of the exchange, I approach people with more confidence and enthusiasm when asking to interview them.

Blog Sponsors

Podcamp Salt Lake City, March 27 — “Interviewing Remote and Local Guests for Podcasts”

Tom Johnson — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:03:09 +0000

If you’re in Utah, come check out Podcamp SLC on Friday, March 27 at Neumont University, South Jordan. I’ll be presenting on “Interviewing Remote and Local Guests for Podcasts.” Here’s a description of my presentation:

Interviewing is an art — one that can enable you to generate high-quality content for your podcast with little effort on your part, if you can find the right guest and ask the right questions. Connecting with another professional either in person or hundreds of miles away can be rewarding and even exhilarating, but you have to know how to ask the right questions (ones that will solicit interesting responses) and understand how to handle the technical details to get the best possible audio. In this presentation, you’ll learn five must-know interview techniques as well learn methods for getting studio-quality recordings even when you’re only connected with Skype.

Podcamp Salt Lake City

For more information on Podcamp Salt Lake City, including the schedule, location, and other details, see the podcampSLC site. It looks like all the sessions will be videotaped, so if you’re too far away to attend, stay subscribed to my blog and watch for links to the upcoming videos.