Get Podcasting!

The Science Communication Conference last week afforded me and a panel of podcasting peers the opportunity to talk about science podcasting – but I feel that there were a lot of key things I didn’t really get across. I thought I’d distil some of those into this blogpost, around my rules of DIY podcasting, namely†:

1) Make a podcast
2) Make it good

which are slightly extended from my rules of doing anything for yourself, namely

1) Do it
2) Do it well

This will seem trivial to a lot of readers, so let’s tackle this in a bit more detail.

1) Make a podcast
The key is not the rule but the order. There is plenty to say about how to make a podcast good – all of which is completely irrelevant unless you go out and do it. Too many public engagement stories start with “we applied for a £20k Wellcome Trust grant…”*. How about one which starts with “we thought of an idea for a podcast and decided not to wait for anyone’s permission – we just did it”. In fact, I would say do it even if you don’t have an idea – if your idea is “me talking about science” – do it, and let listeners decide for themselves whether they like it.

Proceed to step 2 ONLY IF you’ve completed step one. There are plenty of things to say here, but don’t read everything on the net about it and think it’s all terribly complex. It’s not. This is something you can do in your spare time for minimal cost. It doesn’t have to be hi-fidelity, it does not have to appeal to the broadest possible audience, you do not have to have prior technical or presenting experience. Just do the show you want to do how you want to do it, make it as good as you can, and LEARN BY DOING. And if you don’t like the fruits of your labours, change the format; add a guest presenter; pitch the material to a different audience; there is nothing which says any of these are set in stone, and being prepared to change things which don’t work as you go along will make a better podcast.

Don’t be afraid to fail, or you’ll be afraid to try. This isn’t a £20,000 Wellcome Trust grant – if this all goes horribly wrong, you’ll have wasted nothing apart from your time. So what if you waste a little time? Creativity is inefficient, and you won’t know until you’ve started.

Also, bad podcasts don’t get listened to. There is no judgemental audience waiting to mock low-quality podcasts – so don’t be afraid to make mistakes. The Internet only pays attention to good stuff and will not waste its time ridiculing you. That gives you the freedom to try stuff out and do things badly until you figure out how to do it well.

This is why you should make a podcast, but how should you do it? In terms of absolute basics, this is what I would do:

a) I would want access to a computer and a quiet space for recording. I’m a mac user, so I would use GarageBand (FREE) but I think PC users use Audacity (FREE). Record your episode using the built-in microphone on your computer (if it has one) or an inexpensive/borrowed one you’ve plugged in.**

b) Edit the audio to a decent length and bounce it to an mp3.

c) Sign up to a service like Libsyn or Podbean. The basic Podbean package is free, Libsyn starts at $5/month.

d) Upload your episode and fill in the info about the show and the episode through the handy services these websites provide.

e) Submit your feed to iTunes (again, this looks complicated but isn’t).

Congratulations. You have a podcast. Now you need to think about making it good – the best you can – and you may want people to listen to it. There are a lot of questions about audio quality, music, who it’s aimed at, how often you should do it, and all that jazz. I’ll talk about all that in the next post, but until then:

Commit to making your podcast – don’t be discouraged, it’s not that hard
Do it as well as you can – of course
Learn as you go
Don’t be afraid to change things
Don’t be afraid to get things “wrong”

†my version of the “here is a chord – here is another chord – now write a song” of punk folklore

*There are a lot of great projects that couldn’t happen without larger-scale funding – but why not learn on a project with very little inherent risk first?

**Obviously there are ways you can make the audio better, but more on that in part 2

Greetings from podchat

Yesterday, with a host of podcast luminaries, I ran a discussion session on science podcasting at the British Science Association Science Communication Conference – or a podchat, as my brain insisted on referring to it for reasons of brevity.

The conference itself seemed to be mostly attended by science communicators, with a good representation too from early career (usually PhD-type age) research scientists – although I’m sure the BSA could confirm that with numbers. The conference organisers clearly recognised the importance of networking at a conference, with structured sessions integrated very early on into the two-day proceedings. The “networking speed dating” gave us 7 minute sessions to introduce ourselves to a group of 4 other delegates – little more than a minute each. The process was rinsed and repeated until we’d met twenty or so people and given them the twitter version of our life’s work. Gimmicky on the surface, it actually meant I at least recognised a few faces by the end of the session – having come knowing about 2 people at the conference.

The conference seemed very friendly – several life scientists commented that at their research conferences, this really was not the case. I suspect that the relatively flat career hierarchy among young science communicators as opposed to the many ages of academics at a research conference contributed to this, and the fact that the scc delegates make it their business to know how to communicate couldn’t hurt.

The talks I attended (including the plenaries) seemed to me to be pitched at an accessible and introductory level – I don’t consider myself an expert PE (public engagement) practitioner and I never felt out of my depth. I think this would make it a great conference for people new to PE for that reason – and the opportunity to meet like-minded scientists and communicators is very valuable, especially if you’re someone who feels isolated in your research group as a result if your PE commitment, or just the aching loneliness of the freelancer.

From this comes my main criticism of the conference – I saw lots of great examples of PE projects and practice over the two days, but very little to really surprise or challenge me. We heard a lot about how scientists need to engage with the public as a social duty and as a way to influence policy and secure funding; about how scientists are traditionally bad at this but are getting better. We heard about how scientists need to learn the value of two-way engagement because the public have a right to shape research agendas and will actually benefit from seeing the effects of their work; how scientists are traditionally bad at this but are getting better. And we heard that there are “dinosaurs” in academia who tell their researchers to get on with research and stop piddling around with talking about it; impact being written into mainstream research council grants mean that while this was once a major problem, it’s getting better. I don’t feel as if there’s much very revolutionary in this and never had a “so that’s what I should be doing” moment. It’s not a major criticism, in the sense that the BSA have put together a well-organised, friendly conference with good speakers – but there could have been a bit more to frighten the chickens*.

That said, there were plenty of good examples of very successful PE and citizen science projects which provide lots of great ideas for projects -  and if this was the conference’s main remit, I think it was very successful. Visionary and disruptive challenges to the community represented are, perhaps, the icing on the cake of excellent conferences – and even without the extra decoration, The British Science Communication Science Communication Conference was a very tasty cake.

*I know that’s not the right expression but I’m having a mental block on what exactly it is. Something to do with horses?