What if the ups, downs, twists, and turns of producing a podcast could be condensed into one compelling narrative? Well, that's exactly what you'll find in the season finale of our Stephen Speak podcast. From its origins as a mere idea to the unique and dynamic platform it has become, I take a walk down memory lane and revisit the multitude of topics we've explored, from music and media to tech and the vast realm of imagination. I'll share our personal anecdotes, recalling the joy of having guests like Steve, Scott, Johnny, and Lucy.
As we wrap up the third season, I want to give a shout-out to our wonderful audience. Your support and interaction have fuelled this journey, and I'm stoked for what the future holds. Navigating the challenges and rewards of podcasting has been an exhilarating experience and I'm excited to share our insights. Get ready for a fun and revealing Q&A session next season, where you'll have the opportunity to ask your burning questions and suggest topics. Remember, you could be our next guest! So stick around, enjoy the holiday season, and let's gear up for another thrilling year of in-depth discussions on Stephen Speak!
What if the ups, downs, twists, and turns of producing a podcast could be condensed into one compelling narrative? Well, that's exactly what you'll find in the season finale of our Stephen Speak podcast. From its origins as a mere idea to the unique and dynamic platform it has become, I take a walk down memory lane and revisit the multitude of topics we've explored, from music and media to tech and the vast realm of imagination. I'll share our personal anecdotes, recalling the joy of having guests like Steve, Scott, Johnny, and Lucy.
As we wrap up the third season, I want to give a shout-out to our wonderful audience. Your support and interaction have fuelled this journey, and I'm stoked for what the future holds. Navigating the challenges and rewards of podcasting has been an exhilarating experience and I'm excited to share our insights. Get ready for a fun and revealing Q&A session next season, where you'll have the opportunity to ask your burning questions and suggest topics. Remember, you could be our next guest! So stick around, enjoy the holiday season, and let's gear up for another thrilling year of in-depth discussions on Stephen Speak!
Hello, welcome to ! Speak! podcast. On today's episode we're going to be obviously touching on Christmas a little bit. You know, very nice, very nice Today. Christmas it's today. I'm actually recording this on the day it's going out, so it is the 17th of December. Remember them. Bells for a minute and I'm just going to do a bit of a retrospective of the podcast where we wanted to go with it, where we've been and chat through some of the podcasts that we've done and some of the things I've got planned, if you'll indulge me. So yeah, let's get into that. Welcome to the podcast. Unscripted prattle on everything and nothing. Thank you very much and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you very much for joining me. This is the final episode. I'm going to just set that in the intro to the list. It's the final episode of season three.
Stephen:
Anyone that's been an avid listener throughout the series that you'll know these series. Again, it's slightly shorter. There's no real reason for this. It's just what fits me at the time and I don't know. Yeah, it's just because I think I'm kind of taking it off what you guys are kind of telling me and yeah, just pretty much just what you guys are telling me. If I'm honest with you, by your listens and likes, and it's hard to do some for 20 weeks. I can very rarely keep anything up or hobby wise, just clarify and I find it difficult to concentrate and do with anything like weekly. So for me this is somewhat challenging. It's not the same time because I enjoy it, but it can be somewhat challenging to do something every single week. So this break might be a little bit longer than the last one. It may be shorter, it depends how organized I am. But I just wanted to kind of dedicate this episode to you guys, say thank you very much for being around, listening, giving me likes, thumbs ups, giving me some feedback and, if you've been a guest on the show, thank you so much. So we've got Steve, who was the first guest, and then another Steve, and then Scott, all the S's, and obviously I'm a Steve as well, so it's kind of confusing. And then we've had Johnny, who's gonna be on again next season. We've already recorded some episodes of Johnny. And then we've had Lucy as well.
Stephen:
That's been on the show, which was the first time that an outside source contacted me and requested to be on the show as a local resource for my area, which was really nice, and that's what led me on to thinking about things a bit differently about the podcast and made me lead into what I'm going to tell you I would like to take in the in what direction I'd like to take in. But, yeah, just thought I'd quickly go back through some of my episodes and just have a look at, like you know, some of the things I've spoken about over the last. Like I think it's like 20 months. I started this podcast in April 2022. Which is crazy to think about it, that it's been going that long. But thank you if you've been a listener throughout, really really appreciate it.
Stephen:
I was going to end on like another question and answer session, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to point out there to you guys for, like series four, let's do a Q&A. So send me questions, message me on social media, at StevenSpeak, PC, email, through the website, if you want. You know you can contact me that way. And, yes, submit your questions, submit what you'd like to hear, if there's anything you'd like me to talk about, and just hit me up. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, also do that.
Stephen:
So, yeah, I just thought I'd go through some of the you know, through some of the old episodes and just see what I was talking about and see if I can work out what was done out from some of the headings, because recently you may have noticed that my headings have got a little bit more. I don't know how to subscribe it really maybe complex, maybe a bit more professional, maybe a bit more, uh, cloak and dagger, let's say. And because I've started using AI, I decided to pay a little bit extra on my Buzzsprout subscription. Who are my podcast hosts? Shout out to them, not a sponsor, but you know, it's a really really good resource to use and I think that's probably the reason that I've been keeping it going, because it's so easy to just upload a podcast, especially the way I do it.
Stephen:
But, yeah, so I just wanted to go through some. What was I saying? Then I said, well, oh, yeah, I've been using AI for the titles. Yeah, so I've been using AI. I'm like a magpie today. Ooh, shiny, shiny. Yeah, so I've been using AI to just like, do some transcripts for me, titles of the videos and, yeah, just like the description of the episode, and then, just trying to tweak it a little bit, I probably have to go through some of them to try and maybe edit them a bit further. I've seen a few mistakes. Yeah, it's helped me out a little bit more, to be honest, because even though it takes a little bit longer because it has to scan the episode I upload, it kind of gives me some sort of guidance. Sometimes I don't always use the headings that they do, that they suggest, but I kind of sometimes use it as an influence for it. So it's kind of handy and it's always good for the transcripts as well, because apparently that Upshare, google, seo stuff it's all very complex stuff, all very complex stuff which I should read up more on.
Stephen:
But, as I've always said, I'm not doing this for like massive success as long as I'm not doing it and not getting anyone listening, which I am, and I feel like the listening levels have increased. I've been looking through my bus route stats and I am growing as a podcast, which is good. I'm happy people are listening to my Prattle and somewhat enjoying it by the seams and if you are, let me know. The one thing is about this there's not like a conversation. This is why I really enjoy doing guest episodes, because it's like it is a two-way street. I'm conversing with people and it's not just me talking to a microphone, staring at my computer and all my flashy lights on my desk. It's an actual conversation, which is what I like. I try and make the podcast seem like a conversation and I hope that comes across, or at least some sort of lively speech, rather than me just going rah, rah, rah, rah, rah down the microphone to you. I don't know what that noise was, yeah, but I just thought today's episode would be just a general chill chat. I think I've said that enough now.
Stephen:
I've just finished putting up the Christmas tree a bit late this year, but me and my wife aren't really unusual for her to do that into it. But it just seems a lot of effort this year to put everything up and we've just finished putting the tree open. Couple of little things around the house, but not much. The house isn't a bit of a disarray, to be honest. There's a lot of random stuff going on and, yeah, I think we both need a break. I definitely do.
Stephen:
I'm looking forward to the break, not only from a little break from the podcast, but also a break from work, and while I'm off, I'm gonna do some podcast stuff, try and prep for the next season, which I don't know when it's gonna be out yet. I think it's gonna be probably mid to maybe the third week of January. 100% decided yet. I think it depends on how I'm doing with my time management skills. Work's very busy. It's only gonna get busier. So I need to focus on this downtime for a bit of rest but also focus on the things that I really need to focus on. So on my list, if I get into the episode, this isn't going in any order whatsoever. Welcome. If it's your first time, go back and listen to others. It gets no better. At least you have fun, hopefully.
Stephen:
Yeah, so I'm looking to redo the logo. I would like to kind of ratify the logo into something that I can use across multiple platforms. I did register as a business a few months ago. We even know that's gone wrong because the name's wrong. I didn't fill in, my accountant did and he put my name wrong on the thing. So that's really annoying. So I've got sort of out before
Stephen:
I get a business account anyway and I'd like a logo that I can use for like the business and then maybe have a second one or the things that produce from that big business. So I've kind of registered as like a media production company. So I wanted to do that to cover like Remember maybe that I did a soundscape for local council. So I wanted to cover stuff that I produced musically and sound wise audio, audio, audio stuff I'm so like includes in this podcast and and potentially photography and stuff like that. So keep my options open by keeping it a bit broad. So I don't want a logo, that which I think I'm gonna stick with the one I've got and then maybe Just have a redesign for the podcast. So it depends how well I do on that and because fundamentally, or a rebrand and then I'd like to produce a merchandise, maybe some more stickers.
Stephen:
I'd like to get some merch done for myself and either be it is the, the media company and or the podcast, or both, just to get myself out there bit and Say I'm not fundamentally wanting to make money off the company and off off this, but I think the potential could be there. So if it ever comes across that you know I've got things set up, you know, and nothing ventures, nothing gained a lot, but fundamentally you're gonna get the same going into season four. Expect things falling over in the room. I think expect some guests on the show Say I've definitely got one on the show already, I'm looking to get a few more. And again, if you're open and you thought somebody interested to say, hit me up, yeah, anything really leading on to that is just like I gotta get me logo sorted and I gotta get that expanded across.
Stephen:
All the social media is the website and stuff. So that's quite a bit of work. You know it just sounds like it's in exchange of logos and stuff, but you know you've got to think about where that's been used. And then you've got to do all the different sizes for all the different Social medias and the banners and all that sort of stuff, because I never I've never updated the banners from when I redid this one last year. I'm terrible, I'm terrible and so yeah, so I've got to do all that. I want to update the website as well. I definitely.
Stephen:
If I produce a merch, then there may be a little bit of a shop on there. But in how I do that, I may do that through a third party, because there's a lot of companies now that will literally let you Open a shop by their website and then they produce the stuff and just send out on the on your behalf, which might be the easiest way to do. I Don't know yet. I don't know. I honestly don't know. But these are the things I'm thinking of and I'm like a little bit more organized and in the episodes I do and the content that I put out there and you, I know I've said about doing video ones in the past, so some video podcasts, so that you can't just you don't have to just listen, you can actually watch on YouTube. I do upload to YouTube and I still have to put series 1 and 2 on there as well, which is another task at some point, but I don't overwhelm myself. The big thing for me is if I can redesign a logo and get that sorted, then that's a bonus.
Stephen:
And basically just organizing my thoughts and trying to just trying to plan a little bit. Currently I don't really plan at all and I think I've just got to start maybe a couple of spreadsheets yeah, spreadsheets just to track my stuff and see who I've asked to be on the show, what their response was, etc. Just, you know, just for my own documentation, and so it's not all having to be stored in my head all the time. But yeah, it's all good. It's all good, I've got some plans and I'm hoping that some of the people I hope will want to do that, want to appear on the show, will on the show. So, yeah, it's all good. It's all good, okay. So let's go back. Let's go back through some of the episodes.
Stephen:
So when I first started , I did not know what I was going to do. Same as now, really didn't really know how it was going to do, what I was going to talk about, and again, nothing's really changed. I started, I started off, I really enjoyed it. I started off like doing doing a weekly . Now I started inter spursing it with a bonus episode, which then I I then started calling extra speak and I did. I only did like two, two episodes, I think, probably of before this iteration. This bonus episode came about of extra speak.
Stephen:
So if you go back to like series one and through series two, you'll see these interspersed episodes as bonuses. So they don't really sit in any series. They were just like an onward, like an ongoing kind of kind of series called extra speak. I think I got to 55 of them before I stopped because I wanted to focus. That was quite a lot of work for me to do like a 10, 15 minute episode midweek and also then do like a half an hour episode a weekend, especially when I was getting guests on. So I decided to knock that on the head. It might might come back in my note, or I may just like up the episodes, I don't know. Or I might minimize the episodes and do an extra speak in between, so like you're still getting the same amount but have a different sort. I don't know who knows who knows. So yeah, so I'm not that ahead.
Stephen:
At the end of it was like part way through series two, I think it was, and they were like the shorter episodes where my podcast will longer. I decided that for retention purposes because I was thinking what do I listen to and what do I watch? And if I have 15, 20 minutes, when you know why you're having a brewing stuff is quite an acceptable amount of time. So I've been trying to keep them down to like 15 to 20 minutes. Now Normally they make 20 minutes. The guest speaks have still been about half an hour. So you know, because there's a back and forth, there's a bit more time there.
Stephen:
So that was my thinking when I first started this you know, this normal episode and this quick, quick episode that you can enjoy a quick snippet of my ramblings anywhere between well up to 15 minutes was the idea for the extras. So, yeah, so I started off my very first episode all the way back. It was before I was even putting like series two, episode 12 and all that on the episode name. I was just putting the episode name and not telling you what episode it was. Maybe I don't need to do that, maybe I do, maybe I need to go back and rename all these. I have no idea. Would that be a good idea? I don't know. And yeah, so my very first episode was this is Steven speak and that was literally, I think. Just click on it. I think it's just basically me talking about what I was planning to do and what my thought process was for starting the podcast and such things and such things.
Stephen:
Then, following the episode was called come with me to a world of pure imagination and that's my most popular downloaded episode, I think, out of everything. It's simply it's had well over a hundred views and listens and that, basically, is just about me using my imagination. So I introduced ExtraSpeak on that as well, and it's just about like how I use the imagination as a child to play and weird imagination stuff that I do as an adult, like pretending I'm being exploded while I'm going up the stairs and shooting guns, because I am a big child. And it was also about me punching an eight year old. Apparently I'm just being like I can't remember that being included in that episode, but I'm listening to that episode if you want the full story. I was also eight as well. I wasn't an adult punching an eight year old.
Stephen:
And then we started the ExtraSpeak as well. I had in my brain that I would do them on certain subjects, so like music or media kind of thing or technology, and it was in the description of everyone. It was like this week I talked music and this, the first Extra Speak, was about a song called Dear Chicago by Ryan Adams, so I just talked about that for five minutes. It's a beautiful song. And then episode four was no Hope and that's about my dad's DIY and that was quite a fun episode to talk about because it's quite funny. Body stories work for a living path.
Stephen:
There's another extra speak. That's about my mum and dad and the story of when I was basically saying that I didn't want to work. I wanted to be a manager. Now I am a manager. I realised that managers also do work. I don't know, I'm not a CEO or anything like that, but you know, of course I am. I have registered as a business. Never thought about that before Just sleeping my coffee.
Stephen:
I got a coffee for once today. No, pepsi, I was thinking. You know, the other day I think you should I write a Pepsi and ask for, like an episode sponsorship. I mentioned Pepsi so much on the show. Maybe I should just say to listen, just sponsor one episode, let me put your logo, one episode and just pay me from you know, pay me a tenner and give me a couple of bottles of Pepsi. That would do me. I don't care.
Stephen:
Yes, well, a lot of these extra speaks about music and stuff really, and about films, and then I may expand on a couple of them. I may go back and talk about some of them, because some of the episodes of extra speak are quite short and they are probably about things that are like could be expanded on. So, yeah, I then do an episode about my mum, my Queen Elizabeth. That's cool because she's called Liz. I've not done one of my brother yet. Actually, I want to do one of my brother and I want to do an episode of guest speak with my brother-in-law, michael. I think he'd be hilarious. My brother is incredibly interesting, a very talented man with many things wasted talent, you could say, on many things. He could probably be doing, returning his hand to a lot of things at the moment and I wish he would believe in himself more. But that could be the same for me, because we're very similar in that sense that we're probably talented more than we think we are and we don't embrace it enough.
Stephen:
But I definitely want to get over them on the show, maybe even together. I don't know what that would go like. I want to get me make Scott back on the show as well. I'd even like to get more try and get a couple of people that I follow on Instagram on and maybe even a couple of local businesses and stuff like that. I want to turn it into sort of a business kind of motion podcast. I'd like to turn it into talking to interesting people and just having a laugh and just learning about things, because I like to learn about people, I like to listen to people's stories. So when we had Steve second Steve, steve, I'll call him and he was on talking about Star Wars and Turtles, tmnt and why he likes it, and he told a really interesting story about Carrie Fisher.
Stephen:
Go back and listen to that episode. All the guests speak because I think they're brilliant. I love them all. Some of them are split over two episodes, some of them are just one. But, yeah, go back and listen to them and tell them what you think and I'll share some of the episode details again on social media. But yeah, just looking through all these episodes I can't believe. Just scrolling through this massive page, it's interesting to see what ones have quite a few listens and what don't.
Stephen:
I have seen definitely an upturn in this series. I've gone from the average of anywhere between 10 to 20 listens, which isn't a lot, and I'm bringing home at least normally now over 30 straight away and then going into the 40s. So this series has been an upturn for me and I'm so proud of myself for keeping it going. But I'm just really really thankful to you guys for listening. I know this has been a bit of a weird episode, just me ranting about my own stuff, not ranting Self promotion. No, it means so much.
Stephen:
It's not cheap. I have to pay for subscriptions and stuff like that. I've put my own money into it, so it's not like it's a free thing. I have to pay for the hosting and it's not a massive amount of money, I think for the cathartic nature of it is probably minimal really for what it gives me back in something to do and the joy of it. But I'm always interested in what you guys have to think, so please get in contact with me. If you want to be on the show, let me know. We can have a chat.
Stephen:
I'm not going to leave it for now because I'm just going to go on and on, and on and on until Bollocks, but this is the last episode of the season, so thank you, so so much. Keep an eye on social media and the website. I'm going to do loads of updates and I will tell you when we're going to return. And, yeah, I will speak to you all again in the new year when it becomes 2024. My God, I'm 41 next year. Oh, my God, this is terrible. Anyway, have a great Christmas, have a massive, brilliant new year and I'll speak to you all soon. Thank you.
