A unique aspect of the Community Innovation Practitioner Award is the podcast training and production provided throughout the 12 months of project activity. To help deliver this, Creative Communities worked in partnership with MIC Media CEO and founder Vic Turnbull.
The Creative Communities podcast launches on 7 October 2024. You can listen to the preview episode now to learn more, and Like and Follow to hear when the full series is released.
In this following conversation between Vic and Creative Communities Senior Research Fellow Lauren Baker Mitchell, we reflect on the podcasting journey, what makes podcasts different to other research outputs, and some of the challenges of voicing diverse creative communities.
Lauren: Vic, tell me what’s so great about podcasting?
Vic: I think there’s four things that make podcasts great and the reason why people absolutely love them. The first is the variety. I often compare listening to podcasts, like walking into a library. You can pick up a book to get lost in a story, and it’s the same for podcasting. You can switch on a podcast to laugh, to cry, to be inspired.
The second reason is the intimacy. Very few types of media present you with the opportunity to have a connection directly in someone’s ear. We rarely listen to podcasts with someone else. So many people say to me, I love podcasts. It feels like I’m part of a club.
I believe there’s a podcast for everyone. Every quirk, hobby, there’s a podcast for everyone. And that means that people can get really niche with the content they create as well.
And the fourth reason, and the big reason, is that podcasts are portable. You can listen to podcasts while you’re doing something else. That portability, the accessibility, means that if you’re trying to get your 10000 steps in, you can still listen to a podcast.
What has the process been for creating, co-creating this podcast series with the Community Innovation Practitioners? Is it the first time you’ve ever done anything like this?
Lauren: It’s been a real journey in terms of discovering more about podcasting. I had listened to podcasts a lot previously but had never created one. I think the same is true of all the CIPs, and there was a lot more to learn than probably any of us realized. I think we took for granted the process of creating a podcast, but luckily, we had great support, and that process has really contributed to building relationships with the CIP. It’s really helped us to understand each other’s research, it built a real connection, rapport and camaraderie in the team.
Vic: You’ve worked on loads of research projects. How has this project, especially with a podcasting angle, differed from those more traditional projects that you’ve worked on?
Lauren: Often a journal article is written with one voice, more often it is behind a paywall, and even if it is open access, there’s certain formats that outputs have to follow. Using a podcast as a piece of research, as a way to communicate your findings, is quite different. Its freely available, and it’s less intense in terms of reading – you can press play and sit back and listen, and hear multiple voices, get a real feel for the place and space of that recording.
These are all things that you can’t get in a journal article. But also, the process of creating it has been so different. Co-creating this with a podcast producer, with the Creative Communities team, with the CIPs, it’s totally different to how you would create a journal article, it’s been much more collaborative, it’s relied on different skill sets, and it’s been a valuable process for all of us all.
And that’s why it’s so great that the Arts and Humanities Research Council have trusted in us producing this. It really shows their commitment to creating a more inclusive research environment and to bringing more diverse voices into research, as well as opening research findings to new audiences.
Vic: What were the challenges and were there are surprises in the podcast process?
Lauren: When we first began the co creation process of the podcast production with the CIPs everyone came with different expectations of what that that process would be.
A lot of the learning was really letting go of those expectations and trusting in the production and training skills of the producer and opening up to each other’s different ways of working and going on that journey together. Some of us hadn’t had that experience of collaborative working, so initially there was some trepidation, but very quickly that turned around and it really became an explorative journey. It was a real opportunity for the CIP cohort to share ideas and support each other in terms of developing five very different podcasts that are united by shared themes and lived examples of creative communities.
Vic: That’s one of the challenges working on a podcast series like this. While we want to get the variety and the individuality of each of the projects across, you also have to create a cohesive series, which is a challenge.
Typically, we work with one team, and we support them to shape their idea. So, with this project, we’re essentially working with six teams. We’re working with the Creative Communities team and working with each one of the CIPs who are all recording their own audio. And at the last count, that was about 80 different pieces of audio.
And that’s where our management skills kick in. It’s important in projects like this to have time to plan and to take your time. It’s not been a rushed process, it was important to focus a lot of time on the planning. It’s also important because it means that everyone’s got clarity – clarity is key in making a podcast – especially right at the very beginning. Having that clarity then means you’re clear what you’re going to make moving forwards.
Lauren: so many of those aspects that you’ve highlighted – time, method, consistency, clarity – those are key aspects of co-creation. The CIPs are a community of practice and through that co-creation they were able to bring that practice that they’re each doing in their respective cross-sector communities.
Vic: Yes and the ability to talk about process too. You talk about learning and the podcast being a catalyst to bring the community of CIPs together, but also it’s a catalyst to bring a community of listeners together as well.
Lauren: Yeah, definitely. One thing that we’ve all taken away from the whole process is that if you want to do a podcast well, you really have to invest time and space in it, especially if it is a collaborative piece of working. It would be easy to underestimate the work it takes, or make it an afterthought, but embedding the podcast process in the CIP journey has been so valuable.
Vic: Never underestimate the time it’s going to take you to create something special!
The full Creative Communities podcast launches Monday 7 October 2024. You can listen to the preview episode now to learn more, and Like and Follow to be updated when the full series is released.
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