Thank you so much for agreeing to be part of series two of Making Meaning. 

Here’s what you need to know

The podcast is an informal conversation about topics we are both interested in, not an interview. It will be a chat between us about things we’ve agreed in advance but you don’t need to prepare answers. 

Before we start the podcast recording, we’ll have a chat about the kind of things we want to discuss. We’ll agree some topics and I’ll ask some questions as part of the discussion. You can ask me questions too, it’s a conversation after all. 

Practicalities

We will record on Zoom. If you have a microphone that would be really useful but please make sure it doesn’t rub on your clothing (if its attached to headphones). Otherwise please make sure the room is as quiet as possible and remove all things that make a noise like your phone. Please also try and turn off notifications on your computer. 

Don’t worry about the doorbell, pets, children etc too much, we can pause and edit out interruptions. 

The most important thing to try and avoid is small noises like pens, microphone rustle, tapping or fiddling with things. I find it works better to keep my hands in my lap rather than waving them around like I usually do so I can’t make accidental noises. 

During the conversation I will probably just nod and smile a lot rather than saying yes too much as that interrupts the recording too much. 

I will ask you to introduce yourself, please prepare a little bit for this. Your name, what kind of work you do, how you describe yourself, your location if you feel this is important and any other personal information you want to share at this point.

Please fill in this google form with images and any information you want to be shared, particularly events or programmes around the release date so I can include those. If you have any problems with the form, please email with the following: 

• Your website / or specific project website if that’s what we are talking about
• Please provide a few sentences about your practice and projects which I will use to create an introduction.
• Is there anything else you want to promote / share about future work such as exhibition dates and locations, books, other links. These will go on my website. 
• Please upload 2-5 images of your work, yourself and anything else you want to promote
• Anything else you want to share with me for the podcast / blog / social media? 

If you have any ideas of companies or organisations who might be appropriate to approach for sponsorship of your episode please let me know too. 

Editing process

I will do very limited edits to the conversation, taking out anything that doesn’t flow well or where one of us has lost the train of thought. I don’t edit out umms and ahhhhs, these will stay in so it will sound more like a natural conversation than a Radio for documentary.

I will record a short intro specific to your episode which will follow a standard intro which runs on all episodes, and a short ending piece reflecting on the conversation and including any links and other info that needs to be mentioned (eg your events to promote).

Sponsors will be mentioned in the standard intro unless there is a specific episode sponsor for yours in which case I will mention them in the introduction.

Other adverts may be inserted within the podcast but I will do this as sensitively as possible.

Once that has all been edited together I will send you a final version to listen to. Please do this within a few days. You can ask someone else to do this if you prefer not to listen to yourself. I need this done to make sure you haven’t said anything you don’t feel comfortable about sharing after all. This should be a week or two before your episode goes out.

Marketing

I will confirm with you when your episode is due out. We will create images like the one below and use these for social media and on my website. Please share images that might work well in this format.

I will create a blog post about the episode and this will include the same text as you will see in the podcast app. This will include links to your website & social media.

If possible, please create blog posts and social media posts to promote the episode and you can include a link to the episode on your website easily (I can show you how to do this). It is really vital that you promote as much as me to get a really good audience for your episode. You can use the same images as I use to promote or create your own using my logo, if you check with me first.

I don’t tend to announce who is on the podcast very far in advance and only promote each episode on the day it goes out but you can trail it before the publication date if you wish. Please don’t announce more than a couple of weeks ahead until we’ve got the final edited version sorted out.