Welcome to the campus energy and sustainability podcast. In each episode, we talk with leading campus professionals thought leaders, engineers and innovators addressing the unique challenges and opportunities facing higher ed and corporate campuses. Our discussions range from energy conservation and efficiency, to planning and finance, from building science to social science, from energy systems to food systems. We hope you're ready to learn, share and ultimately accelerate your institution towards solutions. I'm your host Dave Karlsgodt. I'm a director of energy advisory services at Brailsford and Dunlavey. In this episode, you'll hear a live recording from the 2020 AASHE global conference on sustainability and higher education recorded this October. My guest co hosts are Katie Boyle, the enrollment and marketing director for the Bard graduate program and Sustainability, and a producer of the podcast the Impact Report, and Brian Campbell, Director of sustainability and partnerships at Central College, and host of the podcast MidAmericana: Stories From a Changing Midwest. Brian is also a previous guest on this podcast. The title of our session, which we recorded in front of a live socially distance audience via zoom was podcasting for sustainability in higher education. You will get a peek behind the scenes into this podcast and a deeper dive into the use of podcasting and sustainability more generally. For some listeners, this topic may be a little meta, a podcast about podcasting, if so Have no fear. We have some exciting content that works for you on energy management, carbon policy and more. However, if you're interested in learning about storytelling, marketing, sustainability, connecting to sustainability leaders, and how we do what we do as podcasters, keep listening. I'll let Brian take it.
Hi, my name is Brian Campbell, and welcome to those of you who are joining us on demand as part of the AASHE conference. But a special thanks to all those who could join us today for this live interactive pre conference recording that we're doing. So like many of you, we had hoped to have, you know, time to gather with each other and have great conversation and questions and discussion in the same room. Obviously, that's not able to happen. But we decided to get creative and come up with this format for today. The idea for this session really grew out of an awareness that that I had and the other two panelists that podcasts were becoming more and more important in the work we were doing that podcasts are a way that we share ideas and information, make connections with new people. And, you know, in some ways do the kinds of things that we had previously depended on conferences and gatherings and other kinds of networking for. So there was a thread that went around on the green schools list about a year ago of people listing off their favorite podcasts. I think Dave started that. And there was so much response that we decided, you know, this would be a great topic for an AASHE panel to talk about the three of us who have our own podcasts that we've gotten into producing, how we use them what some of those possibilities are and to hear from other people what questions they have, and what ideas they have for how we can use podcasts, to further the work we do with sustainability and higher education. So we're going to start with some quick introductions. And we'll leave plenty of time for audience questions. So we're really excited to have so many people participating that can let us be the ones being interviewed a little bit even though lots of the time we're the ones on the other side of the microphone. So yeah, just to start off, Katie, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little about you and your podcast and how it's advancing sustainability in higher education.
Perfect. Thanks, Brian. And thank you everyone for coming today. My name is Katie Boyle. I am the enrollment and marketing director for the Bard graduate programs and sustainability. At Bard College, small liberal arts college in the Hudson Valley. The Graduate Programs and sustainability are made up of four programs. We have two MS degrees in environmental policy and climate science and policy and we also have an environmental education degree and an MBA in sustainability degree. So all very focused on creating the next generation of sustainability leaders in our programs. And our podcast is called the Impact Report. It is housed within our MBA program. And it's it's sort of a unique podcast, I would say in the sustainability space because it features our students. So it's made up of MBA students interviewing their sustainability heroes, and over the years they've had the opportunity to interview folks in the C suite from some of the biggest companies on Earth. We just dropped an episode yesterday with Morgan Stanley. I've had GM McDonald's Burton snowboards. Swell water bottles, all sorts of kind of cool big companies. We've also have a lot of students who are interested in social entrepreneurship and sort of innovative business models. So they'll be talking to entrepreneurs. And then you know, even government officials, we just we've launched our season this fall with an interview with the Brooklyn borough president talking about kind of the Brooklyn response to COVID, and how in the role sustainability plays in that. So a little bit different in that it is not any of us in the administration, doing the podcast interviews, it's the students. And then what happens after they do these interviews as a transcript of that podcast is published on greenbiz.com. And we view this as a unique way of advancing sustainability in higher education, because sort of at the core of what we do in the Bard graduate programs and sustainability is prioritize getting our students jobs in high impact roles and sustainability kind of as soon as possible. So we very much view the Impact Report, as as an opportunity to allow our students to start networking with high level sustainability officials that otherwise they just really wouldn't have access to. And we've seen these interviews turn into job opportunities, mentor opportunities, internship opportunities, through through these relationships, they also get to build their personal brand. You know, when people search them, they show up as a podcast host and somebody that's being published on greenbiz. So that's great opportunity for them. And it also increases brand awareness for for Bard, which increases enrollment, which then increases the student number of students in the workforce having high impact sustainability jobs. So that's really kind of how we think about the Impact Report in driving sustainability, both in higher education and then in the broader workforce. So with that, I'll turn it over to Dave.
Thanks, Katie. My name is Dave Karslgodt I work for Brailsford and Dunlavey, I run the energy advisory practice for for that company. The podcast that I am the host of is called a Campus Energy and Sustainability podcast. We've been running it for about three years. In fact, it came with me. We, our firm recently joined B&D earlier this year, but one of the things that came along for the ride was our podcast. And it was really a project for me that started out of kind of a combination of passion and the fact that I knew I needed to do some marketing. And I didn't want to write a bunch of articles. So I thought I'd go back to my audio roots. I'm a musician by training. And so decided that doing a podcast would be an interesting thing for me, I loved listening to them. I like learning through them. And I figured learning and sharing my learning along the way as I got into some of the topics that I needed to know for my work but hadn't gone through the formal training of was a good way to go. So I actually hatched the idea and got encouraged by some fellow AASHE members back at the Baltimore conference. I remember having dinner with a few folks who ended up being guests on my first episode, back, I think it was 2016, the fall of 2016. So we started in 2017. And I think we're on about 35 episodes now. Our, our show is a long interview format. We focus try to go deep on one topic at a time. So we've done everything from sustainable investing to the nexus of water and sustainability and energy conservation, to gender issues to most recently, we've we've done a couple of podcasts, both on going from Steam to hot water, as well as getting off natural gas. So it's a pretty broad swath of topics. The idea is to interview somebody that really has something new to offer the world. We try to connect it back to campuses in some way, shape, or form. And learning a lot along the way. It's a lot of fun. As far as connection to students, we did have two interns. In last summer, I put out an interview where I put out a job posting for an intern and I ended up getting about 20 responses with highly qualified individuals from all over the country. And that was great. So we it was actually a lot of work to go through them all. And finally choose the ones we chose. We ended up we had one position open, we decided just to take two of them because we couldn't decide. And so we ended up with two journalism students out of the UNC Chapel Hill program. And they did a great job and they were able to do some of their own episodes over the over the course of the last year. They now have both moved on. One's wrapping up a graduate degree and the other one has since moved on to NPR. So we've even spawned a new NPR interviewee. So I look forward to more of the discussion, but I'll hand it over to Brian. Thanks, Dave.
So my name is Brian Campbell. I am the director of sustainability education and partnerships at Central College. We're a small liberal arts college in Pella, Iowa so about an hour outside of Des Moines and yeah for me podcast started out as you know, something that was a way for me to learn and get new ideas during my commutes. And I got more and more interested in in podcasts as a format especially because my academic training and research is in oral history and doing interviews. It's always been an important part of my my research. And so I've been teaching some classes that were, you know, engaging students in interviewing and started just kind of dabbling with them in producing those interviews, doing some editing, being a little bit creative with storytelling. And started doing some podcasts with students. One of my collaborators in that teaching had been another colleague here at the college, Josh Dolezal. He's an English professor. And so about a year ago, we launched a podcast of our own. That's called Midamericana: Stories From a Changing Midwest. So our podcast a little different than the other two that you just heard about ours doesn't have kind of a sustainability focus in a narrow sense. But I think in the broader sense of sustainability, really is about how people connect to a certain place or region, and how that sense of place is changing. And so our first season, we looked at people who had grown up in Iowa moved away and came back, we're about to launch our second season, which is stories of immigration. And, you know, I think in both cases, really trying to think through the culture of the Midwest, a place that sometimes is kind of stereotyped. As you know, people don't have an accent, we're all white. And there's a lot more interesting things going on here. And so our interviews are also long and in depth, we typically do two or three hour interview and then edit that down, produce that into about a one hour episode. And several of the ones that I've done have have definitely had a sustainability focus in the more conventional sense. So I did one about sustainable agriculture, and one about business and sustainability in Iowa, and have some really interesting ones soon to launch for our second season. But I have, you know, really come to appreciate the way that podcasting has all sorts of opportunities for students and education as well as research. So I've done Now, a couple different classes utilizing podcasts, this past spring, did a workshop with faculty on how to integrate podcasts and podcasting into academic courses and research. So, yeah, I'm excited to talk more about how other people are using podcasts and what those possibilities are. So we have a few questions that we're going to ask each other. And then, you know, we're excited to also take questions from those who are participating today. So go ahead and type things in the q&a box. If you have questions, and we'll we'll grab those as they come up. But Katie, I wonder if you could just say a little bit more about how you got started with podcasting and how Bard decided that this was, you know, important enough to invest resources in developing a podcast?
Yeah, absolutely. I'll have to say at Bard it was a complete accident, we kind of stumbling our way through creating this opportunity for students and trying to find the best way to do it. I do also want to let everybody know that I am not actually the host of our podcast. So I have a little bit of a different role than Dave and Brian here. In that it's, it's been my role to kind of be the strategy director for the podcast and bring it to market and elevate its impact. We have a fantastic producer, and I'll get to how we landed with her working on it in a minute. But her name is also Katie. So it is confusing. So yeah, the origin story of the Bard MBA Impact Report podcast goes back actually to 2008 when our program director took over, running the Center for Environmental Policy, which was sort of original graduate programs at Bard and he used to, he still does, he runs a program called the National Climate seminar, which some in the AASHE community may have seen over the years. And back in the day, it was just it was essentially a live conference call national conference call where people could dial in from anywhere in the country, faculty would call it with their classes, and listen to our director and our ms students interview climate leaders from around the world. When we launched the MBA program in 2011. We brought the same model in to the MBA program, we switched it up a little bit. So it was just a one on one interview with an MBA students and a sustainability leader, but really trying to create conversations between students and experts and pioneers in these different industries and create some new relationships. And for the first couple years, it was just another live conference call. And as you can imagine, the audio quality was pretty mediocre. There were a lot of technical glitches and you know, people try to dial it, it was always a hot mess. But we had some really interesting conversations nonetheless and eventually thought, well, this is really great. Let's put these recordings out there. So we just threw the recordings of these conversations onto pod bean just as a way that we could then repost the link onto our website. And as we grew through the program, it just became more and more of a logistical nightmare to manage the call quality was low. We did get an interest from greenbiz in publishing the transcripts of these calls, despite their quality, so then we were tasked with transcribing these low quality conversations, to get them onto this blog. And and we were kind of on the verge of just throwing the towel in and not, you know, not wanting to continue the work because as a, you know, program, our primary job was not running these conversations we had to bring in students, we have to run an MBA program, all the things and somebody in a staff meeting one day just said, What if we turn this into a podcast and a light bulb went off? And we're like, yes, we are essentially running a podcast, why don't we actually call it that, put it on the platforms. So we add a staff member, learn how to, you know, sync up pod bean with all the platforms. And we just kept putting those low quality recordings onto pod bean for a while. And that's all it was. And then eventually, we were really lucky that Katie Elmen, who's our producer now came to us who's a student in the MBA, she's a television producer, and she said, Listen, I'm a producer, why don't I make this a real podcast? Let's see where we can take it. So she took over editing it adding in introductions and music and kind of a storyline to it and and really elevated the conversation. And then we eventually started to look at the data around the podcast, and we discovered that, you know, with very little marketing effort, or financial resources put into it, we were starting to see some pretty substantial listening listenership numbers. So we decided to have our marketing agency built as the the website that you see now. And rebranded it used to be called sustainable business Fridays, and we launched it in 2018, as the impact report, really recorded, or re edited old episodes with great conversations, and and so now we have really been able to grow the listenership of the podcast, and we get multiple emails a week from PR agencies and sustainability experts asking for their thought leaders to be guests on our podcast, we have always more than we can handle. So it's really just been this organic growth of this conversation. That's been exciting to see. And we're now able to bring in corporate sponsors to very minorly. But to help fund the effort a little bit and move, move away from sort of a student payroll rate for the program. So I think that's that's our origin story. In a nutshell. I'll throw it back to David to just switch over order a bit here. Not do I meant to say, Brian, but whoever's next.
Sure, yeah. So part of our origin story we'd been teaching, like I said, a colleague and I teach in classes that were about, they were called stories from a changing Midwest. And we did a series of these, the first one was about agriculture and the history of family farms. And we were doing oral histories and just getting such great stories. And we ended up writing a grant through Humanities Iowa, which is a subsidiary of the National Endowment for the Humanities. And so we had this vision for, you know, the oral histories that are typically recorded, and have been for decades now usually wind up in an archive where almost nobody ever finds them, you have to be a pretty skillful historian to even know which archive to find those in. And so we thought, you know, let's try podcasting as a way to get these oral histories out. And so yeah, we wrote a grant and got some great support, and the college put up a significant amount of matching funds. And so that enabled us to launch something that was, you know, more professional than what we had been doing with just sort of student oral histories. And so we're able to get some equipment, hire a professional audio engineer, and do some professional development ourselves in terms of how to do podcasting. Well, both in terms of kind of audio, recording and editing technical aspects, but also to think through some of the, you know, what to do with it, and how to promote it and, and market it. And so, you know, I see that Julian's got a question that he's posed, about, you know, how we've marketed our podcast, one of the cool things that we have done, we have a, you know, regular classes in Marketing here at the college, and they usually work with a client and take on a project as a kind of marketing learning experience. And so this is now the second semester that I've had, you know, students have worked with me as their client, and help to come up with strategies for promoting the podcast. So it's been a very cool collaboration. In that sense. We've also got another professor at the college who's done some of the artwork for our logo and draws original artwork to go with each interview guest. We have a college alum who commissioned to write an original song to be part of the podcast. And so, you know, we've, I would say, you know, partially we've tapped into those existing networks, and tried to, you know, really market the podcast through kind of word of mouth of our interview guests and their networks, and then also do lots of lots of legwork to kind of reach out to communities where they People come from and people we think would be interested as well as, you know, getting ourselves on the air to talk about this and sort of NPR and local media and, and promoting things that way. But, but yeah, we've been really excited. Like I said, we've had one season and are about to launch the second one. And we've seen it, you know, just grow steadily over the over the past year and, and have a real sense of, you know, what's possible with this podcast as well as, as others like it. Say, Dave, what about What about yours? How did the campus energy and sustainability podcast get going? And you talked about, you know, having dinner with a group of people at a AASHE conference, but it sounds like there's there's more to it than that, in terms of what got you from there to your life? I guess.
Yeah, fair enough. So again, I started as a jazz musician. So I grew up as somebody you know, in recording studios and doing things like that. So I was familiar with the concept of recording sound and thinking about getting good quality sound. So the technical aspects of it weren't a big deal for me, going back that far. But as I mentioned, it was really my my business partner and I, at the time, we're talking about, okay, we need to do some marketing, we need to get our word out there about what the work we're doing. We don't really want to just write listicles. And you know, the kind of classic marketing stuff that because it felt kind of empty, or kind of lame, as an approach. I really like digging in and asking questions. It's part of the reason I like being a consultant, it's part of the reason I like being able to work with lots of different campuses, because I get to learn every time I do. So the real idea was, well, what if we just, you know, ask people about them and get them to talk about themselves instead of talking about ourselves. So it was more marketing in the sense of, we're getting out there, and we're talking to folks, but we're not sharing our story and trying to jam something down their throat, we're really digging into their story. And the beauty of that is not only do you learn a lot, but you're also elevating somebody else to another level, because they're not likely to take the time to interview themselves, and edit it down and put it in a nice package and have a distribution of all the things so you're really doing a service to the person that you're interviewing. And so that, you know, to Julian's question, that's, that's kind of a way to think about it, you're giving to them, and therefore they're going to promote you. But you're doing it in a way that you're learning. So it's kind of a nice balance of all those things, rather than, you know, putting out advertising. It's not it's not advertising, it's marketing. And there's a difference in that sense. So the reason, you know, the way that I got going was, I found some people that I really liked, and had an interesting stories, and I thought could tell a good story. And I did a couple of those first, eventually, actually, I think the third episode I did was with a professor from the University of Hawaii system, Krista Hyzer, who is just brilliant. I mean, she's check anything out, she's doing. So hers went two hours. And so we ended up splitting into two episodes. I haven't done that, since then I've kind of tried to keep them a little bit shorter. But that was a good one to get myself started on. Then later on, I would be at the conferences and tell people that I had the podcast. And what I found was, when I told him, I was a consultant, they would run the other way, when I told him I had a podcast, they would be like, oh, tell me more. And then, you know, some of them actually would say, hey, I want to be on your podcast, I got this great story, or I know somebody you should interview and it was just a completely different conversation. And you know it, but it's genuine, it wasn't like a, you know, bait and switch kind of thing, which I really enjoyed. So as I've built, you know, you get a couple episodes out the door, and you build a little bit of awareness about it, it becomes a lot easier to get in the door with folks. One of them I did with the University of Iowa, and they, you know, she came to me and said, Hey, we want to tell the story. And she brought their facility director with him. And as a consultant who works in energy, that's usually a hard meeting to get, they came to me and not the other way around. So it's been very much an organic process. And then as I've, as I've gone, got a little bit more traction. It's been helpful to get connected to other people that are doing podcasts or getting out other folks podcasts or bringing other people into your podcast. I mean, this being an example of that. Also, getting every university that I ever interview, to promote their own story on their own thing brings people to my podcast, so it's very much a self reinforcing kind of thing, which I really like about it. So, Brian, I'll throw one question back to you just well and maybe also to Katie, I'll I'll throw it out to both of you but I'll have Brian go first. Your podcast, Brian, I, I really liked it. I, we we did an interview you were on my podcast talking about a project you did in your campus. And you told me about this thing. And I ended up like completely bingeing on it. So it's very much like a like a season on Netflix or something when you get into it. Tell me more about the process of, you know, thinking this would be a good idea. You talked about the, you know, kind of raising the game on the oral histories. I think that's that's an something I hadn't thought about before. But how did that relationship build with the people you're actually interviewing? It seems like you got to know them pretty well. Yeah.
So I think as you said, You know, one of the great things that I've benefited from is one, you know, kind of starting with people I know and people who have, there's already a sense of trust and rapport. And that's hugely important, you know, in anything, but for sure in doing interviews and oral histories, you know, just building that sense of trust. And so yes, some of the episodes we did in the first season were people that I already knew pretty well. And a lot of the episodes that we've done, or people we didn't know. And, as Katie mentioned, your podcasting has been a great way to build new networks and new connections to, you know, lean on my existing networks, and kind of ask people to make, you know, introductions. So, for example, you know, this new season that I'm editing feverishly on the episodes right now, these are stories of immigration, and we wanted to have a pretty broad range of stories. And, you know, we wanted to make sure we were featuring people who we didn't already know, and whose stories might not be as obvious and, and so, yes, that that has been a whole process of, you know, reading and researching online and looking for people who have interesting stories to tell of asking friends and colleagues, you know, do you know people who would have an interesting story they could share, and I do think that, you know, doing a longer interview has been really critical in creating that feeling that you're Yeah, I'm glad that you have as a listener, that there is that sense of trust with, with each of the different guests, we usually do a pre interview, you know, and talk for 30 minutes or an hour, just kind of about what we might do in the podcast. So going over some of the logistics of the recording, but also, you know, hearing a little bit of their story, but not too much. So that it still comes off, as you know, live and, and authentic. So yeah, we do a pre interview. And then we arrange a pretty significant block of time where we can really get into a conversation and, you know, pre COVID, I, one of the things I really love was being able to travel and visit people in their homes or their businesses, and to be in their space. And, you know, I think that adds a ton to the feel of the interview. And that's a big part of what we're interested in, with the theme of the podcast is, you know, where people are from and how they are creating that sense of place and reshaping it. But yeah, it's been a different challenge to do those remotely. But But I think we're still, you know, finding lots of ways to connect with people and, and build that trust. So. So yeah, I think that's a great question. And I'm glad that I'm glad to, you know, have such a compliment.
Oh, absolutely. Well, Katie, similar question to you would be, you've got students doing the interviews, and I've heard a couple I haven't heard, I haven't binged on it like Netflix only because I didn't start listening to it until a couple of weeks ago. But I'll get there. But what have you seen happen to the students? I mean, they're going through the same process. I think Brian and I both described of really getting to know somebody and taking in what effect is that interviewing process have on the interviewees?
Yeah, great question. And I think what, for us, we take it, we take a step back, in terms of thinking about who we're even going to interview with the students too, and, and if anyone, if you can look through the list of guests, we have you, you see how incredibly diverse the guests are, and the topics they're talking about, which in terms of creating sort of a nice story, like some podcasts, where you just have this really nice narrative that goes through it, we don't end up with that kind of through line, because the conversation topics are so different, but what we end up with is just interesting story after interesting story in sustainability. And what comes from that is the students picking who they're going to interview or us having kind of a list of people who have expressed an interest in participating in the interview and students getting to, to raise their hand and say, Wow, that's really cool. So I think part of what what happens with the podcast is its students thinking about as part of our career guidance that they get with the program, thinking about where they want to work, when they come out of the program, or what kind of work they want to do. And then starting to think about, okay, how can I use this opportunity to reach out to my hero to somebody who's got a job I want, who works at a company I want to work for, and and they start working through that process. So it's really part of the job search process that it is for our students and and in doing so they discover some really amazing innovative companies outside of kind of your fortune 500 doing some cool work, and then they get to dig into those backstories. And we've definitely seen students who have sometimes pivot their interests or want to dig further into these particular topics coming out of the conversations with with these organizations, and we've seen those organiz, relationships with some of these organizations bloom in terms of you know, like I mentioned earlier, Hiring students coming in to, to work with them as consulting clients or things along those lines. So in in that respect, it's really, really part of the career journey, I would say for the students and, and to get back to, I think it was Brian who was saying earlier about, or maybe Dave, but about how it can have. It's an organic and mutually beneficial marketing relationship. That's where our Director of our program, we do a webinar called How to get a job in sustainability. And ultimately, I'll give you the secret. Now, if anybody plans to attend it in the future, it'll usually wait till the end of that conversation to get the secret. But his recommendation for somebody who wants a job in sustainability is, you know, call or email the person you want to work for and ask, let them know that you're doing a blog for a student, like a blog post, and you want to interview them and post that interview in a blog. And like Dave said, Everybody wants to get their story out there, whether, you know, they're very high up in an organization or whether they're, you know, in the back room of that facility is building, but they're doing some really interesting work or somewhere in between, people want their story told, so it's do the interview, you write the blog, you send it to the that person, and then they circulate it to your network. So you really get this organic growth, and brand reputation growing for both the podcast, but then in our case for the students also, and so they start to get their name out there as folks interested in this work as well. So there is often this kind of mutually beneficial relationship that happens in this industry. And I think that that's kind of a core part of these things working.
Let me let me jump in just with another response. I mean, in terms of the, the impact on students, you know, one of the things I love about teaching students to do interviewing and to produce podcasts, it forces them to be aware of themselves both as a listener, you know, really paying attention to what they're hearing, but also, they have a different kind of self awareness, because they know they're being recorded. And so I love, you know, being in that kind of space, as an educator of, you know, them reflecting on who they are, and who they're with, and how those connections play out. And I think, you know, as Katie's talking about that in terms of professional development opportunities, you know, but with the undergraduates that I work with, that's such a huge opportunity for them, even just on their personal development and thinking about who they are, what their values are, what their story is. And, you know, I'll just touch on, Casey asked a question, and you know, what makes for a good story. And, you know, one of the things I always talk about with my students is, we know as human beings, when somebody shifts into story mode, right, you can hear in somebody's voice, when they've gone from just sharing information to sharing a story, you know, something that has characters in a setting and some kind of dynamic, you know, changes to it, and emotion. And so, that's one of the things I always talk with students, you know, in helping them think about themselves as listeners, I think this applies not just to, you know, a story, podcast, but even to the kind of professional relationships that we're trying to cultivate, through this this medium is, if you can help somebody feel like they've shared their story, they're going to be that much more likely, you know, to work with you to, you know, be your friend and colleague. And so, you know, that's what I often will talk about is, you know, listen for that little opening, and often people will, you know, be hesitant to share that story until they feel like, they know that that's what you want. And so they'll be a small crack, and then can you help them know that Yeah, I'd love to hear more about that, or, you know, tell me more. And so it can be just that simple. But I think, you know, that's how we know, that's a story that's gonna work on a podcast, you know, if I want to hear that story, if I feel empathy for that person, I know, listeners will, too. And, and so, you know, that's what I'm what I'm listening for.
And I would love to build on that to just we could dig into Casey's question here. I think that in addition to creating empathy, I think it's also creating kind of identity with it. One of the things that I often struggle with when I go to sustainable business conferences is everybody gets up on stage and tells about their wins. And that's not helpful. You know, we want to hear about your failures. We want to hear about all the different things you tried before it worked and all the different conversations you had to have with people in the boardroom or in you know, in a funders meeting, turning you down, before you can move forward with it. And so, creating learning opportunities, I think we can learn so much more from understanding, you know, kind of the challenges people overcame to go through the work they're doing. And so we definitely try to bring that out in the narrative also is not just don't just, you know, often the PR agency wants us to just talk about the wins or the new book or things like that. But let's hear about like how you got here. And what, what obstacles you overcame to have the wins that you had?
Well, I have a policy that I don't let people people reach out and want to be on the podcast. And they say the only, only way I'll let you be on a podcast is if you have a good story to tell about a campus because there's the campus energy and sustainability podcast. And it forces that same thing. It's like I don't, I don't want your PR notes, I don't want you just to get up and talk. And I'll say that the higher up the chain somebody is, the more you have to fight against that you have to find ways to like, take them off their game. Like if you're interviewing a president, for example, they want to tell you what they already know they want to tell you, they've already they have people that have prepped them for it. And they've they've trained their whole career on being able to say what they want to say, or answer the question they wish they were asked to, you know, that's the classic political response to that. So you have to find ways to sort of dig into that. And one of one of the podcasts I listened to, there's a woman who interviews mostly CEOs and clean tech companies, and she'll, at the end, does a lightning round with asking questions like, what's your spirit animal or stuff like that? You know, there's no real good answer in the PR agency can't give them the right answer. And so you get to see more of their personality. So that's something I really appreciate. I know we have a bunch of questions, I think we've answered a few of these. I'll start with Justin who asked the first one, he asks about getting podcasts into broadcast. He's talking about relationships with local radio stations. If you've got people that want to put our podcasts on radio, we'd love it. I think that's, Brian, in particular has some pretty good stuff for that medium, I would say. But I'm not sure if you guys have a different answer to that question.
Yeah, we've done some snippets of our show on Iowa Public Radio, and we're doing some outreach right now to think about if there's other public radio type stations that would pick up some of it going forward. And we've collaborated pretty closely with NPR producers and sound engineers, and people, as we've kind of learned, and developed what we're doing. So yeah, I think that's definitely an interest. There's, you know, definitely lots of listeners who consume audio content that way. But I also think that, you know, the podcasts medium is a, you know, got a different audience. And so there's there's certainly a lot of overlap. But, but there's ways that we've benefited from being, you know, not just on the radio and then disappeared.
So yeah, I think to build on that, Justin, thank you for the idea. It's an interesting suggestion. And I'm intrigued. So it for us had not really kind of crossed our mind yet, but I, you know, look forward to digging into it. On the other end, we do regular surveys of our students and alumni on where they consume media. And, you know, unfortunately, more and more, they are shifting to podcast and other streaming services, I say, unfortunately, for kind of the the broadcast space, but kind of one of the big purposes of, of our podcast in particular is kind of putting this out into younger generations and into our prospective student audience. And so, so far, the podcast platform, in our case has felt like the right one. But I think, you know, there's definitely some interesting opportunities there in the community stations as well. So I think, you know, added to my list to dig into this year to look learn more about that. But I think that it builds on one of the other questions we have around different formats to podcast. So if there can be a video format, and also to me and we have a couple questions. One is about is there a video component to a podcast and the other one is someone expressing how they get a little bit frustrated, because when you listen to a podcast, you listen, it's a story, and then you want to engage with the community around it, but you don't know who else is listening to the podcast, those type of things. So I would love to hear your both your takes on on the use of video as part of the format or other ways to create a an engaged community around your podcast.
Well, we're trying the video today, right? So we'll see how it works. That I yeah, I've done a lot of live conferences where we turn into a podcast. So that's one way I've done it to where you get live questions on the recording, which is a lot of fun. And some have actually had future guests on the podcast be questioners on previous episodes of the podcast. It's very meta, I suppose. But yeah, so getting people in a live room recording that it's more logistically challenging, it's a lot of work to edit, because you end up with like seven tracks of people and, and mixing it all down, rather than, you know, sitting in the living room with somebody and telling a story. But that that is definitely a way. But I'll say that is a thing I've struggled with too. I mean, I can see people downloading episodes, I can see they come from all over the world. I have no idea who they're at who they are. I mean, my, my tracking systems aren't good enough to know that. And so oftentimes, you'll find people at a conference or in a in a situation where they've heard the podcast or knew of it, or I've had a few people say, Oh, you're that guy, you know, I've heard your podcast, which is great. But, you know, it's only because I ran into them in some other forum. So I think that is one challenge. It's kind of like you broadcast it out there and you kind of hope that somebody listens to it. But you don't necessarily know and so you have to do other things to sort of connect those dots, but I don't have great ideas on that. Maybe Brian can solve it for us.
Well, I mean, I can tell you what we've tried and and it's been you know, slow gowing. You know, we we definitely know that You know, listeners are a potential source of interesting stories, either their, you know, like David say, they might be a great guest themselves, or they might know somebody who'd be a great guest. So we consistently invite people to join our mailing list through our website and share story ideas. If any of you have really interesting stories of people in the Midwest, especially, we're still collecting a few more stories of immigrants in the Midwest, you feel free to go to midamericana.com And, you know, fill out the form there. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as somebody who uses podcasts in the classroom, and somebody who listens to podcasts, one thing that I have, you know, tried to do, and, you know, this is definitely what Katie is, is modeling with students as well, as, you know, it's not that hard to find people's contact information, especially if they're a podcast or, and so, you know, don't be shy about reaching out, you know, if you hear an interesting story, I hear stories on Dave's podcast, and I, you know, make new connections that way. I've used Katie's class, you know, podcasts in my classes, and encourage students, if they hear an interesting interview, you know, why not write an email to that CEO who's talking about their business. And so I think that, you know, some of that the podcast doesn't necessarily make those connections for us. But I think, you know, once you've heard somebody's story, and they've been willing to share like that I think most people are pretty receptive to, to interacting. And, you know, I think there's emerging models, one of my favorite podcasts of the last week is called buried truths. So this is a podcast about civil rights cases that haven't been solved and the crimes that haven't been prosecuted, and, you know, they have discussion guides, there's podcasts that do that we've done a little bit of that with our podcast, trying to think of ways that educators could use these stories about the Midwest and their classes and have interaction at least among their own students, and interact with the story in that way. But, but yeah, Laura, I would love you know, any creative ideas, and I would welcome you know, conversation about how to make these interactive.
So far, our focus has been on just getting the interviews done, you know, getting it out to the world, those type of things, but we're hoping to kind of move into the impact report, phase 2.0, and get to elevate the conversation further. And one of the things I've seen others in the podcasting space do that I am hoping to try is creating kind of a social community onto the social networks around that. So getting people to share to their stories, that they're listening to this particular podcast, and use a hashtag and then getting the community to follow that hashtag. So these are all kind of that community cultivation that can happen over social media. I think it was to Laura's point, and then trying to you know, if you're mentioning it in the podcast over and over, that there's this community around this particular hashtag, hopefully, they can start to find each other that way. And we're also looking at kind of moving into the video component to we're doing this kind of live recording where we can bring in audience q&a, as well for some of the conversations. And these some of these type of things also end up requiring additional kind of resources, too. So we're, we're excited, kind of as we grow our sponsorship level, what other opportunities may be available out there. Let's see this. One of the next questions we have, we've touched on it a little bit. But any other specific advice or guidances? For people who are reaching out to potential podcast guests, for starters, I think we sort of touched on this, but let's just answer that one really clearly.
Yeah. So I just try to make sure I get the answer this right. So it's people that would be on a podcast you're running? Is that the way you're seeing this question?
Yes. Yeah. How would you reach out to a potential guest? Okay, especially when you're starting out your podcast, and you have less of a track record?
Right? No, absolutely. I think, you know, somebody that's amazing. So start there. And, or, you know, somebody that can speak very articulately start there, because they're easier to edit than somebody who's not start with somebody who, yeah, well, a couple of things, you're going to be really awkward. When you start as an interviewee. It's really, really terrifying the first couple of times, so just interview people, for fun, try it a couple of times, try it and maybe some non like things that you're not expecting have to go live, just to get your interview your family interview your parents, one of the things I did was interview my grandmother, kind of along the side lines of what Brian's doing in his in his show, but it was more of an oral history of my grandmother, who, you know, grew up in the depression in the Midwest, and she would have been great. She passed away a few years ago. Otherwise, I'd recommend her, Brian. That's good practice, because you get better at probing and asking those questions. So once you get past those first couple of interviews, and I think it becomes easier to do because you can send them an example of somebody else you've interviewed. So you can say, Hey, I have this thing. Here's an example of what it's like so they can go check it out, even if they never do. Just the fact that you sent that to them and you showed them that you have the skill set to actually interview them. They're going to be terrified, just like you're going to be terrified to interview them. Unless they're really super experienced and do this all the time. There are some people that that are used to it. But I would start with somebody that's really passionate about something you're interested and care about, that has an ability to speak, and start there. And and then some of the things Brian was talking about earlier about trying to build that trust with somebody and get them ready. That's more of an advanced skill. I wouldn't start there. You know, I would I would develop to that. And I'll leave it there. Brian, you want to take a stab at that question?
I think everything you said, I agree with start with people who you already know and trust, I think that's definitely easier. Yeah, and I think as others have said, you know, really approach it in the sense of, you know, offering that person a platform, thinking about what you can do to help promote and support their goals. So that's something I always ask when I'm doing a pre interview, what should I ask, you know, what can I do that would make this podcast, this interview, meet your goals, if somebody is going to give me a chunk of their time and be willing to share their story, you know, just make sure that that's not just for my serving my ends, but also theirs. And I think that doesn't mean that you can assume that, you know, this is somebody who needs or wants to be on a podcast. So, you know, especially as I have approached people about this season, that we're about to launch, you know, stories of immigrants, you know, it'd be easy to think that, oh, you know, immigrant stories are under appreciated, and they somehow need to have a platform to share their stories. And I think, you know, there's certainly been people who've had the opposite reaction of, you know, why would I need you to tell my story? And, and so I think, you know, I don't like to assume that, that, you know, I have something to offer, but really to ask what, what, what it is that their goals are and what they want.
Absolutely. And I think to help focus in your narrative, right, because we all we three have very different podcasts with very different intentions and different stories that we're telling. So before you even get into launching your podcast, spend some time ideating and thinking about what, what your niche is going to be. And it doesn't have to be revolutionary, you know, there's tons of podcasts, that's it's really, it's such a democratized platform that you can, you can talk about something that somebody else might already be talking about, but do it in your own way. And that'll give you a unique position on it. But have that clear in your mind before you make the ask. Because if you are just hoping to launch a general sustainability podcast, but aren't able to really clearly articulate the direction, it might be harder for your guest, to understand sort of the intention and the seriousness behind it. So, so thinking that through, and then also, I really encourage folks, especially students, to just get scrappy, and use, you know, use LinkedIn, message them on LinkedIn, dig up their email. And if it takes a while to figure out how emails work, you know, we have, it's not something we do as a program anymore. But back in my days, where I was trying to build corporate partnerships for a startup company, you know, I would just try everybody's email, until it figuring it out. So especially for young people who have harder time getting access, sometimes if you just spend the time trying to find a way to contact people, if you can figure it out, people are super excited to talk about the work they're doing often like, like we've said, so. So do your research and look through a company's bios, look through LinkedIn bios to find people who are who seem like they're really passionate about the work they're doing. We have a great question on someone who's an independent podcaster, who looks like they have a really cool podcast on elevating the voices of those who often aren't heard in the environmental movement. So I know I'm excited to to learn more about living sacnas podcast, but they're asking how they can create opportunities to collaborate with, you know, university or bigger podcast when they're in an independent podcaster. And, you know, I would say for us, just make the ask this is something I always encourage our students to do is reach out again, with a clear ask on what you're looking for in your collaboration. But, you know, I think often if a podcast seems like it's got some traction, or might be too big or too important, or too whatever, to be interested in working with someone who's, you know, on the smaller, more independent side, that's, that's often a faulty assumption. So reach out, folks love to collaborate, that would be Yeah, introduce yourself would be my, my recommendation. How about you guys?
Yeah, I would, I would second that, I think the thing I get a lot of requests now. And the ones that I'm interested in are the ones that say, here's exactly what I want from you, here's exactly what I'm willing to give to you. And here's my goal of what I'm trying to achieve. Versus Hey, I'm really interesting. I've got this great thing, and my PR person wrote this, this stock email that I just sent you, which is most of what I get. So when somebody individually reaches out, or even if they just reach out and say, Hey, I'd like to learn more. I'm usually willing to take those those I'll take the time and have a conversation about that. And I found that myself when I reached out to podcasts that I liked, and that people that you know have 10s of 1000s of users or listeners, they'll take the time as long as you ask them In a coherent way, I mean, we had Steven Lacey on the podcast that Brian was talking about at the beginning that came out of the, the AASHE listserv thing that we did have a favorite podcast. I reached out to him, he's got 10,000 users or something their listeners. And I said, Hey, Steven, I've been a longtime listener, we'd like to feature you as an interview on this. Here's the episode, here's what we're gonna do here. Who else is going to be on it? We need about an hour of your time, we'll prep it, you know, get it, we just need this is exactly what you need. He was all about it. And he was really happy for it. And he showed up, he was a professional, he did this thing. And he moved on. And it was great. You know? So really just being specific about it. I think we have one last question. I think we're about out of time, too. So you want to take that one? Katie? Yeah, it's actually addressed to you.
Yeah, happy to. And actually, this is a I appreciate the opportunity to do a little bit of a plug, we are starting a series this fall with the Bard graduate programs in sustainability, called careers and sustainability: ask the experts. So tonight, actually, we have our first event where people can participate in hearing about how to get a job in sustainability consulting, you'll hear from a number of experts working in the sustainability consulting field and then like this format, be able to ask them questions and build a network, we also have resources called How to get a job in sustainability, we have both webinars and guides. So I'll send that out to anybody who attended today, just as an FYI, because we love to have folks interested in joining the work we're doing here about on the graduate level, but also very passionate about everybody finding a way into the sustainability field. So we've created some different resources to offer tips like the one you dheeraj is asking about how to get connected to sustainability professionals when you're kind of right out of college and not sure how to make those connections. So I'll send out that resource afterwards. But definitely feel free to check out this event series we've got this fall we'll be talking about climate jobs, environmental education, circular economy, in fact, finance a lots of different interesting ways to connect with professionals in that space. And then I'll let Brian or Dave answer if you have any other tips for connecting with sustainability, folks.
AASHE is a great one.
Very good.
Go ahead. Brian. I think we're I think we're running out of time today.
Yeah, I was just gonna give a plug in a Dave mentioned the podcasts that he did, where he featured favorite sustainability podcasts. And you can go to the campus energy and sustainability podcast website. And there's a great, you know, list there. I mean, I would say listen to lots of podcasts. And, you know, that's a great way to explore what your interests are, and who are some people you could connect with, who could be resources. And as Dave said, you know, that that episode that he recorded was, you know, him reaching out to people, and I would encourage, you know, whether you're an undergrad or, you know, faculty, staff, or whatever your role is, you know, don't be shy about reaching out and making those connections. I appreciate that as somebody who, like Dave sets and you know, see some analytics of who's listening where and wonders who these people are, I would love to hear from people. So we really appreciate everybody for joining us today and for making this an interactive session. If you're joining us at AASHE, I think you can message us in the chat. And we'll have some back and forth during the conference with people who are listening to this on demand, and try to answer additional questions that way. But yeah, it's been a real pleasure to be able to talk about podcasting and to record this session with, with Katie and Dave, and with all of you who joined us today. So thanks so much, and we look forward to connecting more in the future.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, everybody. That's it for this episode. Thanks to Kelsey Harding for her production assistance. And a special thanks today to Sergey and all the staff that he for running an excellent Virtual Conference this year, as well as Katie and Brian for the work and pulling this together on such short notice. Our music is under the radar courtesy of Dallas based musician and composer Gio Washington right and in studio Big Band. If you'd like to follow our show on social media, our Twitter handle is at energy podcast. You could also find us on LinkedIn just search for campus energy and sustainability podcast. If you'd like to support the show, consider leaving a rating or review on iTunes. As always, thanks for listening.
