Balancing Skepticism & Support At A Podcast Conference

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Last week, I attended the Podfest Multimedia Expo 2020 in Orlando, Florida where I was one of many invited speakers. It’s my 2nd time attending, and I always look forward to connecting with my friends and family inside the podcasting industry, as well as making new connections among the 1,600 podcasters who attended.

Yes, I think you, as a working podcaster, should attend a podcast conference if you can find the budget for it. The chance to build connections among, swap ideas with, and learn from other podcasters is reason enough to go. (And if we met while I was there and the sticker I gave you was enough to entice you to check this out, welcome!)

Beyond the personal connections, podcast conferences are used by many podcasters as an immersive learning experience. There is a lot of information presented on the various stages. But frankly, there’s a lot of misinformation presented as well. The tough part is identifying what is fact and what is fiction (with or without malicious intent). And that’s an especially difficult task if you’re new or inexperienced with podcasting.

During my time at Podfest, I did an informal poll with some of the vendors and other speakers to kind of get a sense and a feel for the experience-level and savviness of the attendees, some 1,600 people (who were mostly very COVID-19-aware and largely managed to maintain social distancing to stay healthy there and upon their return). The consensus was that 20 to 25% of Podfest 2020’s attendees were quite inexperienced. Some hadn’t even started. Some had recorded but hadn't yet released an episode. Others had released a handful of episodes but were still struggling to make sure they were doing things correctly.

That’s a lot of brand new people looking for lots of information. Which is why some very basic sessions were overflowing with audience members. With what seemed like a dozen simultaneous tracks at any given time, a lot of information was offered up on small breakout stages and the big keynote stage alike and gobbled up as gospel by a voracious audience.

Some of that information was utter bullshit.

I have the utmost respect for the people who organize these conferences. Most of them -- and especially the Podfest organizers -- take their responsibilities seriously, ensuring that underrepresented and marginalized voices have a chance to be on stage. They understand that “tenure” in podcasting is ludicrous and that new ways of doing things are oftentimes more valuable and usually much more relevant than going-stale processes cobbled together a dozen years ago.

But that presents a vetting problem. Not vetting for experience. Vetting for facts and truthful information.

Also, not vetting opinions. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Everyone is not, however, entitled to their own facts. We each are free to interpret facts however we wish, going so far as to convey our inference of said facts from the stage at podcasting events. Even if I disagree on how you interpret those facts, I think you should be able to get on stage. Take my good friend Rob Walsh from Libsyn, for example. At nearly every conference he and I attended, I’ve seen Rob present his always-updated “state of the podcasting industry” talk, using real data from the tens of thousands of podcasts that host with Libsyn. I believe Rob’s data. But I disagree with some of the inferences he makes about those data.

We’re both fine with that because we're not disagreeing on the facts. We're disagreeing on what those facts mean to podcasters and what they say about the future of our industry. And that’s fine. That’s how it should work.

But regardless of what conference you attend, some people on stage just don't have the proper facts, often regurgitating myths and falsehoods, or making assumptions and generalizations that are demonstrably false.

Unfortunately, attendees in the audience who lack the experience to sniff out the bullshit or keenly tuned into those hard-to-kill myths accept what’s being said on the stage.

If you go to a session entitled “How To Get A Billion Downloads Of Your Podcast In 13 Days”, you may not notice the person on stage never actually gave any evidence of achieving that goal. Nor will you be able to discern that the information provided was basic, low-level stuff that every podcast should be doing. Worse, you’ll have no ability to identify when what they say is a twist on reality. You may not have the knowledge to sift out the misinformation.

Or perhaps you’re sitting in a keynote, eagerly writing down every big concept the presenter makes because they sure seem smart, failing to recognize they’re just repackaging information from a Steven Covey book or self-help lecture series they attended last week, and that you’d perhaps be better served by walking out of that keynote and engaging with the vendors in the exposition hall. Just by way of example, you understand.

So... how do you (and I) continue to support for the organization, the conference, the community, the camaraderie, and all the other great things make podcasting conferences special, yet also maintain a healthy dose of skepticism?

How do conference organizers fight this problem, preserving their own integrity which may be in jeopardy when the signal-to-noise ratio gets too small?

Honestly, I don't know that they can.

I don't know that they have the time or bandwidth. I know it's a lot of work to put an event on of any size. Just considering the time it would take to vet or fact-check each presentation would be massive. And likely untenable.

That means the burden is on your shoulders. When you attend one of these conferences, you have to put on your skeptic hat. And sometimes that's hard to do. Even someone like me who's been a lifelong skeptic (except for one little four-year slip where I lost my mind) it's hard to know what's correct and what's bullshit.

If I find myself in the audience where some questionable information is provided, I make it a point to ask the presenter some clarifying questions. That often exposes the misinformation or gives the presenter a chance to clear up what could be an unintentional misinterpretation of reality.

But I can't go to every single session. And while there are other people like me who’ll happily call out the bullshit, they can't go to every single session.

So be skeptical. The barrier to entry for getting on stage at a podcasting conference is pretty low. Write up a very good description of your talk, give it an amazing title, and the selection committee is going to look upon it favorably. And given all the half-assed submissions they receive, it’s not hard to bubble to the top.

Again, that’s not a bad thing. I don’t want it to be harder to speak at these events. But you need to understand that the person on stage isn't necessarily the expert they reported themselves to be.

Earlier in this piece, I said I had stickers for Podcast Pontifications. Want one? Email me at evo@podcastlaunch.pro with your mailing address and I’ll send you one.

Ask your friends who also podcast about their experiences with podcast conferences or events -- physical or online -- and the misinformation they might have encountered. Because it's everywhere and is the biggest reason I don't engage in the various Facebook forums dedicated to podcasting. There’s just too much misinformation, and it bums me out.

How do you maintain that balance of wanting to be supportive of something and skeptical of it at the same time? Tell your podcasting buddies you heard about this episode of Podcast Pontifications and see if it sparks a larger discussion. Because better information is a good thing, right?

I shall be back tomorrow for another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

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I'm a supporter of podcast conferences. I spend my own hard earned money to attend several each year, but I'm also skeptical of much of the information provided. Too bad. All too many podcasters are too gullible.

Hello and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me. Evo Terra, the voice you're hearing is the result of attending pod Fest. Multimedia expo in Orlando, Florida, 2020 I should say. Uh, we're, I just came back, flew back in last night, had a great time at pod Fest, multimedia expo 2020 in Orlando, and I look forward to going to that conference every year.

Well, the two years I've been invited to speak at the conference, it's always a good time. I enjoy meeting my friends and family. It's kind of like a regional calm that's exploded. There's like 1600 people, but I thought it might make sense for me to talk about. What you might experience the working podcast or when you attend a podcast conference, if in fact you decide to attend the podcast conference, which I think you should do, I think you should attend a podcast conference if for no other reason than to network and communicate and learn from other podcasters that are out there.

That's why I go, I connect with the friends that I've made. Some are almost 16 years old now. Lots of new ones. I meet each and every time and I, and I loved meeting everybody who was there past that. Lots of stickers. It was wonderful information about stickers if you want one at the end of this short episode, but as cool as it is to meet and greet and see new tools, I bought too much care and to learn from the best that around there.

There's a lot of information presented at these podcast conferences, and quite frankly, some of it is misinformation. Now, the tough part is identifying what is information and what is misinformation, especially if you're a new. And that pod fast. I polled some of the vendors and some of the other speakers who were there to kind of get a sense and a feel for what they thought of the, the makeup of the audience who attended this 1600 people who brave the covert 19 virus and went ahead and hung out.

We were all very good about not shaking hands. We were all mostly good about keeping our social distancing, but the consumption, the consensus is that around 20 to 25%. A good portion of the attendees at this year's pod Fest, 2020 were brand new or new to the point where they had released, maybe they'd recorded and hadn't yet released.

Maybe they had released a handful of episodes. So a pretty good number, 25% was as a conservative estimate, and I've heard some say it was closer to 50 so that's a lot of brand new information, a lot of brand new people looking for loss of information. And they attended some sessions in droves as you likely would attend sessions, intros.

They had a lot of different speakers, a lot of different tracks, like 10 15 at a time. I may be exaggerating, was a large, large number. Lots of information on the small breakout stages and on the big stages. The problem is. The people who put on the , these conferences, wonderful people. I know many of them, great people want to do a service to the industry.

Also want to bring on underrepresented and marginalized voices on stage, and they should do all of that. And I want them to keep doing that. But the problem is that they really can't vet the speakers. And I don't mean for experience. I mean vet them for. Facts and good information. I'm not talking about opinions.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. You are not, however, entitled to your own facts. You are to come back full circle entitled to interpret those facts, facts, however you wish to and convey your inference of said facts. That's fine. You and I can disagree. On how you interpret those facts. My dear friend, Rob Walsh from Libsyn, presents debt data at each podcast conference I attend.

He does the state of the podcasting industry. I believe his data. I think some of his inferences of those facts are incorrect. I've told him that that's not a secret. He knows idle. This. I don't agree with the way he has interpreted those, but that's fine. We're not disagreeing on the facts. We're disagreeing on what they actually mean.

Cool. But there's a lot of people up there who don't have proper facts, and unfortunately as you, an attendee in the audience, you don't know. You go to a session entitled how to get a billion downloads in 13 days. And you listen to the person on stage tell you how they got to a billion now actually, you don't hear that what you hear instead of someone telling you these are the basic things that you should be doing, which is painful enough to look the basics anyhow and then throw out some misinformation and how are you to discern if it's right or it's wrong.

You might be sitting in the keynote. On a big presentation in the middle of the, uh, the, the thing that everybody is sitting in when I'm alive. That was by the way, but the people that are up on stage, given that information, maybe they don't really have information to give. Maybe they have or if they do the stuff that they say as, this is what person X did to get really popular, just isn't true.

Okay. And you furiously write down. All of this information and you, I'm going to taking this back and I'm going to go implement exactly what I was told up on stage, but if it's not true, how do you maintain that level of support for the organization and support for the conference itself, support for the community and the comradery and all the great things that build yet also maintain a healthy dose of skepticism.

How do conference organizers fight this problem? Honestly, I don't know that they can. I don't know that they have the time. It's a lot of work to put one of these on, so I don't think that they have the time to vet the presentations to do the fact checking that is necessary. So unfortunately that means you, when you attend one of these things, you have to put on the skeptic hat.

And that's hard to do. Even someone like me who's been a lifelong skeptic, except for one little slip I did for about four years where I lost my mind. It's hard to know what's right and what's wrong and, and I can be in the audience for some of those and ask some clarifying questions to probe at the things that are clear misinformation.

But I can't go to every single session. People like me can't go to every single session. And then there's also the question of layering facts in there. So what I want you to think about, and that's what podcast pontifications is all about, telling you what to think about, what you should be thinking about the future of podcasting.

Your podcast is be skeptical just because somebody got on stage or just understand that the barrier to entry to getting on stage is very low. Write up a very good description, an amazing title. The selection committee is oftentimes just using that maybe a little bit of your bio, so know that that person on stage isn't necessarily the expert they reported themselves to be and take everything that you hear someone say with a grain of salt and go through and check it again.

Now again, I said I had stickers, I got stickers. You can email me Evo at podcast, launch.pro give me your email address or not, your email address. Give me your physical address and I'll send you a sticker and a ask around. Ask your friends who also podcast because you know you don't have to go to a conference to have camaraderie.

You can just find your local people, either local, online, or local, physically, how they fight the misinformation because it's everywhere. I mean, there's the reason I don't engage in the various Facebook forums and this is it. I can't fight all of that misinformation that goes on. So how do you, how do you do it?

How do you maintain that balance of wanting to be supportive of something and skeptical of it? Maybe it's your own community. What do you do and how do you fight that? Tell him you heard about this episode of podcast pontifications cause you know, telling one person about the show one other working podcast or about the show would be a good thing, right?

Everybody else has more better information. We can do better things. All right. That's it. Hopefully the voice is all better. She'll be back tomorrow for another podcast. Pontifications cheers.

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