Outro  0:01  
Welcome to Engaging Ideas, the bi weekly podcast from Parsons TKO, bringing you conversations with mission driven leaders and luminaries to shift your perspective and challenge your assumptions on the art of the possible.

Tony Kopetchny  0:16  
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of engaging ideas, the Parsons TKO podcast where we like to talk to all kinds of leaders and luminaries in the mission driven and nonprofit sector to bring you great ideas that you might be able to pull into your workday or even just find your community here with us. And as always, I'm your host, Tony Kopetchny. Today, I'm joined by my good friend Fred dews who is currently serving as the multimedia project manager at Brookings. He is the Creator, producer and host of the recently retired award winning Brookings cafeteria podcast. It ran for eight and a half years 432 episodes and trying to wrap my head around that stuff. And he's the sum of those awards that had come from the Academy of podcasters. So if you've ever thought about podcasting for your organization, my friends, this is the episode for you, Fred. Welcome.

Unknown Speaker  1:06  
Thanks, Tony. It's great to see you. It's great to be on your show. It's a It's unusual for me to be on the other side of the microphone, as it were, but I'm happy to be here.

Tony Kopetchny  1:14  
That's excellent. I had my first opportunity yesterday, actually to be on the other side of the microphone. And it actually was pretty fun. Yes, I enjoyed that. We sound great. I'm going to dive in at a 50,000 foot level here. Before we get into some of the nitty gritty about creating and running organizational podcasts. And I will say this, Fred us, I've known you for a long time. You are one of the kindest, calmest people I've ever met in the Washington, DC area. I've always really enjoyed that about you, you've got a great presence. And I know one of the things I'm curious about this was a really long running show. I mean, do you think just having that calm presence, and the ability to pull as a result was part of the secret sauce? Or what do you think the secret sauce was?

Unknown Speaker  1:56  
Well, first, Tony, those are very kind words. So thanks very much for that. On the Brookings cafeteria, ingredients, secret sauce. I think part of it was, I'm gonna say commitment. I committed to putting out an episode at first every other week, and then two years into it, we switched to every week. And I committed to doing that no matter what, and I succeeded. And that helped us build an audience. And that helped us gain a reputation within the organization and reputation within the podcasting community, especially in the nonprofit and government space. Then in terms of quality, so I think you're kind of getting at what makes a podcast worth listening to. I guess, I I took a calm measured approach to interviewing experts at the Brookings Institution. And let's be clear, I'm not an expert in policy, although I've studied it, I was interviewing people who are literally experts, practitioners in the various fields that that a place like Brookings has tax policy, policy about Iran, nuclear weapons, global development, Metropolitan issues. So in that sense, I think part of the secret sauce, if you will, for our success was I went into these interviews prepared. And I did the research I had to do to prepare myself to talk to a Brookings expert. And sometimes they were not Brookings experts, sometimes they were external authors of books and so on. I read the books, I prepared for interviews, I shared questions ahead of time, I went into an interview confident that I could guide one of these experts in a policy space through a set of questions that would be interesting to a listener. So preparation, preparation, preparation, and then share that preparation with the guests that's going to come on your show. So they are confident that you are ready to interview them. That's, that's what I would say.

Tony Kopetchny  4:03  
I love that. For everyone listening it sounds sounds like the key there too, is this is something you're going to be able to wing within just a couple of minutes you have during the week to try to pull something off.

Unknown Speaker  4:14  
Absolutely not. And occasionally, I thought to myself, maybe once or twice, I should try a format where I should take a scholar with whom I'm pretty familiar and comfortable interviewing, who really knows their stuff, who can talk about their policy space and try to wing it a little bit. And to be honest, I was always a little afraid to do that. It just didn't ever seem like the right thing. So I always prepared always shared my preparation ahead of time with the with the guests that I was going to interview

Tony Kopetchny  4:42  
and love it. Thank you in I'm gonna try to harness my inner Mooka tujuan Zealander voice podcasts are so hot right now. Seems like everyone's trying to launch them. I mean, you are on the Vanguard with the Brookings cafeteria podcast for a lot of these nonprofit spaces we're in especially the PA I'll see community in DC. I'm curious to get it off the ground. I mean, what was your? What was the pitch like to get approval and to launch it? And how did how did this? How did the idea get born and push

Unknown Speaker  5:11  
forward? Well, before we go there, listeners can't see this. But how's my blue steel?

Tony Kopetchny  5:17  
This deal is incredible. It's a it's a beautiful thing of amazement.

Unknown Speaker  5:22  
All right, well, good thing. This is actually just an audio format. You know, launching the Brookings cafeteria occurred at an interesting time, for me professionally and also for the organization. I would not characterize us as being on the vanguard of podcasting, generally, you know, podcasting origins, go pretty far back now. I mean, 2004, I think people started using RSS feeds to enclose audio files 2005 for 2004, somewhat New Years 2004 that a journalist coined the term podcasts, we launched the Brookings cafeteria podcast in 2013. So nine years after podcasting had already been out there percolating in the percolating on the internet, as it were. But I don't think a lot of policy organizations had podcast yet. A few did. And I should give props to them. Let me take let me take you back to that time period at Brookings. It's late 2012, a new Vice President for communication comes in. And as new executives are want to do, they have a lot of ideas for how to change things. We go into 2013, I had been the editor of The Brookings website for 14 years by that point, every month. So it didn't have an editor to thank you, sir. And so as you know, we had we had collaborations around many collaborations around redesigning the Brookings website over those years. You as I recall, where the you a tea lead, among other roles in the in the process. So I had done done that a lot. And I think the new boss came in and looked at me and said, you know, Fred, you should think about doing something new in this space, because he also wanted to bring in his own web people. And that's also code for you should think about doing something new. You're thinking about finding a new employer? I want. Right, yeah, that part and it's fair. So I mean, I wanted to stay at Brookings. And so right in that year, in 2013, some new opportunities opened up in the digital space that I was able to move into. And one of the ideas was, maybe we should have a podcast. I think it was kind of a collective decision, a collective conversation that some of us in the office had about having podcasts. And that sounded like a cool idea. And then the question came up, well, who would host this podcast, and honestly, everyone kind of looked in my direction, because I had already been at Brookings for a long time. And I'm as manager of the website, I was pretty familiar with a lot of the Brookings scholars and a lot of the organizational elements in need. So I didn't really have to pitch the podcast to my chain of command, as it were, the new boss may have had to pitch it at some point. But the way a lot of these kinds of projects go is and what I've recommended to people who I've talked to about starting shows within within their organizations is to do a pilot, do a test, find some resources, find a microphone, find a room, dampen the sound, prepare your first guest, you know, plan it out, hit record, polish it off and see what happens and start to show your organization that this is something we can do. And this is something that will add value to everybody to this is something that will add value to the organization. In addition to some other new projects that I was able to start working on. That year, I was able to start planning to stand up this new podcast, what's it going to be called? Let's be a little cheeky and call it the Brookings cafeteria because as you know, the Brookings cafeteria at that time, at least, was kind of a well known eating establishment right there on Massachusetts Avenue that was open to the public. A lot of Brookings scholars like to also gather in there and have wonky conversations over soup and sandwiches, and also happened to be the location where I literally met the woman who would later become my wife. Oh,

Tony Kopetchny  9:21  
wow. A lot of meaning goes into the Brookings cafeteria podcast for you then, sir.

Unknown Speaker  9:26  
So exactly. So the word that the idea of Brookings cafeteria seemed unconventional at the time, but we all came around to it. We also were thinking at some point, well, we're going to present a show that has a menu of ideas, and we're going to play around with that theme. Anyway. Brookings cafeteria, my boss was all for it. And I very strategically selected my first scholar guest who himself was and still is a podcaster. Thinking that that would be a safe and relatively easy Interview to prepare for. And so I did that and it went well. And we did interview number two and interview number three, and so on down the line, and we started to build a body of work, as it were, that then our vice president could say to other executives at the organization, look, we have this new new product, this new digital channel that is going to reach people who listen to this new thing called podcasting. Again, not a new thing, but new to our organization at the time. You know, you guys know Fred dues you guys trust for dues? And sounds good to me. So we're gonna keep doing it. And nobody objected. So we kept doing it. That's

Tony Kopetchny  10:45  
incredible. And I like the, I mean, find your champions. Right? And we talked about that and change management a lot. You gotta, you gotta go out and have some understanding of who's not you know, who's the naysayer? What are the nuggets of negativity inside of the naysaying, but then you do need a champion to help you get things off the ground, like find the people who are more comfortable doing it. I think that's pretty good. I'm curious too, though, just you know, and think tank, Tim, there's always the Oh, you're watering down my you're ordering down by research, you're, you're taking out the meaning. I mean, did it feel like too much of a, I don't know how to phrase you know, the common person, not as elevated of a medium to be on if you're really high caliber thought leader,

Unknown Speaker  11:30  
I didn't get that sense from nearly, I didn't get that sense from anybody I interviewed for the most part, I think people wanted to be on it on a podcast, I think, scholars over that period. So let's say in the early 2010s, especially started to understand the value of speaking ideas into different digital channels. So you know, obviously, social media, Facebook, Twitter, now Instagram and other other channels. But also, a lot of these scholars participate in the traditional public event, you know, they're sitting up in a row on a stage, and there's a moderator. And there's an audience of people in there. And that audience is composed of some policy wonk some academics, but also some graduate students, and some journalists, and maybe somebody who just came in off the street to get the free coffee and cookies. That was pre COVID, of course, but you know, so I think a lot of the scholars, a lot of people in the policy space, I think are more and more understand are more and more understanding that you have to talk to audiences where they are in channels, where they are the ways that they consume information, in our case policy information. So I think in terms of, let's say, take a policy report on girls education and curriculum development around the world, that was a policy topic that, that I covered a lot on the Brookings cafeteria. So I'm talking with scholars who are global experts in girls education, and then inequity in education, in education and development. And some of these papers they're reading are pretty wonky, pretty dense, full of data, referencing studies, and for them to come on the Brookings cafeteria, for them to come on a podcast is a chance for them to talk about their work in an accessible way. And if that spurs somebody in the audience to say, you know, I want to learn more on that I want to deep dive with the scholars research, they can go and do that. So just like you know, with any digital channel that we have, it's it's almost like, it's a gateway, it's opening a door for somebody to go in and and learn more. That kind

Tony Kopetchny  13:45  
of ties in to where I wanted what I wanted to ask about next. I mean, we talked a little bit about him, and you had you were looking for something new. So you know, one of the questions I was curious, just Was there something about timing, but then the strategic objective, as you were starting to develop this, that obviously became another medium in which y'all were putting things out into the world and found it valuable. I mean, what was the strategic objective once this started to get lift? Like, how did how did it get perceived at that point?

Unknown Speaker  14:11  
Yeah, I think I'm gonna go back to what I said a minute ago. And that's when we're talking about marketing, promoting an idea, a product, a new drink, whatever. You want to reach people where they are in the channels where they are. You can't force people to come visit the website and download a PDF. You can't force people to come attend an event either in person, or virtually. Some people like to do that. Some people don't. And of course, COVID changed a lot of those models. Not everybody is on Twitter, not everybody's on Facebook. Some people like to submit an email newsletter. And then a growing number of people throughout the country are listening to podcasts and you you see that growth trajectory year over year. It's just keeps increasing. So we want to take that Policy Research distributed in ways that people can access it, where they are, in terms of the the channels that they use, and give people options, then of course, as I said earlier to go find ways to dive deeper if they really want to. podcast is one of the major channels, I think of content distribution for any kind of content that you can think of policy or non policy. And so I think it makes sense for organizations to use the podcasting medium in addition to video and events and newsletters and social media and websites to to distribute their idea distribute their product.

Tony Kopetchny  15:36  
I mean, you sound fantastic. You're really experienced at this. I'm curious, you know, as you were developing it, how long did it take you to get your style down? When you started to like, Okay, now I'm going to groove

Unknown Speaker  15:49  
I have to be honest. I'm not sure I ever felt like I was in command of the medium. And by that, I mean, I approached every interview, I did even my final set of interviews with the Brookings, vice presidents and so on. I was approached them with a little trepidation. It's a little bit of stage fright. I mean, I hear professional actors accomplish, actors always have stage fright. But I develop the confidence maybe after six months to a year. So call that it when we started off the cafeteria podcast, we did interview, we did interviews every other week. And we shifted to a weekly format about two years in. So call that 12 to 24 interviews. Before I felt like I think I know what I'm doing. I'm pretty confident that I I know the process I need to go through to correctly prepare to interview somebody to do the kind of research that I need to do to prepare the kind of questions that I think will elicit interesting answers from the scholar that audiences will enjoy. And also just to how to open the interview. Your opening at the top of this discussion was great. It's very engaging. Thank you right to the point. So well done. Yeah, it took me some time to develop that I think I changed it up a little bit over time, went into the Brookings cafeteria with an idea to interview scholars, and it was an interview format. From day one to the end of the show's run, we added a few bells and whistles here. And there, we did some short form segments that we would pepper in some of the episodes from time to time, some monologues from scholars on on a particular topic. But generally, I felt like after a year or so of podcasting, I felt pretty confident with the system we had developed. And with my ability to reach out and kind of go through the steps needed to create a podcast episode.

Tony Kopetchny  17:53  
Yeah, I think anyone listen, that's really important. I mean, I think I'm still working on the process with my team here and how we do this. And almost getting to that checklist place where you have that confidence, I think of everyone talked about Michael Phelps, and the things he did before swim was this exact thing. So when when it happened, he wasn't, it's ready to go, right. He's just in the zone. I'm gonna go off script here a little bit with us a question I had just about men coming through the pandemic, a lot of groups that we talked to everybody, probably, especially in the nonprofit space over, like looking at diversifying revenue. You know, in the private sector, you start to see a lot of sponsored emails, for the like the morning brew, these corporate emails that are coming out and any podcasts you listen to, it's almost like an NPR, there's advertisements. You know, if someone is listening to this, and they're thinking, I'd like to start a podcast because I want to get our message out in a different medium. And then the next question I can imagine maybe from someone in the organization is could you make any money from that? Like, do you think it would tend to show or? I mean, we tend to do heavy of a word, but would it impact what the content could be for a nonprofit to bring in? And obviously, advertising sponsorship? Maybe?

Unknown Speaker  19:02  
Yeah, that's a great question. And it's something that I and my colleagues have wrestled with for a long time. And we never had any advertising on the Brookings cafeteria. I think one time, I did run an ad, because I interviewed author Phil clay, who writes a lot about military themes. He wrote a long form essay for us on the morals and ethics of serving in the military was a great project that I got to work on. And so I interviewed him for the show. And of course, he's an author. So I ran an ad from like Audible for his audio book. I don't know what happened with that, and we might have made enough money to buy one microphone from that. And it just never came up again. But again, just just so you know, listeners know, I work at a nonprofit organization and I do not have to I never have had to monetize My podcast. That's just not our business model. But there's another reason for advertising in the podcasting space. And that is to draw attention to other shows that you like or that your company produces. You'll hear you will hear that on a lot of podcasting networks, where they kind of cross pollinate all the different shows that are on their, their network well, so they they'll cross pollinate their own shows. And sometimes you might hear an ad for, hey, I really liked this show that I heard, independent podcasters can do that. For us, we started to try to cross pollinate within our own suite of podcasts, most of which I produce, in which you'll hear our hosts say, Hey, you might like this other podcast from Brookings. But again, we're not in the moderate activation space, if you will. Now, in terms of, you know, would a nonprofit or a nonprofit or a government organization, advertising for revenue, somehow be in conflict with their mission? Every organization has to answer that question for themselves. There are so many things that you could advertise that I think would not conflict with your mission. And there are things that can conflict with your mission with your ethnos with how you project your organization to the world. So I won't go into any examples, but use your imagination.

Tony Kopetchny  21:21  
Yeah, I mean, almost can be like, I mean, I need the NPR is weta any of the public radio broadcasting their shows are brought to you by people like you. Wondering if that starts to find its way into some of these nonprofit podcasts at some point, maybe there's even give us $5 If you like this one, to keep it going. I haven't seen it yet that much. But curious if it can be out there. Anyway. Yeah, I went for on that one. So, again, you're in a nonprofit I've worked at our company focuses on nonprofits, one of the questions that always seem to come up around wanting to start a new initiative, you know, what's it going to take? A lot of times it's less pure, hard dollar cost. And it's like, who's going to do the staff time wise? So you know, I'm curious, did you share with everyone how many people worked on the show? Or the current shows? You know that, did you have a few going and you know, is this full time? You know, is this full time, part time borrowed time, if you will?

Unknown Speaker  22:19  
Now, those are great questions. And when I've spoken with other people at organizations, this question always comes up and who's going to do it? Somebody has an idea that they want to do a podcast, but it's not in their job description. And so how do they borrow time or carve out time to pursue this podcast idea? And I think the same was true for me nine years ago now, before they did rewrite my job description, you know, I was the manager of the website, as I as I mentioned, and it was just a question of, well, I'm not going to do that anymore. Let me shift my time over to developing this podcast series, and also doing some other editing projects. But who's going to edit it? So to be honest, I don't do the audio editing. So to get to your major question about how many people do we have on podcast, it's basically two of us. And it was during the run of the Brookings cafeteria, but I'll be specific that was on creating the audio piece itself, the content, the episodes, I prepared and scheduled and did the interviews. And I have an audio engineer who I work very closely with, shout out to guest on who does the audio editing and there was another one before him when we started named Zack. In the earlier case, when we started it off, Zack worked with the video team, he also knew how to edit audio. And so the organization said, Well, you start devoting some of your time to working with Fred, we didn't know how much time that would take. Eventually, I think that became his full time job. And now producing podcasts is my full time job. editing audio for podcasts is guest owns full time job. So think of two people full time creating or producing podcasts. Now, there's a whole different group of people who do the marketing and promotion. And we have social media newsletter managers, and I give a transcript to them and I say I have created this podcast episode, here's the transcript and go do your thing and promote it and find some cool quotes. Do an audiogram whatever it is you do it so it's just part of their overall job to promote Brookings content. I'm helping them create Brookings content here it is promoted so I don't do that part of it. I used to I used to manage our Twitter account for podcasts. But we shifted all that over to the main Brookings Twitter account. But now as more shows are going to be coming online from Brookings. We do have other colleagues who are acting like project managers or even producers to start to work with scholars to get their shows off the ground. out to do some of the planning that it takes to conceive of a show and to get it to launch. At some point, I would still be the person doing some of the backend stuff, taking the mp3 file and putting it into our show host guest on, we'll still be doing the audio editing on that we have somebody else on staff who can do that, too. Now, now we do start to think about, Well, part of this person's time is podcasting. Part of that person's time is podcasting. I would say right now, in addition to the two of us who are full time podcasting, there's at least three other people who in some way contribute their time to the project management of getting podcast going, or to audio editing part of their time. So you know, organizations can, can can hear that and say, well, we don't have that many people, I think at base, you really need one person. Yeah, if you know how to do if somebody knows how to do interviewing, and then basic audio editing, well, then you could have a one person podcast shop and then build out from there,

Tony Kopetchny  26:10  
I'd say it's getting ours off the ground to is we are super tiny, especially compared to Brookings, you know, 15 people now risen from four to 10 to 15. Fiber, if for anyone listening has been really helpful to us, if we found audio editors. And the cost is really affordable for a tiny company like us. They sweeten the audio, they make the cuts, they get it back to us. We also use fiber for anyone who's listening to that opening, with the nice voice that talks about who we are and the close there. That is all from fiber, too. So if you can't get it in house, there are gig economy ways to do this and stay within an affordable range. If this is something you're really interested in. Definitely got to think about it as an investment. It's not the type of thing you want to get to one off, it's not just a whim. But you know, if someone does feel the energy and wants to go for it could be something worth doing to get more attention. Fred, I am quite curious. 432 episodes? Do you have a favorite episode? Or a favorite guests that you remember?

Unknown Speaker  27:13  
That's a hard question to answer. Because I enjoy some of the episodes, some of the interviews I did, I could feel in the moment. Like I was flowing. And sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I was interviewing somebody about maybe it was an esoteric topic. It was important to that person's organization within the larger organization that they be on a podcast. I did my preparation as I always do. But I didn't feel the conversation will flow. In other cases, I remember anything that had anything to do with political history, which I'm really into, I could feel a lot of personal flow. Like I'm really into this, like, I don't even need my notes. At some point, I can just ask you a follow up question, or I can kind of geek out on this conversation. But I gotta say I often go to an interview I did in May of 2015. I'm looking it up on our website, with Chrystia Freeland. She is currently I believe, the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, she was previous to that Canada's foreign minister. But when I interviewed her, she was a member of Parliament from her constituency, somewhere in Canada. And she had written a long form essay for us, like Phil Clay had done. She had written a long form essay for us, in 2015, called My Ukraine, or some reflection on a nation stream of Independence and the nightmare of Vladimir Putin is visited upon it again, 2015. It was a project that I had I had worked on with her. These long form essays were a special project that we did, and I was kind of the managing editor of them. It was a very stirring piece you can find on our website. My Ukraine, in this course is a year after Vladimir Putin in Russia occupied Crimea, which is part of Ukraine. And so we published that episode, it was her personal journey through kind of her family history, which I love. I'll talk about family history, all day, any day. But I learned that Canada is the home of many people of Ukrainian descent, I think more outside Ukraine and maybe Russia, there are more people of Ukrainian descent in Canada than any other country. And she is from that, that heritage. And so, but she also is a was an is a writer and a person with a really deep foreign policy experience. So she wrote this wonderful piece for us. And so I interviewed her for the Brookings cafeteria, that spring and 2015 and I never met her in person. We did the interview through the radio booth that we have at Brookings and it was so it was just, you know, I think she may have been on the phone or something from her home in Canada. Wow. In the topic itself, and the essay that she wrote was was moving was important was beautiful. But she was also a very warm person. And I could feel that right away before we went to tape. Before we went to the recording portion of it, we just had a little chit chat, which I encourage anyone doing a podcast to do because it kind of warms up your voice and kind of connects you with the with the person with the person you're talking to. And we just have it, we kind of have a look connection. And it was nice. And we just had a really nice interview. And I thought it was important. And I was proud to do it. And I'm always happy to talk about that particular interview, because I think, obviously, it resonates with us today, considering what's going on in Ukraine, titled that Ukraine struggle for independence.

Tony Kopetchny  30:46  
All right, we're gonna get that link for everyone to listen to. Yeah, imagine that played heavy on your mind when everything broke out with the recent, more the rural witnessing over there. Thank you for sharing that with us. Anyone who's been a regular listener knows we've got a solid wrap question for everybody. That's the same. But here, just as anyone is thinking I really have been in more conversations, and I would have anticipated over the last two years time gets to be a blur because it COVID I think, but with a lot of organizations that are all trying to think about where they could put this medium, and should they do podcasting, what does it look like? And how do I get there? And I think in the opening, you know, you really, you caught it there right preparation and commitment. I think the commitment part is super important to starting any endeavor like, this isn't going to be the top notch thing I've dreamed in my head, but I got to do it. And I got to do it again. And I got to do it again. And that's the work that gets you to where they really does get to be an award winning show. Eventually, so I if you could boil down creating a product of podcasts down to a few commitments, you know, I'm thinking of like, is there a checklist in ways? If you commit to these X number of things, then you can be ready to launch? If you had those? Is it like a three, a three checklist of five checklists? How many checks would we need to put in the boxes to be able to say, as an organization, yeah, we're confident we're gonna get we're gonna, we're gonna launch this, we're gonna go forward.

Unknown Speaker  32:08  
Yeah, and I want to emphasize again, that I'm coming at this from an organization, from a person who's worked within a nonprofit organization, I think they're universal commitments, that anybody with a idea for a podcast could follow, and begin to see some success, at least, launch success. And I'll go back to the first one, which is commit to a release schedule. So that means once a month, once every two weeks, once a week, three times a week, whatever you can do, given your time and resources, commit to that. And by commit to that, you're really committing to your listeners, you're making them a promise that you will deliver whatever the content is, on the schedule that you say you will deliver it. And that builds trust between the host of the show, and listeners. And if you break that trust, you could get in trouble. Now, it doesn't mean that once you make that commitment, you can't change the commitment. But you have to communicate that to the audience, you have to be very clear about, we're going to decelerate here. And we started off with a once per week, we need to move to once every other week, where we're still going to deliver some great content. So I think you have to commit to a schedule, and then meet that schedule, and then communicate to your listeners, if you can't meet that schedule. I think a second commitment you have to make is to preparation. And I can't talk about this enough. I've talked about it a few times already. But if you're the host or the co host of a of an interview show, especially with policy experts, with guests with who are maybe who also were business leaders, whoever you're interviewing on your show, you have a commitment to them to be prepared. Because you're asking them to spend their time with you, in your audience on your show. You also have to show that guests that you are prepared. So they have confidence in you that you're able to do the work now, you know, there's a level of podcast host. We're talking about people or organizations who are trying to stand up a show, basically. Yeah. You know, there are people who are media personalities who are maybe radio professionals who could interview anybody anytime about any topic. And that's great. But not all of us have that background. I mean, I never had any experience interviewing people. So I put into preparation I committed to preparing for that. I would say a third thing is commit insofar as your resources allow to having good audio quality, have good equipment. I mean, Tony is you know, the equipment infrastructure for doing a podcast. Isn't that much good microphone, maybe a pop filter. Some headphones. make that investment for a few $100 to get good audio quality And then commit to learning what some of the tips and tricks are to help your guest achieve good audio quality, especially if they're remote. If you're doing it over internet connection, or if you're going to do it in person, try to, you know, understand the basics of sound dampening, and what kind of physical space you should be in three things, commit to a schedule, commit to preparation, commit to good audio quality. And then I would say, fourth, commit to enjoying it. If you're going to be podcasting for an organization, enjoy the opportunity to speak to people in your organization are the kinds of people who represent the ideals of your organization, and, and have the sense that you are in a privileged position to be sitting in front of that microphone, talking to this person, as a representative of the audience who's listening, you know, maybe somebody in that audience wants to ask, but love to ask this expert a question, would love to ask this person a question. But they can't. But you can take that perspective, take the audience perspective, take a perspective or an attitude of enjoyment. And on top of all the other things, the preparation, the commitment to good audio quality, take that to heart because it's it's it's a privilege to be able to talk to people and have that conversation broadcast for anybody to hear.

Tony Kopetchny  36:29  
We got four, I like it. And I really love the last commit to enjoying it I, I've written before about how do we start to bring joy back into our daily work lives, you know, get to that creative place that we all liked, remembering why we wanted to do what we were doing. And you know, it's okay to be happy once in a while and smile while you're working. Doesn't have to be a drudge all the time. So I really appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker  36:51  
And also, it's a good warm up before you talk to somebody as to exercise your smile muscles. For all

Tony Kopetchny  36:56  
of our monthly free webinars on my staff doesn't it's usually my quick prompt on our Slack messages today. And like, Hey, have fun, you're about to hit stage smile a little bit. Because you know, you're having you're there, you get to do this, I think to your point, you really get to be out there and you get to do something kind of fun and unique that you want to do. Fred, this has been amazing. Thank you. I have taken copious notes for myself, because I am still very much the newbie podcaster. And I am glad to be here with someone who has mastered so much of the art form over the years. It's been a real pleasure. So now for all of our regular listeners, you know by now we have started Spotify channel. And we like to end every episode by collecting new songs from our guests. And so today to Mr. Fred news, what is your go to song when you need a boost? And why?

Unknown Speaker  37:47  
I love this question. And I've thought about it. I've got lots of different ideas in my mind. But I'm going to go down to what I think of as my walkup song. When I get called up to the majors, and I'm going to bat at Nationals Park. They're gonna play bad mouth by foo Ghazi. Okay, local DC band. I love this song. For a lot of reasons. I love the way it it opens the chords that opens with but I love the lyrics. And I know we can't play the song. But I can recite the lyrics. They start off by saying you can't be what you were. So you better start being just what you are. You can't be what you were the time was now it's running out. You can't be what you were so you better start living the life that you're talking about a punk band from DC but that out in 1989. Love that song.

Tony Kopetchny  38:36  
I think those words hold true for a lot of folks, I think we're seeing that coming through the pandemic was a wake up call for a lot of people to realize where they are at in that time horizon and trying to figure out and find out to do those things that they're passionate about. Thank you, Fred. That's wonderful. appreciate you sharing that. And I appreciate the time and all the insights today was wonderful having you on. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  38:58  
You're welcome, Tony. It's been great to be on your show. I really appreciate the opportunity. And I've had a lot of fun and hope your listeners have enjoyed as well.

Tony Kopetchny  39:08  
Wonderful. And I will talk to you again sometime in the future and to the audience. Hopefully you'll take some notes from this one. Reach out, send us some comments if you'd really like to show we'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts about what we've been talking about for the last year now. As well as in this specific episode with Fred and Fred. Thank you, and I'll see you next time everybody.

Outro  39:29  
Thank you for listening. Join us again for more engaging ideas with your host Parsons TKO CEO Tony Kopetchny. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a comment and share with your friends. Send us your feedback at create change at Parsons tko.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai