Episode 290: Arielle Nissenblatt

Episode 290:From Listener to Podcast Leader with Arielle Nissenblatt

[00:00:30] Fonz: Hello everybody. And welcome to another great episode of my EdTech life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day and wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world.

Thank you as always for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for engaging with our content and sharing our content and for all our new. Followers and subscribers. Thank you as always from the bottom of my heart for all of that support. As you know, we do what we do for you to bring you some amazing guests and amazing conversations here in our education space.

And today I'm really excited to welcome a wonderful guest, somebody that I've been following for a very long time and has really helped step up my podcast game too, as well, through some of the advice, through some of the advice and shares that That she has through several podcasts and just, uh, you know, being a regular on LinkedIn and following all the great stuff that she's doing through Descript and among other things, and she's very busy.

So we'll definitely, I'm excited to talk to her. So I would love to welcome to the show, Ariel Nissenblatt. So thank you so much. How are you doing this morning?

[00:01:35] Arielle: I'm great. And I'm futzing with my microphone because I want to make sure it looks professional. This is a weird look that we've got today. I feel like you can see the, the.

Microphone. So please excuse me as I get it right. But anyway, I'm great. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:49] Fonz: No worries. No worries. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And like I said, I'm a long time follower ever since. Well, I mean, I've been using Descript probably since I first started my podcast four years ago and just kind of diving in and seeing its progression.

So I know that we'll talk a little bit about that because it's definitely the platform that I recommend. For a lot of my friends that are out there in the podcast space, just to be a one stop shop, not having to go out anywhere. But before we get into all of that wonderful, good stuff for all our audience members that are listening and may not be familiar with your work yet.

Can you give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the podcast space?

[00:02:30] Arielle: Yes. Happy to. I am a big podcast listener and. Lover and advocate for this industry. I have been working professionally in the podcast space since 2017. And I guess when I think about my non professional life, I am also thinking about podcasts.

I am constantly recommending podcasts to friends. I am making my whole personality about podcasts and. That is for better or for worse for my friends and family. I recently had the realization that most people, when they think of me, they probably think something like, uh, you know, I start every sentence with, I recently heard on a podcast and you know what, I'm okay with that.

And I have come to accept it. And that is just the way it is. So big advocate for the podcast industry, big advocate for creators and. What I do day to day right now, I work at Descript. Like you mentioned, I manage the community there. Um, and that means that I am aware of how different users use the product.

And I ask questions about what they like about it, what they could, um, be getting out of it, what more they could be getting out of it. I think about how we can promote them, how we can highlight the users who are using Descript. And I try to get more people to use it in a way that's going to help them make really great content to reach their audiences.

So that's what I do on the Descript side of things. I also do a weekly podcast recommendation newsletter to keep up with, uh, Podcast listening. And I do a weekly podcast called trailer park, the podcast trailer podcast, which is about podcast trailers. And then I have a daily podcast that is also a video podcast.

Um, it's fully video and audio, and it's called daily tips that may or may not help you with Arielle and Ned. And it is one to two minutes daily tips, and they may or may not help you. The. You know, it's right in the name. So do a lot of things experimenting with audio and video and playing around with all of the creator tools that are available so that I can potentially recommend those tools and help people make great stuff.

[00:04:40] Fonz: That is wonderful. That is a lot there to unpack. And before we get started to in the, some of that unpacking, because I get really excited and just hearing you describe just your passion for audio and video, podcasting, podcasting suggestions, and being in the podcast space, I want to ask you, you know, Growing up, was this something that you just kind of dove into also as well?

Like something that was dealing with AV media, you know, maybe like in through high school in those years that led to this, or is there a specific moment in time that maybe you can share with us when you just said like, wow, this thing just clicked for me and I'm all in.

[00:05:18] Arielle: Yeah, I, I, Often wonder what my life would be like if I had a technical background or a background where I was listening to talk radio growing up, but none of that, none of that is the case.

I, growing up very language, language arts and verbal reading, uh, reading comprehension things were more my speed. I loved geography growing up. I studied geography in college, but I never did anything techie. I actually considered myself pretty actively not techie. I, you know, knew how to use a phone. I knew how to use a computer, but I didn't know how to troubleshoot.

And now I do, and I'll get into how all of that has changed, but, and spoiler alert, it has a lot to do with podcasts, but I really growing up did not have any background in AV or even in presenting. I wasn't like on stage ever. I didn't do improv, none of that. I really loved geography, loved fun facts. I always read.

The Guinness book of world records, just to give you a sense of like what I was doing on the weekends. Just love fun facts, which also I think has to do with podcasts in some ways, but there was a moment in time that clicked for me. And it was after I graduated from college in 2014, serial came out the, um, pretty famous podcast.

Um, and. It has since gotten millions and millions of downloads, tons of awards, a lot of recognition. And when it came out in 2014, everybody at my office was listening to it. And I heard that this was the case throughout the country. Most offices were listening to it and then having water cooler conversations, discussing what happened in that week's episode.

And I at first resisted, I didn't want to listen because everybody was listening and I wanted to be different and what a, what a foolish. What a foolish thing to do. Eventually I listened and it blew my mind. And I realized that I was hooked in a way that I did not think I could be hooked from audio only.

And I just from then on kept seeking out podcasts to listen to and have not stopped since.

[00:07:23] Fonz: That is wonderful. That is amazing. And you know, I would have never thought because like I said, I follow you on LinkedIn and of course on Twitter too, as well. And I know that you're heavily involved, like we mentioned with podcasting.

And of course there's podcast movement, being a presenter. And it just seems for me, because I am very much into podcasting. Um, I see you everywhere and presenting. And I'm like, I, so I was just curious because I was like, wow, you know, it's somebody who just has been doing this for such a very long time, but I love that.

Yeah. That for that moment in time to as well, just, this just clicked for you and it just worked and now you're out there presenting and, you know, like you said, doing some things that maybe you never thought you'd be doing, which is very much like I, when I started the podcast, I was like, well, I didn't never expect it to do this and I'm just going to do it.

Click record and see where this goes. And four years later, here I am. And, uh, you know, 200 and this will be the 289th show that I've done in four years. So I'm just really excited and just always willing to learn. And I absolutely love what you have done and, you know, listening to you on my friend's podcast, uh, Dylan Schmidt also as well.

Digital podcaster. He's great. I'm part of his little creator group and I've learned so much through him as well. And, um, so it's great just to follow some wonderful people that can help you sharpen your skills and continue to learn a little bit more about the industry. So let's talk a little bit about that as well.

You know, as far as podcasting is concerned, when you first started listening, uh, you know, to podcasts, you know, through serial and moving on through the work that you're doing. You know, what have you noticed as far as the changes within the podcast industry? Um, maybe, you know, is it, do you see that it's just more video now?

Is it a combination of both? You know, what are some of the things that you're seeing there?

[00:09:09] Arielle: There's definitely more video now. There's definitely more experimenting with video now. I think part of the reason for that is because there are more tools that are being created to help people experiment with video.

I think there's been a desire. For video all along and let me back up. I don't actually think there's been a desire for video. There's been a desire to find. Any, anything that will help your podcast reach more people. And if video is that thing, people are willing to experiment with it. Now, there are more tools that will help people do that.

I think that video is great. And I think that video can help you reach a new audience, but I also think that there is an appetite for people who just want to listen to podcasts and don't necessarily need the visual. So I just want to put that out there. Um, I am experimenting with video and audio for a few of my podcasts, actually, whether it's doing the entire podcast video and audio, like I said, with daily tips or with trailer park, the podcast trailer podcast, we do audiograms and occasionally we do camera face, face to camera videos promoting each episode.

Definitely playing around a lot with that. Um, that's one of the big changes for sure that has happened over the years. There's also been an infusion of money into the podcast space, the much larger podcast space, and then money has been seemingly draining from the podcast space. And I'm talking about like big investments from big companies like Odyssey and Sirius XM and.

A lot of different, and there's been acquisitions with Spotify and Pandora and iHeartRadio buying up some smaller production houses, and that has been interesting because what it has done for the smaller indie podcasts is it raises awareness. It makes you think, you know, there's all these podcasts out there on all of these different topics, and Maybe you in wherever you live in the US, wherever you live around the world, you have expertise on a topic.

Maybe that means that you're inspired to start a podcast on that topic. And I think that it just gets the word podcast in more people's brains and gets them listening to podcasts, but then also maybe creating podcasts. So. Yes, video. Yes. More awareness of the word podcast. I also think a big change that has come about in, in the podcast creator space over the last few years is kind of we're, we're stuck in how to grow.

I think there are some people who really hit it right. They get their marketing right, their messaging right, they figured out social media, they figured out a community to market their podcast and it's just going gangbusters, but a lot of people start a podcast and don't dedicate time to marketing it or they do the bare minimum and they're stuck.

And I think that we are ripe for new marketing avenues in the podcast space. So not quite a change, kind of a, uh, Stuck in the mud situation there.

[00:11:54] Fonz: Yeah. And you know, one of the things that I love too, that you mentioned is, you know, seeing different ways of promoting the podcast. And I recently saw one of your LinkedIn posts when you were at a diner and you know how they have the little paper there that they give you.

And then all of a sudden, Hey, has anybody tried this? And believe it or not, that's something that's crossed my mind. But then at the same time, I'm thinking, well, I mean, how do I know I'm hitting my niche and so on? But sometimes it's all about taking that risk. And I'll be honest with you. When I first started this podcast, uh, back in April 10th, 2020, I was like, Hey, you know, I'm going to.

Do this just for my community. Like, this is going to be like, I'm not into it for the money and this and that. And then all of a sudden I was like, well, you know, as far as much, for as much work as I'm putting in, you know, I was like, is there any way that maybe I can find some of that compensation somewhere in some ways, shape or form?

And then as a podcast has continued to grow, there's been several opportunities to do that. And being a one man team, that's one of the hardest parts for me is being able to find just The sauce, the secret sauce, either for the marketing and putting things out there. So that's why I've relied heavily also on the video podcast, but, or the video aspect or the clips to share.

But one thing that, um, Dylan Schmitt said in one of his recent episodes, he said, you know, a lot of people that do the video podcast or put videos out, they give that one minute, you know, kind of like little jam, 45 second jam, but it doesn't, he, he said, he goes, that doesn't necessarily translate to a download, you just kind of gave them.

That little thing that maybe they needed to hear and that's it. And they're good. And maybe they'll come back and revisit later, not necessarily then. So I'm still trying to figure that out. But one of the things that you did mention was the community aspect of it and the importance of that. Can you just tell us a little bit more about maybe just some tips as far as.

You know, when you start off a podcast, the importance of that community and maybe, you know, just a little simple one on one on how to possibly start building some community there around your podcast.

[00:13:46] Arielle: Yes, this is complicated. And I think people look for a silver bullet when it comes to marketing, but more specifically, when it comes to building a community, some people create podcasts for existing communities.

And they have taken the time to chat with the members of that community and say, what would you like to hear? What would help you? And an example of this is like, um, Squadcast, which is the company that I worked for before I worked at Descript. We are, we were, we are a remote recording platform that helps people record Audio and video in studio quality.

So there was an existing base of people who use the product, who were curious about how it got made and what stories the founders had along the way. So we started a podcast in order to reach that community of people. And we had an already existing. Email marketing list. We had an existing Facebook group.

We had an existing Slack channel where we could promote and start discussions about the episodes that we were putting out into the world. But then there are some people that start a podcast because they want to start a podcast and then they go about finding community for that. And that's okay. That, and then within that, sometimes it's very possible to.

Find community because they turns out really needed a podcast. Those people that the podcast is hitting, they wanted to listen to this and you're the perfect person for them. And other times it's like pulling teeth. I often say that if you, if you've heard advice, that's like, you got to start a community for your podcast.

That really means nothing. What, what, what you really should be doing is finding the people that your podcast is serving. And having individual conversations with those people, even if only five people identify themselves, even if only five people are DMing you on a monthly basis and saying, Hey, I really love this episode to hop on the phone with them and say, What's your background?

Why do you listen to the show? What are you looking for? Who are your favorite guests? Who should be a guest over time? You will identify more people that this show should eventually hit. And this is not super scalable. It takes a lot of time. You're going to have to schedule that phone call. You're going to have to jump on the phone.

You're going to have to analyze what was said in that phone call and then take actions based on that. That takes a while, but I do think that if you are building from a place of you really like the content that you're making, you, this is fulfilling for you. You are making a difference in a few people's lives.

That's probably enough for you to keep going. If you started this podcast on this topic that you so love, and eventually you will, a community will present itself to you and then it's your job to kind of bring them together. I think where I see a lot of people struggling is, or it kind of comes down to this.

If you are struggling to get people to leave you ratings and reviews. If it's like pulling teeth to get people to reply to you at all, you're going to have trouble, quote unquote, building a community. What you need to do is identify the community first. I think it's a mindset shift.

[00:16:38] Fonz: I love that. You know, you really hit on a lot of great points there.

And for me right now, on my mind, I'm just like, Oh my gosh, there's, there's the way more work to do. And I know I've been doing this for four years and thankfully, you know, because of the space that I'm in, in the education space, educational technology, um, A lot of educators and I've had founders, creators, you know, professionals that work within this space on his guests that have really helped.

And again, most, most importantly, it's really like, I've seen it for me where I always tell people, it's like, this is my one hour PD professional development, but I get to share it with the world. And of course, not every episode is going to be for everybody, but I try and really bring in different guests, but I really love that aspect of really being able to Just saying, you know what, making some time to visit or connect with my audience and ask these important questions to see how I can better serve them.

Because at the end, not only do I want to help myself grow professionally, but at the end, I do want to help my, the education space and the education landscape by bringing some great, uh, you know, conversations and such as this where, Maybe some of my audience managers may say, well, why do I need to hear about podcasting?

And the reason that I did this show too, is because there are so many educators out there right now that have some amazing stories and not just within the education space, but they have passions outside of education. You know, I have friends that are so into fly fishing and into sports and into all of these things and said, Hey, let's do this.

You know, why not amplify your voice, tell your story, you know, everybody has a story that is worth listening to, or can really touch somebody in a special way and you're just really, uh, getting it out there. So I want to ask you a little bit about that storytelling aspect of podcasting. What are your thoughts on that?

As far as, you know, just, is it more or like for myself, like I say, like. I, I do this because I love amplifying educators voices. So in other words, I'll always have a guest on, I've never done really a solo episode. Do you recommend, you know, like if anybody's starting, you know, how do they decide, do I want to have just guests?

Do I want to be by myself and then just kind of go through that story, storytelling aspect of it?

[00:18:48] Arielle: So storytelling is a word that is complicated, right, because there's podcasts that are storytelling podcasts, like The Moth, and like, um, Spooked, and like, there's actual shows, Mortified, there's shows where people come up to a microphone and tell a story, tell a 5 10 minute story, and then it's, Sometimes that takes place in real life, like the moth is a really great institution that there's a, there's a story slam where you can go to a location in a, in a city and you put your name in a hat.

And if you're selected, then you tell a story. And if you win that evening, you then get passed on to the, the stories, uh, the grand slam. And then if you win the grand slam, maybe your pod, maybe your story gets put on the moth podcast, right? So then you are telling a story. In a storytelling show, however, you know, that's, that's most base definition of a storytelling show, but then there's this where right now I am telling a story to get to the point of what I'm trying to make, right?

I think, and even what I'm noticing about the way that you conduct this podcast is you don't just have a set of questions. And when I finish answering, you pop onto the next 1, you look for a transition, you look for a story that connects the 2. You want there to be an example. You want there to be something that somebody can.

Glom on to so that they can relate to themselves that storytelling in and of itself. So do I think every podcast everybody who's listening to this needs a quote unquote storytelling podcast? I do not I do think that it is worth learning some of the tricks of That storytellers employ in order to keep your audience engaged and a lot of that has to do with telling analogies and sharing examples and Really just making people want to get to the next point of the story so I, I think that that's a really big part of it is let me back up and tell you why I feel this way.

Right? Let me give you a reason from my lived experience that I feel this and I think that if you listen to podcasts and you listen to examples of people who do this well, it will eventually be infused into your interviewing style. If you are actively thinking about who's doing a great job at it and that will help you stay engaging So how do you decide what kind of podcast you have?

You know if you're if you're an educator say let's go with the fly fishing example Um, say you're an educator and you have fun being an educator but then you're a fly fishing person on the side, right and Maybe your podcast is about what fly fishing has taught you about Being an educator and you're going to have other fly fishing people on the show.

I don't know much about fly fishing. Probably a bad example for me to choose, but we're going to go with it. And you're going to have them tell the story of their greatest catch. And. You could interview them. You could say, and what happened next? And then what did you do with, with what you found? And did you cook it and did you eat it?

I don't even know if people eat their fly fishing catches. So just please bear with me in this situation. However, you could, you could do that. That's the way you could engage your guest. Or you could say, Um, Marcus, I have you on the show. I'm going to introduce you and then you're going to tell your story seven minutes, and then I'll come back and ask you some questions at the end.

And you could do a combination of that. You could have them tell their story. I actually think Dylan does this. It might be Dylan. It might be somebody named Kevin Schmidlin. I can't remember. There's a few very interesting podcasters who have interviewed me over the years about like my podcast experience.

And they will do the following. They ask you for your story. And then in post production, they come in between and they add their take to it, or they add the transition moments. And that's a really interesting way to keep people engaged as well. So a number of ways you could do this. I think the most important thing to do when you are starting out as a podcast creator is err on the side of being transparent with your listeners.

So, Hey, I'm just figuring this out. We're going to work out a format together. I want to hear from you. What do you like? What are you most entertained by? And also take that into account with. What do you like to do most? What is the easiest for you when it comes to editing? If you have an editor who is doing this for you, what are they most talented at?

So there's a number of things here.

[00:22:55] Fonz: So one of the things that I want to hit too, that you mentioned is just being that being transparent and I was listening to a clip of you and I can't remember what the podcast was, but like you said, it's just being transparent and presenting things in a very different way.

And just kind of putting yourself out there a little bit more within, as far as the content and making that connection. With your audience and so on, like, for example, you know, and it really stuck with me because at the end of my show, I'll always say like, Hey guys, if you haven't done so yet, please jump over to so and so and give us a like, this is follow, but the way you said too, it's like, Hey, you know what, like, and again, it might go with a little bit with that transparency, but for me, it's just being that very authentic and saying, Hey guys, like the way that you described it, if you like stars, then hop over, over here and then give us, Five stars, you know, and so, and just presenting things in a different way, not the same monotony.

And you got to change it up every time. Exactly. Changing things up a bit. And for myself, I think that today, what you have helped me see and in doing a little bit of research too, as well with what I have seen in some of your clips, it's like, you know what, there's always room for growth and there's always room to change things a little bit.

And just even that one little, Change can make a huge difference in, you know, even just getting a reply or response or that call to action or an immediate call to action, as opposed to, you know, giving, like you mentioned the same calls to action all the time. It's like, tell me why I should do this. Don't just tell me to go give me a why.

And I think that that's something that's very important. A lot of things that we, and, and I'll, I'm including myself here, like. Personally, because one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the show is just really to pick your brain and learn from you. So that's one of the things that it has shown me that for four years, I've always been doing the same format, which is great.

That I love really just listening. I've always been a listener and then I'll pull and say, okay, can we unpack this a little bit and make those connections and so on, but maybe in some of the other things. And even within that, just to continue to grow and evolve. Just to make it a little bit more engaging for the audience members, you know, obviously for the guests too, as well.

And so that's just been great. So now I want to talk to you a little bit about, um, the industry now. I know we talked about how you work with Descript. I've been using Descript for four years now and Descript has up until now, like I think this last month with the last rollout that they had, now I am 100% In the platform.

And what I mean by that is before it used to be maybe 70, 30, where there were some things that Descript wasn't doing well yet that I would have to go to another platform, uh, just because, you know, with this platform where I record on, it's just one video file because I just choose to make it easy. And then going into Descript, I wasn't able to do my vertical videos that it would cut for me quickly.

I'd have to do some extra steps and so on. So anyway. Going back to Marcelo's hours that I do, by the way, Marcelo is awesome. And so, and the community going in there, there's somebody shared a clip with me. It's like, Oh, we'll just go ahead and do this, like create scenes and do this. And that once I did that, even though it was a couple of extra little steps, I was like, you know what?

I would rather just spend my time here. 100%. So now I've officially said like within the last two to three weeks, like I'm 100 percent in on Descript. I will not use any other platforms or there's no reason for me to go outside of any other platforms at all. So let's talk a little bit about Descript.

Let's talk about the, the podcasting tools industry that are out there and how Easy. They're making it for maybe new podcasters to just come in and really have a high level of production. So talk to me about your experience with Descript.

[00:26:40] Arielle: Yeah. So I have been in the podcast space since 2017, but. Only started making podcasts myself in 2019.

So about five years now, I started making a podcast called Feedback with Earbuds, which was a companion to my podcast recommendation newsletter, where each week I share a theme and five podcast episodes on that theme, and each week is curated by a different person. And what I was doing with the podcast was.

Essentially reading the newsletter, just trying to make it an audio version of the newsletter. So what I would do is go to Audacity, and I would record right within Audacity, and I would make my cuts right within Audacity, and then I would send my edited version to my friend Daniel, who is my editor, who puts the music on, makes it sound good, um, levels the audio, and really makes sure that it's good to go.

Sends it back to me, then I upload it to my podcast hosting provider. I was doing this for a while. And it was frustrating. There were a number of things that I couldn't do that I wanted to do, but I couldn't really name them. I, I didn't know what it was that I, that I didn't know. And then I stopped doing that podcast and started working on some other podcasts throughout the years and have been collaborating.

And, uh, Two, a year and a half ago, I started trailer park, the podcast trailer podcast, and my cohost, Tim Vegas does use Descript and I was not using Descript yet. I was still using Audacity. So we were recording on squad cast. I was downloading the files. I was bringing them into Audacity, making the cuts, sending those cuts to Tim.

He was bringing them into Descript. He was making those cuts, sending it back to me. I would bring it back into Audacity. Really a convoluted process, but we made it work. Then in June of 2023. I joined Descript and as part of my onboarding, we are tasked with making a video introducing ourselves to the company with Descript.

So I had to get my face to the camera and do like a, here's who I am, here's what I'm all about. I had to add music. I had to add GIFs. I had to add B roll. I had to put text and transitions. It was really fun. And by the end of that, I was like, Oh, I know how to edit video and audio now using text because the way Descript works is that it is.

Transcript based editing. So you get an automatic transcript of your video or your audio or both. And then in order to make cuts, all you have to do is edit it like you're editing a Word doc. Backspace on a word, it's gone from the audio and video as well. Um, you know, if you want to consider ignoring a word and then pass that along to your co host so that they can check if they want that word gone, you can do that.

You can collaborate. It's really such an easy thing. So as you can imagine, my. Creative process with my co host. Tim is so much easier now because we just do everything in Descript. Um, so that's my experience with Descript. It really, I think is a great tool for new audio and video creators and video creators at any level.

So I think it's actually perfect for people in the education space because you're probably not a content creator by trade. You are not like by definition, you have been in the education space for a long time. And. You might want to employ video because you know that people have short attention spans and maybe if you're doing a PD, if you're doing a professional development, maybe you want to communicate that via a short video clip with, with captions and with B roll to keep people engaged.

Descript makes it so that you can do that even if you're not a professional video editor. Yes, if you want to take it to the next level, you could send those files to somebody and they could make it even fancier, but you can get all of that done by yourself as well. Like I can link to some examples with that I've made by myself that.

A year ago. I would never know that I could do that.

[00:30:21] Fonz: Yeah. And so one of the things that I love too, that you mentioned this, uh, what was it on Wednesday? I did a professional development. We're coming back to school. So we had 2 days of professional development, which is great. Instead of the teachers just sitting at their schools, we had a 2 day conference.

So one of my, uh, Yeah. Optional PDs was it doesn't have to be anything school related. So I said, well, I'm passionate about podcasting. So I want to show teachers how they can start podcasting, but not only that, not only make the connection to just their personal lives and what their personal likes are, but also how to even introduce podcasting in the classroom for learning to allow students to.

You know, show their thought process. I tell teachers, oftentimes you're always worried about the final product. And that goes with podcasting. We're always worried about the final product. And maybe sometimes I pop as podcasters, we need to focus on the process on our process to make ourselves better. And like, this is what I'm doing today with you being here.

This is going to help me go back and revisit this episode. Take some of those knowledge nuggets that you shared. And then now I get to review my process to see how I can better that even in just an incremental little growth within that and see what the return on investment is. So, but going back to that education space, I definitely shared Descript with them and I was sharing with them, like how easy it is to just go in here.

And, um, let me go ahead and just do real quick. This is going to be, since it is going to be video, I'm just going to go ahead and do, uh, my screen share here with you. And so the, for all our viewers that are going to be watching on YouTube or on anything. So here's an example of what we're talking about as far as Descript.

And if you wanted to edit anything here, all you would need to do just like a Word document is just highlight, click backspace, and it deletes it for you. And then it just go ahead. It just does its magic like Descript does. And then you're able to go ahead and make any edits. And then of course, like I mentioned to you being all in.

You know, now I do all of my social media clips here where now I can bring these in and just go ahead and it's probably loading just because I haven't been using it in a while, but anyway,

[00:32:31] Arielle: we're

[00:32:31] Fonz: doing all the things, but anyway, so this is something and the interface is so great. You've got so many great tools and it's easy for.

An educator or anybody that is interested in podcasting to be able to do. So again, going back to that, this has definitely helped my workflow. And that's another thing too, you know, thinking about podcasters and describing your workflow. I have some teachers that were saying like, Oh, well, we use audacity and just the pain that it is to just go ahead and see those way files and then make those.

Accurate cuts. And then of course, leveling sounds and so on. And then here, just with a touch of a button, you've got your magic studio that enhances your voice. Uh, you have pod fade, no worries. Just highlight regenerate. And, or I mean, not the vocal fry, excuse me, vocal fry highlight. And now all of a sudden your vocals sound a lot better.

And like I said, it truly has become my one stop shop. 100 percent in before I used to do a combination of where very similar to you, I would take my video, pop it into another platform that created my videos that were vertical and And then come in and then do the studio sound and then do any additional cuts.

But all my B roll and everything was always through Descript. Now being all in, there really isn't anything that I have seen that is better than this at all whatsoever. So I highly recommend it to everybody. And, um, you know, so that's been great. So now going with all of the, or in our conversation here, continuing with all of these tools, I want to get your take as far as, you know, obviously tools can help our workflow.

But. The AI component within podcasting. Do you see that this could be something that might hinder podcasting where maybe now creators are just saying, you know what, I'm just going to pop this script in or the script, not descript, but the script into this platform and just have it create, you know, A podcast for me through, you know, AI voice and an AI avatar.

Do you think that we, we're going to start losing value there in the sense of people are just saying, nah, how do I know that this is real? How do I know, and I'm not going to want to listen to it. You know, they want the authentic, you know, the real stuff. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:34:45] Arielle: If the AI works the way we intend it to, and a lot of good faith companies that utilize AI intend it to, that is not what is supposed to happen.

What is supposed to happen is that AI is a tool that helps creators with their workflow, helps them get started on first drafts, helps them maybe come up with initial ideas, and then Innovate on the human side of things after they get to that point. The goal for Descript, the way we see it is that AI is a companion to help you get to where you need to be.

So right within the app, as you know, we have a sidebar called Underlord that helps you do a whole bunch of different. Quick AI related things. So you mentioned, um, you mentioned studio sound. So that is technically AI. It's not generative AI. But what it is, is if you are recording in a cavernous room and you don't have a great microphone, you can hit the studio sound button and it'll make your voice sound like you were using a microphone.

And it's really great. It just takes out the background noise. Um, another. Example of AI within Descript is the ability to take out your filler words, your ums and your ahs and your, your, your long pauses and your repetition of words. And what it does is you press the button, it highlights them, you can decide if you want to delete them all, if you want to replace them with a gap, if you want to just strike them out so that you can decide on a word by word basis if you want to cut them out.

That's AI. We also have the ability to shorten word gaps, so if, for example, I am thinking for a very long time between each of my, your questions and my answers, and you just want to, in one fell swoop, get rid of those, you can do that with that action under the Underlord tab. So those are some of the AI related actions, or those are some of the AI actions that have been there.

For a long time into script and then recently we introduced a bunch of cool generative AI things and one of those that I think is really useful for podcasters and for video creators is the ability to put chapter markers, the ability to not just put chapter markers but also to name your chapters, the ability to identify clips that you could then further Decorate within Descript and a number of other things like that.

You could also have it suggest social media language. You could also have it suggest a blog post and I am not saying that you should go and take those at their word and just copy paste them onto social media because you want to make sure it's in your brand voice. You want to make sure that it didn't hallucinate and make anything up because AI is not perfect.

It's training on a lot of data and. You never know what, what it's come up with. So you definitely want to do a second, third, fourth pass on it. But this is a really great way to see, to, to kind of get another perspective on things, because a lot of times we are solo creators and we're making things on our own.

We don't always have time or money to pass it to an editor. So I think AI can be really useful and when it's done right. And when it's done in good faith, it is meant to just help you get to where you need to be.

[00:37:42] Fonz: Yeah. And I absolutely love that. And like you said, um, you know, going into that, all the wonderful tools, like I said, it's just a one stop shop for me as far as mainly just finding those awesome clips or just being able to edit.

And like you said, for me, a lot of verbal crutches. You're going to hear the word, you know, a lot, you know, a lot. So when I go back in there, I clean it up. And before I used to do live shows all the time. So I would just tell my, my, uh, audience members, they knew like, Hey, if there's some edits, the camera cuts off, we have mic sounds.

It's like, Hey, it's, it's what it is. But now that I kind of stopped doing the live shows, I feel like I'm more that way. I can be more present with my, uh, with my guests because before I was managing social media on the side over here. But now. I hear and I see that more and now I'm able to clean that up a little bit more and just give a final product that is going to be a little bit cleaner, easier to understand, you know, you fill up the, the, the little, uh, spaces, the gaps and all of that.

So that all works great. But I think my question was, and just, you know, For maybe creators that are out there that just say, I'm going to pop a script in into maybe not necessarily this app, but any other app and just create a podcast doing that, where it's just the robotic voice, you know, are you, are you seeing any of that out there?

I know I see like those videos that are on Tik TOK, where they just pop up. Pop it into the AI, but are there people releasing these kind of episodes into, you know, podcast players? And, you know, like I said, my fear is people are just going to say, Oh, this is too much. I just don't want to hear AI. What are your thoughts on those types of creators?

[00:39:14] Arielle: I also don't want to hear an entire podcast that was generated by an AI voice, especially if it wasn't disclosed to me. So I think there are some AI ethics that are being discussed and some ground rules that are being. Signed on. I, I, I'm going to forget who this was, but I was talking to somebody who is coming up with a code of ethics for how to use AI in podcasting, and one of their rules was that if you ever do use an AI voice, there needs to be a disclaimer that an AI voice is used.

And I thought that that was a really great measure to put in place. So I don't Please I want to know. I think that there can be a creative, artistic reason to every once in a while put an AI voice in there. Actually, there's a really great podcast right now called Shell Game. Um, and it's, it's, the trailer of this podcast, Shell Game, is basically This guy, the host of the show, his name is Evan Ratliff using his AI voice and then coming in with his real voice and saying, that was my AI voice.

And then coming in again and being like, actually, just kidding. That was another version of my, my AI voice. It's really worth checking out because he's then going into the ethics of all of this. So if you want somebody who has thought about this more than me, who's done more investigation, I would definitely recommend checking out that show, Shell Game.

Um, but I do think that hopefully. We come up with really agreed upon standardized rules for if we are going to be using AI voices, we should know that. And there are probably some circumstances where you should not be using your AI voice. There

[00:40:47] Fonz: you go. I know for myself, episode 164, when ChatGPT first came out, I did, using Descript, what I did is I went into ChatGPT, I interviewed, Chat GPT.

So what I did is I was recording and then I would put Chat GPT's answer into Descript and then play like that AI voice, you know, from the, the bank that it has. And it was a really neat episode, uh, had a lot of listens on that. So that was wonderful. The way that I did that at the very beginning when this first started coming out back in November.

So it was maybe about March or February that I did that interview, but, you know, so now, you know, like I said, going into that, you know, That was my concern. But I love what you said that even just having a code of ethics right now, even in the education space, every state is coming up with, you know, a manual on how to appropriately use AI within classrooms and so on.

And it's great to hear also that that's happening even, or those conversations are happening even within the podcast space. All right. And, uh, so just to kind of start wrapping up here too, as well, just on these last segment, I know that I sent you an email last week, you know, I know that we had this show scheduled.

You know, the previous week, but we had to reschedule. But so there was a topic about sponsorships and things of that sort. So I just want to ask you, because at least from my experience and listening to creators like Dylan, uh, Lloyd also, uh, who's on LinkedIn, Lloyd George, who's awesome and everything, you know, I know in listening to their shows.

And if I would've known this in the beginning, when I was like, now I'm doing this for like, two years. You know, just for fun and everything. But now it's like, you know what, you know, is there a way to help at least offset some of my costs for subscriptions and things of that sort? Uh, do you have to have a big following in order to get sponsorships?

What is it that you have seen? What do you see as the standard, at least through your experience? So if you can share a little bit about that, because I think oftentimes that might be something that deters people from going into podcasting, cause they're like, man, I don't have the money. And what if I can't get sponsors?

What are your thoughts? What are your ideas? What are your, you know, I guess, uh, suggestions?

[00:42:52] Arielle: You have to decide if you want sponsors that are going to actually offset the costs of you making your show or, uh, You just want sponsors to say that you had sponsors. You could probably find a local business or a local, I don't know, like Lakeshore Learning, let's say, if you're in EdTech, to sponsor an episode or sponsor a season.

But maybe they're only going to give you 300. And look, you get to say, I made money, but you definitely don't get to Actually really offset your costs. So you need to decide if it's a vanity metric. If you want to just say that you're monetizing, or if you really want to monetize, and if that's the case, you need to be willing to be really scrappy and think about who could advertise and think about what advertisement you're willing to accept and think about how.

Inconvenient you want it to be for your listeners, you know, like, do you want to advertise to them products that they are not interested in at all because those are the people that are willing to advertise on your podcast, you probably could, but I think just to get more practical with this, if you are an educator in podcasting, you can probably get pretty niche and if you only have 200 listeners per episode, it's That is okay because they're probably very dialed in.

They're probably very high intent to buy, or at least visit the services and products websites that you are potentially advertising. And maybe those conversions are going to be. Very maybe small, but high, high earning. So if you are willing to be scrappy, if you're willing to go out of your way and do a lot of research and send the right pitch letters and create a media deck that looks really great and really shows off your podcast in a great way, and then have the conversations, get on the phone and talk podcast is worth investing in.

It is possible to monetize. But this is a lot of work on top of already marketing and creating your podcast. So you need to decide if this is worth it for you, um, with all of the other things that you're doing in your life. You know, I wouldn't start a podcast hoping to make money from that podcast. I think if you look into it, if you find that you have a lot of time to send some outbound marketing pitches, go ahead.

But I would just temper your expectations and make the podcast as you genuinely, genuinely want to make the podcast.

[00:45:04] Fonz: Excellent. I love that. And you know, that's really right now where it's this last year, year and a half is where I've had to learn a lot of those things and on the fly and obviously listening to podcasts about it and even reaching out to Dylan, reaching out to Lloyd, and then of course now having you on the show, just getting just this little bit of feedback and insight really does help a lot and it's definitely significant.

So I really appreciate that. You know, as this podcast continues to grow, I definitely, like I said, this is professional development for me, for my. 45 minutes to an hour that I get, but at the end, I also get to share it with all my audience and all my podcasting friends too, as well. So they themselves too, can go ahead and glean from these knowledge nuggets that you shared.

So I thank you so much, Ariel. I really appreciate your time. Thank you for all of your insight. Thank you for sharing all your experience. And before we wrap up, I always love to end the show with the last three questions. And so I know I always share them on the calendar invite to all my guests. That way they have some time to think about those things.

So let's. Let's go ahead and get started with those questions. So Ariel, as we know, every superhero has a weakness or a pain point. For example, Superman, what weakened Superman was that kryptonite? So I want to ask you in the current state of podcasting, what would you say would be your podcasting kryptonite?

[00:46:26] Arielle: My podcasting kryptonite. Currently is I on social media. I get really frustrated by engagement bait. So I'm, I'm, I'm on threads all the time. I'm on Twitter all the time. I'm on LinkedIn all the time. And I see a lot of. Stupid marketing, uh, ideas and practices being touted as the only way to go. So I, my kryptonite is falling for those in the sense that I'm always like, you, what are you doing?

You're doing harm to, I'm responding to them. Like you're doing harm to the podcast marketing space. Like you are, you're steering people in the wrong direction. You're getting them to buy your course when you don't, haven't even really spent the time to figure out if your course is the right way to go.

So it's interesting. I think what I'm trying to point out here is that. You, listener, should not fall for that as your kryptonite, and my kryptonite is that I need to stop engagement baiting with these people.

[00:47:22] Fonz: There you go. That's great. Thank you so much for that answer. Question number two is, is there a book that you recommend that should be mandatory for everybody to read?

[00:47:32] Arielle: No, and I'll say why I am not a big reader. I am a big podcast listener. I haven't really finished a book in non audio form since 2018. And look, I'm interested in reading. I, if you put a really great book in front of me and said, go sit on a beach chair and read it. I understand the value in that. I do. And I have done it every once in a while.

I've started a lot of books, but I really do just listen to podcasts. However, I will shout out one of my favorite books that I have read physically multiple times. It's called Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It has nothing to do with podcasting, nothing to do with education. It's just one of the best books I've ever read.

And it, it keeps me coming back. It's about how humans are meant to run. And I don't even run. I just think it's a fascinating look at evolution.

[00:48:17] Fonz: Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing that. And the last question is, if you could try out a job for a day to see if you like it, what job would that be?

[00:48:26] Arielle: Wow. I love that question.

Um, I would love to work at, um, I'm like, I'm answering it as if like, if somebody hears, they might make it happen. Um, I would like to work at, As a tour guide at like Ellis Island or some kind of cool, um, uh, tourist place in New York city or, or elsewhere. But I always say that I want to be a tour guide when I grow up.

And I still think that I will be one day, maybe on the side, maybe for real, but I love the idea of like leading a walking tour around a site or a city.

[00:49:01] Fonz: There you go. I love that. Well, I'll tell you what, you're definitely a great tour guide for the podcasting space for sure. I really appreciate all your shares and the way that you guide, you know, listeners like myself, viewers like myself within this space and just to learn more about it.

I mean, I know that you're out there continually. So I definitely recommend listening For all my friends that are podcasters currently, and those of you that are interested in podcasting, please make sure that you follow Ariel on all social media. And we will definitely provide all of those links in the show notes.

So Ariel, thank you so much again for your time. I really appreciate it. Uh, I love the work that you continue to do and thank you for everything that you do for the Descript community, along with Marcelo and along with everybody else out there too, within the discord space, uh, for, uh, podcasting. Descript.

So really appreciate it because it definitely has helped me out a lot personally and in my workflow and obviously in creating content as a solo podcaster and pretty much a solo everything, but it's a great tool to have. So I really appreciate all that work. Thank you for

[00:50:01] Arielle: having me and thank you for the appreciation.

[00:50:03] Fonz: Excellent. Well, to all our audience members, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. We really appreciate it. Please make sure that you visit our website at myedtech. life, myedtech. life, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 288 wonderful episodes with founders, creators, educators, professionals, and we've got a little bit of everything just for you.

So you can take some of those knowledge nuggets and sprinkle them onto what you are already doing great. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows and all of the support. And as always, my friends until next time, don't forget, stay techie.