Trello – Podcastreporter.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode of The Podcast Reporter show, we deliver some suggestions for creating a podcast workflow for your show and its episodes. These came from a post at the following site of rss.com/blog/:

How to Manage Your Podcast Workflow

And the post goes on to give you a sample workflow for creating an episode in your podcast show (assuming that you have your site ready and your content management system ready to take on your creative juices for constructing your content):

“Podcast episode ideation phase →
Decide on episode subject and search for guest possibilities →
Schedule interviews →
Write questions and/or outline of the episode →
Record the episode →
Edit the show →
Load episode to your podcast host to share with iTunes/Stitcher/Google Play etc …→
Create show notes for your website →
Begin promoting the show via social media, your email list, on your website, etc… →
Follow up with guest(s) about the show.

Your podcast workflow may look a little different, but hopefully, this gives you an idea of just how many pieces you’ll have to manage for your show.”

The post then addresses the reasons why managing your podcast workflow really does matter when you are creating content — mainly because it can become overwhelming to the aspiring podcaster and the newer podcasters (especially true if the latter are not full-time podcasters buy have a day-job or are treating the podcasting environment as a hobby).

And for this, the article explains that you will need a task-management tool to manage this: “We recommend using a tool such as Trello, Asana, Monday.com or some other similar software to keep track of your tasks.”

With both screen shots and an example of going down this path, the article tries to explain the necessity for good management of the entire process in the form of an organized workflow. The post encourages both the concept of scaling your workflow by batching, as well as using key delegations to others (if you can afford to do so) to maximize your productivity and prevent becoming overwhelmed.

The later part of the post goes over resources that an aspiring podcaster can include in the management of content creation — namely, other podcasters, colleges, key software, sites online to get help from possible freelancers (with some examples), etc.

For this podcaster, creating a workflow is something that should be paramount in the early stages of planning and creating your podcast content. For myself, this idea was very important and was discussed when another podcaster was interested very much in my workflow during an interview in 2010 (that podcaster was Daniel J Lewis of The Audacity to Podcast Show). And it was at this time that the real significance and importance of a good workflow became paramount to my content creation — so much that it helped me to create, launch and publish over 16 different podcast shows at the same time that year, as well as creating 5 more podcast shows since that year until the present day. And while there were no posts like this one during the early stages of the podosphere with these suggestions, I was able to create my own workflow (having been a professional project manager during my career as a systems engineer in corporate America) that was very similar. And I still use this workflow today as part of my productivity in podcasting, so that I can be as prolific as I want while creating content that has VALUE for my listeners.

So we hope that this post can give you some ideas in creating your own podcast workflow, and thus you can become more successful with your podcast show and its episodes.

Thank you for your attention.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the topic of podcast workflow — in particular, what it is and perhaps some advice on how to manage it from an article in medium.com.

First, the article tries to level-set the podcaster of a typical workflow for podcasting and give the sequence of tasks for a workflow:

“…let’s take a quick look at an example of what a podcasting workflow might look like:

Podcast episode ideation phase;
Decide on episode subject and search for guest possibilities;
Schedule interviews;
Write questions and/or outline of the episode;
Record the episode;
Edit the show;
Load episode to your podcast host to share with iTunes/Stitcher/Google Play etc.;
Create show notes for your website;
Begin promoting the show via social media, your email list, on your website, etc.;
Follow up with guest(s) about the show.”

And the article also suggests that you should have a software management tool: “We recommend using a tool such as Trello, Asana, Monday.com or some other similar software to keep track of your tasks.” In fact, there is a screen shot that is included to help you imagine the management tool in action during your tasks of podcasting. Also, there is a case in point of a podcast using Trello, with additional screen shots to help you along.

And finally, the idea of delegation of tasks could offload the amount of time and effort and work in your workflow, so that you can spend more time on your podcast content — especially with examples of scheduling, social media software and email software, along with other tool recommendations (like editing software).

The article then suggests going to a community of podcasters and picking the brains of others in order to get best practices and advice on what works in good workflow. In addition, going to colleges to get assistance is advised, along with using Fiverr and other sites to take responsibility for getting some of the tasks outsourced. The reason for all this advice is to keep your sacred message and content free from the obstruction of time-consuming and inefficient workflows.

Now, just as you will hear in the automobile and gasoline adds, “your mileage may vary” — the same applies here. For this podcaster, my workflow has developed since 2006 to the present. I have tried using software tools and also found the ones that work best for my model, my content and my own perspective — and I have saved time, effort, money and frustration. Pretty soon, you can get a good idea of how long the tasks will take in your average workflow from the ideation phase to the final post-publication and syndication phase that will include feedback, archiving, marketing, promotion, accounting and any other possible documentation you may need to do.

As I mentioned earlier, each person will have a different workflow, and in podcasting not one size fits all. In fact, a key time that I mentioned workflow in an exchange of ideas was in a post-interview conversation I had with Daniel J Lewis of The Audacity to Podcast in 2010. In fact, besides sharing our tasks and some other spots in workflow, we both received the benefit of best practices. And then, as a result of our discussion, Daniel then produced and posted a very good podcast episode on workflow for podcasting in his podcast show. I realized that perhaps it would be a good idea to write out and document the workflow, so that I can always go back to it and modify it when another BFO (i.e., “blind flash of the obvious”) appears and will be a good step to include, even through serendipity. If you go to Daniel’s back catalog, you can find the episode in his archives that deals with workflow creation and execution for the best podcasting efforts.

I sincerely hope that you consider your own workflow, and I hope that this episode can help you to reflect, document, and improve your own workflow to improve your show and make you a more successful podcaster.

Thank you for your attention.