For an awfully long time now, I have been trying to get my head around launching PartnershipProjects’ very own ‘NVR Podcast’. How I actually “saw” this happening and the actual fact of “making” it happen were two hugely different things! This made me think more about the parents I work with, how they are faced with such challenges, their ability to overcome these challenges with an open mind and how they hold on to hope!
Yes, it (the Podcast) has been launched now, and yes, we (Peter and I) have recorded our #5 episode thus far, and yes, it sounds good!!! This doesn’t take away the fact I have felt totally overwhelmed by the experience. The whole process has been, let me say, an utterly ridiculous challenge!! I have approached this task with no experience in recording podcasts / videos / voiceover, but I have listened to many podcasts whilst out walking my dog; Dessert Island Discs and Happy Place to name but a few, so I know it can be done.
Podcasts are the new thing, a way to ‘reach your audience’, a platform to ‘speak the unspoken’, a way to move with the times and allow your audience to ‘listen in on a conversation’. Everyone seems to be doing them. Having one means you are ‘out there’ and connecting to social media in a new hip way! There are podcasts about table manners, childcare, cooking and football. Every celebrity is launching them; Fearne Cotton, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry to name but a few. So how do we do one??
I found myself being bogged down with the vast options that allow you to host a podcast; all with ridiculous names: Buzzsprout, Audacity and Squadcast; all offering different ways in which a person can begin this journey by accessing the free or subscribed options, and each one informing them that it is ‘simple’!!
Do you include a musical jingle? What will your artwork look like? How long shall they be? Who will even listen to them? How do we even get people to listen to them? I had many, many questions, with lots and lots of online guidance to read, and it took hours and hours of research.
As with everything in my life, I made a comparison to my work and using NVR. I imagined I was a parent seeking support for a problem I am faced with and desperately trying to find “THE” solution. There were many options, all sounding roughly the same, all giving similar outcomes, and helping me find the best result and solution for my podcast needs. However, I needed to know that the option I’d choose would be the best option, and I would succeed in launching something that looked and sounded like a podcast. Feeling overwhelmed and alone in my quest to get this problem of mine fixed, I experienced a real sense of stuckness.
I persevered, I stuck at it and I soldiered on until I found the solution. I searched for the right support to help my quest (online of course). I then found the best platform to record the podcast (me in my house and Peter in his), purchased quality microphones to record the podcast. Then I worked out how to take the two separate recordings, sync them together as one and then launch it ….. without a musical jingle (Peter and I couldn’t agree on one) but with artwork (that’s another story)!
Could I have given up? Yep, Easily!
Could I have found someone else to do it? Perhaps!
Could I have started it and produced something different? Yeah, for sure! (I did launch two separate recordings by mistake, one with my voice only, the other with Peter’s voice only!!)
Did I need online support? Yep! Did I have to dig deep to get to my desired outcome? Yep!
Did I have to breathe and regulate? For sure!
Am I pleased I finally worked out how to record and launch a Podcast? Yep!
Am I getting better and quicker at this process? Damn right I am!
Is the final product better or worse than I expected? Better, because I was challenged on every level and overcame those challenges, I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Interested in hearing or subscribing to our PartnershipProjects Podcasts? There are a variety of ways to do so…
They are now available via Apple iTunes, Spotify and here is a link to our Podcast channel on Buzzsprout – https://www.buzzsprout.com/1180178