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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, last weekend I achieved another one of my 2014 goals, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a story about my presentation at Podcast Movement 2014.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
In case you’re wondering about the goal I achieved, it was my goal to give a public presentation, be interviewed, or guest host on another podcast 6 times this year. I lumped these together because my primary goal was to work on my speaking abilities outside of this studio. So far I guest hosted on TV Times 3 Podcast, I was interviewed on Unstuckable Podcast and The Audacity to Podcast, and I spoke at New Media Expo. Last weekend I was interviewed on The Mobile Pro Podcast, and, of course, I spoke at Podcast Movement. As a bonus, next week I’m being interviewed on Profitcast!
As you will probably recall, the last couple of weeks have been stressful for me. The stress was brought about because of 3 things: finances, my Podcast Movement presentation, and the launch of my first digital product. You probably also remember that I launched my first digital product, Audacity Mastery, last week. I still have some things I need to add to the website and some marketing plans to roll out, but the stressful part of that project is now behind me.
I stressed over Podcast Movement because I wanted to help people. Those who bought a ticket to Podcast Movement spent their hard earned money to learn more about podcasting and become better podcasters. I didn’t want those who came to my session feel like they wasted their time. I didn’t want the people who gave me the opportunity to speak to feel like they made a bad decision. Therefore, I put pressure on myself to live up to these self imposed expectations.
Another thing that weighed on me a bit was the thought that my session was too obscure. Here’s the title and description of my session:
Advanced Audio Editing Techniques
In this session you will learn tips to take your audio production to the professional level. You’ll learn how to smooth out Skype glitches, remove background noises like hum, hiss, pops, and sirens, and get rid of stuttering and crutch phrases to give your listeners a great listening experience. You’ll also learn how to be more efficient with audio editing so you can get your podcast published sooner. Tips will be given for Audacity and Adobe Audition.
Even if you’re a podcaster, this session may seem like a snoozefest. I mean, who cares about audio editing THAT much? I wondered if I was the only person that was a level 10 audio nerd. I was up against 3 other sessions: Your Community of Kindred Spirits: Why, How, and When to Build One, Getting A-List Guests For Your Podcast, and Get Rich With the Niche…It is So Much More Than Money. That last guy mentioned getting rich. I was pretty sure I was going to have an empty room.
I decided not to worry about numbers. Even if I had a completely empty room I would give my presentation and use it as a practice session in case I ever got invited to speak to an empty room again. After all, that’s what I teach other podcasters. It’s not about the size of the audience that matters, it’s about the content. If the content is good and the presentation is good, people will come.
When I arrived on the first day of Podcast Movement I checked out the room I would be in to get the lay of the land. It had a capacity of about 160 people. I was pretty sure that of the 600 people at Podcast Movement, I’d have less than 160 attending my session. However, I also noticed a problem. I was going to be doing a live demonstration of audio editing. I needed a table and a mic on a stand. The room only had a podium and a handheld cordless mic.
The morning of my presentation I got to the room early. My presentation wasn’t until 1:40 in the afternoon, but I wanted to get with the audio team before any sessions started. I spoke with the lead audio technician of the event and he assured me that there were be a lapel mic in the room for me. I also spoke with housekeeping and we picked out a specific table size for my needs. Later in the day I spoke with the audio guy again and he assured me that it was taken care of.
Guess what?
At 1:30 I go into the room and there is no table and there is no mic. The previous presenter still has all of his stuff hooked up and is oblivious that I’m there and I need to get set up. I quickly unplug his stuff and take it to him. I then start going from room to room trying to find the audio guy so he can get the mic I need. Housekeeping is no where to be found.
The audio guy responds pretty quickly but it still took time. I was 5-7 minutes late starting my session. I’m frustrated that people are sitting there and their valuable time is ticking away. My session is crammed full of info and it was hard for me to squeeze it all into my allotted time even when I wasn’t getting a late start. Oh well, what was done was done.
In preparation for my presentation I probably practiced 10 or 12 times. I had it down to a well oiled machine. I needed no notes. I was confident in my info, I was pretty sure I’d be able to deliver everything in my allotted time, and I was ready. Was I nervous? Heck yeah I was nervous. I sat next to Ray Ortega in the session before mine and I was physically shaking. The anticipation was unbearable.
But now the anticipation was over. The spotlight, the camera, the eyes of the audio nerds were upon me.
One of the things that Podcast Movement did really well is that they assigned someone to introduce every speaker. They didn’t just do this at the last minute. Each introduction was well thought out weeks in advance. I was introduced by Bryan Orr. A couple of weeks before the event he contacted me and introduced himself to me. He asked me a few questions and wanted to know if I had a hidden super power. He masterfully worked the info into an energetic and amusing intro. He even gave a shout out to Bernard the bumblebee. It was unexpected. It made me and the audience laugh and in that exact moment of laughter, my anxiety was gone.
I took a deep breath, put on a smile, and welcomed the audience. I don’t know how many were there, but I’d guess about 30. Better than an empty room! I gave a 1 or 2 minute intro and told them what we would be covering over the next 45 minutes. Two people almost immediately got up and walked out. Awesome. Their audio nerd level was clearly less than 10.
The next 45 minutes were a blur. I stayed on task and worked through my presentation item by item. But something odd happened. I had worked out explanations for everything during rehearsal. It wasn’t a script per se, but I knew exactly what I planned on saying. Psshh!
Somehow nearly all of my prepared explanations got modified on the spot. I worked through the section on keyboard shortcuts and out of nowhere came a joke that tied back in to Chris Brogan’s keynote. It was a hit. I was filled with energy. I moved into the next section that covered editing out Skype glitches. From some rarely accessed chamber of my mind I uttered the phrase, “Just because it looks good, doesn’t mean it sounds good.” It got a couple of laughs. I liked that.
I moved on and showed them more ways to find the weak spots in audio errors and remove them. Again I sliced and diced and uttered the phrase, “Just because it looks good….” and I left it hanging. A couple of people finished it with, “doesn’t mean it sounds good.” Nice. I smiled at them and told them they were awesome.
Time was now growing thin. I still had a lot to cover and I was not going to get an extension for the 5 minutes I lost.
I moved into the last track of audio that I wanted to edit. I taught them about repeating sentences and looking for hard consonant sounds. We even went over strategies for attacking vowels. Vowels are difficult and uncool. They are the opposite of bowties.
On my second to last edit I performed a splice on a mispronounced word that involved a vowel. After I made the edit I said, “Just because it looks good…” and the whole room erupted with…well, you know. You just said it, didn’t you?
The energy was palpable. And it was completely unplanned. Somehow I had made editing audio fun. I’m still not exactly sure how it happened.
Here’s what I learned.
Preparation is critical. If I had not worked hard before the event to plan out my presentation, I would have never been able to recover from the audio challenges I had at the beginning.
People matter. Did I notice the 2 people that immediately got up and left? Yep. However, I chose not to focus on those 2, but to focus on the remaining 30 or so. Besides, one of the main reasons I gave a 2 minute overview of my session was so anyone who felt like it wasn’t the best use of their time could still catch another session. I actually like that they left right away.
Live in the moment. Because I was aware of the audience, I fed off of it. This goes both ways. If I had noticed that they were bored or disengaged, I would have had to try another approach. Fortunately, they were engaged. In fact, I had a secret desire that I had shared with no one, not even my wife.
My desire was that at some point I would share something so cool, so mind blowing that the entire room would gasp. Pretty outlandish, right. We’re talking about editing audio, remember? Guess what? It happened! It wasn’t where I thought it might occur so when I got to the spot I was thinking might cause a gasp and no gasp came, I figured it wouldn’t come at all. But when it did come, it gave me energy. It shocked me. It shocked me so much, I stopped my presentation and told them how much they blew me away and that I had hoped I’d get that type of response.
When it was all over, they wanted more. Multiple people complimented me on my teaching style. Did you hear that? There’s that word teacher again. Another person told me that my session was his favorite one of the entire event. Now, that was before Cliff Ravenscraft’s epic closing keynote, but we’ll pretend he slept through the keynote.
Wow. I can’t wait to do this again. Will I be nervous? Yes. Will I lose sleep and have anxiety? Yes. Will I doubt myself and put undue pressure on myself? Yes. But I believe with everything that I have that when it’s all said and done, people will thank me for what I’ve shared. I’ll have made their life better, and they will have made my life better.
The best part of all? None of us have to wait for an event like Podcast Movement or be given a physical stage in order to share our lives and help each other out. We can all do that in the life that we have and the people that are around us right now. Look around. Do you see them? Now, go share life!
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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