Thoughts on Podcasting, 3 Shows In

This week, we broadcasted and released episode #2 (which is really our 3rd) of Freelance Jam.  Here are some things I’m learning as we go, in bullet form:

• It’s OK to launch sooner, even if things are rough around the edges. I’ve always had the perfectionism bug (as many in our industry do), but it takes time to get to where you want to be.  The only way to get there is to work through all of the mistakes and bumps along the way.  You won’t have it right out of the gate.  As you can see in our first 3 episodes, we’re trying out different software, different hardware, as well as tweaking our content and performance.  The website is also a work-in-progress.  We’re gettin there.

• Podcast / live web show production is A LOT more complicated than it seems. You’d that these days it’s easy to talk to two people and broadcast it live on the web.  Not the case.  We’ve hobbled together about 8 different applications to make it happen, and we’re still tweaking our set up.  It’s kind of rediculous that it’s this complicated, but it is.  Check out this article I wrote for Mashable, which includes a list of tools we’re using.

• It’s better to do LOTS of pre-show preparation, than go in cold. In episode 1, I spent time preparing a bullet list (gotta love the unordered list) of points I wanted to hit on in our discussion.  As soon as some dead space came on, we went right onto the next point in the list.  In episode 2, while we planned the main theme for the episode, I left the rest to improvisation.  It went OK, but I felt it lacked a coherent flow and progression (mostly on my part).  It also helps with time management.  In episode 2, we cut out our “recommendations” segment because we lost track of time.

• Having a schedule set in stone is a fun challenge. We broadcast live every other Tuesday night at 8:00pm EST.  This doesn’t change.  Consistency is key when you’re trying to build a loyal audience so keeping to this schedule is important.  But sticking to a set schedule for anything kind of goes against my lifestyle as a self-employed web worker who works from anywhere, anytime.  Sure, I have no problem scheduling single meetings and calls and whatnot.  But a repeating event is tough for someone like me to stick to.  No matter how busy I am with work, or how many other things are going on in my life, Freelance Jam happens every other Tuesday night.  No getting around it.  I kinda like this curveball in the routine

That’s all folks.  More to come…