This series is all about libsyn’s newest podcasters. Its sole purpose is to introduce these awesome podcasts to the world as well as share their podcasting insight to empower the community!
Q & A with Sean from Advent of Computing
When did you start podcasting?
I published my first episode about 3 months ago, but had been working on my podcast for a few months prior to that. Mainly trying to figure out my format and how to do scripting and audio editing. Before ever publishing I ended up having a few episodes worth of content that I wasn’t happy with that will probably never see the light of day.
Despite being so new to the production side of podcasting I’ve been involved with the industry for about 6 or so years.
During the week I work as an analyst for a content delivery network that hosts a lot of podcasts. I’ve spent a lot of time at that job writing software for calculating listener statistics and royalty reporting.
I think that running my own podcast has inadvertently helped me with my job, because now I get to see both sides of the industry.
Why did you start podcasting?
I’ve always really liked public speaking, and being able to share something I’m passionate about with others. In college I worked as a physics researcher so I had a lot of opportunities to present projects I was involved in at conferences and lectures.
This experience was a great fit for me, since I got a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment from researching and presenting.
I’ve been out of college for a bit now, and was trying to find a way to scratch that same itch. Like I mentioned earlier, I had some experience with podcasting as an industry from my job and had always wanted to try producing my own podcast.
It’s also served as a good outlet for learning. Most of the topics I cover I know a little about, but by the time I’m done I always learn more. Coming into this as a researcher I want to present the most accurate information, so I find myself reading a lot of primary sources.
For me, that really brings the topic alive so I try to incorporate as much information directly from people involved with the topic as possible.
But beyond that, I feel like podcasting is a good way to help improve myself. For a lot of my early life I had issues with speech, and went through years of speech therapy to be able to talk more intelligibly. Due to this I’ve always been really self-conscious about my voice, especially the idea of sharing recordings of myself.
Since I’ve started podcasting I’ve felt myself becoming a lot more confident about how I talk, and have been able to be more constructively critical about my own voice.
What’s the name of your show and what is it about?
My podcast is Advent of Computing. It’s about the history of computers and how older technology is relevant to modern day devices and software. I tried to pick the name so that it describes the goal of the podcast: to show how our current digital world came to be.
Every episode I talk about an influential computer, company, person, or event and how we can see it’s effects today.
One of the reasons I settled on this topic is simply because I think computer history is super interesting. A lot of little things we take for granted today have rich stories behind their creation.
And a lot of these stories either go untold are aren’t widely known. I want Advent of Computing to serve as a way to get more people interested in the heritage of the systems we interact with on a daily basis.
What’s your podcasting set-up? Hardware, software, CMS, etc.
Right now I’m using a Samson Q2U. I’ve been slowly building out my setup, so recently switched from the mic’s onboard USB out to XLR through a Behringer 1204U. So far I’m happy with the setup, using the mixer has removed a lot of noise from my recordings which is something that always bothers me. I pull everything into Reaper for editing. I do all of my recording out of my home office, which I have been slowly covering in acoustic paneling and foam.
How have you promoted your podcast?
Like a lot of other shows, I use social media to promote my podcast. I usually use twitter, mainly to share new episodes and other content that I think my audience would find interesting.
One of the better ways I’ve found to promote is through my show notes. I try to do notes for each of my episodes as basically a summary of what the audio covers with links to sources. But when I can I’ll also use my show notes section to give more in-depth analysis of one or two of my sources. It helps SEO, and gives me more content that is easy to share on computer-related news sites.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
I wish I had started off using Reaper. I initially was using Audacity, but ended up ruining a few takes of episodes before finally switching. On top of that, I just really prefer Reaper.
The other secret that I wish I knew is how inviting the online community is in general. I’ve always been self conscious and worried about sharing my content, mainly thinking people would hate it.
But as I’ve been more active in posting I’ve gotten a lot of positive responses from people. Most folk online really want you to succeed, so don’t be afraid to put yourself out there!
If you’re interested an anything that has to do with the history of computers this is the podcast for you! You can geek out on all kinds of history, cool tidbits, stories and so much more in the privacy of your own ears! Subscribe to Advent of Computing!
There’s nothing like podcasting to strengthen your voice and confidence. If you want to give it a go we would love to support you! We have excellent podcasting plans and if you need a bit more support before you get started we have a fantastic FREE Podcasting Quickstart every month!
