Transcript:
 
Erika Riley:
Hello everybody. My name is Erika Riley. I run customer success for uStudio. And this is our September "Let's Get Podding" webinar series. With me today is MicroVention Terumo and these two ladies will introduce themselves. Olivia, please.

Olivia Block:
Yeah. So, I'm Olivia Block. I'm the talent development specialist here at MicroVention and we're based out of Aliso Viejo California. And I've been with the organization for about two years now.

Erika Riley:
Awesome. Thank you. And Katie.

Katie Breed:
Hi, my name is Katie Breed and I'm HR communications specialist here at MicroVention and I've been with MicroVention for about four years.

Erika Riley:
Awesome. And so just to be clear, these ladies are here today, speaking on behalf of their own opinions, not on behalf of MicroVention, but they're going to share a little bit about their podcast program for you all to learn from.

All right. Let's dive in. All right. Awesome. Hello everybody. Thank you so much for joining this week's, our September, "Let's Get Podding" webinar series. We have Olivia Block and Katie Breed from MicroVention Terumo joining us today. They launched their podcast in April of 2021. They have three shows, including their flagship show, "Innovating How We Work" which targets talent development content, right?

And they have already passed, in just a couple months, they've already passed their original goal for having new users enter the platforms. So they've done some excellent things. The purpose of our webinar today is to share how they've established some processes to scale their podcast program. They've started to enable other MicroVention groups to contribute content and thus help drive overall adoption. So to kick us off ladies, tell us how you got and what made you want to get started with podcasting at MicroVention Terumo?

Olivia Block:
Yeah, that's a great question. So podcasting at MicroVention was really ignited by the work from home orders in March of 2020. So when all our associates were working from home, the talent development department wanted to kind of create where we could connect and communicate with associates on development in a new way that was virtual and that landed on podcasting.

So when we started, it actually started off being live, then evolved to me recording on Microsoft Teams, sending it to Katie for some small edits and then posting it to our internet site. So we quickly kind of realized that we wanted to elevate the podcasting experience for our associates, and we're a global company, so accessibility was important to us and we wanted to be able to measure and report out on our content. And we're also an organization that really values kind of advanced technology solutions and innovations. So with all of this in mind, did my research and I found uStudio.

So once we learned about uStudio, the gears started turning and we thought of so many other ways that we could utilize this platform by the marketing department, for onboarding to put out communications from executives, for sales and production teams. So the list kind of really goes on and on, but my next steps in these beginning stages was to kind of sell it to the business and ensure that it would be adopted corporate wide. And we also knew that if we were bringing in all of these other departments, that it would need to be scalable and self-sufficient because as much as Katie and I love being able to work on the internal podcasting. Wish it was our full-time job, but it's not. So self-sustaining was important to us. And I think that's kind of like you said, what we're going to share with everyone today and really how we can make podcasting self sustainable.

Erika Riley:
That is so key. Yes. What you have done has been so incredible and your processes I think are really a gold standard for the rest of our uStudio customers. So I can't wait to see it.

Katie Breed:
Awesome. So the first thing that we needed to do was define what me and Olivia as the uStudio subject matter experts would own and also what would be the responsibility of our podcast creators. Go to the next slide, please. So first we defined what the structure of responsibility would look like. We leveraged the best practices that uStudio gave us, but we also made some modifications to fit our needs and our company. But essentially our role as the subject matter experts would be to be the liaison between uStudio and the rest of our associates. But we also felt strongly that we did not want to be gatekeepers to uStudio, but instead kind of act as a strategic partner for our podcast creators.

So this led to us actually giving a lot of autonomy and trust to our associates, but as well as a lot of structure, which you can definitely see that in the rest of these roles that are listed on here. But overall defining the roles really helped us establish the process and Olivia and I, we still own the platform, but our creators can essentially be autonomous after that initial getting started period.

Thank you. So then our next step was to define what our workflow would look like. And on the next slide, you'll see that there's kind of two work streams on here that flow side by side with one another. And one of them is the work stream that the podcast creator or the podcast initiator, as they're called at this point, that's the work stream they follow and then the work stream that Olivia and I follow as the subject matter experts. And on the next couple slides here, we're going to get a little bit more into what each of these steps of the workflow look like.

So first up, for the podcast initiators is learning what it takes to start their podcast. So let's go one more click, actually.

Erika Riley:
One more click?

Katie Breed:
Yeah, please. I think it's actually one more. There you go. All those animations. So first step, we actually created a document for our associates to read prior to them starting anything podcast related. So I'm not going to go into every detail here, but I do want to pull out a few sections.

The main purpose behind this document was to ensure that our initiators, our podcast creators, knew what they were getting into prior to them doing anything that was part of the process. So the first section here kind of talks about what that responsibility would look like. We highlight that even though human resources is the one who's launching the platform and Olivia and I, we sit in the human resources' department. So we would be owning the platform, but all the content creation and promotion would be the responsibility of those podcast initiators.

And the reason we put this in here is because we did have one associate when we first launched the platform, they were really excited. They came to us, they said, okay what can I do next to get my podcast out there? And then we had to kind of reel them back and make sure they understood that Olivia and I were not the ones producing the content for them.

The second section I'm going to point out here is that sentence that says by joining this network, our podcast creator, or sorry. By joining this network of podcast creators, you are committing to programming, producing, promoting, and maintaining a high quality show, as well as adhering to our code of conduct. So there's actually two parts in that sentence. The first part is actually touching on our governance, but the second part mentions the code of conduct. And the code of conduct is actually different from our [inaudible 00:08:25] stock in that our governance is how we wanted to see content being created and maintained. We wanted to ensure our creators were producing quality content, but our code of conduct is more around how our associates should conduct themselves when they're creating that content. So let's go to the next slide here.

And yeah, there we go. So I'm not going to read the entire code of conduct, but basically the gist of it was we needed to ensure that we had a code of conduct for our associates to follow. And that was just sort of the nature of our company and the type of content that our associates would be talking about. We needed to ensure that they would be following protocol. So we worked with our legal department to create some of this verbiage, but essentially we had to put a code of conduct in place, because some of our podcast creators want to talk about our products and we're a medical device company with highly proprietary content. So we need to ensure that people coming on the podcast and talking about things like that were not acting as if they're giving medical advice or things like that.

Erika Riley:
And I'll jump in here too, because this is really important and something that gets often overlooked, right? So if you have, if you're a customer that has really heavy legal, right, that oversees everything you do, having a code of conduct, whether it's aligning to your social media guidelines or your culture code, whatever it might be capturing those requirements, it almost helps alleviate the onus of having to listen to everything and approve every episode that any group's post, right. That's really what this helps with.

Katie Breed:
Right, exactly. And that's actually, you bring a good point about listening to approving content. That's actually a little bit later in the work stream, so I'm not going to get into it now, but that was a key…

Erika Riley:
Got ahead of you.

Katie Breed:
No worries. But that was like a key factor that led us to creating the code of conduct as well. Because like Olivia mentioned at the beginning, we really want to make sure that our workflow was self-sustainable. It could drive itself, our creators could act autonomously. And so putting the structure in place from the get go was very important, so that we could essentially be hands off once it was in motion. With that being said, let's go to the next slide.

And then the last bullet on this sort of first step, is to get approval and buy in from your direct manager and functional head. And we included this as a key step in the getting started process because being in HR, we sort of had to make sure we covered all of our bases and we didn't want an associate starting a podcast without their manager being aware of it. And then having something way down the line where a manager is saying, why are you not performing? And an associate says, well I'm doing this podcast with human resources and getting into trouble that way. So that was a key point for us as well. I think next up, Olivia is going to talk about the next step.

Olivia Block:
Yes. So this next step here is defining content. So what we had them do is to really determine their details. So who is their audience? What was the purpose behind the shell that they wanted to create? How frequently did they want to put out a podcast? Was it going to be monthly or quarterly? What did that look like? Also, are they doing audio only or audio and video? So they kind of thought out their plan for a show. Something else that we really wanted them to think about before even coming to Katie and I was, how is your show going to add value to MicroVention? So that's something that we really wanted them to think about and how it would connect to associates and their target audience. So, that's really what this step is all about.

Erika Riley:
That is so important. You guys know that from your guided launch, right? But making sure that each group that wants to create content that they're thinking through their strategy, it's going to make sure that it's sustainable, right? That's your go word for this whole program, right? That they are creating something that is going to last and that they've thought through it enough that it won't just fizzle out after a couple episodes.

Olivia Block:
Exactly.

Katie Breed:
Absolutely. So then the next step was ensuring that they find their team. So who was going to be working on the podcast show with them? And as you saw a couple slides ago, we had a couple of roles laid out for them, the category manager, content strategist producer slash creative team and analyst. And these positions we leverage from the best practices that uStudio gave us. We just tweaked them a little bit to fit our needs.

But the real purpose of making sure that they defined their team was to, one, make sure that they knew that we were not their team, that we were not going to be helping them produce content, but that the onus was on them. And the second, so that they understood the time commitment associated with creating and maintaining a podcast. So we had, in the very beginning of launching, a few people who were very excited about launching a podcast and they wanted to do everything themselves from getting their podcast guest, to recording, editing, producing, promoting. And we let them know that that was probably unrealistic, because like Olivia and I mentioned in the beginning, even though we would love to be full-time podcasters, we're not. And there is at least not yet, there's no one at our company who is a full-time podcaster. So there is no way that this could be part of someone's job. It had to be part of a team's job. So, that was really the purpose of around this key step of defining your team members.

Olivia Block:
All right. So this next step that we have in our workflow is when they actually join the MicroVention Podcasting Network, so when they finally come in contact with Katie and I. So all of these steps prior were kind of thinking on their own and to be able to do this, they have to complete an interest form that we created and house on our internet site. And they go through a series of questions that will again, make them think through their idea, make sure that they have their team in place, that they have approval from their manager and then we get notified that they've completed this form. And that's when we go through a series of meetings with them.

So we have our initial meeting, which is intro and expectations. So in this meeting, we really talk about it, we go through the form with them and make sure that we're on the same page. We talk through their ideas, see if we can help in any way. One example would be, like Katie said, people are very excited and they want to put out a show weekly and that is definitely a lot of work. That would be almost a full time job. So we recommend that they maybe start monthly and they can always increase it if they feel they have the bandwidth to do so. So, that's just one example of what we talk about in this initial meeting with them.

And then in a follow up meeting, we had best practices and resources meeting with them. So this is where we go through those six P's of podcasting that uStudio brought to us with those best practices. And we also go through our governance doc. So we talk about different guidelines and expectations that we have set for who join the MicroVention Podcasting Network.

Oh, here's the interest form. Here we go. I knew we had a duplicate side in there. So this is what it looks like. Few questions there that they have to answer. And here are the guidelines and expectations that we go with them in that second meeting.

So we have a few different categories that we go through with them, one being content and cadence. So we are looking for quality in the content and also quality in the recording and editing, so programming and production elements. And we recommend a few different cadences. So no more than twice per month to get started at least and no less than once quarterly, because we do want shows that are on uStudio to be consistent. Like Erika said, we don't want them to kind of burn out and then they never have a show after they release two episodes.

Erika Riley:
It's also good to keep your audience engaged. Right? So having that cadence is going to make sure that their audience is engaged not only in their content, but hopefully also in yours.

Olivia Block:
Exactly. Yes. So part of that, like best practices, piece of promotion and engagement. And then we also talk about branding with them. So we want them to be consistent with their thumbnails, their titles of their episodes and description, also that user experience. So when associates come in, they kind of know what they're going to get.

And we also talk about primary form of communication. So we want uStudio to be a hub for MicroVention Communications. So we set the expectations that if you create content for uStudio, that you're not going to have a bunch of repeat communications as well. So that associates are going to uStudio for that content.

And then lastly, we talk about promotion and it's again, really just letting them know, like this is up to you to socialize your podcast and get people to know that it exists and to keep coming back, that they're able to follow and get those push notifications and kind of create a strategy for promoting their podcast.

Erika Riley:
All right.

Olivia Block:
So that is that initial step that they have with us.

Katie Breed:
Great. And then the next step in the process is the approval workflow, which was actually one of the trickiest parts of the work stream for Olivia and I to define. And the reason was because we just had different needs for different groups. And so we knew that we needed to have a constant approval workflow that fit everyone, so that we could have alignment across all of our podcast creators, but also we realized that the different podcasts needed different layers of approval.

So for instance, some podcasts like the Talent Development podcast, required a little to no approval process, while some podcasts such as, ones that discuss some of our proprietary products, they needed to be routed through legal and regulatory and marketing and so on. And then we also had some podcasts that fell somewhere in between on the spectrum. So ultimately we put the onus on each team to determine their own approval workflow. So they were essentially required to come up with an approval workflow, but it was up to their manager to make sure that they were following that workflow, whatever that defined workflow was.

So some podcasts, for instance, required that the manager listened to the podcast before it was published, whereas some podcasts did not require that and that just depended on the nature of the content. Let's go to the next slide.

Olivia Block:
On here.

Katie Breed:
So this is actually in our getting started document, the actual lingo that we use for approval workflow. Let's see that second sentence covers what I just mentioned. And then this third chunk, we added this sentence in here about podcasts that involved medical, legal and or financial advice, because we did have someone in our company who wanted to start a podcast with medical advice and then working with our legal team, we realized that we needed to include some sort of disclaimer language at the beginning of that. So that's why we have that caveat here about medical, legal and or financial advice.

Erika Riley:
So really the key here is, consult with your legal consult, consult with the customers, the rest of the customers should definitely consult with their legal team to make sure that if there're any requirements here that they should be following, they'll know what those are for sure. Yeah.

Right, absolutely. We worked very closely with our legal team on several parts of this workflow.

Olivia Block:
Yeah.

Erika Riley:
Yeah. And every customer is different, right? Like every customer's requirements are going to be so different, so it's best to just check with them.

Katie Breed:
Right, absolutely.

Olivia Block:
And the legal department was really appreciative of having that proactive approach…

Erika Riley:
Oh sure.

Olivia Block:
Before we launched these episodes without the disclaimers.

Katie Breed:
Yeah. Anyways, I think we can go to the next slide now.

Olivia Block:
Great. So this is our last step and this is launching your podcast. So this is where they would post their first episode on the uStudio app and be able to start tracking their engagement and drive adoption. We did provide them with a kind of pre-launch checklist. I believe we took some of it from what uStudio provided and tweaked it a little bit to work with our associate needs. So we had them make sure that they had a content strategy. What was their plan for this fiscal year of content? A marketing strategy so that they had in mind what their promotion was going to look like.

We also recommended that they have two to three episodes ready before they launch, so that they're not kind of backed up with having to produce content. I know that's something that I learned in my experience of creating the podcast was if you don't have a few lined up, again that constant work that goes into creating a podcast, so that was really helpful. And if they're able to, some shows that doesn't work for.

And then also we have an optional check-in meeting prior to their launch. So if they're interested and have other questions or want to check in with Katie and I before they launch, we offer that as well.

And then we also do quarterly check-ins as of right now. Just to kind of check in with them, see how it's going, do they have any questions or challenges that they're facing and then we're monitoring the shows as they go. Right now there are three shows, so we're able to do that. We'll see once it gets even larger, but we kind of accumulate some feedback for them and provide that in this meeting as well. I know that Katie just had her first quarterly check-in with one of our shows. So Katie, I don't know if you want to share what.

Katie Breed:
Yeah. Yeah. I'll share a little bit about that experience. But yeah, we had one creator who was very enthusiastic about creating content, but then kind of promotion and promoting the content fell by the wayside. So it was good that we had these quarterly check-ins in place to make that conversation a little bit more organic when we were able to come to this person and say, okay we've noticed that your content is great. You're doing great on these things, but here are your areas for improvement. So it was definitely a good idea that we set up the quarterly check-ins ahead of time.

Erika Riley:
That is so awesome. What a best practice right there. And you could even take it a next step further, right? Once you have a couple podcast initiators, right, you can do a quarterly knowledge sharing, best practice sharing with, again, a bunch of them on the phone and let them talk about what they're doing. So that way it's not just you saying, we recommend that you do X, Y, Z. It's them hearing it from the other content creators.

Katie Breed:
Yeah.

Erika Riley:
That is so awesome. I love that.

Olivia Block:
Yeah. So that is our final step and part of our workflow. So yeah. Is there any questions?

Erika Riley:
What's next for you? What's next in this process? Have you started thinking like, okay, if we have time, if we get a bunch of people, like, what are you starting to think about on the horizon? Anything? It's okay if nothing. We can crop it out.

Olivia Block:
I feel like the gears are always turning on this. So I feel like the list is very long. But just to start, we are a global company and right now all of our content is in English. So I think one thing that we're looking into is a translation service. I know there's some things out there with voice actors and things like that, because some of our global partners don't have the bandwidth to create their own local shows right now.

Erika Riley:
Right.

Olivia Block:
So that's what we can start with. Hopefully eventually they would have their local shows, but that's something we're looking at doing in the future as well.

Erika Riley:
I love that.

Olivia Block:
Yeah. And additional outreach within, locally as well, just to other departments that might be interested in starting a show and kind of growing the uStudio content in general.

Erika Riley:
Yeah. Okay. And then you talked a bit about promotion, right? And making sure that, that's a best practice that your podcast initiators are aware of one and following through with. So what are some of your promotional tactics? What are you doing to promote your "Innovating How We Work Show?"

Olivia Block:
Yeah. So, that's a great question. We do still use email as a pathway to get people into the uStudio app, because it is still relatively new. It's not necessarily what they're doing in their day to day work, going to the uStudio app. So we do provide that and really try to get as many people to follow the shows that they're interested in, so they get those push notifications. Which I know has been really helpful for me, the shows that I follow, just seeing those notifications come through. Just that reminder is so helpful. So I'm hoping that we can amp up those follows.

Erika Riley:
How are you incentivizing that? You guys are doing some cool stuff with some swag, aren't you?

Olivia Block:
Yeah. So right now we're giving out swag and personal thank you notes to our "Innovating How We Work" followers, just to show that we appreciate them. And that's where we want to start, but hoping we eventually create some incentives for additional people to follow.

Erika Riley:
I love that. Awesome. Thank you both so much for sharing a bit about MicroVention's Podcast Program. I'm sure this is not the last we will hear from you, but I really appreciate you joining us today.

Katie Breed:
Well, thank you so much.

Olivia Block:
Thank you for having us.

Katie Breed:
Yeah.