Casting our nets wide
Launching a podcast, being interviewed for another and taking part in a summit filled a week with talking about 5th Place, Shape of Emotion and Emotional Fitness Classes.
The Week That Was: #65. Reading time: 4 min 41 sec
We were brought up on radio. Television only came to our part of the world, South Africa, in 1976, a year best known for the Soweto uprisings not for our toe dip into what some call the “goggle box”. Prior to this we only had the radio as our home based entertainment. Those of you, in South Africa, who were young, or old, enough at the time may remember listening to Little People’s Playtime, Jet Jungle, The Mind of Tracy Dark, Squad Cars and Father, Dear Father, to name only a smidgeon of the many shows available on Springbok Radio.
I (Chantal) think it is because of a childhood filled with listening to stories and serials on the radio, that I particularly love listening to podcasts. It is something I can do while showering, washing the dishes, crocheting or drawing.
Podcasts are a big thing. Invented in 2004 by Adam Curry and Dave Winer who coded a program to download Internet radio broadcasts to their iPods, the idea caught on quickly. In 2005 a version of Apple iTunes was released fully supportive of podcasts and in the same year the New Oxford American Dictionary declared “Podcast” the “Word of the Year”. By 2019 165 million people had listened to a podcast, with more than 90 million Americans listening monthly.
We joined the party
Last week 5th Place entered the broadcasting domain and launched its podcast called Emotions Matter. Really! This baby has been a long time in the making. We’ve had it on the “To Do” list since before lockdown but there were other things that got in the way. Like COVID-19, capacity and commitment.
Starting a podcast can be relatively easy. There is a low barrier to entry and some podcasters literally record their ruminations and reflections in crowded areas like coffee shops and bars and upload this as their episode. We, however, plan, research, curate, compose, run through, record and edit each of our episodes. So starting a podcast may be easy but keeping it going requires commitment, content and the capacity to deliver. Every week. Week after week. With 52 weeks in a year, it’s a bit daunting.
Bringing our work wider to the world
We really want to bring our work to the world. We want to spread the word, so to speak. We hope we have enough words to keep on going. We are two episodes down, 50-hundred-zillion to go?
Podcasts can be accessed on a multitude of platforms and apps with the most popular being Spotify, followed by Apple and then Google. There is a requirement to jump through several hoops to get accepted onto the various platforms and so far we have been accepted onto seven, including Spotify (yay!), Google, TuneIn and Amazon. We wait for Apple with bated breath.
In addition to being on various platforms, the recorded files have to be hosted somewhere first - much like the hosting for a website. After much research we settled on Podbean for our Emotions Matter. Really! podcast. It offers the best balance between what you get and how much it costs. Being that our currency here in South Africa hovers around R15 to the dollar, this is always a consideration!
And did you know that the pod in podcast comes from iPod. That ubiquitous portable music player that put 1000 songs in your pocket and changed the way we consume music forever?
The Bipolar Now Podcast
We were also guests on a podcast last week, The Bipolar Now Podcast. We were interviewed by Matthew Bushell who co-hosts the podcast with Mike Lardi. It was an interesting experience being interviewed. We felt like we didn’t say very much about the topics we covered. In fact it felt like we seemed to power through the interview at a rate of knots, with it being over nearly as soon as it started. But Matthew Bushell and Mike were happy with the result. We suppose it gets easier with experience. The trick is to not over prepare and trust that we have the knowledge to answer whatever comes our way.
Happy Parents Happy Kids Summit
Matthew was interviewed by Chirag Singapuri, co-host for the Happy Parents Happy Kids Summit, an online parenting seminar taking place from 24 March, 2022 to 3 April, 2022. It explores the question, What makes a good parent? The summit delves into the notion that parents who are centered within themselves and deal consciously with their personal challenges are more likely to have deeper and more loving relationships with their children.
Matthew forms part of an amazing group of speakers who dig into this topic. We’ve watched a few of the trailers and it’s going to be a fascinating and unique journey into an aspect of parenting that is not often explored.
Matthew’s interview will be broadcast on Friday, 25th March 2022, 6 p.m. CET / 9 a.m. PST and available to watch for 24 hours. Here’s a taste of what’s in store.
Too long under cover
We had a full week of talking about 5th Place, Shape of Emotion and Emotional Fitness Classes. We have spent too long under cover, we are getting out there. We have a solution to support mental health and emotional fitness and we want people to know about it. We hope you will take the time to tune in to what we said and subscribe to our podcast.
Until next time
Yours in feeling,
Chantal & Matthew