Katie: Welcome back to The BusinessMakers Overtime Show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com/overtime.

Esther: Woo woo!

Katie: What what? This is Show 45.

Esther: Unbelievable.

Katie: We're five shows away from -

Esther: We're middle aged.

Katie: - the big fiddy.

Esther: We are middle aged.

Katie: And we never did figure out what is the anniversary gift that you get for the 50 -

Esther: No.

Katie: - hopefully, it's like diamonds or something. John, we expect great things.

John: Gummy bears, I think.

Katie: Gummy bears. (Laughter).

Esther: Reese's.

Katie: Heineken. That's what you get for the 50th.

(Laughter)

Esther: You get St. Arnold's for 50.

Katie: Yay, St. Arnold's! So in this Special Features, Chapter 3 of Show Number 45, we're going to be - and this is a group effort - John has whipped out a microphone -

John: Woo!

Katie: And hopefully, there's no karaoke plans in the future, but whatever. (Laughter)

John: [sings] I wanna know what love is.

Esther: Oh my God.

Katie: Wow. You know what -

Esther: You're lucky you're the producer and you can edit things out.

Katie: Yeah, if I whipped out the Fergie Ferg -

John: I'm not editing it out.

Katie: - like that was okay. See everything's fine. And it'll be your turn, soon, Esther.

Esther: Yeah.

Katie: So, group project. The three of us are gonna be talking a little bit about Podcasting 101 and this is a very brief recap of a fun panel that we were involved in for the Houston Chapter of the International Association for Business Communicators, more easily pronounced as IABC and where we actually got to talk to professional communicators on making podcasting magic happen.

Esther: Hmm.

Katie: And we would like for you to also know these things.

Esther: I just want you to know that 50 is the golden anniversary.

Katie: It's the golden anniversary.

Esther: So gold, please. I would like a -

Katie: Gold.

John: Nothing' but yellow gummy bears.

Esther: Yeah.

Katie: I'd like a, I'd like a pimp cup.

(Laughter)

Esther: The yellow-flavored. I like it. Let's do that. So what happened today? What did we talk about? What do you think are the major takeaways? If someone's gonna start out doing a podcast, what are the, like, couple of things they really need to know?

John: Well, I would say the very first thing they really need to do is get their equipment set up.

Esther: Yeah.

John: And so I would recommend, first of all, the free software called Audacity. So you can download that from - pretty much do a Google search for it and use that - and everybody has a computer 'cause they're listening to us right now; headphones and a microphone. So just get started with that and get going.

Esther: Awesome.

Katie: So I mean, you can even use one of those cheap-o USB mics that people have?

John: Yeah, just basically any microphone. Doesn't have to be a real fancy one but if you wanna spend a little bit of extra money, it's about a little over $100.00, I would recommend the Blue Snowball because it has lots of options for unidirectional, omnidirectional and it's just good sound.

Esther: And as Katie pointed out, it's cute.

Katie: It's really cute.

John: It's cute. Yeah.

Katie: Awesome. So Audacity. I mean, you can start off with a simple mic and how exciting if you invest a little bit in a mic whenever you're screaming at people in your guild in World of Warcraft, like you're gonna sound so much better.

John: Oh yeah and it's a USB mic so you don't need any other fancy gear besides that.

Esther: Nice.

Katie: That's awesome. Can you talk a little bit about going out on the road? There may be some listeners that actually wanna do interviews at conferences or do stuff, you know, when they're working their magic.

John: Well one of the pieces of gear that we use here on The BusinessMakers Overtime is we use a Marantz PMD660 and it has two microphone inputs that you can plug in - so you have your microphone and the people you wanna interview - but you can't use the Blue Snowball for this.

Esther: Aww.

Katie: Aww.

John: So yeah, you have to go out and get a microphone that has XLR connections and it's just a standard microphone connection and the ones we use that I highly recommend are the Shure Beta 58As because they're durable and they sound really good.

Esther: Awesome.

John: Yeah. When you're done with the interview, the Marantz records onto a compact flash, so you can just take the compact flash out, put it in your computer and transfer your sound files and go about your podcasting ways.

Katie: That's awesome.

Esther: Cool.

John: Yeah.

Katie: That's really cool. So another thing that we got to cover was talking about podcasting content and I know that to some people it may be a little daunting thinking like, "What the heck am I gonna talk about that people are gonna listen to?" And really, I encourage you not to limit yourself at all. Do not be afraid. I mean you are a very interesting, multi-faceted human being so make sure that you're really pulling out every trick that you got. I mean if you're good at talking to people, really consider focusing on some good interviews. If you're really funny, you can add in a little humor, some good storytelling, or maybe if you wanna keep it very professional, you can offer a very useful, actionable podcast full of tips and tricks for a specific industry; maybe do some sort of professional advice. You could even do like a fun call in show or something.

Esther: That's right.

Katie: And do kind of a back and forth, you know, like for - on a topic of the day.

John: Yeah, just use Skype for that.

Katie: You can use Skype for that.

John: Yeah, just use Skype. Get on Skype.

Esther: Yeah, sure thing.

Katie: Exactly. Exactly. So another thing that with The Overtime Show, the only way I feel like we can really keep this baby going is by good organization and strong planning. A couple of tools that I personally rely on - really, really rely on - one is Evernote, which is evernote, E-V-E-R-N-O-T-E.com and it's basically a free notetaking software that you can put on your iPhone, on your Blackberry. You can access it from the web, from your computer. You can take photos with it. You can have, you know, voice recorded notes or type it out. Really a powerful way to make sure that anytime an idea comes out that you're writing it down and then you'll have your notes wherever you are, no matter, you know, if you're at your computer or not and what we use as a group for The Overtime Show and The BusinessMakers Show is a software product called Base Camp. This is a project management tool that's all online. You're able to collaborate, invite, you know, co-conspirators and you know really plan out your interviews, your schedules. You can throw around ideas, you know, use what they call a write board, which is kind of - like a Wiki-type interface where you can be working on content together; really very, very helpful. And finally, we got to talk quite a bit about the importance of music. While I'm sure what you have to say is music to your listener's ears -

Esther: Uh huh.

Katie: - it's also nice to, you know; have a little bit of something to kinda break up all the jibber jabber, as producer John would say.

John: That's right, jibba jabba!

Katie: The jibba jabba.

Esther: That's what he calls it.

(Laughter)

John: Love it!

Katie: So some spots that you might look for creative commons licensed audio content is a website called freesound.org, ccmixter.org is another and also jamendo - J-A-M-E-N-D-O.com and these are all places where you can find free or very, very cheap audio clips that will really help you, kind of, sound that much more professional and hip. Or not hip, I don't know. But you know, professional. (Laughter)

Esther: Yes. I will say that I think yes it's important to use these tools to organize yourself but if you don't have a clear idea of what you wanna talk about, you're gonna be confused and bored doing the show.

Katie: Yeah, don't - you don't have to get fancy -

Esther: Right.

Katie: - right away.

Esther: It should be - like any organization, like a business, like anything, you should basically have a mission statement -

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: - of what you're going to be talking about. Of what the focus of your show is going to be. It's like when you write your blog. When you go into a company meeting, you don't talk about the weather and then your purple shoes. You talk about what you went into the meeting to talk about and you should approach your podcast in that same fashion. Only talk about the things that are relevant to the people who are tuning back into you from the last time they listened.

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: If they're tuning back in it's because they liked what they heard and they don't wanna be surprised by something that has nothing to do with -

Katie: Exactly give them more of that.

Esther: - what they thought. Right.

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

Esther: Well those are some good tips, I think, to get you started at least. I mean, we're not gonna give away all our secrets.

Katie: (Laughter) At least not on this show. Maybe we'll do another one.

Esther: No. Right. Thanks for checking it out and thanks for listening to The BusinessMakers Overtime Show. You can find us online at theBusinessMakers.com/overtime. You can find us on Twitter at twitter.com/overtimeshow, and you can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/overtimeshow.

Katie: Join us. (Laughter)

Esther: All the places to find us online. But we're pretty active there so you can always get in touch with us whenever you like. You've been listening to The BusinessMakers Overtime Show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com/overtime. I'm Esther Steinfeld -

Katie: And I'm Katie Laird.

Esther: - we hope you enjoyed yourself and we hope to see you next week.

Katie: See ya.