Podcasting

Share your knowledge and expertise in a popular audio format

Are you struggling to engage with public audiences beyond the usual suspects? Do you want to widen your professional network? Could you be the authoritative voice in your field? If these questions resonate with you then I think podcasting could be the answer.

I started my first podcast, ‘rial Talk, over a decade ago. I learnt how to produce, present, interview, edit, market and maintain its momentum. Since then, the podcast has been heard in six continents, given me a network of over 90 materials experts, and even landed me a book deal. I’m now a sought-after presenter of other peoples’ podcasts and, in todays’ world of increasingly unstable social media platforms, now couldn’t be a better time to start building your following directly.

In this three-part training series, I will give you the tools you need to create compelling podcasts about your work, to engage with audiences, and increase your overall impact. We’ll cover the all-important planning stage, all the practicalities of setting it up and I’ll give you tips on how maintain the podcast after the first flurry of excitement.

By the end you’ll have all the skills, tools and information you need to get started… and keep going!

Workshop content

Before the training

Part 1: Storytelling Foundations

Before we meet in-person, you’ll be given access to our Storytelling Foundations online course. This will give you all the theory you need to conceptualise compelling and engaging podcasts for your intended audience.

By giving you this content before the workshop, you’ll have time to write and reflect on how you want to communicate your work through podcasting. It frees us up to spend the maximum possible time concentrating on workshopping your podcast ideas.

On the day

Part 2: Planning

In this part, we’ll be covering all the reasons to start a podcast… and all the reasons not to! We’ll generate ideas, make sure our aims and audience are aligned, and discuss all of the elements that go into setting it all up, including music, artwork and booking guests. You’ll create the idea for your podcast, be clear about your intensions for it, and have a simple roadmap for getting started.

Part 3: Doing

This part covers the practicalities of recording – what hardware you need, how to set up the room, recording and editing software, and how to get the best out of guests in interviews. We’ll talk about distribution, marketing, growing an audience and how to make sure your podcast is as accessible as possible. You’ll also get the chance to practice recording and editing yourself.

Part 4: Maintaining

In this final part, we’ll talk about how to get a podcast beyond its first five or ten episodes. We’ll discuss how to retain audience engagement, how to be agile and evolve a format, and how to re-brand to keep it fresh. We’ll reflect on how to measure a podcasts’ success and, ultimately, how to know if and when to stop.

FAQs

This training is intended for university members of staff, researchers, technicians, support staff and students.
Twenty. Because this is a highly practical course, I like to keep numbers reasonably low in order to give everyone a fair chance to practice. If you want more than ten people to come, I'll arrange for another trainer to join us.
Yes. The reason I keep the group sizes small is to allow time for workshopping your ideas, and receive feedback from me and from the group.
This training is offered as a half-day or full-day course, either online or in-person.