Wired Parish Blog

Top 10 Podcasting Mistakes (Part 7)

7. Over-Produced and Too 'Slick'

I'm going to pick on one particular cast in mistake 7. I recently wandered upon the William Lane Craig podcast--The Reasonable Faith Podcast.

Craig is a philosopher and Christian apologist and does some really good work.

The podcast is well-done from a sound quality and production standpoint. Great work there. Love it. The content is laid out well, and by and large, it's a really good cast. I'm subscribed to it and enjoy listening. Loved the episode on the Fine Tuning Argument.

But the co-host wears me out in one major area: He's way, way, way too polished.

He has a brilliant radio voice. I'm definitely envious. Very polished. Toooo polished. When he asks questions of Craig, they're obviously scripted. Scripted is fine. Obviously scripted is not. The questions just don't feel natural. They're not conversational. They're produced. Worse, at times he asks questions or makes comments with a voice that says, 'Now, Bill, you and I both know this, but how about you break this down for the listeners?' Those are bad things.

I can't capture the feel of this in text; so you'd do well to download some episodes to get a sense of what I'm talking about. My guess is that he has this approach because he's worked in radio and his audience has been the 40 and up demographic.

But podcasting is . . . well . . . different. Younger audience. MUCH more conversational feel.

Here's the rule of thumb for co-hosts: You're asking questions for the rest of us. That means you present yourself as a fellow learner along with us--the listeners.

The co-host is a bridge between the host and the listeners. The best way to accomplish this is to be a learner alongside the listeners--not a guy who already has the answers along with the host. Definitely not a guy with a scripted list of questions that SOUNDS like it's a scripted list of questions.

Hero Worship: Why Jay Is a Complete Child

Reached an in-principle agreement with a new podcast host yesterday. Won't name names since we don't have all the legal stuff squared away, but I looooove this gentleman.

To say that he's been instrumental in shaping my views on leadership would be a dramatic understatement. So I'm thrilled that we get to work with him if for no other reason than because we get to work with one of my idols.

Quick side note: A couple of months ago, our newest awesome team member Gabe called to say, 'Hey, we have a call set up with 'Bob.' Are you familiar with him?'

My response: 'Tell ya what, bud. I'm hanging up now because I don't like being lied to. You call me back when you can start telling the truth.' Click.

So yesterday 'Bob' said, 'I think we should start by working through my book 'X.''

'X' was the first book I read by him, and it's horribly dog-eared and highlighted.

My response was (and this is the part where I demonstrate that I can be a complete child), 'If you had told me 10 or 12 years ago when I first read that book that I would get a chance to dialogue with the author, I probably would have peed my pants right then and there.'

Thankfully, 'Bob' laughed, but I looked over at Gabe to see him shaking his head in shame.

I love being a child. :)

Top 10 Podcasting Mistakes (Part 6)

6. Making Your Subject Matter Too Broad

A couple of weeks ago I was encouraging my good friend Giles to start podcasting. (Incidentally, I've been begging him to start a cast for 2 1/2 years. He would be so amazing.)

We talked about what kind of cast he could/should do. He has a fair amount of expertise (and a whole lot of entertaining opinions) in several arenas, not the least of which is 70s soft rock. :)

My main piece of advice for him was to pick as narrow a topic as possible. Sports? Way too broad. Pro baseball? Still too broad. Pirates baseball? Maybe, but given the competition w/ sports radio, ESPN, and websites, that's probably STILL too broad.

How about updates on the Pirates farm system? Or bios of new and upcoming players? (I would love a Dodgers cast that gave me background info on new players . . . Somebody want to do that one?)

Why would you want to be so narrow in focus?

1. You can actually be an expert in a narrow band of content. It's hard to be a true expert about Pirate baseball, but there's not a lot of competition to be THE source of information on their farm system.

2. If you're generating ad revenue, narrow is an easier sell to most advertisers. If I have an online store that sells Pirates memorabilia, I'm advertising on this cast long before I'm advertising on a general baseball podcast.

3. Your content stands out from the crowd. How remarkable is another baseball cast? Not very. But a cast that features bios and interviews with up and coming minor leaguers? That has the potential for remarkable. It's just interesting. You have a much better chance of getting noticed if you're, well, noteworthy.

Feedback: New Categories and New Hosts

So we have some ridiculously cool projects cooking here at the WP, and I need your feedback, input and ideas to help us shape the projects. More details as I get the green light to release them . . .

Two questions:

1. What are some categories of podcasts that we currently DON'T offer that you'd like to see?
2. Who are some podcast hosts that we currently DON'T have who you'd like to hear?

No right or wrong answers. (Although Pat McCrotch from the comments in my last post will probably be disregarded.) Give me your thoughts!

Greg Horton and My Flooded Email Inbox

I'm listening to the final minutes of Greg Horton's podcast this week on Wired Parish. It'll be available for download later tonight.

Just wanted to ask you, our dear listeners, to carbon copy me on any emails you send him after listening. I can't imagine how . . . what's the word . . . INTERESTING they'll be! I'm not going to respond to any of them. I just want to see the fireworks.

Just so you'll know, I share most of Greg's concerns that he raises in the cast, but I probably would have put them . . . um . . . a little differently. While I share his concerns, I don't think of them in quite as black and white terms as he does. And yes, I'm being intentionally vague about what he talked about. You'll have to listen for yourself!

I love Greg for many reasons, but two of the more obvious are that he makes me think and he makes me laugh. Sometimes at the same time. He did both this week.

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Top 10 Podcasting Mistakes (Part 5)

5. Inferior Equipment

One huge plus for podcasting is that you can do it with little more than Garage Band and your laptop's internal mic.

One huge negative for podcasting is that you can do it with little more than Garage Band and your laptop's internal mic.

The very first podcast I ever did was in January of 2005 with writer JJ Sullivan. GREAT content. UNBELIEVABLY bad quality. As I attempted to do the edits, I was so mortified by the sound quality that I just stopped. So it's somewhere deep in the recesses of my laptop's audio files, never to be retrieved.

I ruined a wonderful conversation because I made the mistake of using a combined total of $50 worth of recording equipment. Horrible move.

You don't have to have thousands of dollars of mics, headphones, and software, but investing a couple of hundred bucks in a solid mic, popscreen and set of headphones will take the sound quality of your recordings up several orders of magnitude.

Oh, and pleeeease make sure you're in as dead a room as possible. Think: Closet not kitchen.

Note: Although you don't HAVE to have high end headphones, listening to the new Amos Lee on a set of our studio headphones while blogging late at night is a SPECTACULAR experience. Feel free to be jealous.

Also See:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

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Podcast Co-Hosts

Quick Note: We're looking for a couple of co-hosts for new podcasts that we are launching. If you are in the Oklahoma City area and would be interested in 'sitting across the table' with one of our hosts on a regular basis, email me. I'll give you the details on what we're looking for.

The short version is that if you have speaking or interview experience and you're effective in asking questions and dialoguing, then we may have some opportunities for you.

Subscribe to Wired Parish. You'll feel better about your life.

Conspiracy Theories

This is going to sound crazy, I know, but in the last 2 weeks, I've gotten the following:

1. 6 emails suggesting we hold a Brian McLaren Look-Alike Contest.

2. 8--yes EIGHT--emails calling for a Wired Parish Best Looking Host Contest . . . AND I KID YOU NOT . . . 7 of them nominated Anthony Smith. The 8th nominated Kyle Johnson, but that email actually was from Kyle Johnson.

Clearly, there are conspiracies afoot that I know nothing about . . .

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A Reason to Subscribe

Tim Bednar over at Turtle Interactive taught me a cool trick using FeedBurner.

I connected my blog feed to del.icio.us; so when I bookmark something in del.icio.us it splices the link and my comments into my blog feed.

What that means is that once a day, blog subscribers get a list of links I've bookmarked for that day.

That generally includes interesting articles on technology, leadership, and ministry; cool apps; new music that you can't live without; etc.

So if you want to look over my shoulder, subscribe to the blog feed, and I'll keep you on the cutting edge of cool. :)

Subscribe to Wired Parish. You'll feel better about yourself.

Top 10 Podcasting Mistakes (Part 4)

4. Schizophrenic Content

Note: I have been effectively beaten into submission by the dozen or so of you who have sent me emails saying, 'HEY! WHERE ARE OTHER 7 MISTAKES! GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, DUDE!' So here's number 4!

Trust - It is a gift that subscribers give you that you cannot afford to lose. Lose trust with a subscriber and not only do you lose them, but you also lose any recommendations of your cast they might ever give to others.

A sure-fire way to lose that trust is to keep them guessing week to week on what your show will be like. Simple Approach: Talk about what your cast says you're going to talk about. If your cast is on investing, don't spend time talking about movie recommendations. If it's on parenting, don't devote half an episode to vacation details. Talk about what your cast says you're going to talk about.

As I said in Part 1, you can take occasional detours, but too many trips off the map and you lose trust you may never get back.

This same is generally true for blogs, but at least with blogs, readers can scan a headline and the first few lines to decide whether they want to read deeper. With a podcast, a listener is often 3 or 4 minutes in before he realizes, 'Hey, this is terrible. There's 4 minutes of my life I can never get back.'

There are exceptions to this rule, but they are rare. Brian McLaren could read a cookbook, and I would get emails on how it was the best reading of a cookbook of all time. But more than likely, you're not Brian. I'm fairly certain I'm not.

Bottom Line: Keep your content consistent.

Also See:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

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