What Is The Role Of Remote Interviews And The Podcaster - The Podcast Report With Paul Colligan Episode #91

What is the role of remote interviews in the podcaster? It's the PODCAMPUS REPORT Episode 91. Show notes, links, conversation and more at the podcastreport.com 91. The Connected World can make your podcast better in ways you haven't previously pondered. This is the Podcast Report. My name is Paul Colligan. I'm a podcaster. Obviously, you're listening to my show. I'm a writer and I'm an executive podcast producer. But that's not what this is about. This is the Podcast Report. This is the show where I show, teach, demonstrate to you how to reach more with your podcasting message and how to profit more with your podcasting content, because you are a podcaster as well. That's why we're listening to the Podcast Report. The big idea for today is simply don't let the tech get in the way of the conversation. The connected world, as I said, makes. Gives us. Makes possible things that we never could do before in podcasting. It's really exciting if we make sense out of all of it. I am doing a series on the four models of podcast production. If you head out to the podcastreport.com 91, you can sign up for Matrix that puts all of them together and of course, links back to them this time. Today, we're talking about not just interviews, but remote interviews. Now, interviews are obviously interesting and we've chatted about that in previous episodes and I've got links to those previous episodes at the Show Notes. But interviews are interesting because, well, a, they're popular. A lot of podcaster interviews. I've shared this before. There was someone once who posted to my Facebook page, hey, Paul, what do I do if I can't get interviewees? I said, don't do an interview show. And her response was, is that allowed? You can go back to my page. You can see that right now. It's really funny. They're that popular. They're easy. And they're easy for a number of reasons. The big reason, the most exciting reason, and you can look to this from a standpoint of laziness, or you can look to this from a standpoint of strategy. See, you don't have to be the talent if you're doing the interview. The knowledge, the information, what it is that your audience gets, you can get from the person that you are interviewing. We actually launched a product called the Podcast Interview wizard over at the really exciting website of the podcast, interviewwizard.com that walks you through that process of producing great content on somebody else's mind and talent. And skills and ability. The previous episodes, episode 81, I spoke to Jessica Rhodes about interviewing and what she does and her business, which is fascinating. And then in episode 82, I chatted about podcast interviews and some of the finer points there. But today's episode is about the remote interview. What happens when you're interviewing somebody in a different location? I want you to remember you can have the world if you do this. Audio is easy for anyone. Now, audio is easy. Not necessarily Skype, not necessarily Blab, not necessarily one of these third party systems, but audio is easy. Almost anyone in the world, and let's face it, any expert that you're going to bring on your show at the very least has access to a phone, let alone Skype or a connected device. When you interview someone remotely, you, you now have the entire world opened up to your audience. And isn't your audience worth it? So how do we do it? What are the possibilities? Well, the first one is the Skype recording, and everybody speaks to the Skype recording. And most of us know Skype. Skype, Skype. Skype gets all the action and all the attention. And Skype is great when it works. Skype has always been great when it works. Microsoft acquired Skype. The hope was that the money Microsoft had would make it better. It's still flaky, it still does things. It has gotten slightly better from a connectivity standpoint because our connectivity ness, yes, that's a term, has gotten better. But the big thing you got to remember is Skype is great when it works, doesn't always work. And you got to decide is your audience, is your interview, is your interviewee, is it worth dealing with something that doesn't always work? If you're going to work with Skype, I recommend Skype Recorder for the Mac for your recording. I've got links for that@the podcastreport.com 91 of course, the inevitable question that always comes up is what do I get if I'm on a PC? I honestly don't know. I don't know good ones. So I would love it if you could head out to the podcastreport.com 91 and leave comments about Windows Skype recorders that you've actually used, not ones you've heard about, not ones that you've seen on sale, but ones that you've actually used. And maybe we as a community can learn from that. But the big thing about a Skype recording that nobody chats about is the unease of someone who doesn't use Skype is far worse than recorded phone audio. I've listened to Skype interviews with experts where the guy on the other end or the gal on the other end just sounds like a blubbering fool. And they sound like a blubbering fool, not because they're not the master of the content, but because they are a little unfamiliar with Skype or the idea of the microphone in their face, or maybe they've turned on video or all sorts of different things. Skype can be distracting, and the distracting nature of Skype is isn't worth getting a better audio recording. The content is what you're looking for, so think about that. Few thoughts on Skype the next idea is the ringers, and Ringer is one of many apps. There's a slew of them. There are a lot of people who are trying to make web services and apps that make remote recording possible. I have used all of them, or at least all of the ones I know of, and the chances are good if you were to ask me, what about X? I will have used them. And if you know of an obscure one, go ahead and put it in the show. Notes thepodcastreport.com 9:1 I promise I will try. But here's the deal. Great concept. No clear winners yet. I have used all of them and they have made things easier basically for the nerd, but not easier for people on the other end. And I've had them crash. I've lost recordings and I'm just not satisfied with it yet. The big deal with remote recording is don't let the tech get in the way of the content. The second you do that, you've lost the purpose for your show. I've always said, and you know, and that's why you're doing this, and that's why we've come down this journey together is the content is far more important than the recording of it. Now, yes, get the best recording, but focus on the content before anything else. So the ringers, I haven't found any winners yet. Now there are a couple of platforms. There's Google Hangouts, which about six months ago was kind of the default place to record your podcast. It's kind of lost a little bit of its Flash. Blab seems to be the new one right now. I'm sure there will be other. They are fairly solid. The thing that you want to look at is the audio quality. I've seen podcasters with a $600 microphone use their $600 microphone on a podcast. But then when they jump on Blab, you know, put their iPhone five feet away from their voice and speak to it. When you do one of these platforms, make sure the audio is as good as it can be. The final solution, the final thing to the remote interview is a concept called the Double Ender. And this is huge. And this is important. I cannot recommend this thing enough. The Double Ender is basically where you record on a high quality microphone. You take your interviewee, who also records on a high quality microphone. Well, Paul, those are two different audios. Yes. Then you record a phone call, or you record a Skype call, or you record some call that shows you how to line up these two together. So basically, track one is you, Track two is the interviewee. Track three is the audio that shows how they all come together. The idea is you use track three to kind of line up track one and track two, get rid of track three, and then you got two high quality microphones recording. And the audio on a well done double ender is fantastic. I've been doing it pretty much since the beginning and when I did remote interviews with people ready for this. And I remember once I got a piece of email from someone who said, hey, Paul, I get podcasting. I like podcasting. You don't have to lie to me about. About Alex being in a remote location. Alex and I had never recorded an episode in the same room. Most of the time I don't think we'd ever record an episode in the same state. But the fact of the matter was the type of audio that came through made people think that I was kind of lying about the Double Ender thing. I'm not. It sounds great. And think about it, it should. Two good microphones recording two separate tracks, that's what you want. That's the kind of audio that you're looking for. Don't forget to clean up the two audios before you mix them, because the audio that you have, the noise in the background, the humming, that kind of thing, certainly the volume, the loud, all that stuff might be very different than the person on the other side. So before you mix them together, definitely clean up the two tracks. Really, a phone, which everybody has, and a simple audio recorder is all you need. Don't limit your wisdom to the tech. I'm sorry, don't limit the wisdom to the tech of the interviewees. You know what I mean? Don't just go, I only interview on Skype, or I have to do this or I have to do that. Maybe you both get on the phone, maybe you pay the long distance, maybe you call that person, maybe you send them one of those little Digital, you know, sound recorders for 30 bucks that you can get the office supply store, tell them to put that by their mouth. Hit record when you're going. That will be better than the phone recording. Or honestly, maybe you just record the phone recording. The big thing is, is you want the wisdom of your audience, you want the wisdom of your interviewee to be what serves first, worry about the tech last. But if the choice is the Skypes, the ringers, the blabs, I pick the double ender every time because it works and you've got control and it's a good place to be. What do you do with this? I don't want you to interview because everybody else is. I want you to decide which podcast format makes the most sense for you. And that's why I've done this series. 89, 90, 91 and 92 of the podcast report are all about that. Don't interview because everybody else is. Interview because it makes sense. Interview because this is something that you want to do. And then when you interview, focus on the content, not the technology. Don't worry about it. You will be at a better place. What I want you to do is I want you to head up to the podcastreport.com 91 sign up for the Matrix. Once all four of these are done and promoted, the matrix will be there for you to see these different formats, how they work, what to think about, where to go from there. And then also if you're interested in interviewing, definitely head out to the podcast. InterviewWizard.com We've got training there about this whole process and how that might help. And just realize that it doesn't have to be people who know what they're doing. It can be people on phones with audio recorders, it can be Skype, it can be whatever it wants to be. Just make sure that the content doesn't get in the way of the tech. Do those things. Examine. Figure out what kind of podcast you're going to produce. Know now that you have the tech to do it right, and we'll chat next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of the podcast Report. I love interaction. Head out to thepodcastreport.com and interact with this episode or any other that you might listen to. But don't just visit the website and click play. Subscribe to The Podcast Report ThePodcastReport.com iTunes ThePodcastReport.com Stitcher ThePodcastReport.com Google Once you subscribe, once you set it up so that every time a new episode comes out. You are automatically updated. You are experiencing. You experience the power of podcasting. It's not that you have to come out to my website. It's not that you have to go anywhere. It's that the content comes straight to you. Once we understand that power, podcasting will get to a better place for all of us. So please do subscribe. Once you subscribe, let's interact. You can do it at the website or you can do it on social. ThePodcastReport.com Twitter ThePodcastReport.com Facebook. Pick the social network of your choice and we are there to interact. The website's great too. But when you do social media, the world sees more. Find out about podcasting more. Find out about how to make their podcast better and the world becomes a better place. So go ahead, interact with us on social. This is the Podcast Report. My name is Paul Culligan. I'm thrilled you've been listening. Please subscribe, please interact and I'll chat with you next week. Bye.