1 00:00:00,039 --> 00:00:04,239 Will Brehm: We also realized that a lot of academic podcasts were professors or 2 00:00:04,239 --> 00:00:05,979 academics sort of leading the charge. 3 00:00:06,250 --> 00:00:09,399 And we sort of said, well, what if we actually put graduate students 4 00:00:09,399 --> 00:00:10,989 or students at the forefront? 5 00:00:10,989 --> 00:00:12,579 And so that's what we did with Flux. 6 00:00:12,637 --> 00:00:14,737 There were some really good content that came out of that. 7 00:00:14,977 --> 00:00:19,267 And I think really pushed the limits of what we can think of as sort of acceptable 8 00:00:19,267 --> 00:00:21,487 and legitimate academic outputs. 9 00:00:21,487 --> 00:00:23,857 It's not just a written journal article anymore. 10 00:00:24,007 --> 00:00:28,027 We can actually say podcasts should be valued to the same extent 11 00:00:28,027 --> 00:00:31,987 because they take as much work, if not more work to make them well. 12 00:00:31,994 --> 00:00:35,522 There is this sort of recognition that, well, maybe there's like 13 00:00:35,552 --> 00:00:39,122 non-traditional, which is kind of pejorative if you think about it. 14 00:00:39,122 --> 00:00:40,232 Like, yeah, why? 15 00:00:40,232 --> 00:00:42,692 Why isn't a podcast traditional, but whatever. 16 00:00:42,773 --> 00:00:48,810 Films, audio artworks, exhibitions, these things have value and merit 17 00:00:48,810 --> 00:00:51,600 when it comes to knowledge and ideas. 18 00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:56,375 And the institution of higher education needs to figure out how to count them 19 00:00:56,375 --> 00:01:01,467 and value them in similar ways, I think it does a disservice to the academic 20 00:01:01,467 --> 00:01:06,147 world to limit what we think of as knowledge, as only being in textual 21 00:01:06,147 --> 00:01:11,567 form and a particular textual form that has certain markers, long, complicated 22 00:01:11,567 --> 00:01:13,697 sentences with a lot of jargon, right? 23 00:01:13,697 --> 00:01:17,540 Like that's not what we should be only valuing in the academic world. 24 00:01:21,060 --> 00:01:23,520 Neil McPhedran: Welcome to Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher 25 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:26,760 education podcasters who want to learn, connect, and get inspired. 26 00:01:27,750 --> 00:01:33,090 I'm Neil McPhedran, founder of Higher ed pods.com and Podium Podcast Company. 27 00:01:33,273 --> 00:01:35,463 Jennifer-Lee: I'm Jennifer Lee, founder of JPod Creations. 28 00:01:35,463 --> 00:01:38,193 If you're podcasting in higher ed, you're not alone. 29 00:01:38,193 --> 00:01:40,593 There's a fast growing community out there, and we're 30 00:01:40,593 --> 00:01:42,093 here to help you tap into it. 31 00:01:42,183 --> 00:01:42,783 Neil McPhedran: That's right, Jen. 32 00:01:42,783 --> 00:01:44,313 We want to hear from you. 33 00:01:44,373 --> 00:01:46,713 We've got an email in our show notes. 34 00:01:46,713 --> 00:01:49,138 Email us, tell us about your ideas. 35 00:01:49,198 --> 00:01:52,738 Give us some suggestions for people that should be on the show. 36 00:01:52,795 --> 00:01:55,975 I gotta say, Jen, one of the things I love about this is almost every 37 00:01:55,975 --> 00:02:01,045 single time we bring someone on the show, they give us one, two ideas 38 00:02:01,045 --> 00:02:02,635 of more people to get on the show. 39 00:02:02,785 --> 00:02:03,445 Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, I love it. 40 00:02:03,445 --> 00:02:07,555 We always get to find out about people that we would never be able to find. 41 00:02:07,555 --> 00:02:08,755 It's about networking. 42 00:02:08,875 --> 00:02:09,325 Neil McPhedran: That's right. 43 00:02:09,354 --> 00:02:14,386 So Jen, in this episode we are speaking with Will Brehm. 44 00:02:15,486 --> 00:02:16,446 Jennifer-Lee: In Australia. 45 00:02:16,506 --> 00:02:17,196 Neil McPhedran: In Australia. 46 00:02:17,196 --> 00:02:17,646 That's right. 47 00:02:17,646 --> 00:02:22,266 He is an associate professor in comparative and international education 48 00:02:22,266 --> 00:02:25,761 at the University of Canberra, where I have two nephews and one niece 49 00:02:25,761 --> 00:02:27,571 that lives, but that's a whole aside. 50 00:02:27,711 --> 00:02:32,481 He is also adjunct researcher at Waseda Institute for Advanced Study at the 51 00:02:32,491 --> 00:02:34,611 Waseda University, which is in Tokyo. 52 00:02:34,881 --> 00:02:37,371 Sorry if I mispronounced the name of that university. 53 00:02:37,521 --> 00:02:42,971 And he is honorary adjunct professor at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. 54 00:02:43,221 --> 00:02:43,581 Wow. 55 00:02:43,641 --> 00:02:46,651 You're thinking there's an Australian voice coming, but it's not. 56 00:02:46,651 --> 00:02:48,771 Actually, it's an American voice coming 57 00:02:48,771 --> 00:02:51,901 Jennifer-Lee: And he's just such a fascinating guy. 58 00:02:51,931 --> 00:02:53,311 We learned a lot from him. 59 00:02:53,525 --> 00:02:56,904 Neil McPhedran: So will is the creator, host, and board member 60 00:02:56,964 --> 00:03:02,603 of Fresh Ed, which is a weekly podcast that makes complex ideas and 61 00:03:02,603 --> 00:03:05,273 educational research easily understood. 62 00:03:05,783 --> 00:03:07,913 Actually, I think Fresh Ed is, and we're gonna get into, this 63 00:03:07,913 --> 00:03:09,897 is way more than a podcast. 64 00:03:09,957 --> 00:03:14,089 It's turned into more of a network, but he's also built an audience for academic 65 00:03:14,089 --> 00:03:17,089 and higher ed podcasts to access. 66 00:03:17,089 --> 00:03:19,669 Anyway, let's get into it because it's a really great conversation. 67 00:03:21,139 --> 00:03:21,589 Hello, Will. 68 00:03:21,589 --> 00:03:25,039 Thanks for joining us on this episode of continuing studies. 69 00:03:25,159 --> 00:03:30,649 So, Fresh Ed describes itself as a weekly podcast that makes complex ideas into 70 00:03:30,649 --> 00:03:33,259 educational research evenly understood. 71 00:03:33,499 --> 00:03:40,384 So you're 10 years in, over 400 episodes, you've interviewed 700 plus scholars 72 00:03:40,384 --> 00:03:42,304 and you've got a million downloads. 73 00:03:42,364 --> 00:03:43,704 Congratulations on all that. 74 00:03:43,704 --> 00:03:43,924 That's, 75 00:03:43,924 --> 00:03:44,244 Jennifer-Lee: Wow. 76 00:03:44,244 --> 00:03:45,319 Neil McPhedran: T hat's quite amazing. 77 00:03:45,529 --> 00:03:49,879 So what does that mission actually mean to you in practice? 78 00:03:49,879 --> 00:03:52,339 And has that evolved over time or is that where you started? 79 00:03:52,399 --> 00:03:53,059 Will Brehm: Good question. 80 00:03:53,059 --> 00:03:54,499 Thanks for inviting me. 81 00:03:54,499 --> 00:03:57,769 It's really wonderful to be here and talk to like-minded podcasters. 82 00:03:57,769 --> 00:04:01,429 It's kind of crazy that this podcast exists and I, I love everything about it. 83 00:04:01,609 --> 00:04:06,349 I think that that tagline has helped us keep the focus on what we wanted to do, 84 00:04:06,589 --> 00:04:12,349 because in podcasting, as you evolve your show, everyone has a different idea 85 00:04:12,349 --> 00:04:15,852 of what you should do, and you could actually have the mission creep and move 86 00:04:15,852 --> 00:04:18,474 into the different areas pretty quickly. 87 00:04:18,654 --> 00:04:20,994 It was really valuable for us to always say, no, no, no. 88 00:04:21,024 --> 00:04:23,004 This is what we're trying to do. 89 00:04:23,034 --> 00:04:26,724 Even if we're trying to experiment in many different ways, and we have over 90 00:04:26,724 --> 00:04:30,144 10 years, we've always sort of kept the core of what we're trying to do. 91 00:04:30,144 --> 00:04:35,264 We want to just talk about academic ideas, which we thought would make them more 92 00:04:35,264 --> 00:04:39,974 easily understood, because we've all read academic papers that are esoteric, filled 93 00:04:39,974 --> 00:04:42,584 with jargon, long, complex sentences. 94 00:04:42,614 --> 00:04:43,769 I mean, I've written those as well. 95 00:04:44,459 --> 00:04:48,449 But there's something about being in dialogue with academics that allows you 96 00:04:48,449 --> 00:04:53,189 to un unpack the ideas in a little bit of a different way, make academic ideas sort 97 00:04:53,189 --> 00:04:55,949 of more accessible to a broader audience. 98 00:04:56,079 --> 00:04:58,599 Jennifer-Lee: it's great that you're using a medium that is 99 00:04:58,599 --> 00:05:00,729 friendly to many different people. 100 00:05:00,939 --> 00:05:05,204 And I just love the titles of your podcast 'cause I really understand them 101 00:05:05,204 --> 00:05:09,854 right when I'm looking, like "Unpacking the Learning Crisis" and "Racialization 102 00:05:09,854 --> 00:05:13,394 Education Inequality", like they're easy, they're clickable titles. 103 00:05:13,454 --> 00:05:14,384 "The Culture Trap." 104 00:05:14,654 --> 00:05:15,134 Will Brehm: Yeah. 105 00:05:15,134 --> 00:05:19,394 I try and not emphasize clickability because I think there can be problems 106 00:05:19,394 --> 00:05:22,814 in just trying to drive clicks, but I think you're right about having 107 00:05:22,814 --> 00:05:27,154 things, being concise and to the point and digestible is something that. 108 00:05:27,154 --> 00:05:31,244 Academics, you know, maybe it's a caricature, but probably for good 109 00:05:31,244 --> 00:05:32,804 reason, we're not so good at doing that. 110 00:05:32,864 --> 00:05:37,514 I think the defense from an academic's point of view would be around, you know, 111 00:05:37,514 --> 00:05:41,414 some of these ideas are really hard and it takes time to sort of learn how to write 112 00:05:41,624 --> 00:05:43,844 about them in a way that is accessible. 113 00:05:43,934 --> 00:05:47,144 But I think the podcast sort of circumvents that because by putting 114 00:05:47,144 --> 00:05:50,624 someone in front of a microphone and saying, let's just talk to 115 00:05:50,624 --> 00:05:53,894 each other as if we're having a cup of tea, that changes things. 116 00:05:53,894 --> 00:05:56,294 People can actually say things in ways. 117 00:05:56,599 --> 00:06:00,409 That might not get past peer review, and then it becomes a little bit easier. 118 00:06:00,649 --> 00:06:02,839 Jennifer-Lee: Well, things can also get misconstrued. 119 00:06:02,899 --> 00:06:06,493 Anytime you're writing anything, either it be paper or text message or whatever. 120 00:06:06,703 --> 00:06:11,443 A lot of the times English language can definitely come off wrong, 121 00:06:11,503 --> 00:06:16,403 and so sometimes it is easier to understand somebody's inflection 122 00:06:16,499 --> 00:06:20,279 and how they feel about the subject matter than it is reading it as well. 123 00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:21,179 Will Brehm: Totally, totally. 124 00:06:21,179 --> 00:06:26,169 There's an absolute limit between what texts can do and what the voice can do. 125 00:06:26,169 --> 00:06:31,299 And we had a student that we worked with who did this whole podcast on 126 00:06:31,389 --> 00:06:35,859 what is the sonic possibilities of podcasting in the academic space. 127 00:06:35,919 --> 00:06:40,599 And he had this little line around like the power of silence is actually 128 00:06:40,599 --> 00:06:44,199 profound when you speak and in the sonic world, but what would 129 00:06:44,199 --> 00:06:45,669 that actually look like in text? 130 00:06:45,889 --> 00:06:49,579 Like blank pages, but just wouldn't have the same power that 131 00:06:49,579 --> 00:06:51,679 silence does when we're speaking. 132 00:06:51,889 --> 00:06:54,409 Neil McPhedran: That seems so simple, but when you put it that 133 00:06:54,409 --> 00:06:55,939 way, that's very thought provoking. 134 00:06:55,939 --> 00:06:56,869 Actually, you're right. 135 00:06:56,959 --> 00:06:59,599 Silence can be uncomfortable too, but uh, I'm always amazed 136 00:06:59,599 --> 00:07:04,129 how people can use silence strategically in their communication. 137 00:07:04,129 --> 00:07:05,149 I've always admired that. 138 00:07:05,179 --> 00:07:09,924 Why don't we take a step back here, how did Fresh Ed start and what 139 00:07:09,924 --> 00:07:11,874 was the original impulse behind it? 140 00:07:12,084 --> 00:07:15,894 Will Brehm: Yeah, I had recently finished my PhD and I was about to 141 00:07:15,894 --> 00:07:21,564 move to Tokyo, Japan to start a post doctorate at the University of Tokyo, 142 00:07:21,804 --> 00:07:24,504 and I never had been to Japan before. 143 00:07:24,824 --> 00:07:26,954 It was a daunting idea. 144 00:07:27,074 --> 00:07:29,804 At the time I was actually living in Australia, in Melbourne. 145 00:07:29,864 --> 00:07:32,984 My partner said to me, why don't you start a podcast to sort of 146 00:07:33,194 --> 00:07:36,884 give yourself an excuse to reach out to people and talk to people? 147 00:07:37,064 --> 00:07:38,714 And I had no idea what I was doing. 148 00:07:38,894 --> 00:07:43,904 I basically recorded episodes in an apartment that was about 25 square meters. 149 00:07:44,139 --> 00:07:47,589 And so it was kind of insane to be recording. 150 00:07:47,589 --> 00:07:49,029 Neil McPhedran: Classic Tokyo apartment. 151 00:07:49,089 --> 00:07:50,169 Will Brehm: Classic Tokyo apartment. 152 00:07:50,169 --> 00:07:53,109 My partner, she would be like sitting on the bed behind me. 153 00:07:53,109 --> 00:07:56,739 I would be at the desk at the foot of the bed and I'd be interviewing people 154 00:07:56,739 --> 00:07:58,539 and I had no idea what I was doing. 155 00:07:58,539 --> 00:08:01,959 And if you listen to some of those first episodes, they're pretty terrible. 156 00:08:02,059 --> 00:08:03,619 Jennifer-Lee: I feel like nobody knows what they're doing though 157 00:08:03,619 --> 00:08:05,539 when they first start a podcast. 158 00:08:05,749 --> 00:08:05,959 Will Brehm: Yeah. 159 00:08:05,959 --> 00:08:07,969 It's funny for me, I had no training ground. 160 00:08:07,969 --> 00:08:13,609 All I had was a childhood of listening to the National Public Radio in the States. 161 00:08:13,609 --> 00:08:17,479 And so the person that I always had in mind was Terry Gross, who is the 162 00:08:17,479 --> 00:08:19,759 host of a show called Fresh Air. 163 00:08:19,999 --> 00:08:21,979 And so I, I literally stole the name. 164 00:08:21,979 --> 00:08:27,139 I was like, I want to be the Terry Gross of academic podcasting love, and therefore 165 00:08:27,139 --> 00:08:29,809 I'm gonna call my podcast Fresh Ed. 166 00:08:29,874 --> 00:08:30,144 Right. 167 00:08:30,144 --> 00:08:32,784 Like, I mean, it was not subtle in any way in my mind. 168 00:08:32,904 --> 00:08:35,304 Like I knew exactly what I was trying to emulate. 169 00:08:35,304 --> 00:08:37,824 Neil McPhedran: I love hearing origin stories and where they are now. 170 00:08:37,824 --> 00:08:42,264 So speaking of evolution, Fresh Ed started as an interview show, 171 00:08:42,324 --> 00:08:45,504 that's still a component of it, but it's really grown into something. 172 00:08:46,744 --> 00:08:51,004 It's kind of a network now, if you will, with, I think it's five distinct shows. 173 00:08:51,004 --> 00:08:53,134 So, uh, maybe take us through that a bit. 174 00:08:53,134 --> 00:08:55,864 That's a really interesting journey that you've taken there. 175 00:08:55,864 --> 00:08:56,254 Will Brehm: Sure. 176 00:08:56,254 --> 00:08:56,404 Yeah. 177 00:08:56,404 --> 00:08:57,574 And it really has been a journey. 178 00:08:57,574 --> 00:09:01,924 I mean, now we definitely, a network, an umbrella, something like that is how to 179 00:09:01,924 --> 00:09:05,699 think about Fresh Ed 'cause there's all these different podcasts under there. 180 00:09:05,914 --> 00:09:07,714 The one I do is the interview show. 181 00:09:07,714 --> 00:09:08,584 We still do that. 182 00:09:08,764 --> 00:09:09,604 I love doing it. 183 00:09:09,604 --> 00:09:13,984 It's a, a big part of my own career now, so I'm absolutely gonna keep doing that. 184 00:09:14,224 --> 00:09:18,978 But by doing that interview show in English, based on who I knew 185 00:09:18,978 --> 00:09:22,098 and the people that I wanted to speak to, we quickly realized 186 00:09:22,098 --> 00:09:23,958 that this was rather limiting. 187 00:09:24,048 --> 00:09:28,728 It was my perspective, my language, my interests were being highlighted. 188 00:09:28,938 --> 00:09:32,358 And so particularly with the language, we realized there's so many other 189 00:09:32,358 --> 00:09:35,853 language groups, of course that are doing academic work and we're limited 190 00:09:35,853 --> 00:09:37,923 by only focusing in on English. 191 00:09:38,073 --> 00:09:42,123 And so at first we sort of thought, oh, maybe we could do like live translation, 192 00:09:42,123 --> 00:09:46,269 like the UN does, but then you know, there's one, there's a cost to doing that. 193 00:09:46,269 --> 00:09:49,299 And then two, there's a technical side to it, like how do you 194 00:09:49,299 --> 00:09:51,009 actually record and do it? 195 00:09:51,009 --> 00:09:55,239 And this is before all these fancy website apps that have now made it a lot easier. 196 00:09:55,419 --> 00:09:58,719 And so, we realized that doing that probably isn't gonna work. 197 00:09:58,779 --> 00:10:02,944 Then we thought we would just do translation of transcripts. 198 00:10:03,124 --> 00:10:06,289 And we did that for a while , but then we started realizing like, 199 00:10:06,289 --> 00:10:09,679 well, that's actually still just privileging the English language. 200 00:10:09,799 --> 00:10:12,889 We're doing the audio in English, and then the text in different languages. 201 00:10:13,099 --> 00:10:15,859 So, we eventually settled on, we actually need to just have 202 00:10:15,859 --> 00:10:18,199 non-English speaking podcasts. 203 00:10:18,294 --> 00:10:21,477 Which presents a whole bunch of issues around bringing the right 204 00:10:21,477 --> 00:10:24,657 team together, how do we do it, and creating sort of new podcasts. 205 00:10:24,897 --> 00:10:29,127 But we ended up doing it in, first we did it in Portuguese with a podcast 206 00:10:29,127 --> 00:10:33,387 called Eduquê, and we worked in partnership with a Brazilian organization. 207 00:10:33,627 --> 00:10:37,777 And then we created a Spanish podcast called Aula Divergente, 208 00:10:37,977 --> 00:10:42,359 and that was with some colleagues at Fresh Ed and then we brought in 209 00:10:42,359 --> 00:10:43,829 a few other people to work on it. 210 00:10:44,039 --> 00:10:48,029 And what was interesting is we sort of experimented with the form as 211 00:10:48,029 --> 00:10:49,499 well through these two podcasts. 212 00:10:49,499 --> 00:10:52,919 So the Portuguese podcast, there was two hosts. 213 00:10:53,129 --> 00:10:56,609 What we ended up thinking like the podcast was supposed to be like the 214 00:10:56,609 --> 00:11:00,064 academic plus the practitioner as hosts. 215 00:11:00,064 --> 00:11:03,784 And so they sort of played a caricature of these two different roles. 216 00:11:03,784 --> 00:11:06,544 And then anyone they brought in, they sort of asked questions 217 00:11:06,544 --> 00:11:07,804 from these two different angles. 218 00:11:07,804 --> 00:11:10,924 And so that was sort of a slight variation of what I was normally doing. 219 00:11:11,164 --> 00:11:15,754 With Aula Divergente, we decided to make it a series based podcast, so 220 00:11:15,934 --> 00:11:19,909 over multiple episodes, they would sort of look at a single topic. 221 00:11:19,909 --> 00:11:26,179 So one of them was the constitutional reform in Chile Another one was migration 222 00:11:26,179 --> 00:11:28,579 out of Venezuela across Latin America. 223 00:11:28,639 --> 00:11:31,477 And so over multiple episodes, they sort of put together 224 00:11:31,477 --> 00:11:33,242 different shows around that topic. 225 00:11:33,322 --> 00:11:37,646 And then, we also realized at some point that there's a limit in the 226 00:11:37,646 --> 00:11:40,106 form of just doing interviews. 227 00:11:40,186 --> 00:11:44,746 Like there needs to be, you know, to live up to the sonic possibilities of what 228 00:11:44,746 --> 00:11:47,566 sound can do and what podcasting can do. 229 00:11:47,746 --> 00:11:51,796 I'm sorry to say, but all three of us are like in the business of doing 230 00:11:51,796 --> 00:11:56,026 interviews, which are kind of the simplest way of doing a podcast, even 231 00:11:56,026 --> 00:11:57,346 though it's probably the dominant way. 232 00:11:57,906 --> 00:12:01,206 Jennifer-Lee: Most people coming from broadcasting are not good interviewers. 233 00:12:01,206 --> 00:12:01,476 Will Brehm: True. 234 00:12:01,476 --> 00:12:03,846 Jennifer-Lee: But everyone wants to do it because it's the sexy 235 00:12:03,846 --> 00:12:05,106 one that you see all the time. 236 00:12:05,106 --> 00:12:05,976 Will Brehm: You see it all the time. 237 00:12:05,976 --> 00:12:08,697 I've learned that a good interview is sort of an art form, but 238 00:12:08,697 --> 00:12:10,107 it's the lowest hanging fruit. 239 00:12:10,107 --> 00:12:11,877 It's so easy to get into it. 240 00:12:11,877 --> 00:12:15,132 All you need is a, you know, your cell phone basically, and you can all of 241 00:12:15,132 --> 00:12:16,572 a sudden do interviews with people. 242 00:12:16,692 --> 00:12:18,102 Jennifer-Lee: Do not record on your cell phone. 243 00:12:18,102 --> 00:12:19,722 You're making me cry right now. 244 00:12:19,722 --> 00:12:20,262 Stop it. 245 00:12:20,472 --> 00:12:21,552 Neil McPhedran: I don't think he's saying that, 246 00:12:21,852 --> 00:12:25,722 Will Brehm: But the cell phone has created a level of accessibility 247 00:12:25,722 --> 00:12:29,262 that I think we can't deny, and that's a good thing, right? 248 00:12:29,322 --> 00:12:32,472 And so, I actually think it sort of democratizes the 249 00:12:32,472 --> 00:12:33,942 ability to make a podcast. 250 00:12:33,942 --> 00:12:35,382 And I think there is value in that. 251 00:12:35,622 --> 00:12:39,122 We see that probably happening with what is there, 3.5 million 252 00:12:39,122 --> 00:12:40,622 podcasts in the world these days? 253 00:12:40,832 --> 00:12:44,642 Most of them, no one really listens to, but it's great that they exist, right? 254 00:12:44,642 --> 00:12:48,692 There's so much niche content out there now that I think that even if the sound 255 00:12:48,692 --> 00:12:52,952 quality isn't so good, I'm still a big fan of more people doing podcasts. 256 00:12:53,457 --> 00:12:55,887 And, and so we were doing it and we were learning a lot and having 257 00:12:55,887 --> 00:12:58,887 a good time, but I was just getting into like sound art basically. 258 00:12:58,887 --> 00:13:02,877 And it's like sound can do so much more than just what 259 00:13:02,877 --> 00:13:04,377 I was doing with interviews. 260 00:13:04,377 --> 00:13:08,037 And so we then decided like, well, why don't we explore that? 261 00:13:08,037 --> 00:13:14,427 Like what can we, like, can we make an academic podcast that is sort of using 262 00:13:14,547 --> 00:13:21,717 sound to maybe its fullest ability, or at least using the affordances of sound to 263 00:13:21,717 --> 00:13:23,967 a greater extent than just an interview. 264 00:13:24,087 --> 00:13:27,897 And so we created what we call Flux, which is a podcast on 265 00:13:27,987 --> 00:13:29,397 narrative based podcasting. 266 00:13:29,397 --> 00:13:31,377 So storytelling through sound. 267 00:13:31,557 --> 00:13:32,157 Jennifer-Lee: Love it. 268 00:13:32,337 --> 00:13:35,937 Neil McPhedran: So, and then now you're working on The Thinking Ear, which 269 00:13:35,937 --> 00:13:37,797 I think opens this up even further. 270 00:13:37,827 --> 00:13:38,487 Will Brehm: That's right. 271 00:13:38,487 --> 00:13:38,997 That's right. 272 00:13:38,997 --> 00:13:41,667 Neil McPhedran: It's essentially an audio journal where researchers 273 00:13:41,667 --> 00:13:42,627 can submit their own episodes. 274 00:13:43,362 --> 00:13:45,102 So, this is really fascinating. 275 00:13:45,102 --> 00:13:46,752 So tell us a little how, how that worked. 276 00:13:46,752 --> 00:13:49,542 Will Brehm: So after we did Flux and we started really working 277 00:13:49,542 --> 00:13:52,932 with narrative based podcasts, telling stories through sound. 278 00:13:53,082 --> 00:13:55,842 And the other thing we did there is we also realized that a lot of 279 00:13:55,842 --> 00:14:00,522 academic podcasts were professors or academics sort of leading the charge. 280 00:14:00,792 --> 00:14:03,942 And we sort of said, well, what if we actually put graduate students 281 00:14:03,942 --> 00:14:05,532 or students at the forefront? 282 00:14:05,532 --> 00:14:07,122 And so that's what we did with Flux. 283 00:14:07,272 --> 00:14:07,992 I loved it. 284 00:14:07,992 --> 00:14:11,232 We've, you know, we're nominated for some awards and it, there were some really 285 00:14:11,232 --> 00:14:12,672 good content that came out of that. 286 00:14:12,912 --> 00:14:17,202 And I think really pushed the limits of what we can think of as sort of acceptable 287 00:14:17,202 --> 00:14:19,422 and legitimate academic outputs. 288 00:14:19,422 --> 00:14:21,792 It's not just a written journal article anymore. 289 00:14:21,942 --> 00:14:25,962 We can actually say podcasts should be valued to the same extent 290 00:14:25,962 --> 00:14:29,922 because they take as much work, if not more work to make them well. 291 00:14:29,955 --> 00:14:32,970 But then we started realizing like, hmm, everything we're doing 292 00:14:32,990 --> 00:14:35,010 is basically from us, right? 293 00:14:35,010 --> 00:14:39,120 It's like we are, we're building the team, we're doing it, which I loved, 294 00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:40,830 and it ensured a certain quality. 295 00:14:41,010 --> 00:14:45,180 But we also started realizing that as we were just sort of saying so many 296 00:14:45,180 --> 00:14:49,170 other people wanted to make podcasts, and we just simply couldn't work with 297 00:14:49,170 --> 00:14:51,180 everybody that wanted to work with us. 298 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:55,155 So we got the idea of like, well, what if we had an audio journal where people 299 00:14:55,155 --> 00:15:00,435 could submit ideas or finish pieces to us, and we would supposedly somehow quality 300 00:15:00,435 --> 00:15:05,775 control this like peer review and then put it out on a platform of Fresh Ed 301 00:15:05,985 --> 00:15:09,705 that would ensure that they would reach a far larger audience than if this team 302 00:15:09,705 --> 00:15:14,145 of academics just made their own podcast that would have no audience or would 303 00:15:14,145 --> 00:15:16,545 upload it to YouTube, which often happens. 304 00:15:16,545 --> 00:15:21,135 Like you can find these graveyards of academic podcasts on YouTube 305 00:15:21,345 --> 00:15:23,115 that have like two or three listens. 306 00:15:23,365 --> 00:15:26,665 They must have spent a ton of money making these things because they 307 00:15:26,665 --> 00:15:30,145 got a grant to fund it, but then they just don't get the audience. 308 00:15:30,145 --> 00:15:33,205 And to me that is such a sad reality. 309 00:15:33,205 --> 00:15:37,135 Like you want people to listen to these, these creations that take so much 310 00:15:37,135 --> 00:15:39,505 time, so much passion goes into them. 311 00:15:39,775 --> 00:15:45,745 The audio journal in our mind is trying to start that a lot harder said than done. 312 00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:49,290 Opens up issues of like, people simply don't have, like academics 313 00:15:49,290 --> 00:15:50,610 don't have the skills to do this. 314 00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:52,080 They don't necessarily need to. 315 00:15:52,260 --> 00:15:55,620 So there's all sorts of issues that have come out of doing it, but I still 316 00:15:55,620 --> 00:16:00,630 think the idea at its core is a good one and sort of opens up the possibility 317 00:16:00,630 --> 00:16:05,630 for more academics to have outlets to do podcasting in legitimate ways. 318 00:16:05,770 --> 00:16:07,955 Jennifer-Lee: But I guarantee you they're like, I created a podcast. 319 00:16:07,955 --> 00:16:09,605 Everyone should come listen. 320 00:16:09,785 --> 00:16:13,355 But nobody knows they created a podcast 'cause they don't do anything 321 00:16:13,355 --> 00:16:13,685 Will Brehm: totally 322 00:16:13,685 --> 00:16:14,345 Jennifer-Lee: about it. 323 00:16:14,525 --> 00:16:18,305 So I like the fact that you bring the podcasters to you. 324 00:16:18,365 --> 00:16:21,085 Will Brehm: The key for us is that, like I've seen a lot of 325 00:16:21,320 --> 00:16:26,090 research grants get written that include a budget line to create a 326 00:16:26,090 --> 00:16:28,430 YouTube video or create a podcast. 327 00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:33,080 Because, academics, I think there's a recognition and funders recognize that 328 00:16:33,410 --> 00:16:38,150 just putting out this knowledge in a journal article or in a book isn't 329 00:16:38,150 --> 00:16:40,995 actually gonna have a wide dissemination. 330 00:16:40,995 --> 00:16:44,445 And so there's this assumption that then if you make sort of like 331 00:16:44,445 --> 00:16:48,105 something on YouTube and that's enough to get public dissemination. 332 00:16:48,105 --> 00:16:50,890 But as Jen is like rightly saying, just because you put something on 333 00:16:50,890 --> 00:16:52,230 there doesn't mean anyone is gonna 334 00:16:52,300 --> 00:16:52,420 Neil McPhedran: That's right. 335 00:16:52,420 --> 00:16:52,780 Will Brehm: See it. 336 00:16:52,780 --> 00:16:57,370 The other way is if you take channels that already have a built-in audience, 337 00:16:57,370 --> 00:16:57,700 Neil McPhedran: yes. 338 00:16:57,850 --> 00:17:00,940 Will Brehm: And we will give you access to that audience, but you have to sort of 339 00:17:00,940 --> 00:17:03,010 give us the content that's high quality. 340 00:17:03,215 --> 00:17:05,825 I think there's issues there around how do you ensure the quality? 341 00:17:05,825 --> 00:17:06,695 What does that look like? 342 00:17:06,875 --> 00:17:09,485 Are we simply replicating the academic peer review? 343 00:17:09,485 --> 00:17:11,555 And there's all sorts of problems with that. 344 00:17:11,735 --> 00:17:13,565 That needs to be worked out, I admit that. 345 00:17:13,715 --> 00:17:16,325 But I do think there's something about saying to an academic, Hey, 346 00:17:16,355 --> 00:17:18,425 do that grant, make that podcast. 347 00:17:18,425 --> 00:17:19,475 Bring the people together. 348 00:17:19,475 --> 00:17:21,245 You need to make that podcast. 349 00:17:21,395 --> 00:17:25,985 But we can be the platform, we can be the audio journal as an outlet to guarantee 350 00:17:25,985 --> 00:17:29,550 that there's gonna be this audience that you probably wouldn't get otherwise. 351 00:17:29,580 --> 00:17:29,790 Right? 352 00:17:29,790 --> 00:17:32,940 Without spending a ton of money on marketing, which they're 353 00:17:32,940 --> 00:17:33,990 probably aren't gonna do. 354 00:17:34,140 --> 00:17:34,320 Neil McPhedran: Yeah. 355 00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:36,030 You've got a built in audience. 356 00:17:36,060 --> 00:17:36,150 Yeah. 357 00:17:36,180 --> 00:17:38,910 You've been doing this for 10 years, you've been building your audience. 358 00:17:38,910 --> 00:17:39,330 Will Brehm: Exactly. 359 00:17:39,390 --> 00:17:43,170 Neil McPhedran: And you can go to an academic who has no audience but has 360 00:17:43,170 --> 00:17:45,255 the research and is gonna do the work. 361 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:46,080 Exactly. 362 00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:47,190 And now they've got a place to put it. 363 00:17:47,190 --> 00:17:47,670 Will Brehm: Exactly. 364 00:17:47,670 --> 00:17:51,480 And then we, we sort of follow the ideas around the Creative Commons. 365 00:17:51,755 --> 00:17:55,835 So the idea is that we would play the episode on our platform, but the 366 00:17:55,835 --> 00:18:01,265 academic or you know, whoever else co-owns that episode, they can play 367 00:18:01,265 --> 00:18:02,675 it anywhere else they'd like to play. 368 00:18:02,825 --> 00:18:02,975 Yeah, 369 00:18:02,975 --> 00:18:03,425 Neil McPhedran: I like that. 370 00:18:03,425 --> 00:18:03,905 That's good. 371 00:18:03,965 --> 00:18:05,285 Jennifer-Lee: How do you do all this? 372 00:18:05,405 --> 00:18:07,415 Because obviously this takes a lot of. 373 00:18:07,750 --> 00:18:12,190 People power and it's not easy work, but you don't have ads, you have 374 00:18:12,190 --> 00:18:16,390 no paywalls, and you actually say you're free forever on your website. 375 00:18:16,540 --> 00:18:17,500 How do you do all this? 376 00:18:17,550 --> 00:18:21,720 Will Brehm: This was also really an interesting sort of evolving conversation 377 00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:22,860 that we've had over many years. 378 00:18:22,860 --> 00:18:24,420 Originally there was no funding. 379 00:18:24,420 --> 00:18:28,350 It was just me doing everything, and then we got some small little 380 00:18:28,350 --> 00:18:32,187 grants to do one-off things like transcription or whatever it was. 381 00:18:32,242 --> 00:18:35,362 And then we ended up getting some really good funding from 382 00:18:35,362 --> 00:18:36,982 the Open Society Foundations. 383 00:18:36,991 --> 00:18:40,831 And that's, that basically allowed us to really sort of experiment and branch 384 00:18:40,831 --> 00:18:44,734 out and do things because we didn't have to worry about running ads or whatever. 385 00:18:44,734 --> 00:18:48,424 And in fact, a lot of our appeal to the Open Society Foundations 386 00:18:48,424 --> 00:18:51,422 was that we were open access, that we didn't have advertising. 387 00:18:51,422 --> 00:18:54,122 And so that actually quickly became to us a red line. 388 00:18:54,302 --> 00:18:58,502 We do not want to advertise like e-cigarettes, which seems to be 389 00:18:58,502 --> 00:19:01,832 like the company that always comes in, like wants to advertise on 390 00:19:01,832 --> 00:19:03,542 Fresh Ed for whatever reason. 391 00:19:03,782 --> 00:19:05,642 And so we just sort of have a hard no, 392 00:19:05,642 --> 00:19:05,882 Neil McPhedran: that's funny 393 00:19:06,092 --> 00:19:06,572 Will Brehm: on that. 394 00:19:07,162 --> 00:19:08,302 So it's actually quite funny. 395 00:19:08,302 --> 00:19:13,162 There's also been things where book publishers of like academic books or 396 00:19:13,162 --> 00:19:16,672 even books that you would find in like a school would reach out to us and say, we 397 00:19:16,672 --> 00:19:22,012 want to use some of your audio, get the transcript and put it into, into the book. 398 00:19:22,192 --> 00:19:26,002 And of course, these are books that are being then sold onto like school systems 399 00:19:26,212 --> 00:19:29,092 and they're saying, oh, we'll give you a small amount of money to use it. 400 00:19:29,272 --> 00:19:32,422 And it's really nice to have the Creative Commons because you say, 401 00:19:32,452 --> 00:19:34,252 oh, well you can use it for free. 402 00:19:34,497 --> 00:19:37,797 But your product then has to be Creative Commons as well. 403 00:19:37,977 --> 00:19:41,937 And that quickly, you know, the publishers are like, well, no, no, no, we would 404 00:19:41,937 --> 00:19:44,217 never make our books open access. 405 00:19:44,277 --> 00:19:47,037 And I say, oh, well then, sorry, you can't use the content. 406 00:19:47,217 --> 00:19:49,617 So it's, it's been a funny journey in that sense. 407 00:19:49,662 --> 00:19:53,352 Like our ethos was really clear and then we created these red lines 408 00:19:53,352 --> 00:19:54,552 and we just haven't crossed them. 409 00:19:54,762 --> 00:19:58,032 So no advertising from for-profit companies. 410 00:19:58,242 --> 00:20:01,362 We have advertised other things like different events that might 411 00:20:01,362 --> 00:20:05,112 be coming up, but we are not sort of doing JUUL or Better Help. 412 00:20:05,322 --> 00:20:09,612 Neil McPhedran: So that's more like featuring other academic events or 413 00:20:09,672 --> 00:20:12,582 things like that, that are kinda worthy, that wouldn't, your listenership 414 00:20:12,582 --> 00:20:13,962 wouldn't go like, oh, that's an ad. 415 00:20:13,992 --> 00:20:14,562 Will Brehm: Exactly. 416 00:20:14,562 --> 00:20:20,297 And then we have recently started a membership campaign, and my 417 00:20:20,297 --> 00:20:24,377 understanding of the podcast sector is that this is rather common these days. 418 00:20:24,557 --> 00:20:28,127 Advertising has gone way down in commercial podcasting. 419 00:20:28,217 --> 00:20:28,277 Neil McPhedran: Yeah. 420 00:20:28,277 --> 00:20:31,817 Will Brehm: And so podcasters are sort of looking for other sources of money. 421 00:20:31,817 --> 00:20:36,837 And so drawing on sort of that Patreon model is becoming more common 422 00:20:36,837 --> 00:20:38,157 and we're doing the same thing. 423 00:20:38,157 --> 00:20:39,477 And we're bringing in some money. 424 00:20:39,657 --> 00:20:43,557 We still have some grants, you know, some key donors that give us money. 425 00:20:43,707 --> 00:20:43,773 Neil McPhedran: Great. 426 00:20:43,773 --> 00:20:47,133 Will Brehm: And last year was the first year where we actually were completely 427 00:20:47,133 --> 00:20:48,783 sustainable, which was really great. 428 00:20:48,813 --> 00:20:49,473 Neil McPhedran: Oh, good, congratulations. 429 00:20:49,473 --> 00:20:52,263 Will Brehm: Bringing in the amount of money that we need to produce the show. 430 00:20:52,413 --> 00:20:56,403 It has meant we reduced sort of how much we make, but we don't 431 00:20:56,403 --> 00:20:57,813 need to open it up to advertising. 432 00:20:57,843 --> 00:20:59,763 Neil McPhedran: When we chatted previously, you are based in 433 00:20:59,763 --> 00:21:04,043 Australia, but you mentioned the Nitro framework, I think that might be 434 00:21:04,043 --> 00:21:07,223 unique to Australia, but from what I understand what you were explaining, 435 00:21:07,223 --> 00:21:12,203 it's sort of recognizes creative and scholarly audio as research output. 436 00:21:12,263 --> 00:21:12,473 Will Brehm: Yes. 437 00:21:12,533 --> 00:21:13,643 Neil McPhedran: I'm curious about that. 438 00:21:13,883 --> 00:21:18,503 Will Brehm: Yeah, so it's, it Nitro stands for non-traditional research output. 439 00:21:18,683 --> 00:21:19,043 Mm-hmm. 440 00:21:19,103 --> 00:21:24,263 And academics to different extents and different systems are measured 441 00:21:24,263 --> 00:21:27,413 by their outputs, and so these often. 442 00:21:27,653 --> 00:21:32,363 Are connected to how many papers you put out in a year or how many books. 443 00:21:32,363 --> 00:21:35,993 And often they're sort of ranked like, you know, having four journal articles 444 00:21:35,993 --> 00:21:41,003 in Q1 journals is seen as better than having one book, which to me is insane 445 00:21:41,003 --> 00:21:43,133 because a book takes so long to to write. 446 00:21:43,313 --> 00:21:47,153 But anyway, there are these certain metrics there is this sort of recognition 447 00:21:47,153 --> 00:21:48,683 that, well, maybe there's like. 448 00:21:48,808 --> 00:21:52,438 Non-traditional, which is kind of pejorative if you think about it. 449 00:21:52,498 --> 00:21:55,498 And I do think there's certain I similarities in places like the 450 00:21:55,498 --> 00:21:59,895 UK as well, where where they're beginning to recognize that films, 451 00:21:59,955 --> 00:22:05,535 audio, artworks, exhibitions; these things have value and merit when 452 00:22:05,535 --> 00:22:07,995 it comes to knowledge and ideas. 453 00:22:08,115 --> 00:22:12,505 And the institution of higher education needs to figure out how to count 454 00:22:12,505 --> 00:22:15,205 them and value them in similar ways. 455 00:22:15,535 --> 00:22:16,375 I'm all for it. 456 00:22:16,405 --> 00:22:21,595 I think it does a disservice to the academic world to limit what we think of 457 00:22:21,595 --> 00:22:26,605 as knowledge, as only being in textual form and a particular textual form that 458 00:22:26,695 --> 00:22:31,615 has certain markers, long, complicated sentences with a lot of jargon, right? 459 00:22:31,615 --> 00:22:35,575 Like that's not what we should be only valuing in the academic world. 460 00:22:35,930 --> 00:22:38,570 Jennifer-Lee: No, it opens it up so much more. 461 00:22:38,570 --> 00:22:42,350 But you remember too, our audience is constantly changing, 462 00:22:42,350 --> 00:22:43,580 like how they're doing it. 463 00:22:43,580 --> 00:22:47,180 Phones, touch screens, like the fact that like you're able to read 464 00:22:47,180 --> 00:22:49,910 books on a Kindle or a Kobo, like. 465 00:22:50,475 --> 00:22:53,925 It's just changing, but it's always gonna have traditional roots. 466 00:22:53,925 --> 00:22:57,735 Maybe the way that we talk to the audience or talk to our niche is 467 00:22:57,735 --> 00:23:00,045 a bit different, but at the end of the day, we're not really doing 468 00:23:00,045 --> 00:23:01,695 anything different than radio was. 469 00:23:01,695 --> 00:23:01,755 Will Brehm: Hmm. 470 00:23:02,055 --> 00:23:03,765 Jennifer-Lee: Same thing with textbooks. 471 00:23:04,035 --> 00:23:05,085 So fired up today. 472 00:23:05,260 --> 00:23:08,740 There's a lot of tradition and when people are like, oh, I don't wanna go 473 00:23:08,740 --> 00:23:10,630 this route, and it's like, it's not scary. 474 00:23:10,630 --> 00:23:12,340 We're not doing anything different. 475 00:23:12,340 --> 00:23:13,990 We're just changing the vessel. 476 00:23:14,230 --> 00:23:14,980 Will Brehm: I totally agree. 477 00:23:14,980 --> 00:23:18,550 I mean, there's a long history that podcasting is sort of building off of. 478 00:23:18,730 --> 00:23:20,950 What's actually different with podcasting. 479 00:23:21,330 --> 00:23:23,250 Maybe it's just the RSS feed, right? 480 00:23:23,250 --> 00:23:28,020 Maybe it's just the technical thing that allows something to get pushed to cell 481 00:23:28,020 --> 00:23:31,903 phones, and if that's the only difference, that's really just a technical issue. 482 00:23:32,083 --> 00:23:35,113 The medium is more or less exactly the same. 483 00:23:35,173 --> 00:23:39,613 And I would sort of talk about traditions of orality, and you 484 00:23:39,613 --> 00:23:43,363 know where I'm from, there's 60,000 years of oral history traditions. 485 00:23:43,513 --> 00:23:47,833 I follow someone named Walter Ong who sort of talks about second 486 00:23:47,833 --> 00:23:52,783 orality, and I think that's how I would position radio and podcasting. 487 00:23:52,993 --> 00:23:57,043 These aren't sort of going back to traditional oral cultures. 488 00:23:57,043 --> 00:24:01,303 What they're doing is they're sort of being built on top of literate cultures. 489 00:24:01,793 --> 00:24:05,723 To do a good interview, I'm sure you wrote down a lot of questions 490 00:24:05,723 --> 00:24:07,073 and you did a lot of reading. 491 00:24:07,073 --> 00:24:07,163 Neil McPhedran: Mm-hmm. 492 00:24:07,253 --> 00:24:10,783 Will Brehm: And so you had to be very literate to get into the world of sound. 493 00:24:10,832 --> 00:24:14,852 And the same with storytelling and the Flux episodes that we created. 494 00:24:15,032 --> 00:24:17,222 Those are all written first. 495 00:24:17,342 --> 00:24:17,402 Neil McPhedran: Yeah. 496 00:24:17,402 --> 00:24:17,612 Will Brehm: Right. 497 00:24:17,612 --> 00:24:18,332 Neil McPhedran: Those would be a lot of work. 498 00:24:18,332 --> 00:24:20,462 Will Brehm: It's, it's a lot of work to get the writing correct. 499 00:24:20,462 --> 00:24:24,422 And then you transition into how do you use sound in a creative 500 00:24:24,422 --> 00:24:26,402 way to help you tell that story. 501 00:24:26,432 --> 00:24:29,942 But it's absolutely built on a written, literate culture. 502 00:24:30,582 --> 00:24:32,292 So that's why it's second orality. 503 00:24:32,292 --> 00:24:34,242 It comes out of that literate culture. 504 00:24:34,392 --> 00:24:34,962 Neil McPhedran: I like that. 505 00:24:34,962 --> 00:24:36,462 I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're right. 506 00:24:36,462 --> 00:24:41,112 I guess like the original oral storytelling where it was passed 507 00:24:41,232 --> 00:24:45,732 along in an oral, non-written manner that would've been different 508 00:24:45,972 --> 00:24:47,567 versus what you just described. 509 00:24:48,047 --> 00:24:53,297 So 10 years of doing this, what do you know now that you might have wished 510 00:24:53,297 --> 00:24:57,887 you'd known when you first hit record back in your Japanese apartment? 511 00:24:57,917 --> 00:24:58,607 Will Brehm: Yeah, gosh. 512 00:24:58,757 --> 00:25:02,927 One of the things I think I realized is persistence is kind of half the battle. 513 00:25:03,197 --> 00:25:04,577 You just kind of keep going with it. 514 00:25:04,897 --> 00:25:06,062 You get better at it, right. 515 00:25:06,067 --> 00:25:10,567 I feel like through doing, you know, 400 plus interviews, I have 516 00:25:10,567 --> 00:25:14,227 really gained this appreciation of what a, a good interview is. 517 00:25:14,227 --> 00:25:17,947 And I sort of feel like Sisyphus pushing the ball up the mountain 518 00:25:17,947 --> 00:25:18,967 and never getting there. 519 00:25:18,967 --> 00:25:22,297 I want to do the perfect interview and I'll never be able to do it, 520 00:25:22,537 --> 00:25:24,847 but I love the pursuit of trying. 521 00:25:24,967 --> 00:25:25,177 Right? 522 00:25:25,177 --> 00:25:28,087 Like I think it was Camu who said, you have to sort of 523 00:25:28,117 --> 00:25:30,007 recognize that Sisyphus was happy. 524 00:25:30,532 --> 00:25:33,922 Even though he was sort of doomed to eternity to be pushing up this 525 00:25:33,922 --> 00:25:35,452 rock that I'll never get to the top. 526 00:25:35,722 --> 00:25:39,502 I kind of feel like that I absolutely love and feel privileged that I get 527 00:25:39,502 --> 00:25:43,072 the ability to chat with people and try and do a really good interview, 528 00:25:43,372 --> 00:25:46,522 even though I listen back and it's always a bit cringey, you know? 529 00:25:46,522 --> 00:25:47,842 But somehow I just keep going. 530 00:25:47,842 --> 00:25:51,082 So, I think persistence is what I would tell myself, you know? 531 00:25:51,557 --> 00:25:55,697 I'm on this journey to learn a ton, not just about the content of what 532 00:25:55,697 --> 00:25:59,717 I'm speaking to the person about, but the actual form of, of interviewing 533 00:25:59,717 --> 00:26:01,487 and podcasting or broadcasting. 534 00:26:01,877 --> 00:26:02,987 Jennifer-Lee: You are listening. 535 00:26:02,987 --> 00:26:03,287 Good on. 536 00:26:03,617 --> 00:26:03,947 Yeah. 537 00:26:03,977 --> 00:26:06,287 But that's the best part of learning is the cringe factor. 538 00:26:06,292 --> 00:26:06,322 Will Brehm: Mm-hmm. 539 00:26:06,402 --> 00:26:09,017 Jennifer-Lee: And that's how I learned to be a broadcaster. 540 00:26:09,137 --> 00:26:12,377 You'd get the clips off the radio and you'd listen back all the 541 00:26:12,377 --> 00:26:13,997 time, and that's how you learn. 542 00:26:13,997 --> 00:26:16,097 And most people don't wanna listen to themselves. 543 00:26:16,432 --> 00:26:19,312 But that's the biggest key, and I tell people to listen to their podcast as 544 00:26:19,312 --> 00:26:22,072 well, because how can you get better if you don't know what you're doing. 545 00:26:22,132 --> 00:26:22,702 Will Brehm: Exactly. 546 00:26:23,282 --> 00:26:26,732 It took a long time for me to be able to listen to my voice, but now I'm so 547 00:26:26,732 --> 00:26:30,602 used to it and, and I listen to the rough cut on the bus ride to work. 548 00:26:30,782 --> 00:26:35,132 I'll put on my, my earbuds and like listen in, and then I take notes of what 549 00:26:35,132 --> 00:26:36,842 needs to sort of change as I'm going in. 550 00:26:36,842 --> 00:26:39,572 And now I'm totally used to it and I love being sort of 551 00:26:39,572 --> 00:26:41,447 self-critical what I've been saying. 552 00:26:41,657 --> 00:26:42,317 Neil McPhedran: That's great. 553 00:26:42,447 --> 00:26:46,377 what still needs to change for podcasting to get a proper 554 00:26:46,377 --> 00:26:48,207 seat at the table In academia 555 00:26:48,267 --> 00:26:51,027 Will Brehm: I feel like the more you talk to people, the better. 556 00:26:51,027 --> 00:26:54,327 I've been on a bit of a mission to speak at different universities. 557 00:26:54,417 --> 00:26:57,927 One of the things that I found amazing is I sometimes talk to grad students 558 00:26:57,927 --> 00:27:01,557 about podcasting and about how it's actually should be valued and legitimate. 559 00:27:01,557 --> 00:27:05,237 And you know, if you feel like you need to express yourself in 560 00:27:05,237 --> 00:27:08,207 this medium, then by all means you should feel comfortable doing it. 561 00:27:08,417 --> 00:27:10,097 And some of them come up to me and just are like. 562 00:27:10,407 --> 00:27:13,737 Thank you, I felt like I never had permission to do it. 563 00:27:13,887 --> 00:27:13,947 Neil McPhedran: Mm. 564 00:27:13,977 --> 00:27:17,307 Will Brehm: You still have to be writing and sort of in the academic 565 00:27:17,307 --> 00:27:22,017 conventions, but those conventions should and do need to change a little bit. 566 00:27:22,257 --> 00:27:27,507 So other ways of doing it, if there's academics listening to this, is get into 567 00:27:27,727 --> 00:27:31,597 the conversations in your university about the policy of promotion and making 568 00:27:31,597 --> 00:27:37,177 sure you can actually say, yes, I, I'm allowed to put forward my non-traditional 569 00:27:37,177 --> 00:27:40,447 research outputs, whatever they may look like, and they should be valued the same. 570 00:27:40,537 --> 00:27:45,247 And if you can get like one little line in a policy that says that, that opens 571 00:27:45,247 --> 00:27:48,997 up the possibility to actually, you know, hang your hat on that and say, look, 572 00:27:48,997 --> 00:27:50,947 I'm, I'm doing what the policy says. 573 00:27:51,287 --> 00:27:52,247 We need to value it. 574 00:27:52,457 --> 00:27:57,227 That then will take a bit of a culture shift within the academic space 575 00:27:57,227 --> 00:28:00,647 where, you know, it's not just policy that determines promotions, it's 576 00:28:00,647 --> 00:28:02,837 humans reading people's applications. 577 00:28:03,087 --> 00:28:07,707 And so, I think we probably have a long way to go with that, but you know, little 578 00:28:07,707 --> 00:28:12,057 by little, your podcast, my podcast, you've made this massive collection 579 00:28:12,057 --> 00:28:14,337 of, of academic podcasts online. 580 00:28:14,337 --> 00:28:14,397 Neil McPhedran: Yeah. 581 00:28:14,427 --> 00:28:16,707 Will Brehm: All of those people are doing the work, right? 582 00:28:16,707 --> 00:28:20,067 If we do that more and hopefully do it collectively, we can 583 00:28:20,067 --> 00:28:21,237 start seeing some change. 584 00:28:21,387 --> 00:28:23,097 Neil McPhedran: I really like that insight. 585 00:28:23,447 --> 00:28:28,427 It's not trying to convince you're coming at it from a subtle change in 586 00:28:28,427 --> 00:28:31,277 the policy or addition to the policy. 587 00:28:31,607 --> 00:28:36,677 It's a very interesting way to do it because then once it's there in writing, 588 00:28:36,737 --> 00:28:38,237 you've got something to point to now 589 00:28:38,237 --> 00:28:38,447 Will Brehm: That's right 590 00:28:38,447 --> 00:28:39,077 Neil McPhedran: As well too. 591 00:28:39,137 --> 00:28:42,137 And you can bring others along who can then see that that's 592 00:28:42,167 --> 00:28:44,297 also the policy as well too. 593 00:28:44,297 --> 00:28:45,677 So that's a really good 594 00:28:45,887 --> 00:28:45,977 Will Brehm: mm-hmm. 595 00:28:45,977 --> 00:28:46,367 Neil McPhedran: Insight. 596 00:28:46,517 --> 00:28:47,267 If we could get. 597 00:28:47,397 --> 00:28:51,807 That disseminating throughout institutions around the world then 598 00:28:51,807 --> 00:28:52,077 Will Brehm: huge. 599 00:28:52,077 --> 00:28:54,567 Neil McPhedran: That could be a big way that we could make this change. 600 00:28:54,747 --> 00:28:59,397 And I think the other point you may will about inertia and just keep going. 601 00:28:59,457 --> 00:29:03,867 Mm. It's funny 'cause you know, Jen and I work with a number of different podcasts. 602 00:29:03,927 --> 00:29:08,757 I hear myself saying to new podcasters like this is not a viral medium. 603 00:29:08,817 --> 00:29:13,827 And Jen and I, I think, have come to this realization three years into this podcast, 604 00:29:14,357 --> 00:29:15,617 that's really what we've been doing. 605 00:29:15,617 --> 00:29:18,107 Like we're not making any money off this. 606 00:29:18,167 --> 00:29:22,607 And we've done this beginning as a labor of love in a way to sort of connect people 607 00:29:22,607 --> 00:29:28,157 but, we feel like we've turned this corner where we've actually gained traction. 608 00:29:28,217 --> 00:29:28,307 Mm-hmm. 609 00:29:28,607 --> 00:29:32,597 And we don't have a huge audience, but we've got a decent size audience. 610 00:29:32,687 --> 00:29:35,687 And Jen, maybe you tell your story about you went, you went 611 00:29:35,687 --> 00:29:36,797 to the London Podcast show. 612 00:29:37,262 --> 00:29:39,362 Jennifer-Lee: Neil tasked me while I was in London last year 613 00:29:39,362 --> 00:29:40,772 to find someone to be on our show. 614 00:29:40,982 --> 00:29:43,532 They don't have a huge amount of higher ed podcasts. 615 00:29:43,532 --> 00:29:43,652 Will Brehm: Mm-hmm. 616 00:29:43,652 --> 00:29:47,102 Jennifer-Lee: But they do have one from London City University 617 00:29:47,102 --> 00:29:49,892 and they have a podcast class, so they have a little booth there. 618 00:29:50,162 --> 00:29:53,282 There was a guy and he's like, I know who you are, and I'm like, no, you don't. 619 00:29:53,567 --> 00:29:55,307 And he's like, yeah, I do. 620 00:29:55,397 --> 00:29:56,387 I listened to your podcast. 621 00:29:56,387 --> 00:29:57,617 I was like, no, you don't. 622 00:29:57,707 --> 00:30:01,427 He actually had to pull the podcast up on the app and like prove it to me. 623 00:30:01,477 --> 00:30:01,957 Will Brehm: I love it. 624 00:30:01,957 --> 00:30:05,257 I mean, what's great is to see conferences like that that are 625 00:30:05,437 --> 00:30:05,617 Neil McPhedran: Yeah. 626 00:30:05,617 --> 00:30:06,727 Will Brehm: Bringing people together. 627 00:30:07,027 --> 00:30:11,167 And I think the more we do that, the more it just becomes normal. 628 00:30:11,407 --> 00:30:11,617 Right? 629 00:30:11,677 --> 00:30:14,987 The reality is that it's already normal for most people, right? 630 00:30:15,107 --> 00:30:18,647 I see every day people listening to, you know what, whatever they're listening to. 631 00:30:18,827 --> 00:30:21,797 I don't think a lot of people are like listening to music because they're 632 00:30:21,797 --> 00:30:23,237 not like dancing down the street. 633 00:30:23,237 --> 00:30:26,854 They're probably listening to podcasts, I always wonder what they're listening to. 634 00:30:27,094 --> 00:30:30,424 But it just shows you that like so many people are using this medium. 635 00:30:30,424 --> 00:30:34,684 I think the last figures I saw, it's like 600 million people are listening 636 00:30:34,684 --> 00:30:36,484 to podcasts on a regular basis. 637 00:30:36,694 --> 00:30:37,684 That's enormous. 638 00:30:37,684 --> 00:30:39,934 So it's normalized in many ways. 639 00:30:40,024 --> 00:30:44,164 The question is how do we get the institutions where we work to sort 640 00:30:44,164 --> 00:30:48,214 of recognize that it's normal and okay and valuable and legitimate. 641 00:30:48,344 --> 00:30:50,954 Jennifer-Lee: But it's just getting it to be recognized everywhere. 642 00:30:50,954 --> 00:30:52,094 People don't realize, 643 00:30:52,094 --> 00:30:52,154 Will Brehm: yeah. 644 00:30:52,154 --> 00:30:55,604 Jennifer-Lee: The power of it until they get involved in it. 645 00:30:55,664 --> 00:30:59,649 Will Brehm: We organized the live podcast in 2019 at an academic conference. 646 00:30:59,679 --> 00:31:02,109 And the conference said no. 647 00:31:02,349 --> 00:31:04,059 They were like, that's not an academic thing. 648 00:31:04,269 --> 00:31:07,269 So then what we decided to do this is when we had like good funding, 649 00:31:07,419 --> 00:31:10,869 we were like, okay, we're just gonna rent our own place next to the hotel. 650 00:31:10,869 --> 00:31:15,459 And so, we booked a place with the equipment and I interviewed somebody live. 651 00:31:16,329 --> 00:31:21,219 And it was packed, so many people came and people still talk about it to this day. 652 00:31:21,219 --> 00:31:23,049 They're like, oh, that was such a great thing. 653 00:31:23,259 --> 00:31:26,259 And now I, I haven't gone back to the conference in a long time, but 654 00:31:26,319 --> 00:31:29,889 I don't know if they have done this yet, but I would imagine it's more 655 00:31:29,889 --> 00:31:32,709 acceptable six years later, you know? 656 00:31:32,789 --> 00:31:34,079 Neil McPhedran: Yeah, I'd imagine. 657 00:31:34,319 --> 00:31:35,309 Will Brehm: I hope so. 658 00:31:35,489 --> 00:31:36,329 Neil McPhedran: So this has been great. 659 00:31:36,389 --> 00:31:40,349 I really enjoyed hearing about your journey, and it's been great to chat with 660 00:31:40,349 --> 00:31:44,309 you just about podcasting, academia, and the opportunity we have moving forward. 661 00:31:44,369 --> 00:31:45,299 Thanks for joining us today. 662 00:31:45,419 --> 00:31:46,439 Will Brehm: Thanks so much for having me, 663 00:31:47,986 --> 00:31:51,976 Neil McPhedran: Jen, once again, we learned so much from a fellow higher 664 00:31:51,976 --> 00:31:55,486 education podcaster this time from someone on the other side of the world. 665 00:31:56,176 --> 00:31:56,576 Jennifer-Lee: I love that. 666 00:31:56,576 --> 00:31:58,996 I love the fact that we get to travel for free. 667 00:32:00,521 --> 00:32:02,231 Neil McPhedran: That's kind of one way to put it, I guess, 668 00:32:03,221 --> 00:32:03,671 Jennifer-Lee: and we get to learn. 669 00:32:03,671 --> 00:32:03,971 Neil McPhedran: I do. 670 00:32:03,971 --> 00:32:06,761 I do think though, that it's a really good reminder that there's this 671 00:32:07,001 --> 00:32:09,311 huge world of podcasting out there. 672 00:32:09,371 --> 00:32:12,671 I think one of the things that struck me was beyond just English speakers. 673 00:32:12,671 --> 00:32:15,341 Of course we know there's a whole world of podcasting out there, especially in 674 00:32:15,341 --> 00:32:19,726 academia because it's very international, but I really like how Fresh Ed and Will is 675 00:32:19,726 --> 00:32:23,801 trying tackle other languages as well too. 676 00:32:23,861 --> 00:32:24,161 Jennifer-Lee: Yeah. 677 00:32:24,161 --> 00:32:27,971 You know, there are so many great podcasts, obviously in Canada and the 678 00:32:27,971 --> 00:32:30,461 US but it's nice to showcase others. 679 00:32:30,731 --> 00:32:32,201 Neil McPhedran: He's been doing this for a long time. 680 00:32:32,201 --> 00:32:34,661 It's been quite the journey that he's been on, and I love where he 681 00:32:34,661 --> 00:32:37,841 is sort of come out the other end or where he is right now and he's built 682 00:32:37,841 --> 00:32:39,311 this audience along the way, right? 683 00:32:39,311 --> 00:32:44,501 And so now it's about opening up that audience to other voices out 684 00:32:44,501 --> 00:32:48,821 there to give an opportunity to access this audience that he's 685 00:32:48,821 --> 00:32:50,171 built really at the end of the day. 686 00:32:50,171 --> 00:32:53,540 So, anyway, great conversation, but why don't you just read us out there Jen? 687 00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,570 Jennifer-Lee: Thank you for tuning into the Continuing Studies podcast, a 688 00:32:56,570 --> 00:32:59,480 podcast for higher education podcasters. 689 00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:01,970 We hope you found this episode informative and. 690 00:33:02,570 --> 00:33:03,170 Inspiring. 691 00:33:03,500 --> 00:33:07,250 If you enjoyed the show, we encourage you to follow and subscribe to our 692 00:33:07,250 --> 00:33:10,873 podcast on your preferred platform, so you'll never miss an episode. 693 00:33:10,953 --> 00:33:15,063 But if you found this episode particularly valuable, please consider 694 00:33:15,063 --> 00:33:18,420 sharing it with your friends and colleagues who also might be interested 695 00:33:18,420 --> 00:33:19,800 in higher education podcasts. 696 00:33:20,445 --> 00:33:25,335 We also invite you to join your peers on higher ed pods.com, where you can connect 697 00:33:25,335 --> 00:33:29,955 with other podcasters in higher education and learn from others in the field. 698 00:33:30,405 --> 00:33:32,895 Thank you for being part of our community. 699 00:33:32,925 --> 00:33:37,605 We look forward to continuing to bring you valuable insights and conversations 700 00:33:37,605 --> 00:33:39,525 around higher education podcasts. 701 00:33:39,765 --> 00:33:41,505 See you in the next episode.