Dr. Emma Vossen: I really do think that games and play in general, it's such like an integral part of the human experience and it really opens people up.
And then I think podcasting kind of does that too.
Neil McPhedran: Welcome to Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher education podcasters to learn, network, and get inspired.
I'm Neil McPhedran, founder of Podium Podcasts, an agency for higher education podcasters.
Jennifer-Lee: And I'm Jennifer-Lee, founder of Jpod Creations, podcasting is broadcasting.
We want you to know you're not alone.
In fact, there are many of you higher ed podcasters out there and we can all learn from each other.
Please also join our community at higheredspods.com.
Neil McPhedran: Okay, Jen, in this episode, we are talking to Dr.
Emma Vossen from the University of Waterloo.
Now, Emma produces two podcasts and we're going to talk about both of them.
And she's with the multidisciplinary, have to be careful when saying that one, Games Institute.
The Games Institute podcast and the First Person Scholar podcast are the two podcasts that she produces.
Jennifer-Lee: Yeah.
So we got to interview another fellow Canadian today, and she's also amazing.
Like she does many different things, has won awards and everything too.
So I was like, okay, you do it all plus produce a podcast.
For those that are not familiar with the University of Waterloo, well, it's Canada's MIT, focusing on tech and engineering.
The Games Institute is a super interesting and unique research center, but we'll let Emma get into that and explain because she'll do it more justice.
And she'll talk about how they use podcasting as a tool for engagement beyond the research center.
Neil McPhedran: Excellent.
And we're also going to continue our little mini Podcasting 2.0 feature.
And in this episode, I'm going to dig into the person tag, which is super applicable for higher education podcasters.
Jennifer-Lee: I love it.
I feel like it's like, Neil has his professor moment every episode.
Can't wait to know what the person tag's all about.
So let's get started.
Neil McPhedran: Welcome, Emma.
Really nice to have you here on the Continuing Studies podcast.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Thank you so much for having me guys.
Neil McPhedran: Well, why don't we just start with a quick introduction?
Maybe you can introduce yourself, please, Emma.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Uh, yeah, so I'm Dr.
Emma Vossen and I am the Knowledge Mobilization and Research Impact Officer at the Games Institute at the University of Waterloo.
Jennifer-Lee: That's probably the coolest title we've ever had on this show.
Can you tell us what that means?
Neil McPhedran: Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Absolutely.
Um, so the Games Institute is a research facility at the University of Waterloo and my job specifically is in knowledge mobilization and research impact.
So what that means is basically taking the undecipherable research that academics do, and trying to make it so that people understand it, and so that it's actually useful and impactful.
Neil McPhedran: Great.
Okay.
So my next question then is can you explain what the Games Institute is?
This sounds really interesting.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, absolutely.
I love talking about what the GI is because I actually, as a student, when I was doing my PhD, I was a student at GI and, uh, now I am staff.
So I've sort of seen it from the very beginning, uh, till now.
So it started around 2012.
And the idea was that there was several different professors, including our executive director, Dr.
Neil Randall, who wanted to sort of validate the kind of interdisciplinary research that they were doing about technology.
So Neil, our executive director, is an English professor, but if you look at his full CV, it's all these books and publications about, you know, games and, uh, the internet and technology.
And, you know, people thought this was sort of like the central contradiction of his career.
Like, why, if you're an English professor, why are you writing about these things?
And so, uh, he met up with some other professors who were feeling these contradictions as well.
And was kind of like, okay, so what if we started some sort of institute where everyone's doing interdisciplinary work focused on games or interactive immersive technologies, which is our sort of catch all for everything that is not games.
And that's been going on for over ten years now.
And in that time, you know, there's just been countless projects and publications and grants and too much to get into here.
But yeah, basically in summary, it is a place for interdisciplinary researchers studying games and interactive technologies to come and work together.
Jennifer-Lee: Sounds like you guys just have a lot of fun.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Some of it is very fun.
Some of it is boring, you know, just like any other workplace.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
And this is awesome because, um, University of Waterloo is a Canadian university, very, we're very proud of the amazing technical research that's done out of University of Waterloo.
So, and it's great to be, um, for Jen and I to be interviewing a fellow Canadian from a Canadian institution.
So that's great to have you on board.
Okay.
So we are a podcast about university podcasting, which is why we're chatting here.
So, um, can you just tell us a little bit about the Games Institute podcast?
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah.
So, um, the Games Institute podcast, uh, it was actually started by Marisa, my predecessor.
The idea was that we have all this great research happening here, and it was sort of a knowledge mobilization outlet for that research.
So, individual researchers on, get them talking about the research.
But then also to get them talking about themselves and their motivations behind their research, you know, the researcher behind the research sort of thing.
Been going for a long time now.
I'm now producing it.
Part of what we are doing is that instead of, you know, me hosting the podcast, I've hosted other podcasts before, some of our PhD students hosting the podcast.
So it's a really good sort of opportunity for them to gain some experience.
And also I think it works well with the researchers because, it, I think it helps keep things from getting too, uh, highfalutin.
Jennifer-Lee: And how did Tobin and Sid get the gig right now?
Did they have to, like, beat a whole bunch of competition?
Was there a gaming competition?
They had to get to a certain level?
Like, I want to know.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, I mean, not a lot of competition for, uh, free grad student labor.
But, you know, uh, Tobin started, uh, working on it with Marisa.
And then when Marisa stepped aside and I came into this role, I was thinking like, okay, well, I could co host it with Tobin just like Marisa was.
But I liked the idea of someone else getting that experience.
And so I approached Sid actually, and while, Sid has done Game's research, they are currently actually writing a dissertation in environment about disinformation about farming on social media.
So like pretty different than Tobin's research.
I think that they have like a really good dynamic.
Neil McPhedran: And so who's the audience for this podcast then?
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, so the audience would be a combination of other academics who are doing this sort of work that we do and hopefully the public.
I think with some episodes, obviously more applicable than others to the public.
You know, like they interviewed me on one episode of the podcast about my position.
I don't know how interesting that would be for the public, but, you know, recently they interviewed some of our academics, uh, who are working in esports.
And I think that that's the sort of thing that a lot of people in the public are curious about, like, how does that, um, how does esports function in the university?
But honestly, like anyone wants to listen, I'm happy to have them listen.
But those are sort of the two groups that, uh, that we're targeting.
Jennifer-Lee: But I even from the topics interesting.
I've played video games and things like that, but because the world is evolving, obviously, with diversity, equity, inclusion, which is amazing.
And it's so focused in a lot of different areas through organizations.
But I never thought about it being focused on in games.
And taking a look at a lot of your episodes, and they're like, who's being represented in the non player characters?
Who's being represented in the player?
It was really interesting.
And not even that you layered another top, I think it was your recent interview is like, how does emotion come into the game design?
I was like, wow, this is a lot more than being like, here's Mario and he's going to get to the end.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah.
And I mean, that's especially interesting to me because, you know, my PhD research was about diversity, equity, and inclusion in games culture.
So that is something that I am super interested in.
And honestly, it's been such a huge part of the Games Institute because, um, you know, the GI is a very, very diverse place.
Um, and I don't think a lot of research institutes could say that.
And I don't think a lot of games spaces in general could say that.
The games industry and game spaces, it tends to, um, lean towards this sort of cis hetero white male.
But at the GI, you know, we've always been very much in favor of expanding that as much as possible.
And I think a huge part of that work is doing what you, exactly what you just described, is thinking about games and being like, okay, when you hear the word games, you're probably thinking something very specific.
And I want you to think beyond that.
Or when, even when you hear the word play, you're probably thinking about something very specific.
And how do we sort of expand those ideas?
Jennifer-Lee: Well, I was going to say early days of Mario and still, unless they have come up with more, usually there's not a lot of women character, there's one.
You know, a lot of work to go there.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, exactly.
And like in, you know, in that case, like one of the things that I'm actually looking into right now is that there's the newest game that's just been announced in the Legend of Zelda series is going to be the first game in the entire series where you play as Zelda, you know, the titular Zelda.
Jennifer-Lee: Oh wow.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Um, yeah, and that has been something that fans have been asking for for a really long time and has been extremely controversial.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that and to writing more about that.
But yeah, just in general, you know, the representation of women and people in colour in games has been kind of abysmal over the years.
And we've had a lot of research here that's addressed that.
Jennifer-Lee: It's interesting to think about all this, too, because games are quite visual and podcasts not so visual.
Yes, YouTube, but it's still us on microphones.
We're not really showing photos of games and things like that.
Maybe one day, but not at the moment.
But it's really interesting to me that a podcast lends itself so well for these discussions.
And I think it opens up a new audience and explores different areas that, like you were saying, we don't necessarily talk about in games.
Or expose the fact that for the last, like, thirty, forty years, there hasn't been that many, uh, cultures featured in games.
There hasn't been that many women.
There hasn't been characters that are necessarily different backgrounds.
It's been mainly white characters, and then you usually have mythical creatures, and that's it.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, and you know, actually I was part of some research during, uh, didn't really go much, go very far.
But during my PhD where it was actually like, okay, play these games that came out this year and calculate, you know, how, like, how many characters there are, how many of them are women, how many of them are men, blah, blah, blah.
And, you know, in some games, it was quite frequent that it would be like, there are more animal characters than women characters.
That was something that, that often came up.
But something else that you said, just about expanding the idea, is that one thing that we see a lot here is how do you take those technologies that have been used for games for entertainment purposes and maybe repurpose them for other purposes.
So an example of the kind of projects that our researchers work on that sort of expand these ideas of what gaming technologies could be used for.
One example, uh, we call it DOHR, which stands for Digital Oral Histories of Reconciliation.
And that is, um, a project that one of our researchers, Dr.
Christina Llewellyn, worked on with the Nova Scotian government.
And the idea is that it's a VR experience that recreates the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children as it was when it was still open, it has since closed.
And it is sort of an oral history experience that is used in the Nova Scotia grade eleven history curriculum.
And the students can put on the VR headset and walk through this virtual reconstruction of the home.
And while they do that, they hear the oral histories of some of the survivors, um, who experienced abuse at the home.
And the reason that this was done was because the survivors themselves, when they reconciled with the government, they didn't want payment.
What they wanted was to educate future generations about the racism that they experienced and the abuse they experienced to ensure it never happened again.
So it was like, okay, how can we do this sort of educational experience in a way that is really effective for these younger audiences so that they can have this sort of intercultural, intergenerational experience.
Jennifer-Lee: Wow, that ties into so much of what you are doing, especially with the podcast.
How do you guys decide this is exactly what you want to do and why the podcast is a perfect vessel to get these messages out for the GI Institute?
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, I mean, it's so hard to explain because I feel like so many of these projects come up really organically.
That project that Christina started, she started it before she joined the GI and she was kind of lost with how to, like, what, how do I do this?
You know, she didn't even know she wanted to do it in VR at the time.
And then someone suggested she reach out to Neil, our executive director, and Neil said, okay, well, how about I introduce you to some people?
And he introduced her to Dr.
Jennifer Robert Smith.
Um, Dr.
Gerald Voorhees, another one of our researchers, and eventually Dr.
Oliver Schneider, whose lab is on the other side of this wall, and he works in haptics.
And so then that built on the experience more to be like, okay, well, how could we add haptic feedback, this sort of, you know, like when your phone vibrates, like that's haptic feedback.
How could we add that into the experience to enhance the storytelling and work with the survivors to use the haptic experience in a way that's really effective, but also, um, like respects, respects their experiences, I guess.
And so the podcast then, you know, is a way for us to sit these researchers down.
They've obviously published papers about these things, but not many people are going to read these journal articles.
So it's a way for us to sit them down and say, can you unpack that?
Can you unpack that?
And sort of take away some of these layers of academies that are around these projects to make the message really interesting and accessible to a larger audience.
Neil McPhedran: Are you finding that the podcast is like, there's such chewy subjects you're talking about here, and there's so many different layers to unpack.
And then back to what Jen was saying before, the gaming is such a visual thing.
How are you finding podcasting as a channel to, I guess, address these topics, these stories, and be able to share the research, all this amazing research?
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, absolutely.
There is something about podcasting that I feel like, because it's so stripped down, it allows you to really, like, cut to the heart of what you're discussing.
So, I don't know, say someone's giving an academic conference presentation.
They're going to have a script.
They're going to have slides.
They're going to be standing there.
They'll have their gestures and whatever.
But when you get them on the podcast, you can get them to really, you can see, honestly, when you're interviewing people, and you can hear it too, I think, when people have to stop and think and think, oh, I've never really thought about it like this before.
I've never thought this hard about it before.
They don't have, you know, especially with games, so much of the presentations that our researchers give are so visual, you know, look at this screen recording, look at this demo, like, and I think one of the ways that we start every episode of our podcast that I think is very unusual is we ask people to introduce themselves, obviously, but then we say, do you remember what your first experience with games was?
And it really disarms people, I think.
And it makes them really think about why am I here?
Why are any of us here?
How did I get to this point with this research?
How much of it comes back to, you know, in case of Geneva was one of our recent interviews, you know, and she talks about her experiences with Pokemon Snap and how that was really informative to her research.
Sometimes people talk about soccer.
Sometimes people talk about Monopoly.
But I really do think that games and play in general, it's such like an integral part of the human experience.
And it really opens people up.
And then I think podcasting kind of does that too.
You know, it's kind of like, I don't know, when you lay on the couch, the idea of laying on the couch at the therapist's office or something.
Like people really open up when they're podcasting I feel.
Jennifer-Lee: Well, I just think that everyone is really figuring out that podcasting is an amazing vessel that we didn't think about.
Because I think we've always just been exposed to images when it comes to games or images, when it comes to certain things like books.
And Neil and I talked to Yale University University Press, and they do a podcast that's specifically on art books.
And you would think, oh, how do you do a podcast on that?
It's actually one of their very successful podcasts.
It's been going for years.
People love it.
Because again, it's evoking that discussion you don't get when you're showing all these flashy images.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Well, and you know what?
It makes me think of like, I was listening to one of our episodes recently.
And one of our researchers, who actually is also a professional board game designer, was describing a game that he's playing.
And it was interesting, because I was sitting there thinking, just as a fellow gamer, like, hmm, I wonder if I'd like this game.
And I realized, like, he describes so much of the experience of playing the game.
But never once mentioned, like, the art style, or the budget.
Or, like, as far as I know, like, it could be photorealistic, it could be pixels.
But I think that, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter as much as the experience itself of playing those games.
Jennifer-Lee: Well, I think something we've lost a little bit of, and now it's coming back, such as the younger generation, is imagination.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yes.
Jennifer-Lee: And we have had some so much, um, known for us because we sit down and we look at our phones and we see things.
But they're saying in really young kids, they're not using their imagination, but that's why podcasting, especially in the younger demographic, not even like young adults.
They're talking about like young kids, apparently that's a very popular avenue because the parents are letting them listen to more podcasts than they watch TV because they have to think and they have to create it.
I think what you guys are doing, same thing.
And it's awesome because I think we all lose that vital skill, which really helps us in anything that we do in life, uh, whether it's like relationships or building friendships or business.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah.
And for me personally, I vastly prefer doing podcasts to any of the other sort of media interviews and engagement that I've done.
And it's sort of twofold.
Like on the one hand, it's like, okay, I can just focus on communicating.
I can just focus on my words.
I don't have to think about how I look or how my hair looks or any of those things.
But then also, you know, being sort of a public figure as an academic online, like I also faced a lot of harassment every time I would do an interview.
And if it was a video interview, that harassment would always be doubled because there'd always be stuff in there about your appearance and blah, blah.
And I'd always think, well, but none of that matters to what I'm saying, you know, like, at least refute my words instead of making these sort of jabs.
Jennifer-Lee: I hate keyboard warriors.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yes.
Neil McPhedran: Welcome back to our ongoing Podcasting 2.0 segment.
We'll hop right back into our conversation with Dr.
Vosson in a couple of minutes.
So as promised, we're going to keep you updated on our journey of infusing Podcasting 2.0 into this very podcast, Continuing Studies.
In each episode, we've been adding this quick segment and we're focusing in on one of the Podcast 2.0 features that we've adopted.
And we recommend you adopting as well.
In this episode, we're going to dive into a feature that highlights the collaborative spirit of podcasting, the person tag.
So whether you're a solo creator, a duo, or having an entire production team, the person tag allows you to give credit where credit is due, and it documents the roles of everyone involved in your podcast.
Okay.
So what is this person tag?
So the person tag, as the other tags are part of the Podcasting 2.0 namespace.
And in this case, it's designed to formally recognize everyone contributing to your podcast.
This tag allows you to specify specific roles and those people in those roles, like hosts, guests, really key, producers, editors, executive producers, so on and so forth.
And you can do this at the show level and, or at the episode level.
So there's lots of flexibility in how you can represent your team sort of at the macro show level.
But also that individual contribution that might go into each episode and guests involved with that individual episode, etcetera.
Okay.
So why does the person tag matter?
One, recognition.
It gives us a platform and a way to acknowledge the contributions of the whole team, not just the hosts.
And this recognition can boost morale and strengthen the overall podcasting community.
Two, transparency.
We're openly documenting roles so listeners can get insight to behind the scenes efforts that shaped your podcast, so on and so forth.
And three, searchability and discoverability.
This one's key.
So the person tag enhances that metadata for podcast apps and podcast directories, ultimately improving their search algorithms.
This means listeners then can easily search up and find all the podcasts, for example, from a given subject matter expert or a frequent guest that you may have on your podcast.
What are all the episodes that he or she are on.
Enhancing that discoverability and broadening your show's reach.
Why should higher ed podcasters embrace the podcast tag?
This one's perfect.
In higher education, collaboration is key and recognizing those people that were involved with the production of the content is part and parcel of what we do.
We cite those references and the people involved in putting together an academic paper.
This lends itself in a very similar way, where we can detail all the individual contributors, even the faculty members, researchers, students, or external experts that we brought to the table that had a participation in a given episode , or the show at the macro level.
And then this transparency not only builds credibility by highlighting the credentials and the roles of both contributors.
But also serves as an educational tool for your listeners.
How do we get started with the person tag?
Will we incorporate the person tag?
We identify those people individually at the host, the podcast host platforms, and then the apps can pick it up from there in their advanced tagging system and integrates into all the stuff we just talked about.
As we always do with this, we've added a few references in the show notes, including, um, a link to the Podcasting 2.0 page, which lists out the apps, the listening apps and the hosting platforms that play nicely with the person tag.
And then as well, I think these resources we can, you can go deeper into understanding how to implement and how it all works and so on and so forth.
So we encourage you all, all your higher education podcasters out there to start using the person tag and ultimately give credit where credit is due.
It's simple, it's easy to add into your publishing process.
And yet, will have a super impactful way for indexing, searching, so on and so forth.
Okay, thanks for tuning into Podcasting 2.0 segment.
In the next episode, I'm going to talk about and dive into the pod role.
Yeah, it's interesting, like, you really get me to think about this a bit.
It's only the last hundred years we've had all this visual side of storytelling, um, with graphics and cinema.
And then it's only in the last, what, ten, twenty years where we've had incredible graphics and graphics cards in our computers and things like that.
Versus, you know, we've been telling stories for thousands of years as humans.
So it's kind of innately kind of taps into maybe sort of more of our inner beings, maybe.
It's really interesting and I love how you guys are using the podcasting medium in the way you are.
And that question you ask off the top just to sort of get into it and get someone thinking a little bit differently and sort of getting into the storytelling and the spoken sort of discussion part of it versus being caught up in your visuals and presentation.
Jennifer-Lee: And that question is so important because it really opens up people and really showcases who they are.
And I, even if I think about what was the first video game experience I had was, oh my god, this is like, you know, the little cartridges that you had to like, blow on and put them back into the Nintendo, the brown Nintendo, you know that one?
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, oh yeah.
Jennifer-Lee: And, uh, not the 64, which was purple.
Uh, but I remember Mario and like the old school one where they had to like, carry everything on their head and use it to throw off and stuff.
But that's what I think about it.
Dr. Emma Vossen: That's Mario 2.
Jennifer-Lee: Was that Mario 2?
Okay, perfect.
See, I don't even know.
But Neil, do you know what your, this is fun.
Do you know what your first video game experience is?
Neil McPhedran: Uh, I had, well I had friends that had Ataris and Coleco.
My, I think, first one that I sort of owned and had, it wasn't really gaming, but I had a Commodore Vic 20.
So I'm really dating myself here.
Dr. Emma Vossen: I mean, it's funny 'cause I was gonna say, my first was a Commodore 64 was my first gaming experience.
So you're not dating yourself, at least in relation to me.
Neil McPhedran: I couldn't afford the 64.
I could only afford the Vic 20
. Jennifer-Lee: I don't know what it is, but that's okay.
Neil McPhedran: Oh boy, okay.
Let's just move on from this dating ourselves stuff.
Okay, so not only is there the Games Institute podcast, you also work with a podcast called The First Person Scholar Podcast.
Do I have that correct?
Dr. Emma Vossen: Uh, yeah.
So First Person Scholar is a publication that's run out of the Games Institute and the First Person Podcast is the affiliated podcast.
So I was, for a while, I was editor in chief of First Person Scholar when I was a PhD student.
And during that time, I also was the host of First Person Podcast.
Neil McPhedran: Oh, great.
Okay.
So the Games Institute podcast is sort of the main one though, or are they both kind of like equally key channels of communication for the Institute?
Dr. Emma Vossen: So the First Person Podcast has actually been going on longer than the Games Institute podcast.
And it's interesting because I feel like there's obviously some overlap.
The Games Institute podcast was really more of like a, okay, we're going to bring on one of our researchers, you know, each episode and showcase what their research is.
Uh, whereas with the First Person Podcast, it was much more, uh, let's get a sort of panel of experts together who may be from the Games Institute or may be external, and talk about specific subjects within gaming.
And so, yeah, that, that was the idea, that's sort of the separation.
Does that make sense?
Neil McPhedran: Totally.
Yeah, that totally makes sense.
And it makes sense why you would launch that second Games Institute podcast.
I like that.
You're kind of like focusing in on an episode, on a researcher and their research basically.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, and with the First Person podcast as well, um, First Person Scholar has always been run exclusively by grad students.
And so the podcast as well, like the majority of the guests and hosts on the podcast are also grad students.
And, um, whereas a lot, like we have more of the full faculty on the Games Institute podcast.
Um, so there's also kind of that separation too, but it's all kind of the same philosophy.
Like First Person Scholar was started in 2012 as a middle state publication.
And what that means essentially is, you know, you have sort of academic journals on one end, and you have, uh, journalism on the other hand.
And it's very hard to communicate anything in the middle there that is not, you know, a journal article you're waiting three years to come out, or straight up journalism that, you know, journalists write.
So if you're an academic and you have something you want to convey and you want to convey it quickly, uh, there are very few venues through which you can do that.
So that was why we started First Person Scholar, which we call FPS, um, to help scholars, you quickly convey their research in a more accessible form.
And I feel like podcasting goes right along with that, you know, it's just sort of a very natural pairing with that sort of middle state writing.
And I would consider a lot of podcasting, academic podcasting to be part of that sort of middle state bubble.
Neil McPhedran: I really like that.
I feel like you put that together really nicely for me.
I think that this is something I've thought about, but I hadn't quite formulated an articulation of those two ends of the spectrum and the advantage that podcasting does bring to it.
So we've, we chatted with a professor from the University of Louisiana who does cybersecurity and one of his podcasts, it's called Cyberways, is he someone who's written a very cerebral research paper on cyber security, but sort of makes it more approachable for the practitioners in the cyber community versus like reading the journal version of it.
But the way you've just articulated that is fantastic that it's this real sweet spot that podcasting can offer in the world of academia.
Dr. Emma Vossen: And that's kind of like thinking about knowledge mobilization.
Like, writ large.
Like, I personally am of the opinion that I think all journal articles should be open and accessible to anyone.
Like, I don't think they should be paywalled.
I also don't think that anyone who is not in academia should be expected to read a journal article.
So, if you want the information that's in that article to have any impact, and you know, something about cyber security that affects literally everyone.
It's like, you can't just one and done, write the journal article and say, okay, well, there I've done my job.
Like it is our responsibility as academics to take the information that is there and not just mobilize it, but to translate it for a larger audience.
And, you know, I think in healthcare, this has been something that they've been wrestling with for a long time because it is literally a matter of life and death.
But other fields are quite behind, um, when it comes to knowledge translation and mobilization, I think.
Neil McPhedran: Mm hmm.
Yeah.
I really like the lens that you're putting on this.
I think this is really interesting.
I think most of us wouldn't even know how to read a, in the non academic world, wouldn't even know how to read a research paper, actually out of a journal.
I mean, they're all sort of for, you know, this way they're put together and whatnot.
It's very, I think for the average lay person like myself, it's not super approachable.
Dr. Emma Vossen: No.
And like a huge part of my job is, that not only am I working at a research institute, but it's an interdisciplinary research institute.
Neil McPhedran: Right.
Dr. Emma Vossen: So a huge part of the literacy that I've been trying to build, and I try to imbue this into the podcast, while I'm not hosting, you know, I am the one doing the research and writing the questions that will be asked.
And so a huge part of that is when I know someone's going to be on the podcast, I'm the one to open those journal articles, and go through them regardless of discipline, and try to come up with questions that really cut to the heart of what they're saying in an accessible manner.
Jennifer-Lee: Well, and podcasting is so important in that because people take a long time to write those research papers.
They go to a lot of trouble.
So it'd be nice if more people can listen to them and understand them through podcasting.
Because even in the private podcasting world, a lot of places like law firms are using their newsletters and their private podcasts.
And they're getting higher engagement on those than they would normally have if they just sent them out an email.
So I, there's another way to understand all this beautiful work that people do because come on, we don't just write them for them to sit on a shelf.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Well, and I think also working in the general realm of tech, we've just had this entire century of technological development, just like so quickly, everything is evolving so rapidly.
And now, especially with artificial intelligence, the rate that that is growing is especially rapid, like unprecedented.
And I think that we actually need to sort of move from, step one was making all this technology and step two is then how do we take all that technology, all this amazing technology and actually implemented and put it into place ,for social good.
For the good of humans, not for making money, but so we, you know, survive.
And I think that podcasting is one of the key pieces to that.
It is a very effective way at getting complex information out because it's edited, but you can only edit so much.
Jennifer-Lee: And there's a lesser barrier to entry because most people do have a cell phone so they can listen.
Or they can even, I wouldn't recommend this, but there's tons of videos on it.
You can even record, and I can't believe I'm saying this, a podcast on your phone, but I won't even get into that because that's like one of my pain points, but you're so right.
And I'm glad that we have this tool because I do think audio in general is going to be a great link for the future.
So thank you so much for joining us today.
We really appreciated having you on.
This is an awesome discussion because I think more and more institutes have to have these discussions and figure out how we're going to grow in the future and how we're going to use audio to be more inclusive and bring our message out.
Dr. Emma Vossen: Yeah, absolutely.
And yeah, I would love to talk to you guys again anytime.
Thanks so much for having me.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah, that was great.
Thanks.
Thanks so much.
Wow.
That was an awesome conversation, Jen.
I know I say that every time, but that really was.
Emma really got me thinking.
And I said that a couple of times in our conversation, but her take on podcasting and how she sees this opportunity of podcasting filling this middle ground between, I would say like journalism on one end of the spectrum versus research journals on the other end of the spectrum.
And podcasting kind of come right up the middle and fill this middle ground between the two.
I really thought that was an interesting take and definitely something I think for higher education podcasters to think about.
Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, I really enjoyed that as well because research, like I've had a few friends do their MBAs and it's like they put all this hard work into it and then no one, well, like I can't read it.
It's like a long thing.
And it's nice that people are starting to dig these up as well.
And I also like the fact that kind of similar to our guests that we had on a previous episode, Yale University Press, when they were doing the art books, and they were translating them on to a podcast that was very successful, even though it was a very visual medium.
It's the same thing that they're doing here, but with video games.
And so I grew up in the like Pikachu generation.
And when I was really young, that's what I played.
And so the episode I listened to, they were really able to create the imagery with that.
And I just thought it was really fascinating.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah, she talked about typically in their world, a presentation is filled with graphics and it's very graphically focused.
But that's all stripped away, forced to be stripped away in this audio medium of podcasting and how that allows them to get almost deeper into these conversations they have about video games and graphics and so on and so forth.
But yeah, what a great one.
Every time we go into these, it amazes me how much we learn.
We try to kind of steer the conversation and then some great stuff that comes out of it.
This was an excellent one.
So Jen, why don't you read us out?
Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, I just have to say one more thing before.
Neil McPhedran: Okay, you can say one more thing.
Jennifer-Lee: Go.
Okay.
Oh, thank you, Neil.
What I wanted to say was it does surprise you because we've been doing so many of these for a year that I thought, when we started this journey because you and I have university and college clients that all the podcasts would be very similar about them joining the school.
But honestly, I felt that we have delved into so many different unique ways that they are promoting the university in a way, but through different genres.
So I thought it was really neat anyways, but that's my take on it.
Neil McPhedran: Great.
Yeah.
I think, I think that was a worthwhile comment to tack on at the end there.
Jennifer-Lee: Thank you.
I appreciate it.
So now I'll read this out on my own terms.
Okay.
Thank you.
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