AutomationTown

 Previously on Automation Town, so let me get this straight. You saw some spooky police beneath the Capitol building. Yep. And those same spooky police chased you into the Grimley Center? Yep. Yep. We escaped through a secret tunnel under the building Unabandoned subway project. Then they blew up the building because why, again, the mayor of.

So what are we gonna do when to get outta here? What do you mean? All we know for now is the entire building collapsed and first responders are doing everything they can. I can confirm. Automation show was broadcasting at the time of the incident. They tried to bury us if we just waltz out here unscathed.

The, the people I work with do not take kindly to loose ends. Well, I've got the rv. You actually moved into a new park a couple days ago. I'm not shacking up with the hardy boys. Sorry, Paul. Speaking of where the tunnel ends a ladder, do the rv.

Started using.

Started. I know. Please tell me. I can't be, oh, sorry. I million here. Everything. All right. I ran. Of anxiety medication. Oh, I'm sorry. You're out of it. Yeah, it's called uh, potato zone. Potato Zone. Yeah, I know. Struggle with anxiety in the past, but as long as I get my 20 milligrams of potato zone every morning, I'm good.

How did you run out? I don't know. There's been a shortage for whatever reason the past few weeks. A pharmacist hasn't been able to get any. Well, Paul and I are working on the podcast, uh, but let me know if there's anything I. I'm just fine. Just gimme a minute. What I do this week, the boys are on the run.

They go into hiding in Chad's rv. Ooh. They work out how to get back at the evil powers that be and podcasts. Did you ever listen to podcasts? Of course you do. This week we're talking podcasting, how to get started, how to automate the production process, and how to build your podcasting tech stack for when you have an important message that people need to hear all that on this.

Automation town.

Found one. I'll score my last one though. So automation show, we probably can't call it that Untitled podcast. Walk me through the rationale again. Bad guys tried to bury us under the grumbling center. Got it. We got. Bad guys are probably mad hiding only. Seems like it'll work for so long. Nothing against this RV Davis, but I'd rather not be on the run forever.

So we get everything we know in a very public way with the rationale that they can't come after us if we're out there in the public. Exactly. And uh, podcast is the right way to do that. Well, we don't exactly have a recording studio anymore. That's true. So confession time. I don't know anything about making a podcast.

You don't? I don't. I know podcast feeds are involved somehow. I guess I understand the production and the editing bits, but I don't know. The first thing about the distribution bits, I can ring you through how I've done a podcast. Okay. So let's say I have an audio file that I want to be a podcast. How do I make a file from my computer be a thing that I could see on my phone and listen to?

Yeah. So you need to get it out in the world. So there's lots of. Ways to do that, and some companies have made it really easy for you to upload that audio file in and then they'll do all the technical bits for you and honestly, That's what most people do. I don't think there's very many people that are sitting up there creating their own RSS feeds and submitting them manually to podcast places for them to then host it and you know, get the audio from a server somewhere.

So I think it's easier just to use one of those services. . So we've talked RSS feeds in the past. So when I open up my podcast app and I see a list of the pods that I'm subscribed to, are those all just itty bitty RSS feeds and every time a new one gets sent out on the feed, that's what's happening there for the majority of podcast players.

Yeah. But then you've got some big players, Spotify, who might have their own way of getting stuff in and updating it and keeping it. Yes. That's essentially how it works. So when that RSS feeds a whole bunch of bits of information, right, where the file is for them to download it from, who the hosts are, what the title is, how long it is, what the description is, uh, all kinds of stuff like that, ratings, explicit stuff, you name it.

There's a lot of stuff that gets submitted to podcasts and then he. , some companies have made this super easy, the distribution bet. What are some of those companies? Are they like things we've heard of? Yeah, probably. And if you go into the old Google or in search, you know, podcast, uh, distribution, you're probably going to get a ton of them.

So there's a lot that, that people use. Um, a really simple one that some people are using now is Anchor, which is from Spotify. Yeah. Simple Cast, buzz Sprout. And even, even like if you're super big, like you're, I dunno, Sears Roebuck or something, and you want to put out a podcast, you might use something called Lipson, which is a pretty big enterprise system.

But the best one that I've used so far is called Transistor out of Canada. And they're fantastic. Small company, great values. , lots of great features like private podcasting and uh, all kinds of analysis. It just works really well if you've got a few different shows and you wanna make it super easy to upload.

Okay, so I think most of us are familiar with like public podcasting and getting stuff fun. Your podcast app and all that. What are I guess the different spins on that though? Cause I think some podcasts have episodes that are pay walled, like I've heard of like private RSS feeds. Like how do those non-traditional channels work?

People like Transistor have figured out that private RSS feeds for users can be pretty great for controlling who has access into your shows. So whether you put it behind a paywall, or maybe it's for employees or maybe a family update podcast because your grandmother might be the only one who. wants to listen to a family update through podcast.

I don't know, kind of making this up podcast for your grandma. No, that sounds compelling. This is great. They essentially work based on the RSS feeds, so think of a employee podcast where you might not want people to pay for it, but you do want to control access. So maybe you have an RSS feed per employee.

They get an invite for it. And Transistor is one of the companies that can also facilitate this. So as an employee comes on board, part of their onboarding is an automatic RSS feed for them. When they leave, that RSS feed gets canceled and they no longer get the company address. Lucky them. So in that setup, everybody has their own unique RSS feed because then you can cut 'em off one at a time.

Mm. If, for example, you and I are both listening to some public podcast that everyone listens to, are our feeds the same or are our feeds different? Are we both plugged into the same feed then? . Yeah. Okay. So then for private, if you need the ability to like cut off a single one, or if Chad spends $5 a month for access to this private feed, Chad's gotta have his own RSS feed so that we can then cut it off at some point.

Mm-hmm. . And you can add that into your favorite podcast player if it supports it too, which is nice. Okay, cool. So one thing I've always thought would be cool is I've got. Aging grandparents and I've thought a really cool way of like, I dunno, like getting some of those memories from them and having like documenting cool conversations would be like a private podcast that like only the family had access to and like you could have those conversations with them when they were still around and they would be kind of like a really special time capsule I feel like.

But that's not something that you just want to put out there in the. , so like a service like Transistor or some of these other distribution services they have that built in capability to create those private feeds. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, it's a great idea. I mean, there's, there's lots of ways you could get those stories and send them out, but podcasts are just so accessible, allowing anybody to kind of throw it into their Apple podcast or their Spotify feed if they could get it there.

See, yeah. It's. Just don't get them to call in on a telephone to record it. Those are horrible to listen to back. Are they buy them an iPad or something? Or a phone and get them to record that way. So to bring this back to what we're doing. Making a public podcast, we want to get this out in front of as many people in automation town as possible.

So it wouldn't be private, it would just be, we would be grabbing a tool off the shelf to do distribution, and then it's just as simple as popping the files in there. Basically, that's it. Pop it in. You set the date in which you want that RSS feed to go live. It's hosted by typically the people that you are using for the service for.

And then anytime somebody. Calls your podcast up on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any of those other ones. It's pulling it from the transistor or the buzz sprout or wherever it's being hosted, and it, uh, streams right into your system. How do you discover podcasts? Because something that's always. Confused me about them.

And that's like, that's a problem for us is like, we're gonna put a podcast out tomorrow and like we'll put the bug in the air of like some local media people. But if you put it out and nobody ever sees it, like how do you discover podcasts? It's not like YouTube or something like that, that has like a search algorithm or a recommendation algorithm on top of it.

That's a really good question because the game has changed a lot in the last five years before you could search. Podcast players, there wouldn't be as many. You could kind of gleam if you wanted to listen to it a bit. Yeah, maybe read a description or two and you, you could try it. Now. There's just too many, it's really hard.

So I feel like other distribution channels and the way that you would get information would hook you. So quick videos on TikTok and it shoots you to the, to the ad, YouTube shorts, tweets, people talking about it. That feels like a better way to get aware of what a podcast would. Without having to take a chance, listen to the first three or four minutes, you can somehow captivate people inside of, you know, 10 to 40 seconds.

That's how I try out new podcasts and some of 'em are crap. What about you? How do you find them? Well, I'm trying to think. It's definitely a lot of word of mouth, but it's interesting. So it sounds like the approach is leverage the platforms that enable discover. For your thing that isn't even on that platform.

I guess it's living somewhere else. Yeah, maybe it's like have good descriptions, have the transcripts there. Use the latest tech, like chapters and titles, transistor and some others. But Transistor recently put out this thing called people where if you have guests on. , you know, you can tag them. There's apps like Pod Chaser that track guests and the podcasts that they're on.

So I would just say use the tech that's available so that you can reach more people when they are searching. I saw a tweet the other day and they said they saw a man in Austin get arrested for not having a podcast. . Uh, so being that everyone has a podcast now, that's amazing. Have we reached peak podcast?

Like does the world. Us to make another podcast. I guess we, like in our case, we already have an audience from the radio show. Yeah. Theoretically they would transition. Hopefully. I have a question. Shoot. So what exactly are we gonna put out in the podcast? The story behind the Grimley collapse, the water disaster.

The Spooky police, the Nona got from Jake. I don't know. What do you think? I don't know. I think we just put it all out there. What's the point of holding anything back? Honestly, I kind of feel an obligation to get it out there. Like we know this and I feel like the people of automation town ought to know, so I feel like we need to just get it out.

I think we should take Jake down. There's that. But the mayor's also tied up in this. She was with the spooky police. She took us to the underground, tried to minimize the whole water accident. Jake's a bad guy clearly, but Mayor Goodway is the one who should be looking out for us for the citizens of automation town so far as I'm concerned.

So the buck kind of has to stop with her. You don't think she's the mayor. Corruption right here in automation town who's. What do we do boys? Is that mcg? Gil Boys. Oh, am I Glad to see you. Hey, got a minute for a quick question, Gil. We're in the middle of, so set up that cash planning dashboard you recommended with Live Flow.

It's automatically syncing the QuickBooks data into Google Sheets. Thanks again for that email, Jason. That was helpful. You're welcome. So another project I'm working through with a client. Congrats on the new job, by the way, Gil. Thank you. Chad. I couldn't have done it without you guys. So I want to build a K P dashboard and Google.

Something I can reuse with different clients. Would you recommend live flow for something like that? Well, uh, like I told you last time, live flow's template. Are a helpful place to start. Do they have a K P dashboard template? I can pull it up and take a look. Excuse me. Hey, come in. Wow. Nice place you got here.

Looks like Live Flow has a few KPI dashboards, a general business K dashboard, a construction K business dashboard, a SaaS financial dashboard, and a net worth dashboard. Oh my gosh, these look fantastic. Looks like a great starting point. And because it's live flow, you can customize the report with Google.

Pull in any other data you want from QuickBooks. And Bob's your uncle. Who's that? And you're good to go you guys. Boy, this is going to make setting up a k p dashboard so easy you never disappoint. Automation show. Woo. Nice couch. Gil, how'd you find us? How did I find you? I could see your RV from the highway.

It does go right by the RV park. And you've got the big automation show signage on the rv. Oh boy. It's kind of hard to not find you. We need to get this podcast out, Don. Gil, always a pleasure message received. You boys. Have a great day. Bye Gil. Bye. Automation show. Ooh, that guy. What are you up to over there, Paul?

So you know, Amelia, you mean badass Kicking down doors, suspiciously knowledgeable about cellular equipment for a sound engineer, Amelia, that's the. She's kind of amazing. Oh, Paul, I thought I noticed a little something there. Did we just start a love story timeline? Do you think I have a chance? No. Oh, what do you have to lose, Paul?

I was thinking I'd text her. What have you got so far? How about, Hey Amelia, it's Paul. That, that sounds like a great start, Paul. Whoa. Did you just send that Paul? I think we could have improved upon that. Oh, what did she. Who's Paul? Oh, Paul from Automation Town. Paul. Uh, okay, I gotta see this. Me too. She says, hi Paul.

Um, what now? Well, what was the plan here? Why did you text her? I want to befriend. Friends, try that. Say, I want to be friend. Don't try that. Well, what do I say next? Maybe you're checking in on her to make sure she's all right. After that tunnel trauma. Oh boy. How are you doing after yesterday?

She's hy. She's typing. I'm good. Glad we got. He still camped out with the Hardy voice. The Hardy voice. That was a good joke. She's funny. Want to grab some coffee? Whoa. Easy killer. Hang on. I feel like we could have planned that better. She's, she's not. Uh, well, okay. Uh, we need to get this pod out, as it doesn't seem, we're quite as hidden as we thought.

So we ran how the distribution works. You've got some experience on the production side. Yep. What's the best way to think through workflow, through hardware, recording, editing, all that? I think it's definitely intimidating if you haven't done it before, but it's actually gotten super accessible. Where's the best place to start?

Maybe. talk about recording hardware. Yeah. You've got some fancy stuff. What do you got going on over there? I don't, I got some fancy stuff, but I feel like that's a trap. Like , pretty much everybody now has what they need. It's kind of like a YouTube trope too, or have everything you need your start in your pocket, just do it.

Mm-hmm. , you know, everybody's got webcams, so you've got a microphone somewhere where you can record it. Honestly, it is like the worst thing. If you're listening to a podcast and you're like, this person just did this podcast interview over a webcam microphone, and it can be hard to listen to. It used to be that you had to do all of this sorcery to get these like fancy XLR audio mics to then work with your computer.

But honestly, like the biggest things we've seen in the past few years have been like the quality of USB mics have just gotten better and better and better. That is the easiest place to start. U USB mics are just plug and play, plug 'em into your computer, and it's just super easy to get going. What are some of the price ranges for standard USB mics?

$5 up to maybe three or $400 now for like the top end ones, but like you can get 150 to $200 USB mic and 99% of people are never gonna notice the difference between that and an $800. So like the step beyond that, like the professional stuff, they use an interface called XLR Fancy rather than having a USB cable.

Uh, it's got like a different type of cable that you know, is more like traditional used for music stuff. And in order to get it to work on your computer, you have to have an XLR interface, which basically just takes that XL. Cord from the mic and gives you a u SB that you can then plug into your computer.

So like the common thing you see now is a lot of people with the Sure SM seven B microphone and then like a. Cloud lifter interface. So you plug the mic into that and then you plug that cloud lifter into your computer. But as soon as you go xlr, like you've got the headache of having a thing between the mic and the computer rather than just being able to plug it straight into the computer.

And that's more than a lot of people wanna fuss with. But if you're going super pro, like that's where you go eventually is more the XLR stuff. And so I do have that. Mm-hmm. one nice thing. XLR hardware, if you are getting more fancy, is you actually don't need a computer to record any of that stuff. So like when people are shooting films and like TV shows and stuff like that, you'll notice they're not all standing next to a computer.

And that's because like all of the recording like can just happen on. standalone device with a little memory card. Yeah, so for example, like Zoom makes a bunch of these little devices where you can just plug the mic into that little device and it records it onto an SD card and you can run around with it.

And they have ones that are pretty small and that kind of un tethers you from the computer. Mm-hmm. , I like it personally because like I don't have to be reliant. The computer to manage the recording and all that. And you just like it cuz you can leave your office if you need to and go grab something upstairs, , without having to unhook.

Yeah. You know, most production these days is done with laugh mics. The little baby ones that like, they have like, you know, clipped on a shirt, collar, something like that, and, and movies, they'll have 'em, you know, taped to the actors chest generally either that or like buried in the costume in some way to where you can't.

And those lab mics are just plugged into this little pack that they've got concealed, you know, on their back or something like that. So we're in this, you know, rv, we're probably not going to go all crazy and go down to the store and expose ourselves in terms of, until we do like a man on the street episode where you're like, right, talking with the people of automation town, right.

Or maybe going underground and like uncovering some secrets or something like that. You never know, Chad, to your point, like you could talk into the voice memo on your phone. It can be that good sometimes, and then you could just kind of help it with software at the end of the day that. So talk to me about software.

What kind of stuff can we use these days when we want to record a podcast? When there's multiple people involved? When you've got multiple people involved, uh, you've got some web services for. Handling, like getting everybody into a session together and recording all the media stuff. Like what is their squad cast?

What are the other ones? Uh, you got, uh, Riverside. Riverside. There's a few like that. And it's basically like Zoom, but the audio files, and if you want the video files, Are uploaded independently, like when you're done recording after the fact. So like the importance of that is it's not subject to the quality of your internet connection.

So like if you've got a bad connection in your videos, glitching out what those programs enable is actually recording all that stuff locally. and the highest quality possible. And then when the recording's done, it uploads those files to the service so that there's no loss in quality. There's nothing worse than listening to a podcast and one person is perfect

Cause they're going off their local stuff and they, you know, recorded it on Zoom or something and the other one, this app wait through the whole episode and you're just like, oh, I wish they just would. S splurged on the $10 a month for Zencaster or squad cast or something to make it work. Yep. What about editing?

So podcasts, you know, you have to record something in. It's gotta be in good quality so people don't. leave after a certain amount of time. How do you actually make it sound good? There's a tool out there called Audacity. It's like a free tool that you can go pick up. You can actually use it for either recording or editing if you're recording by yourself.

I guess that's one distinction on the recording side is are you recording with other people or you're recording by yourself? If you're not recording with other people, like you don't need a fancy app, like we were just discussing something like Audacity. Or you know, if you're using an XLR mic that that Zoom device or something like that will just record that stuff for you.

Hmm. The Zoom device I use, for example, has six inputs. So like if you're sitting in a room with a number of people, they can all plug into the same thing and it records it all in one place. But as separate files, the cheapest entry point is audacity because you can record and edit with it. I am not a sound engineer, so there's a lot of buttons in that thing that just confuse me.

My favorite. Which is kind of like a editing app for Normies, like non sound engineer types has been script where you basically drop the file in, it creates a transcript of all the text from the recording and you can just delete the text and rearrange it and it like edits according to how you change the text.

Like a Word document? Yeah, like a Word document. I know there's more. What's the Adobe Suite one is? Audition. That's what I'm thinking of. There's definitely like a whole level of pro tools out there, but that's mega overkill. Me or what I do. Have you done much editing before ? No. I record into Audacity as a backup, which is nice.

But when it comes to editing, I use the script as well. It's just so easy to transcript it. Now they've got the new storyboard feature, which some people love, some people don't. But just being able to do that and cut through is great. One of my favorite features is the cutting of the white. . So if you speak long between words, , it'll trim it and make it pretty nice.

So I like that. Yeah. We like batch remove filler words. So if you like us and likes and stuff like that, you can like in a single click wipe all those out. Mm-hmm. . So we've got all these episodes to record. We gotta tell our story. How do we organize everything so that it can get out pretty in an organized way?

I don't know, it probably depends on what type of podcast we want this to be. So the radio show was really just q and. Like it wasn't very topical, but I do feel like these days there's sort of a trend kind became a meme that podcasts are just like super long drawn out. Like it just takes forever for people to say anything.

Which is kind of funny because video's gotten the opposite way to be like mega, mega like engagement optimized, you know, short form everything while podcasting just like kind of drags on and on. And so it depends, I guess if it's like, is it gonna be Jason and Chad just sitting. Shooting the crap about automation and just kind of going on and on, and you have these two hour long podcasts.

Is it gonna be more q and a or is it gonna be more like educational where it builds on itself over each episode? Episodic podcasts are becoming more popular, like that scripted podcasts. You're seeing a lot of those now from. The major, like Amazon music, almost like more like a TV show sort of vibe. Look at the OGs.

I mean maybe not the og, cuz that might be something like NPR related, but Gimlet, look what happened to them. Everything was scripted, everything was high quality. Yeah, it just went really. Fast from there. Yeah. Yeah. I remember listening to startup and that kind of got me back into podcasts after a few years, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Podcasting is, I think, honestly the best channel for like building trust right now because it requires just spending so much time with that person. Like you compare it to TikTok, I mean a TikTok celebrity or something like that, that gets an insane number of impressions. You're not living with that person in your head.

Like when I listen to podcasts, I'm. Unloading the dishwasher or fixing a sprinkler or something like that. And so podcasting, there's just a different level of like intimacy with it. I feel like because you're spending so much more time listening to them. So depending on the nature of what you're trying to do, and for us it's genuinely like how to make automation feel accessible for people and not be afraid by it.

And just start with really simple ideas that we can share. I absolutely think podcasting is the best format for that because. , you're not asking somebody to sit down and stop what they're doing and watch a thing. And that's kind of the beauty of podcasting is in some ways it's passive listening. And so you can't pile on too much.

Like if they're kind of sort of doing something else, it means you can't go totally like too technical on them. So you gotta keep that in mind. But it's also like the best thing about podcasting is the fact that like that person's about to spend 30 minutes or an hour or two hours. like with you and in a world that's like, so attention span limited these days, like there's nothing else like that.

Now you've got me thinking about like why I keep listening to the same podcasts and it's because I feel like one, it is almost like a relationship. You're, you're, you're spending a lot of time, you're, you're listening to their thoughts or their conversations. , but two, there's always a chance of a really cool nugget.

Yeah. That one takeaway doesn't have to be the full answer. Yeah. But it can be the introduction of a thought that starts something pretty cool. So on this topic of hardware, what I. Do kind of like about things like transistor is that they've got a really easy to use api. So when we think about pushing things up to transistor, it's no longer manual.

Use the api, oh baby, now we're talking. Use your Zap ears. Use your makes, use your, oh, you can like do Zapier and stuff like that with it. That's right. And that's what I kind of like about Transistor is that everyone behind there is super techy and they like want this to be a very accessible thing for.

Introductory podcasters, but also pros and yeah, like setting up new listeners on the private feed, you know, grabbing old stuff, uh, all your podcasts, uh, creating new podcasts and, you know, releasing them. It's all accessible now and. It's just kind of cool to see these podcasting companies get into the automation world too.

I love that. I do think we get too caught up on the mass market examples of a channel, so like Joe Rogan podcast or like you see these massive podcasts and you're like, well, why would I ever start a podcast? Cause it's never gonna be as big as X. Mm-hmm. . When in reality, I think the better way to think about it is maybe you've got like a hundred clients and you just want a higher leverage way to be in touch with them and.

I'm gonna make this podcast and 50 of my a hundred clients are gonna listen to it. Like that's probably a good use of your time for an hour a week, especially if it's a way of sharing value that otherwise would've required one-on-one conversations with them. And I think historically the stopper has been accessibility, you know, like having the know-how to be able to put something like that together.

But if it is super simple, you know, maybe fewer people in Austin are gonna be arrested for not having their own podcast . Uh, but. Maybe that's okay. Like it's not for a mass audience. And you could even do like a private feed, like we talked about, and taking advantage of like how you find podcasts. Maybe you plug the podcast in your newsletter.

Yeah. Maybe you plug the newsletter from TikTok, right? Maybe you plug the TikTok from your YouTube. Yeah. Maybe you're talking to somebody like, Hey, do you know we have a podcast where we're talking about these types of things? All the episodes are released, but you can find out about it on a newsletter.

Oh, geez. Have you ever had somebody in person try to get you to listen to their podcast? Oh, like just putting their phone right in front of you or like asking you to pull up the player and then pressing subscribe? I don't think I've ever seen it, but could you imagine if that happened? That is the, the very worst of the human experience right now.

Paul? Paul? No. Hello? Oh. Oh my gosh. Paul. Paul. What do I do? Put it on speaker. Hello. Hi, Amelia. What's up Paul? What do I say? Oh boy. You the one that called her. Why did you think would happened? Did you see, uh, a want, want to grab coffee? A coffee? Yeah. To, you know, share war stories about the tunnel thing yesterday?

Mm-hmm. about the, yeah. Yeah. The tunnel thing. Listen, uh, Paul, you guys are wound up in some weird. . Yeah. And I'd really rather not get into the middle of it. Of course. Yeah, of course. Listen, uh, I got a Okay. Bye. Did you just hang up on Amelia? That could have gone a lot better, I think. Um, I think that went well.

Uh, pardon? She answered the phone so she clearly wanted to talk to. Hmm. We gotta get cracking on this podcast. Guys. You got our outline, Chad. We're covering the day of the water disaster, the tunnels underneath the capitol, the mayor's involvement, the spooky police and our escape during the collapse of the Grum Center.

Well, just like old times. Just like old times. Okay. Three, two. Uh, hello and welcome. My name is Jason Stats. And I'm Chad Davis. And welcome into automation. Uh, automation pod. Automation Pod automation pod. We have got a bit of a story to tell. We do, and we want to explain why we are concerned that the mayor of our town.

Isn't quite what she appears.

Automation Town is written and produced by Chad Davis and Jason Staats edited by Paul O’Mara. Keep up with the characters of automation. Tone on Twitter at automation tone.