Evo Terra:
All just-starting-out podcasters are visionaries, seeing their
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perfect podcast as something to architect or something to nurture and grow.
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The best podcasts are often made by a combination of the two.
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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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There are two kinds of future podcasters - planners and the impatient.
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Now, planners recognize the work, or at least that there
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is work, involved in starting a podcast and they get to planning.
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The impatient, however, they just want to get the show out there.
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Since they're not planners, they don't know how to get the show
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out there, so they either wind up doing a crappy job or they wind up
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hiring somebody like my company.
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So yeah, if that's you, an impatient, by all means, get in touch.
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Now, assuming you, the working podcaster out here, is not among the
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impatient, if you were, you probably shouldn't be listening to this show.
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But assuming you're not, that means you're a planner, a planner of some sort.
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You may not recognize that you're a planner.
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You might not even call yourself a planner.
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You may think you're the opposite of a planner, but I promise you, you
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probably are somewhat of a planner.
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And planners, as far as podcasting goes, have two archetypes,
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either architects or gardeners.
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I'll explain each of those.
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See, when I'm working with clients who are usually inpatient, I
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adopt the role of the architect.
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And as an architect, I am using their vision and shaping it into the building,
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the park, the whatever you want to think about this is, let's just use a building.
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I'm here to craft the best building possible.
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And in order to craft a building, as we're not just dropping a prefabricated
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home on a lot, making a building, making a podcast takes lots of planning.
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Like hours of upfront planning that can take weeks and/or months just
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to get the planning session done.
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In the planning session, we're gonna start detailing out segments.
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And also, during the production process, we're detailing out the
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segments that will go in a show.
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No, it doesn't have to be a full-on variety show or sketch
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comedy - doesn't matter.
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Every show has segments.
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Every podcast episode has segments.
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We're going to detail all of those out when I'm playing the architect role.
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We're also going to script out a dozen episodes or more sometimes.
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The actual, real words, everything being said, word for word gets scripted
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out when I'm in architect mode, well before anything's ever dropped.
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And when I'm in architect mode, making really great content,
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man, it can work really well.
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Highly-produced, tight, exactly what the client is looking for.
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Everybody is happy.
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The audience loves it cause we've done some testing in there.
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It's great.
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It's wonderful.
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They're great and all, but they don't allow for a huge amount of serendipity
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or, in some cases, any serendipity.
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And at my heart, I definitely rely on serendipity more than, I don't know
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about most people or not, but more than I would have ever expected to be,
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more than you might think someone who calls himself an architect might be.
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Because when it comes to my own projects, my own podcasting projects,
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I'm much more of a gardener.
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Now that is not, by the way, the opposite of the architect.
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A gardener is still a planner.
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But now as a planner of a garden, to think about the podcast as a garden,
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that metaphor, I'm going to plant some things and see what grows.
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Now, you may think that sounds like a very risky thing for an architect
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to do, but done properly, there's very little risk of a failed garden.
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I mean, things are going to grow, right?
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And as a good gardener, you still need to do a lot of the
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things that architect would do.
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When I'm gardening my show, or I'm playing the role of a gardener on a
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new show, like this one, there's still a lot of planning that goes into it.
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Maybe not quite as much, maybe not nearly as, you know, many details and
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drawing out the lines, but we're still plotting out what the show's going to be.
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I still define the segments of the show, but now in a more of a
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gardener style, I can rearrange those segments as needed without much fear
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of the entire building collapsing.
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Or I can add in new segments or bits as are necessary, as long as
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they fit with the other segments that are already in the show.
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That's what a gardener would do.
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I still have to do a lot of templating.
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I think I missed talking about templating when I was in the architect stage,
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but templates for artwork, templates for the, what you call show notes,
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what I call in-app episode details, templates for website, templates for
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episode pages on websites, templates for social properties, other aspects.
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I have to do all that still as a gardener.
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But again, maybe with a little less rigidity.
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You know, maybe not quite as tight as they were.
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A lot more fluidity is allowed for change.
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Again, as long as that change tracks back to the original
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planning we did of this garden as a podcast or podcast as a garden.
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I still have to write scripts, but instead of writing a complete script, scripts
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become much more of an outline oftentimes.
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Or sometimes it's not a script, it's just a collection of topics
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and angles I can come back to.
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Really all depends on the project I'm working with, if it's for
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a client or just on myself.
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So we can do all of that.
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As you can see, between the two of those, there's still a lot of planning
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that goes on whether you adopt the architect or the gardener archetype,
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when you're building your new podcast.
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The gardener can still make great content that is highly-produced that the audience
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loves just like the architect can.
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So the goal of this episode is for you to go back and reflect
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and think which one are you?
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Which one do you think best fits you?
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And if you're happy with that particular role, great.
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Keep on keeping on, as I would say.
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But if you're not, try the other one on for size.
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On your next project you're working on, think about doing it an opposite way.
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Now, here's one fun way to do that, the whole switching up of
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roles and doing things, is don't try and do it all on your own.
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Collaborate with a fellow podcaster on your next project, specifically, a fellow
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podcaster who is the opposite of you.
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So share this episode with the people you'd like to collaborate with, have
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them figure out which one they are, architect or a gardener, and then next
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time your big project comes around that you have the opportunity to bring in your
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friends with, collaborate with someone who is opposite you, not the same.
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Opposite of you.
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See how that works.
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You'll get a good taste and flare of how those interpersonal relationships
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work as you are working together towards the big podcast product.
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Now, if you loved what I had to say, please go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra
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and buy me a virtual coffee.
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That is always nice.
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And that is it.
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I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
