Really Specific Stories: Jean MacDonald Duration: 51:49 SPEAKERS Martin Feld, Jean MacDonald Martin Feld 00:21 Well, thank you so much for joining Really Specific Stories; Jean; it's great to have you on the podcast. Jean MacDonald 00:26 Thank you for having me! I'm very excited and intrigued. Martin Feld 00:32 Intrigued is good. Now I know before we started recording, you said that it was really warm in summertime there. Over here, it's actually pouring with rain. I didn't mention that, so hopefully it doesn't affect my side. Jean MacDonald 00:45 Yeah, well, that's nice. I'll think of what it's, you know, what a cool, rainy day would feel like instead of a hot, sunny day, even though I do enjoy summer. Martin Feld 00:57 I think I'd take your side. Now, first question, kicking off your story, how did you first get into podcasts? Jean MacDonald 01:07 Well, it was probably like 2004 (or 5) and I was cheap, and I was looking for something to listen to in my car for free. I had been doing audiobooks on tape. And then I started, I figured out, I got one of those things that could hook my iPod up to my, my speaker system, you know, by making it into a tiny radio station and playing it into the radio. It was not the most robust, but it worked. Um, and I, I was going, I remember specifically, I was driving to Seattle, I was out of audiobooks and I thought, I keep hearing about podcasts... I wonder what they are. And uh, it was, wonder what there is and so I went in to Apple's podcast directory, and I don't know, it was probably pretty highly ranked at the time, I think it was, uh it was Ricky Gervais Podcast. Martin Feld 02:11 Love it! Jean MacDonald 02:11 And I was like, oh, my God. So I had watched The Office, the UK version of The Office, you know, years before, I thought, well, let me, I'll download. What I forget, you know, that came out every week, so I think I caught it like, right, pretty close to the beginning. And then I downloaded what was available. And it was, I couldn't believe how funny it was. And I couldn't, I actually said it's actually dangerous to listen to this driving because, you know, he makes me laugh so hard that sometimes I kind of lose, lose it a little bit. But what I, one of the things I remember about that is that because it was kind of one of the first super-popular podcasts, they talked about it a lot on the show, and Ricky Gervais was like, 'Apparently, we are number one, you know, in the world in podcasts—we should have been charging for this!' Martin Feld 03:12 I remember that! I heard that. Jean MacDonald 03:15 And so, you know it just, I yeah... then after that I I thought well, I can't only listen to Ricky Gervais. First of all, there's only 12 episodes, I think, plus, maybe I should do something relevant to my, my work interests. And so I searched for Mac podcasts and, you know, Macintosh-computer-related podcasts. (It was before the iPhone.) And uh, that's um how, let's see, what did I...? Actually the first podcast that I listened to was called Your Mac Life, and that wasn't even a, exactly a podcast. In the beginning, it was a show that you could buy on Audible by the episode. But I had met the host, Shawn King, and I've, I thought I'd give it a try and I found that really intriguing. And then from there, I started looking for other Mac podcasts. And there was a couple that I got into one was called Mac Geek Gab. And the other one was Adam Christianson was the host and the MacCast. That's what it was called. And uh, so yeah, I just started listening to those podcasts and I enjoyed them. You know, in the case of the MacCast, it was Adam's show, it wasn't a pair of hosts, but on Mac Geek Gab was two guys, you know, who had known each other since they were like teenagers in tech and you know, were grown men with tech businesses and all this and so, so uh yeah, I, those were those were the first few that I started listening to and I just enjoyed it quite a lot. And it was just such an interesting insight into the industry that I was in, because at the time, I was working for Smile Software. You know, that was also back when we used to go to conventions, and trade shows, I guess you'd call Macworld was a big trade show. And so it kind of gave me an insight to some of the people that I would kind of meet at parties and things like that. I felt like I, you know, got to know them a lot better. And uh, because I was the fan, so that was cool. That was very cool. Jean MacDonald 03:20 I don't remember exactly what triggered it, but I suggested to my partners at Smile that we do podcast sponsorship, and we didn't know anything about it, obviously, nobody really knew. But we had been doing print advertising, and some online advertising, you know, like, banner-ad-type stuff. But, you know, we weren't experts in the advertising business, and were less so in podcasts, so we decided, I guess what happened is—oh, yeah, now I remember, is, my partner, Greg, appeared on Your Mac Life, and was interviewed about our software, and we gave out a coupon code for the listeners if they wanted to buy it, and we made a lot of sales. We really weren't expecting that, and so that's when, that's what got me thinking about: maybe we should sponsor it. And um, one of the things that I really took to heart that time, and I've, he's, you know, said this to other people, when they're looking for advice, on advertising on podcasts—sponsoring them, let's, you know, sponsor, because I do think of sponsorship separately from advertising, but I suppose sponsorship is this type of advertising—I said, um, I, we thought we would try sponsoring one episode, the person who worked with Your Mac Life, managing their their sponsorships, a woman named Sly Martin, she said to me, you know, you really have to do more than one to see and... right? ...to see some kind of effect. And, and I thought, well, you know, because we were kind of like, what if one is just terrible? We should, and we would have made a terrible mistake. And so, but lucky for me, Sly convinced me to do three, you know, like a little package of three? And then that was it, there, from then on Smile was sponsoring at least one or more podcasts, you know, forever, because it did work really well. Jean MacDonald 08:16 And it was fun for me, because I would listen to the podcasts, you know, I would listen to the spots, um, they didn't have to send me any time code, I'm going to listen to the whole podcast, because in my mind, like, if, if I didn't like the podcast, that would be weird to, to sponsor it. You know? It, maybe if it wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but it seemed like, you know, we just we had a brand, at Smile, and that brand, as you can imagine, was pretty positive! It called, I mean we were called Smile. So yeah, so that was that's how it got started. And uh, it was great, and we all really enjoyed it, and it was a great way to get to know people in the business. And I always said, like, if we, if we don't really like the show, or we don't think the host is really on the same wavelength with us, we're not going to sponsor them because, you know, we care. We want people to see that we're using our money to sponsor things that fit with our, you know, brand and what we're trying to do in the community. So yeah, wow, that was a long time ago! But… Martin Feld 09:40 Good to reminisce? Jean MacDonald 09:42 It's cool. I'm impressed with myself, if I if I do say so, that I can remember these details because I like to tell people about them, when you know, they when they come and ask me about sponsoring. I like to, like, I turn into a little old lady on the rocking chair, before I say, 'Sit down and I'll tell you all about podcasting!' I know, I, that has been um, that was a, that just was a big turning point for for the company, and I think, you know, just ratcheted up our success and being able to reach the, the users and for users to feel a connection to the company, you know that, 'Oh, that's the company that sponsors my favourite podcasters!' That's a big deal. So um, yeah, and that, so I was just a podcast listener—maybe a guest, maybe I was a guest once or twice—but I didn't really think about becoming a podcaster myself until much later. Martin Feld 11:02 And what was it that prompted that or when did that happen? Jean MacDonald 11:04 Um, I was, um... let's see. Yeah, it was 2017—I think that was the year—was the, the final season of Orphan Black. Martin Feld 11:18 Mmm... Jean MacDonald 11:19 Very, very, very good show, um TV show series in, from Canada, kind of a sci-fi thriller thing, and I had gotten hooked on it, in fact by one of my good friends who I met, who's a podcaster, Allison Sheridan. And she, she, I was at her house, she says, 'Let's just watch one episode!' And I'm like, 'OK', and then I was hooked. And it was a five-season series, and it was season five, and I couldn't find a podcast to listen to, to, to, you know, 'cause I was, it was getting tense. It was just an amazing, you know, amazing show, amazing stories, and it was wrapping up and I could feel like, it's like, I wasn't watching it with anybody else, like I was like, I just want to listen to some people talking about it. So, there must have been some podcasts, but I couldn't find them. And so I, I was surprised, I thought I'd find like, 'Aha, here's, here's the thing that you listen to, if that you're a fan of Orphan Black!' So I just, I just said, 'I'm just going to do a podcast about Orphan Black!' And, or I said, that's my, my plan. I don't know how I'm going to I don't know what exactly or how, but there doesn't seem to be one, and so I created a Twitter account, for the podcast, I had a name in mind, which was SestraCast. And, and I said, 'If 100 people follow this Twitter account, then I'll do it'. Like, so I made it like, you know, somebody has to care! When uh, when I did that, Jason Snell of The Incomparable, uh messaged me. And he said, 'Well, do you want to have the show on The Incomparable?' And I was like, 'Yes, totally!' And so that's how that started. And uh one of the, somebody I'd met, who was also involved with Relay FM and The Incomparable, Kathy Campbell, messaged me, and she said, 'I've never watched it, maybe we could do it together!' And I was like, 'Yeah', that, and that turned out to be awesome. So I made this, you know, but what we didn't do is talk about the current season, we started it from the beginning. Jean MacDonald 13:50 So it wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it made a lot more sense. Like, I was kind of like, let's just start right now and anybody who's watching it will listen, but instead, we create it, you know, it's a, what do you call it? You know, it's a companion podcast, so you can, so if you watch it, the show, then you can listen to us talk about it. And that's the kind of thing I wanted. That's what I wanted for myself. So that, once I got started with that, that's when I got a microphone, I got... I was initially using GarageBand, I got the headphones, and I got... I started learning how to edit. And, that's how, you know, that's how I got going in podcasting with the TV show. But then uh, once I had started doing that, then I started thinking of other things I could do, so the next year, uh my friend James Dempsey and I, we were talking about the whole Getting Things Done philosophy, the David Allen book, he had never done it before he had just been... uh so he was just starting out. I had done it before—many times. In fact, Merlin Mann, was one of the people who I used to uh, well, I would read his blog about this, and I, his blog on getting yourself organised. And I thought, oh, let me get this book Getting Things Done. That was in like, 2006, I think, and I that I'd do it for a year; it was like, eh, it's not really working, let's just forget about it. And then I had been on and off of several times, so I thought, oh, if I help James, that'll help me do it myself. And I said, 'James, you know, we could we could help each other; we could talk about this every week, so we could make it a podcast!' Jean MacDonald 16:06 That's how we, you know, the thing in GTD, The Weekly Review, that was what we called it, because... and I thought this will be awesome, because now I have somebody I'm accountable to, and I will do The Weekly Review, and, you know, I will, I will finally get to that David Allen Nirvana that I always wanted to get to of: 'mind like water' when it comes to uh, all the stuff that you're supposed to be doing. So, that podcast has gone on for four years now, because what James and I'd, and we never missed a Friday, we do it every week and we always publish it on Friday. And I started calling it my so-called 'productivity podcast', because even making a podcast and having to talk to James about it every week has not gotten me over the hump of being a true GTD adherent. And so, I have recently decided to stop trying and just create my own system, and that's what I'm working on now, but I don't know, James and I, I mean, we just did episode 220, I think... Jean MacDonald 17:31 ...and well, I can see us. I can't really see why we would stop, um but yeah, it's good to have a partner podcasting, that's for sure. I don't know how people... well, I do have one other podcast now, because when we finished with the Orphan Black five series, five-season series, so (we did 51 episodes total with SestraCast), I just knew that if I didn't do something else, I would lose that, that time, you know, would go away that I had dedicated to a pop culture podcast. And so, I talked to Jason about, I had I had an idea, I'd had an idea for a while of doing a Star Trek podcast, specifically about the Star Trek: Voyager series. And so that was, that is, oh, yeah, that is one of my other podcasts. And I'm totally forgetting Micro Monday. Somewhere in the middle of all that, like, Jas-..., uh, Brent Simmons, uh was working at Omni (where OmniFocus is made) and he started doing a podcast for The Omni Group, interviewing people at Omni and I was like, I'm gonna steal that idea! Martin Feld 17:31 Wow... Jean MacDonald 18:54 And at the same time, just at the same time, um Manton Reece who is the Founder (and, and creator) of everything Micro.blog-related, he worked on adding podcasting to the feature set of Micro.blog, so, you could have a blog, or you could get a premium account and it would also include podcast-hosting, which is very reliable and easy to use. In fact, The Weekly Review is hosted Micro.blog. And so I told Manton this idea I had that—this idea I stole—of doing a kind of in-house podcast and and he liked it because we wanted to test it out, test out the feature. And so, we already had a thing called Micro Monday that we were, you know, doing it was our version of the Twitter #FollowFriday that people could share recommendations and learn about who to follow. So we decided to call the podcast Micro Monday too, and uh that was a weekly podcast for a long time. Again, if you call your thing 'Monday', if you have a day of the week in the name, there's a lot of incentive to get it done, but eventually, I did get burned out somewhere around 100 episodes. And so I put it on the back-burner, until recently, and I just started it up again, which is interesting. You know, people really like that podcast, people really like listening to, you know, get to know, people a little better, who are on Micro.blog, and it does make a big difference. I mean, I get to talk to those people myself, and it makes a big difference to me. And, and you, Martin, were one of those people back in the day, in the first 100 episodes. Martin Feld 20:59 I do recall! Jean MacDonald 20:59 Yeah, and at that time, I think all we had in common was guinea pigs. Martin Feld 21:05 Well, that was the first podcast I think I ever appeared on, so it was a wonderful, kick-start to my own experience, but yeah, go on... Jean MacDonald 21:12 That's cool! That makes me happy, because that is one of my, you know, my secret agenda is to convince people that they could do their own podcast, like if I can do it. And I didn't used to think I could, I used to really defer to all these, what I thought of like the stars of podcasting in the Mac- and Apple-related industries. And you know, they, and they were, they definitely were, but they uh... I don't know, I think I thought editing would be too hard; I wouldn't know how to do the equipment; I wouldn't know, you know. And so, with the other podcasts I've done, I talk with people who do a lot of podcasts and know how to record their audio, know how to set up, you know, there's they're set up to talk to somebody for recording. But Micro Monday, we have a lot of people who have never done a podcast before, never been a guest before. And I try to make it as unintimidating as possible. And I like to um, you know, just get, like try to say like, 'Hey, doesn't have to be, it's not that, it's not rocket science, you know?' Obviously, there's, like anything else, there's levels of production guidelines, or targets or whatever. And I always start off a Micro Monday discussion with somebody, just say, 'Remember, you know, this is just Micro Monday and we're just going to have a little chat; this is not National Public Radio', and, 'Don't worry, I will, oh, I will edit it—and I'll be editing it, so don't stress about making a mistake'. Like, it's hard to remember, if you've been doing it for a while (uh, talking into a microphone), that it's pretty intimidating. And you can get this feeling of like, 'What, what, what am I saying? Oh, what? Why did I use that word? Oh, no, um! I, I said, "um", again! Ah, now I said, "Ah!"' And you know, like, your brain, I know, people have a hard time with that, some people, so I just try to make it sound like, 'Hey, we're just going to chit chat and uh, you can, if you get in the middle of a sentence that you don't know how to get out of, just stop and take a breath and say, "Let's start that one over"'. That's fine, because I do it all the time, so that's easy to edit. You know, what's not easy to edit is when people change their mind in the middle of a word. And it's, um... Martin Feld 24:06 Yeah how do you show that? Particularly if you're transcribing it? Jean MacDonald 24:09 Yeah, so yeah, so that's, that makes me happy, Martin, that, yeah I'm sure you told me that at the time, but I forgot. And now I think of you as such a famous podcaster in your own right! Martin Feld 24:24 Oh that's kind! I'm not sure about that... Jean MacDonald 24:25 You're famous to me! And uh... I mean, it is true that Hemispheric Views—when you and Jason and Andrew decided to do it—I was like, huh, that's awesome, because I, I had them all on Micro Monday! I think they would be a really good fit altogether, so I'm sure that's gonna be fun. And it seems like it's, well, it is definitely fun. You know, as a listener, myself, and I confess I don't always listen, I get sort of podcast overload... Jean MacDonald 25:04 ...such that I don't listen to any tech podcasts anymore. I mean, things like Mac Geek Gab, I think, MacCast, are still going, you know, my friend Allison Sheridan with the NosillaCast. Mac Power Users, I was an original, you know, listener, when they started that, and an original sponsor. So, I mean, that's like my claim to fame is the first sponsor of the Mac Power Users, which is such a huge podcast now. And then they got, they got big pretty fast. It was a really good podcast premise. But, but I don't listen to that. I don't listen to Accidental Tech Podcast. I don't listen to The Talk Show. I don't listen... I mean, every once in a while, I will, because I've read something about it, and I like all those people, you know, I like what they do, but if I listened to all the podcasts I just rattled off here, you know, that's like two days of work! Martin Feld 25:04 Mmm... Martin Feld 26:12 It's a lot. Jean MacDonald 26:13 It's a lot and with what I'm doing now with Micro.blog, Apple, you know, everything going on with Apple and with Macintosh is this, is not a huge part of my job anymore. It's, you know, we're an, we're not a Apple-only community. Um, we're mostly, you know, a web-based service. And, you know, so I do listen, I still I listen, to Core Intuition, which is Manton's podcast. Manton listens to The Weekly Review. I think we both, it gives us a chance to catch up on what the other person is doing without actually having to have a meeting to talk about what, you know... I learn a lot, so that's pretty handy. Nobody ever told me that someday I'd be, like, using a podcast as a quick way to find out what was going on in my own company. Martin Feld 27:13 Mmm! Jean MacDonald 27:13 And that is another, another benefit of podcasting! Um, but yeah, so as you as you can tell, I'm a big fan of the medium and I don't know, I always have new ideas for podcasts, but I have learned to resist actually doing them because a podcast by definition is a time sink. You know, you have to have the time to record it and you have to have the time to edit it. There's no shortcuts really, through that, it's not like a book, or, or an article or something that you could kind of skim or just whatever, you can't skim a podcast, really, you have to listen to the whole thing. Martin Feld 28:06 Mmm... and you make a good point about the podcast overload that we can all experience because in my own experience, as I've come to produce more stuff myself, it has been harder to listen, which entirely matches up with what you were saying. Jean MacDonald 28:22 Mmm-hmmm... Martin Feld 28:23 But I'm also interested in what you were saying about not listening to as many tech podcasts, and that springs a question to mind about what is a tech or technology-focused podcast? Jean MacDonald 28:36 Mmm-hmmm... Martin Feld 28:36 Because you mentioned the likes of ATP, The Talk Show, you know, Mac Power Users—big guns in that area—and you're producing things )or you have produced things over time) that had to do with sci-fi, like Orphan Black or Star Trek: Voyager... Jean MacDonald 28:51 Mmm-hmmm... Martin Feld 28:51 ...and then you've got The Weekly Review and Micro Monday, which... would you call them tech podcasts in a way or technologically-adjacent or -related? How do you think about the content that you do consume and produce now? Jean MacDonald 29:04 That's an interesting question. I mean, I would say that The Weekly Review is tech... technology-adjacent, because... Jean MacDonald 29:12 ...we do use, you know, software, and some hardware, plus James, who used to work at Apple, he's an Apple, you know, he's an iOS developer, hem and a trainer, so that's how we met, he's, you know, it would be weird if we never talked about software. But we talk about truly non-tech things frequently too. We talk about Disney, which James is very into Disney, and we talk about, we used to talk about guinea pigs and we talk about James's cat, Dexter, and not just talk about them chit-chat but like, talk about the strategies for getting things done around, you know, your your to-do list for your animal or your to-do list to go to Disney World or Disneyland and so yeah, that's an interesting question. Martin Feld 29:14 Mmm... Jean MacDonald 30:11 And Micro Monday, I think is... it's only tech-related because it's, grows out of a community that is blogging using software that we created or that other people have created for Micro.blog. I would love it if Micro.blog generally would be, feel more like a place that people who who weren't tech (whatever the word is) weren't, you know, very techie that they would still feel like, 'Oh, this is easy enough for me'. I think it's not hard, but it's, it's not intuitive as it could be. Anyway, but uh the people who are, who come on Micro Monday, I do try to make sure to have a real variety of different people on because if we just went by the majority of people who are on Micro.blog, it would be a lot of software engineers and programmers and coders and things like that, but I don't know. But at the same time, one of the things I've learned through Micro.blog is I should not stereotype anybody, because you find out people have the most unusual or compelling or interesting hobbies and interests and things that they do and places that they live, and you know, all that, that has nothing to do with whether they write software for Apple or for something else, so, so I'm glad I, I've gotten to know people better through the community generally, but also Micro Monday specifically, I really get to talk to people and find out what they're, what they're doing. Martin Feld 32:09 Well, that's something I've really enjoyed about the podcast, as I've listened to over time. And as you mentioned, you had that hiatus, so it's good to have it back. I've really personally benefitted from that idea of community building or community management... Jean MacDonald 32:24 Mmm-hmmm... Martin Feld 32:24 ...that you've done with microdot blog. And I'm not just saying that, because as you rightly identified, it's out of that kind of communication and mixing with people that spawned Hemispheric Views. So, through your story, you've talked about how you went from listening to producing podcasts, very interestingly, actually being among the community or physically near or talking to people who were producing such content. Now that you've had that experience of meeting people and being exposed to a broader international community, how does it feel to be the person who's formally managing a community of bloggers and podcasters and the like? Jean MacDonald 33:06 That's funny, you know, when uh, when Manton launched Micro.blog on Kickstarter, and he made it his stretch goal to hire a community manager, I was immediately interested, even though I thought, well, I guess I have never been a community manager! So, I don't know if I'm really qualified, but I'm going to write to Manton anyway. And I said to him, 'I think I would be a good fit for this', but based on my building a community around Smile's products and Smile's activities, you know, I... it's an interesting, I mean, I feel like I'm not really a manager of the community anyway, I'm a facilitator of people getting to know each other. But I don't, you know, what I thought the job was going to be like, which would be more like regulating—regulatory in nature—that, you know, getting rid of bad actors, and trolls and things like that, uh hasn't really turned into much of the time that I spend because it's, the community's just evolved pretty nicely on its own. I think there's one time where I sent you a note in the timeline about, 'You know, this is how we're going to end up, you know, putting restrictions on replies!' Martin Feld 34:47 Yeah, I was a bit out of control with the length of a reply once! In my mind, I thought it was going to be collapsed, funnily enough, but it didn't! So I caused trouble. Jean MacDonald 34:55 No, no, I know! If they collapsed that might be, that might be, you know, not a problem. Um but yeah, it was just one of those funny things about the system, because we didn't have a limit, a character limit on replies. We never have had it but that wasn't by design. It was just oops, we forgot to do that! And so we sort of let it go to see how it would go. And more or less, you know, people have not gone too crazy, but that was like, a 1000-word movie review, I believe! And I... Martin Feld 35:38 Yep! Jean MacDonald 35:39 I wasn't, it was funny, because you said, I think you said something about like, 'Oh, I really screwed up, because Jean is writing to me!' Because I never do; I almost never do! And I don't I, I did it, you know, one: just to say like, you know, you you may not be aware that that great in the timeline; and two, why not publish this as your own post? Because, you know, I lose it as I mean, in the timeline. So it was funny, because that's yeah. That is the, the thing that comes to mind when I think about regulating the community... is giving it... Martin Feld 36:20 And it was a good regulation, because it prompted me to actually post it as an original piece, so you did your job. Jean MacDonald 36:26 Yeah, yeah, that's my that's, that's as far as, that's me cracking down on the community! But yeah, I think it's um, I love it's that it's a very international community. It wasn't that way, right in the beginning. I remember some people who were in other countries would say, 'Hey, everybody wake up!', you know, because they would be on, you know, posting on Micro.blog, and everybody in the US time zones or North American time zones would be asleep. But it wouldn't be that Australia would be asleep. Like, anyway, I don't think that's an issue anymore. I think we have a pretty lively community that is on European Standard Time. And we also have our Australians and New Zealanders, and Filipinos, and some people in Japan like to keep things going on that end of the, of the timezone spectrum. So, that makes me really happy. And I mean, one of the things I do is I'll send people stickers, Micro.blog blog stickers, if they ask for them. And, you know, people just have to send me their mailing address. And I decided in the beginning to just write these things out by hand, because trying to automate it, it's not a huge number, and uh, I thought people would be surprised to get something handwritten in the mail. And uh, so when I do that, and of course, I have stamps, uh domestic for US and then international stamps for everywhere else, uh so'll have two, two piles, and the pile that has international stamps is just as big as the US pile, and that's cool, so it makes me happy. It's like having, you know, I've always enjoyed getting to know people from different countries and travelling, you know, going to school for a while in Germany. Oh, yeah, that's another thing we have in common. Freiburg! Yeah, so, but uh you know, pen pals, that was a thing back when I was a kid, which was actual writing letters, putting stamps on and mailing to kids in other countries. So, I feel like all those kids have grown up, and now they're my friends on Micro.blog. So I like that. Jean MacDonald 36:29 That's great. In the course of you talking about, I suppose making an international audience. There is I suppose that degree of wanting to be accessible. You said that you think Micro.blog could be a little bit more intuitive and it's balancing, you know, I suppose the hardcore feature set for people who want it with, you know, just dive in and get started. Jean MacDonald 39:23 Right... Martin Feld 39:23 How much do you think about the, I suppose, the underlying technology of Micro.blog or similar things and things like openness and accessibility? Is that at the forefront of your brain, or is that something that you think less about as community manager? Jean MacDonald 39:38 No, I think about it a lot. I mean, I think that's part of the building the community. I do a lot of work on the help documentation. And I've always done that, you know, when I worked at Smile, I would write the help documentation because it just helps it to not be the programmer who designed the software explaining it to other people. And I mean, Manton has written a lot of the help docs to but I have written some and I also go in and edit some and we we are constantly, like, saying, 'Oh, this needs to be updated, or this actually isn't answering people's questions'. And, you know, I do actually follow the customer support email queue as well, uh so I can see what people are asking and see, you know, like you say, there's some people, there's, there's a segment of the community that really enjoys digging into the guts of the software and writing plug-ins and themes. And and that's great. But there's also the people who are like, 'Why does my domain name not work?' Martin Feld 40:55 Mmm... Jean MacDonald 40:55 And that's a big deal. Yeah, so documentation, open, try to be open about the, you know, we have a help forum, which I think is, is pretty good, you know, people who want to ask questions that they think other people might know the answer to, or they want to ask for a feature they think other people will get behind—going on the forum is good way to do that. And in terms of accessibility, we have, you know, definitely, we've made some improvements but we can make more. And we literally, were just talking about that this week. And uh, example, we have a timeline, a curated timeline called Discover, where people can, you know, if they aren't following anybody can find people to follow. And it's also where new people are featured so that the community could find them. And it includes short posts, includes links to longer blog posts and it includes photographs. But it doesn't include anything that is like a graphic, especially like picture of text, because unless... unless somebody actually included alt text, which most of the time they don't. Yeah, I just I think it's important not to put things into that timeline that can't be understood, if there's no accessible description. Martin Feld 42:34 You make a good point, because on Twitter, it's been such a thing that people, you know, share their manifesto or their personal lives in this screenshotted Notes app... Jean MacDonald 42:44 Yeah! Martin Feld 42:45 ...in Twitter. Jean MacDonald 42:45 Oh, really? Yeah. Martin Feld 42:47 Yeah, which I haven't seen as much on Micro.blog, but maybe there's more of an awareness, you've kind of bred that environment in a way. Jean MacDonald 42:54 I mean, it's, you know, we do have this pretty enthusiastic segment of the community that's really into pen and paper, you know, analogue writing tools. And those people sometimes write things and then take a picture of them, then post them and, yeah, but they need to add accessibility tags. You know, it's not a thing we would force people with the software to do but, but as a community, I think we can stand up for that and, and encourage people to, to do it. Yeah, there's some I don't know what the program or services but that like people can generate a quote from a book, when some, like, picture of the book's cover and whatever, like, people like that a lot. And that is just a picture of text with a picture of the cover of a book. That's text! It's, yeah, so I don't know what generates those and whether they could, you know, generate alt text with them. Uh, it's something I should probably research but alt descriptions are just, you know, the beginning of being accessible. But it's especially in, with Micro.blog being so photo-heavy, which I wasn't expecting in the beginning, that should be encouraged for all photos, regardless, um some description. Martin Feld 44:25 And with all of your experience across blogging and podcasting, you mentioned some improvements, just there that you are working on and would like to see: broadly about blogging and podcasting, is there somewhere that you would like to see it go or do you think that there are things that need to happen in this area? Jean MacDonald 44:42 Hmmm... yeah, iIt's, I mean, the longer I go, the less I listen to anything that is really commercialised. So things with advertising inserted into them. I mean, when I first heard of that years ago, I thought that sounds like a terrible idea. But of course, if people think they can make money, they will do it. I don't even listen to, like, the NPR podcasts or the NPR, or the fancier podcast networks where they have too many ads, you know, they just, and they're ads, they're not like sponsorships at all. I guess, what I don't want to happen—and I wonder, you know, I haven't followed it too closely lately—but this business of podcasts being exclusive to one platform or another, that is terrible. They should not be called 'podcasts'; I would like to see them just be called audio shows or whatever, because they're not available to subscribe to, unless you're a subscriber to, you know, I'm talking about Spotify, of course, but, but I could see that. There's other networks where you have to be like a member or whatever. I mean, I don't know, there's monetisation issues. Obviously, not everybody can make podcasts for free, which is mostly what I do. I mean, I did them for free, but I get my own personal benefit out of them. So, you know, I appreciate that and I don't want to say, 'Oh, podcasts should not make money', but they really have to strive to stay true to the original spirit of the medium, which is open and not locked in a silo of some sort. Martin Feld 46:47 So it comes to that word 'accessibility' again, really? Jean MacDonald 46:50 Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a different meaning of 'accessibility' than what we were talking about before. Martin Feld 46:56 Yep. Jean MacDonald 46:56 But being available, the availability of podcasts should be to be broad... Martin Feld 47:05 Mmm... Jean MacDonald 47:06 ...and make money with sponsorships—you know, not advertising—by companies that care about you and believe in you, and, and let them pay you because you bring them an audience that they want. But that's me. Martin Feld 47:24 No, I think that's, I think that's an excellent overview or summary of the value of the medium. And thinking about everything you've said for your story, I think you've covered a lot. But is there anything that I haven't asked you, that I haven't asked you about at all that you would like to mention, in your history of consumption or production? In your personal experience? Jean MacDonald 47:46 I thought you were gonna ask me what my favourite podcasts are, but... Martin Feld 47:50 Oh, well, by all means! What are they? Jean MacDonald 47:53 As I say it, I'm like, but I oh... don't really have a good answer for that. Um, I mean, I got into the whole po-... popular culture, podcasting, The Incomparable network from listening to their Star Trek, Random Trek, which is, every every episode is a random episode of Star Trek is picked out of a hopper, and a guest is assigned and, and they talk, so I love that. Like, I've often thought, oh, I'd love to do a random style, another show, but uh, it only works for things that are really episodic, you know? But the host, Scott McNulty, he's sort of my, one of my podcasting heroes. And uh yeah, what else do I listen to these days? I have a lot of things. I definitely, I avoid the podcasts that are long. I just don't... so not many people are as succinct as Micro Monday. Martin Feld 49:04 Where would you say long begins? Jean MacDonald 49:06 Long begins, uh... 45 minutes. Martin Feld 49:10 Oh dear, so you might not be listening to this one? I'm just teasing, that's alright! Jean MacDonald 49:15 I'm kidding! You can cut out some. Cut out my last question—my, my question that I have no answer for... um, I think it's interesting, because, you know, we do know, a lot of really long podcasts. And they are really popular, like, and then I do personally look for the things that are in the 40-minutes-or-less. And I think with Micro Monday, it's, I, try to keep it around 20 minutes, but it's up to me to not be so chatty, it's hard. Martin Feld 49:56 When people are interesting on your network, of course... Jean MacDonald 49:57 Yeah, so, I do enjoy that as well, so... Martin Feld 50:03 Well, that's good feedback for Hemispheric Views as well, because we've often wrangled with what would the average duration be, and we've kind of settled on 45 minutes as the benchmark, but you're saying 40 minutes, so maybe we could even more succinct. Jean MacDonald 50:17 That's good. Yeah, I wasn't sure how long Hemispheric Views is, but I think with three people and, and also you guys do an amazing job of editing it up into seg-... segments, so... Martin Feld 50:31 Oh, thank you! Jean MacDonald 50:32 That is definitely cool and that's a lot of work. Martin Feld 50:35 No, well I appreciate that recognition, because we do try to edit it carefully, without carving things up so much that it's incoherent or doesn't have cohesion, so that's nice that you say that. That's great. Well, look, in the interest of time then, because I can see we're almost going to hit an hour. Would you like to draw to a close? Or did you have anything you'd like to finish with? Jean MacDonald 50:56 Oh, I mean, I'll get on my soapbox and say: people make podcasts! Try it out. You don't need to have thousands of listeners. Make a little podcast with interviewing your family members or things like that. Like, it's a cool medium, and uh, is not that hard to do, so don't be intimidated, become a podcaster. If I can do it, everyone can do it. Martin Feld 51:27 Thank you so much for joining Really Specific Stories, Jean, I appreciate your time. Jean MacDonald 51:31 You're most welcome and thanks, thanks for the fun chat.