Design, Develop, Create

Wednesday, 15 September 2021

Guest Interviews

About Design Talk

The podcast is called "Design Talk (dot IE)". It is hosted on acast, and has its own website www.designtalk.ie. (Search for "Design Talk (dot IE)" via your usual player).

The podcast is recorded live, not prerecorded. We are very keen on balanced contributions from all participants. The moderator / host's role is to invite everyone to talk, to move the conversation along and gently redirect it if needed. The engagement person's role is to monitor the chat and other channels, working with the moderator / host to encourage, respond, drawing attention to comments etc.

To make for lively panel discussion, everyone should have something to say about everything, to share and discuss ideas.

We use show-notes. The show-notes act as a guide rather than a tight script, the show itself always takes its own course. 

Avoid reading word-for-word scripted responses - unless you have amazing voice acting skills it is  impossible to not to sound wooden. However the activity of preparing questions and statements readies the mind and enables you to engage nimbly with the flow of a discussion.

The Podcast Deliverables/Activities:

  1. Preparing, using the show-notes template.
  2. Prompting and responding to the audience.
  3. Hosting/recording the guest interview.
  4. After recording - editing the audio file using Audacity. Add intro and outro. Edit out gaps and errors.
  5. After recording - update the show-notes using the template.
  6. After recording - provide individual cover art by adapting the provided template.
  7. After recording - utilise social announcements (see the show-notes template)

What goes into the show-notes?

Think of the show-notes as something like the sleeve notes that accompanied LP records.
The show-notes start out as a loose structure with reminders and prompts for the recording session.
But the show-notes are also used to capture and summarise all the relevant useful information in a concise format containing: 
  • The questions/observations that prompted your discussion with the guests
  • The people involved and their roles
  • The title/subtitle, episode #, season #, date of recording 
  • Kernel statements for the socials
  • Information about the music elements used if any for intro/outro, backing and transitions
  • Description and explanation for why you chose a particular artist and/or musical element, providing as much source information as possible but most importantly the correct licence and attribution
  • Licence information for the intellectual properties
Note: the podcast publisher has editorial control and has final say on the finished production.

Seek inspiration and review previous episodes to understand the extent of detail and level of quality that is expected.

Is there a role for visual aids during a podcast? If you or your guests feel that visual props and different kinds of activity fit with the scope of your session then yes, you can use props like graphics, websites, slides and engagement tools such as surveys and whiteboards for interactive components.

However: as the finished product will be an mp3 file (an audio podcast) we expect that the visuals are merely aides for the talk, rather than substitutes. Your show-notes can be used to share links to online versions of visual elements, references to other material etc. If you have an essential diagram or picture, then please provide a description and explanation for the audience who won't be watching the video version. Some of the visual segments of the (i.e those without spoken descriptions) will not make it into the finished edited podcast version. For the final edited podcast, assume your audience is only able to listen to the audio file.

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