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James Kotecki - 00:00:04: All those guests on talk shows that I see on late night shows, they're all selling something. Wait a minute. They're not, none of them are just there on accidents. They all have movies and books and stuff that they're supposed to sell. And the reason that all those interviews go well is that they have guest bookers and they have talent producers and they have PR people. So before those two people had what is usually a much more artificial conversation than can be had on a podcast, but even if it's a good conversation, it has usually been prepared in advance and guests has prepared their stories and any guests can just sit down and do the same thing. Dr. Sarah Glova - 00:00:40: Welcome to the Podcast Ally podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah Glova, keynote speaker and workshop facilitator, and I'm on a mission to find out how we can be the best podcast guest. And I'm talking with hosts, people who have been guests on hundreds of podcasts, and podcast network executives, so I can learn the good and the bad. What works and what doesn't, and how I can build my brand through podcasting. And we have a special guest with us today, James Kotecki. James - 00:01:06: Hi. Sarah - 00:01:06: I am such a fan of yours. James - 00:01:08: Well, thank you. Sarah - 00:01:08: I'm so glad that you're here. Well, that's really kind. You are someone who, when I have kind of followed your career, I've seen you get involved in some really technical things, some really political things. I'm going to share his bio with y'all, but just so you know, one of the reasons I wanted you on the podcast is because I think you do such a great job of breaking information down in a way that folks can understand, even if they don't have a background in that information. James - 00:01:30: Well, thank you. I wish that you had lowered everyone's expectations before starting this conversation. Sarah - 00:01:33: Ignore him. James - 00:01:34: We'll try to do what we can. Sarah - 00:01:35: It's going to be great. Trust me. All right. So James, about James, if you haven't met him before. So James Kotecki is the host of the CES Tech Talk podcast and the CES C Space Studio. So for folks who don't know CES. James - 00:01:47: Yes. So CES is the biggest, most influential tech show in the world. It takes place every January in Las Vegas. And if you're watching this, the joke I always say is like, if you turn on CNN Headline News, or if you walk past it in an airport in January, and there's a reporter standing on a show floor talking about the latest scooter or TV or computer thing, that is CES. It's hundreds of thousands of people.It's the biggest convention that you've ever seen times 20. Sarah - 00:02:11: Yeah, it's huge. And you're often right there on the forefront with these shows. And you're also the host of the Point Cloud, an interview series from AgriPoint about climate, agriculture, nature, and technology. You've also hosted the Kotecki on Tech podcast. I love that name. James - 00:02:27: Yes, passion project. Sarah - 00:02:27: And you've also hosted the North Carolinian and a video blog for Politico, which might explain why you're... Wikipedia page, says that you're an American video blogger. Online commentator, and self-described political geek who turned a YouTube celebrity opportunity during the United States presidential election in 2008. James - 00:02:49: That's correct. I did not. People sometimes ask if I wrote that Wikipedia page. I didn't, but I guess I'll, I guess I'll own up to it. Sarah - 00:02:56: Well, we'll stand for that. James - 00:02:57: I'll own the bio at least. Sarah - 00:02:59: Well, we're really thrilled to have you. I can't wait to dive into this topic about how do we make our specific expertise relevant to potentially a wider podcast audience? And I think you're somebody I want to hear that from because I think you've seen these opportunities for folks who maybe they feel like their expertise is too specific or they have that fear of like, well, who really cares about the work that I'm doing? And I think you have seen again and again where there is a potential to make it more relevant to more folks. James - 00:03:26: Yes. And before we get into it, I just want to say that this is the most meta podcast I have ever been associated with. Sarah - 00:03:34: A podcast about podcasting as a guest. James - 00:03:36: Yeah, exactly. It's like a Russian nesting doll of podcasting. I'm really excited to be a part of it because I love talking about this topic. I love talking about hosting and interviewing and answering questions and what makes a good guest and a bad guest and all that stuff. So I'm really grateful for the opportunity, but it is kind of fun to be a part of something so meta. Sarah - 00:03:53: It's very meta. Let's do a meta deep dive then because one of our first questions that we love to ask folks is, on the podcast, can we talk about your worst podcast experience? So either an experience you had with a guest or when you were a guest or managing a podcast. What was a really terrible one for you? James - 00:04:10: I love this because despite what I said earlier about building me up, this is like a really humbling question to put people in the hot seat with to open up. And I love that you ask everybody this question first. Certainly one of, if not my worst interview experience. It was, this is, one of my CES related interviews. So I was interviewing a tech executive for a well-known tech company. I'm going to, I want to get into the details as much as I can. I'm going to pull back a little bit to preserve a little anonymity. So a well-known tech company, I was interviewing them about a device that they produce. And I was asking this person some questions that I thought were kind of, you know, a back and forth conviviality because you want to have that kind of conversation. You don't want to feel like, even if you do provide the questions, in advance, and even if it is meant to be a friendly interview, you ideally want to, as a host, I'm always trying to get it to seem like a natural conversation. Sarah - 00:05:00: And to really be an insightful conversation. James - 00:05:04: And I think this person was relatively new in the job. I think they had been, had the fear of God put into them by their PR people about sticking strictly to the script. And I don't think they quite got the assignment because before this, and this often happens before the interview, we're chatting. This person has a background that, you know, seems like it would be really conducive to a great interview. Great conversation. And as soon as the camera turns on and we start recording, they freeze up. They just stick very strictly to their talking points. Oh no. At one point, we're talking about this device, and I ask what I think is kind of a softball question, a way to frame some insight in a way that I think will get them to parry this question very easily. I say, so of course you have some kind of protocols in place for children and advertising on this device, right? And she goes, that question wasn't one of the ones we talked about in advance. Like she said that in the, and this is a live stream, by the way. This is something that was going out live. So I tried to pivot as best I could and keep it going. When they ended up putting the recorded version of it out there, I think they had to edit that whole interview from like 12 minutes to like two or three minutes because the whole conversation just did not go the way their PR people had wanted it to go. And that was a huge mess. But most of the time, there's no duds. I would say the last time, I just did CES in January. We're recording this in February. I don't know when it's going to go out, but I did CES last month. And we did 47 interviews over two days. For the C Space Studio. No duds. Nothing. No conversations like that. Sarah - 00:06:33: Fat in a thousand. James - 00:06:33: Which is great. Sarah - 00:06:34: That's amazing. James - 00:06:35: So it's just those once in a whiles, but they do stick in the brain. Sarah - 00:06:39: Well, you kind of joked that it was like putting folks in the hot seat with this question. And I will own that. It does a little bit, but it's also so disarming. I mean, even someone who is as expert as you, you have these memories of when things didn't go so great. And that's not to say that we should enjoy when things don't go so great, but sometimes it's like, okay, that sucked. But there are going to be those moments. It's okay. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing this. We're all right. We're going to move on. James - 00:07:01: And those of us who are hosts, and I imagine this is you as well, like we want to be liked. We want our guests to like us. We want to really feel like we're having a conversation. We do this because we want to have that human connection. And to feel like it's just a completely scripted, sanitized PR affair is not what either of us probably got into this for. Sarah - 00:07:17: Yeah. So it makes sense that that one, I see so many reasons why that one was a dead. All right. Well, you moved on from it so well. And like I said, I just so enjoy following your content. And the piece that we wanted to bring out today as we talk to folks is the way that you talk to such experts. And a lot of times that's tech experts, but you've also talked to politicians. You've talked to a lot of different folks. And I noticed the way that you seem to pull out if they start getting maybe too technical or you feel like the audience could use some additional information. You're just so good at weaving that together. So I want to ask... Now that we've talked about your worst podcast experience, some of the better ones. Maybe we could start like way at the beginning. Like, can you talk to me about 2008 and like this political video series? James - 00:08:00: Well, it starts in 2007, actually. I had recently acquired a webcam in my dorm room. It was a cool thing to add onto my laptop that I had at the time. And YouTube was just starting to get popular. And I was seeing some people on YouTube that were doing really really nothing seemingly and getting thousands of people to watch them, just like randos talking in their bedrooms or their kitchen tables about almost nothing. And I was a college student at the time. I was a senior in Washington, D.C. And I thought I'll start a YouTube channel about politics. Sarah - 00:08:31: Obviously. James - 00:08:31: So I droned on about politics for a couple of videos. And one of my good friends was like, that sucked. Do you got to take that down? So I did. And then I did another video where I was much more lively about it. And I, I cut out some pictures of politicians and I taped them on pencils and I kind of use them as like fake over the shoulder news. Caster graphics graphics, but it was obviously homemade. And that started to strike a little bit more of a chord. And I started to get people subscribing YouTube and politics again, still very nascent at the time, this combination of these two forces. And it was the first presidential campaign that YouTube even existed. And at the time, I mean, now it's like the internet is everything and it's all this giant bundle. But like at the time, everyone was like, what is the effect of YouTube going to be on politics? So I was this college student in a dorm room who was talking about YouTube and politics and, and how. Presidential candidates were using YouTube in their campaigns. And I got some notoriety from that because I think I had the implied credibility of, well, this college student on YouTube, Sarah - 00:09:25: You're doing it. James - 00:09:26: You must know what he's talking about. And also no one else was really talking about it. Only a few people were even experts on it. So I started to get interviewed by the media and journalists and go on TV and do political analysis about this as, as, as while I was still a senior and somebody recommended to me, like, I should try to get Barack Obama to come to my dorm room. I did. It didn't work. But I did get other people to come to my dorm room, including the Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul, who went on to a lot of great internet fame and acclaim. And I think his star was kind of more rising at that point. But he showed up in my dorm room with his staffer. And there was a member of the Georgetown federal relations team there as well. But on camera, it's just me and Ron Paul in my dorm room. And if you Google Ron Paul dorm room, you can still see him, me, and my Darth Vader poster behind us having a little chat. And that so far has been my most notorious or my biggest claim to fame, I suppose, is that interview. We had a few others in the dorm room. And then I graduated, of course, and didn't have the dorm room anymore, but kept interviewing some politicians. And then I eventually got hired by Politico. Also in its early days, the political newspaper Politico is pretty well established now in its early days of trying to figure out what they were doing with content. They hired me to be a video blogger. And that was literally my title on my business card was video blogger, which now is... It was an outdated title. At the time, it was a unique title. I think I may have been... If you... I mean, that title kind of marks me as like a very specific person at a very specific moment. Sarah - 00:10:52: In time, yes. James - 00:10:52: in internet history to be the video blogger. And that's what I was doing for the 2008 campaign is making videos and making fun of kind of the 2008 presidential process. Sarah - 00:11:01: And I know we're talking about something that happened well over a decade ago. And it's hard for me to do that math because 2008 was also like yesterday in a way for me, which means I'm old. But I love what we're... What I see is still very relevant, what you did then to what you do now. As I was reading your bio, you were like, I'm naming a show. And you're like, eh, side project. I think you have a bias toward action and kind of jumping in that I've always really appreciated, especially in this medium. And I think something I would encourage folks to take away as they listen to your stories is to remember that one of the reasons that you have a Wikipedia page that, again, you did not write and that you were able to get some of this early success is because you were like, I want to try this. And the first one was so bad that your friend was like, dude, take that down. And then the second one was so good. And then the second one was so bad that your friend was like, dude, take that down. And then eventually it led to having... I mean, I think this idea of like, I want to wait. I don't want a podcast guest yet. I want to be perfect. Versus things are going to change so fast that one of your first business cards had a title that was like, you might as well have had astronaut. Like it was so cool and so new. And now it's like something we would never use because things change that quickly. So rather than waiting for perfection, like let's jump in. If you're at all interested in this format, I would recommend that you try. James - 00:12:10: And I would say, so this is a show geared toward people who want to be guests on podcasts. Is that right? Sarah - 00:12:15: Yeah. James - 00:12:15: But to make a more holistic point, one thing I always recommend to students is, and I think I even posted this on your LinkedIn page at one point, because you talk to students all the time, but it's like, start a podcast, be on a podcast, just do it. You have no idea how easy it is to start this up and to start becoming a credible person in whatever niche topic that you want to be talking about. And if no one else will have you as a guest on their podcast, have your friend make a podcast and you be the guest on their podcast and vice versa, and just trade off and be talking about these things together. And you will build up the credibility much quicker than you could imagine, especially, and I'm looking directly at the camera here, especially as a student. Am I being told that I shouldn't look directly at the camera? Sarah - 00:12:57: No, we love this. Bring this energy. James - 00:12:58: Okay. Especially as a student, because you might think, oh, I'm a student. No one cares what I have to say. No one's going to listen to me. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Everybody wants to help students. What they don't want to do is help some random 38 year old guy to get ahead in life. Nobody wants to help me anymore. But as a student, I had that extra credibility of like, oh, I remember when I was a student and I remember when I had hopes and dreams and I'm going to reach down and help that person and maybe I'll be on their show. So that's, you can talk to people that are maybe way above whatever rank or level that you think you could have talked to just by virtue of the fact that you have a microphone and a podcast, you can do it. It's a magical format. I love it. What a great message. And it's perfect for starting off. Because what we wanted to talk about today was this idea of like, oh, my topic might be too technical. Sarah - 00:13:41: Who's going to care about it? And maybe the first kind of bump we have to get over is the question of whether you're going to talk about it at all. We just decided for you with this very direct to camera recommendation. This is for you, especially if you're a student. But even if you're not, if you're interested at all in going out and being a podcast guest or even starting your own podcast, this is absolutely something you can do. Absolutely. Yeah. James - 00:14:02: And so I guess to the point of like, is it too niche? To be talking about? Probably not. I was talking about something I thought was fairly niche, the YouTube-ification of American politics and presidential candidates on there. Eventually, I had, I'm going to try to remember this because it was one of the greatest moments in life. I had The Economist wrote a little blurb about me. And it said, probably the world's foremost expert on YouTube videos posted by presidential candidates, right? So a super niche phrase. But the fact that The Economist was saying it was like, oh, cool. And it really meant a lot to me as a person who, you know, reading The Economist for a while. And so it doesn't really matter how niche it is. And I think you and I can probably agree. The more niche, the better, probably, starting out. Because you're not going to compete with the Joe Rogans of the world or the Conan O'Brien of the world and just a funny person who talks to a lot of celebrities. But you might be able to compete on this specific baseball team from this particular era or whatever. Or don't even really think of it as competition. Just think of it as something that you're passionate about. Sarah - 00:15:03: Yeah. James - 00:15:03: The big challenge. And you and I can probably have a whole other show about this. It's like finding what that passion is. And when you're young, you may not know what it is. When you're old, you may not know what it is. I think I'm still trying to figure it out. I think I have a better idea than I did 10 years ago. But certainly, you know, 10 years ago was still like many years out of college and still trying to figure it out and go through all of that. So I guess I feel like I'm rambling a little bit here. But the last thing I'll say to kind of tie a nice bow on this point is maybe the act of conversation, the podcasting format is one way that we can help to figure out that passion and connection point is. Sarah - 00:15:36: I love that. So and you're going to I feel like we're doing a bit of like a deep dive. This is like what did we say back when we listened to cassettes? It was like the B side or something or. James - 00:15:45: Yeah. But isn't that more of a record Sarah - 00:15:47: thing? I don't know. I guess you had that James - 00:15:49: to turn over cassettes as well. Sarah - 00:15:51: Yeah. James - 00:15:51: Can I make another point before I forget it? Sarah - 00:15:53: Please do. James - 00:15:53: Because we're talking about being specific. I'm sorry. We're talking about how do we talk about our specific weird niche topics in ways that are more generally acceptable and approachable. And I'll give one very specific piece of advice, which is define your acronyms and your jargon. And if you don't know what that is, then just talk to somebody who doesn't know your topic and start to figure out where their eyes glaze over. Yes. So much of my work as a host, and I appreciated your compliments, but I was thinking like, what am I doing to make it more accessible? A lot of what I'm doing is just listening for things that I don't think the audience understands and then just interrupting them politely and saying, maybe I don't understand it or I know the audience doesn't understand it. Either way, I'll say, you know, of course you and I understand this, but for the sake of the audience, can you just please explain what that acronym means? And because I never necessarily assumed that the audience knows any particular fact, I just kind of assumed that they have a baseline level of education and intelligence. You never want to underestimate the audience's intelligence, but not necessarily their particular set of facts. So when we get into specialized areas, we naturally use jargon and kind of language that almost sounds like a code. And that's very natural and that's great for those situations, but to make it more accessible, all you have to do sometimes is just explain a few terms. Sarah - 00:17:06: Yeah. Okay. I love that. And so one of your recommendations was if you're going to go on a podcast, something you could consider doing ahead of time, if it's something that you're feeling nervous about is have a friend who's not in your area of expertise and talk to them about their work, about your work and see what are the acronyms that come up that they don't know that you have to explain just so that it prepares you to be able to explain those terms. I love that advice. James - 00:17:29: There's another piece of advice that maybe will go in the other direction. And I wonder if the balance somewhere is where people need to be, because I often think too, that the best guests are the ones who tell specific stories and the more detail that you can add. And I've heard this from what is it Jon Batiste the the singer Stephen Colbert. He's on Stephen Colbert He's a Grammy Award winner. I've heard this about Taylor Swift different artists will have this quality where they're telling Lyrically very specific sentiments about specific moments in their life But it's resonating with a massive audience and why because the audience didn't have that specific experience But it's reminding them of something that they did The worst guests are typically those who just give generic talking points and stay at a very high level. Don't be afraid to go into detail once in a while and tell a specific story to illustrate a point. Examples, examples, examples. And through those examples, you will make your topic more accessible, even if it feels like you're really getting into the weeds. Sarah - 00:18:27: This is why we had you on the show because I really think that some folks who have some specific work, especially if it's very technical or really rooted in their industry, they might think, okay, I want to go on this podcast, so I need to stay surface level. I don't want to get too in the weeds. I want people to be able to stay with me. And you've said two things that I find really impactful. One is… not to underestimate the audience. And while they might not have the facts, we're never questioning whether they have the intelligence. I really love that. And so this takeaway for me is I'm going to be really careful about the facts that I'm sharing. And that's where I'm going to spend my time kind of questioning what people understand. But then there's this inherent respect for the audience. I love that. And then the second point of if I'm going to talk about something really specific that I'm afraid they don't know about. I want to be aware of the acronyms I use, but I shouldn't be afraid to go deep. It's okay for me to share these details. And just like the way Taylor Swift drops Easter eggs in some of her songs, all you have to do is mention Taylor Swift if you want me to be a friend, by the way. James - 00:19:30: Hopefully we get more listens too. Sarah - 00:19:31: Right? Because we've dropped her name, Mother. If you want to go deep and share details, feel free to do so. Because just like Easter eggs in a Taylor Swift song, it's going to hook people. It's going to bring them in. They feel like they're hearing something valuable versus staying at the surface level. I love this. But I think some folks are going to be like, well, how do I do that? How do I know what's too much? I mean, there's a lot of gray area here. And so I'm wondering if you can share an example with us. As you're thinking through some of the, what, 40-plus, you said, interviews you did at the last CES C-Suite, do you have anything that comes up for you where you were like, one story that was really helpful for people to hear? Or can you think of anybody who's spoken before where, they shared a story where you were like, oh, exactly that. That was a great way of explaining that. James - 00:20:19: Well, first of all, I will say. A lot of what the host job is to do is to pull that out of you as the guest. So you can rely on the host. And I'm going to answer your question in a minute. But I was thinking, I guess I'd come at this from the perspective of a host. And my job is to be the audience surrogate. So if you're on a podcast and you've got a good host, such as yourself, you don't necessarily have to worry too much because right now I'm relying on you to be the surrogate for the audience and to keep me at the level that I need to be kept at. Of course, if you're a guest starting off on shows, you'll go on probably whatever you're invited on. And you should to get those reps in, right? You should do as much as you possibly can. But a good host will really guide you to that point. I'm thinking about an interview. I've interviewed this person multiple times. He's the head of the SAG-AFTRA, SAG, which of course went on strike last year because of a number of issues with AI and movies and their contract negotiation was up and they were on strike with the writers at the same time. And basically all of Hollywood was shut down for like five months. And it was really interesting. And the reason, the reason I think I always enjoy talking with him is that he will go deep on specific technical issues that they care about. And in this case, the specific technical solutions that they had to the problem or the perceived problem of AI. And he talked to me, so we talked this year, I was really excited to talk to him to catch up with him on what had happened in the news. And he was talking to me about the AI contract provisions that they had won with their recent negotiations to require consent. And when, when, when is represented by an AI and then. Sarah - 00:21:52: Supertech. I mean, we're not just talking about AI. We're also wrapping in legal. So yeah, I can see how. James - 00:21:56: Right, legal policy. He's able to do it in a way. And of course, but I mean, it does have a little bit of a shine to it because it's about Hollywood and actors. But the reason I like talking to him is because anybody who works for a living now knows that AI is potentially something that could augment or maybe come for their job or they just need to be wary of it or worried of it. And he has kind of always kind of been a canary in the coal mine to me of a, of an industry where maybe some of these issues are happening to them earlier than, than others, but other people are going to have to potentially worry about it as well. And the thing I'm remembering that, that stuck out to me, that it was just a brief story that he told, but I remember it very clearly was he said, oh, the reason that we care about AI and the reason that it was such a big sticking point in our negotiations with the studios was because we had come to CES and we had learned about this technology in the past and we were just concerned about it because of all the times that we had already been here. So I suppose that's bringing it full circle, promoting, I'm promoting CES right now, but I'm also, I'm saying that that story that he told, you know, it went deep on tech and policy, but it also grounded it to the specific place that we were in and stuck in my head. Sarah - 00:22:59: I'm I'm imagining that this person who you enjoyed interviewing While you said earlier that you can rely on a host to do a lot of this, and I appreciate your kind words, and I've also worked with some great podcast hosts where I trusted that when I went on their show, they were going to help navigate the conversation. They were going to pull good stories out of me. At the same time, this person went on your show and referenced CES, something that he knew you to care about a great deal and knew your listeners to care about a great deal. I wonder if there was some preparation. And even though I appreciate a fantastic podcast guest, I've also had experiences where I've been on podcasts that felt a bit. Meandering. And where I was very glad to have prepared, to have known ahead of time what stories and examples I wanted to share. And so I wonder if you could share a little bit for us, for a guest who, as you encourage people, to start whatever podcast you can get. So when we're early on, we're not interviewing podcast guests to say, do I want to be on your show? We're kind of taking opportunities as they come, maybe, to get those reps in, like you said. So in those instances where we're not sure how it's going to go, do you recommend any preparation, any consideration of the stories you might share ahead of time? James - 00:24:10: Yeah, I mean, it never hurts to ask what the questions are going to be in advance. Some interviews are like that, some aren't. The secret to that I have found, though, is all my guests typically want to know what the questions are going to be in advance, or their PR people do. And unlike the example that I gave at the beginning of the show, most are cool with the fact that this is just basically a guideline. And the secret for me as a host is like, well, look, I can still ask you whatever I want. I have you in the chair. It's a live streaming thing. If I think of something as a follow-up that just kind of sparks my curiosity 99% of the time, that's going to be a welcome. Sarah - 00:24:41: You're painting yourself like some kind of podcast villain in a very gentle way. He's great at that. James - 00:24:45: 99% of the time, that's going to be good. And I come from a background of just on the side as a hobby doing improv comedy. And so that kind of back and forth. Sarah - 00:24:53: Weaving that all together. James - 00:24:54: You know, mutually building something between the host and the guest that neither could have built themselves, because you're actually having an exchange, a conversation back and forth. Sarah - 00:25:01: Wow, that was really pretty. James - 00:25:02: That's really important to me. Sarah - 00:25:04: Thank you. Yeah. James - 00:25:05: It means a lot to me. Like, improv is this. You can kind of figure it. Sometimes it kind of feels like a cult philosophy if you're in. Take too many comedy improv classes. Sarah - 00:25:13: I already referenced Taylor Swift. It's all right. We can bring up all the cults. You got your cult. I have mine. James - 00:25:17: But that's the beautiful thing about improve to me, when it's done well. And when a conversation goes well, you can really feel that it's back and forth and both parties are mutually contributing to it. As far as preparation goes, yeah. I mean, obviously, you want to have. If you think about, I think I was a little too old to have realized this when I did. But I remember the time in my life when I realized, oh, all those guests on talk shows that I see on late night shows, they're all selling something. Wait a minute. None of them are just there on accident. They all have movies and books and stuff that they're supposed to sell. And the reason that all those interviews go well is that they have guest bookers and they have talent producers and they have PR people. So before those two people had what is usually a much more artificial conversation than can be had on a podcast. But even if it's a good conversation, it has usually been prepared in advance. They've prepared their stories. And any guest can just sit down and do the same thing and think about a couple of probable things that will be asked, a couple of things that. They probably want to say in those situations. And thinking about stories, I suppose it's not too dissimilar from preparing for a job interview, even though I think they probably should be different words for what this interview is and what a job interview is. I think the language can confuse it. But the one thing that's similar is prepare some stories, prepare some details, have a few go-to things in the can. And then if it gets to a moment where you need to use it, Another secret is you can just pivot from nothing and just say it. Like you can pivot off of almost anything and pivot into the thing that you. Sarah - 00:26:49: There's this politician background. So are you saying if someone asks me a question that I am maybe not interested in, I can pivot and say the thing I want. James - 00:26:56: Yeah. Hey, speaking of saying things, did you know that I'm going to say something completely different, even though I've already, you know, even though I'm at, I don't know, make it seem like it's related to what you're saying. A hundred percent. Right. So there is no, I think maybe it's possible. And, you know, I was a pretty good student in school. You strike me as the good student type as well. Sarah - 00:27:14: I was a Hermione. I can't lie to y'all. James - 00:27:15: You strike me as the good student type. It takes one to know one. Okay. But when we get out into the real world, we learn. And sometimes we learn a little too late that the real world does not work like, okay, I have to answer the questions exactly. And I have to answer them in the right way. It's like, no, sometimes, you know, the person asking the question didn't even really know what they were asking. Or you give a totally different answer. That's better than whatever answer they could have expected. And it is not like the tests that we take in school. Academia does not prepare us for this kind of format because I could be, you know, I could have answered this question that you asked me right now, 10 different ways. And you'd probably be happy with, you know, eight of them as long as they were somewhat substantive and generally in the ballpark of what we're talking Sarah - 00:27:55: about. So very different from a test. James - 00:27:57: So going back to my original point, when you prepare your stories for a podcast, don't worry if they don't necessarily exactly fit in everywhere. You can make them fit with, it takes almost nothing to pivot into whatever you want to. Sarah - 00:28:09: Lets talk about why we would do that. Because I think. We want to be respectful to the podcasts that invite us to join them. But what we're talking about is not ignoring what the podcast guest is asking. It's making sure that if you take a podcast opportunity, just like the celebrity who agrees to be on a show. And as you said, you realize kind of late in life, like, oh, they have a reason for being there. They're not just invited because they're cool. Like they're late. James - 00:28:35: I wasn't late last year that I realized this, by the way, just to set the record straight. Sarah - 00:28:38: I also remember realizing this. Like I remember a morning show being on and kind of thinking like everyone who comes on here has a, oh, everyone who comes on here has a movie coming out. This isn't just like a cool thing where they invite cool people. Like they have an agenda for being here. So I totally remember this, but I think adapting that. When you're taking your time to go join podcasts, it is not just a good idea to think about what you want to get out of it, but I would say kind of crucial to making sure that you're leveraging. Like if you invited me on your podcast first, I would be so honored. And I think I would also be at CES. So there would be a lot of cool reasons. James - 00:29:13: Not necessarily. We do a lot of interviews before CES as well. Sarah - 00:29:15: So maybe that's a pre-CES. James - 00:29:16: When you invent your cool new tech thing, we'll interview you. Sarah - 00:29:18: Okay. So after I invent my new like Apple Watch, Taylor Swift TV version, you're going to have me on your podcast. And I'm going to be so honored that you asked. But when I prepare for it, I'm going to think about why I want to be on it and what I hope to get out of it. And those are some of the stories that I'm going to prepare. And really what we wanted to encourage folks today to walk away from this episode with was this idea like even if your content is a bit technical, even if you feel like you have a really niche expertise, and even if you've never done this before, even if your props are going to be cut out figures on pencil sticks. Like the early From the From the Dorm Room. Political show that we heard about earlier. You're ready. You can totally do this. And to prepare, think a little bit about some of the stories you want to tell. And don't be afraid to bring those up, even if it's not a perfect A plus answer because it's not a test. It's not a test. So you can kind of say, I love that question. You know what it makes me think of though? I want to tell you this story and then tell your story. James - 00:30:14: Yeah. And that reminds me, another great thing that you should do in a video podcast, and I'm breaking my rule right now, is bring props, actually. If you have any kind of visual and it's a video situation, I think bringing props is fantastic. Sarah - 00:30:26: If you could do some homework for us now that we know that you're a school nerd like I was. Um, and if you could find a picture of your props, the cutout figures with pencils, I really want to see that. James - 00:30:36: James Kotecki pencil puppets. That was my shtick for a while. Sarah - 00:30:40: You know, show notes are important. Everyone needs a shtick. I feel like that needs to be a shtick, but also yours is kind of a stick. James - 00:30:46: Wow. Yes. Oh my God. Oh, I didn't even put that together. Sarah - 00:30:49: Love this so much. See, we're building together. This is good. And also I wrote down your quote about improv. I am not an improv person. As much as I love this format, improv terrifies me. I'm going to have a nightmare about improv tonight. Well, thank you for that. But it's, it's something that like, I feel a lot of pressure. Maybe that's that Hermione-esque that I don't want to mess it up. But I think what I'm taking away from what you said about improv and the beauty of podcasting is I think folks who are scared to do this put a lot of pressure on themselves and they say, I don't know if I could be on a podcast. And I think remembering that it's not just you in there. You're building something with the person who's sitting next to you or who's on the other end of the Zoom call or whatever it is. Y'all are building together. And I think if this is something that makes you nervous, remembering that could give a lot of peace of mind. And then also, you compared it earlier to a job interview. We've all had to do job interviews, right? You've done something like this. Please don't treat a podcast like a job interview. You can be more interesting than that. But you've done that before. So you can totally do this too. James - 00:31:47: And I guess, look, I mean, if someone is nervous to do this kind of thing, it is likely that the kind of podcast that they would be invited on is not super high pressure to the point where millions of people are going to listen to it or watch it first thing. I mean, hopefully we'll all be building up to that at some point and we'll all have millions of followers and we'll all go viral and everything will be great. But, you know, you and I know there's... How many podcasts out there? Hundreds of thousands? Sarah - 00:32:13: So many. James - 00:32:14: There's like a million more every day. Sarah - 00:32:15: I'd have to ask my friend Jason from Earfluence how many podcasts are out there. James - 00:32:19: And so there's plenty of opportunities in this format. But I guess I'm just trying to ask, what's the worst possible thing that can happen? Sarah - 00:32:26: What's the worst that can happen? James - 00:32:26: You suck and no one hears it. So what's the problem? I mean, you don't have to share it on your own social media feed, but you're probably going to want to. Sarah - 00:32:33: You probably will. It's not going to be as bad as you think. We're really trying to encourage folks not to be as scared of it because it can be like a lot of pressure. I am not kidding when I say, I hope you never hear my first podcast. The first one that I did where I was a guest somewhere, I was so nervous and I think I had had way too much coffee and I just talked, like I don't normally talk very quickly. I was talking like really quickly and really excited because I wanted to share everything and I just really wanted to keep you engaged and the poor host, I mean, it was like a deer in the headlights kind of thing. And when I go back and listen to it, it's like, who is that? My mom would not listen to that podcast. James - 00:33:04: It was so bad. Is it like me, something that you would have deleted from the internet if you could? Sarah - 00:33:08: If I could. James - 00:33:08: Maybe it's on someone else's feed. Sarah - 00:33:09: And I won't call out. And I feel like you invite people to go find these things when you bring them up, but I'm sharing it because I want to say, I couldn't have started without starting. That first podcast had to exist if I was going to have a second podcast. And so it wasn't great, but I learned a lot when I listened to it and I was like. Girl, calm down. That really taught me a lot of how to, how to pace myself, how to act in front of a microphone. There's no way to get to the second one unless you do the first one. James - 00:33:35: Well, that's what I talk about reps, right? Sarah - 00:33:37: Yeah. James - 00:33:37: And so it's not any secret that you have to do a thing a lot of times to get any good at it. It's, that's why I bring up the fact that I sucked too. And I first started out on YouTube. And I also think what's so cool about this format, I kind of, I get a little philosophical about the job of hosting and interviewing. And I, you know, I talk about improv and my philosophy there of interviewing, right? There's a, there's a podcast, there's another podcast that I've listened to that's interviews, famous interviewers. There was a documentary about Mike Wallace, a famous interviewer that I really enjoyed. I like the movie Frost Nixon. Like I like going deep into this stuff. I once watched a documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which is a very famous documentary about a guy who's obsessed with sushi. And he's got the greatest sushi restaurant in Japan. And it's like, it serves like five people at a time. And at night he's thinking about fish and his sons are like 40 and they're still not trained enough to take over for him because he's so obsessed with it. And I have thought like, oh, that's the kind of thing I want to find that obsession. It's not going to be sushi. But I like people who are pursuing the art of mastery and finding something that they can continue to master. And interviewing and being interviewed are things that one can continue to improve at and master throughout their entire lives. And that's what's so exciting to me to have found a passion for this. And I hope others find a passion for it too. We can continue to get better and find new ways of exploring. And, of course, with a different person, it's always going to be different every time. There's a different aspect to it every time that's so exciting. Sarah - 00:35:02: And what a beautiful perspective. Someone who's so, so expert at this. And, again, your Wikipedia entry goes back to 2008 expertise on this. It was 2007. You're sharing that it's not something that you reach a certain level and get a badge. There's no A-plus for this. It's a practice. It's something we're going to keep doing. I just really love that. And I hope anyone who was listening today who felt like, eh, I'm going to check out this episode because my stuff's pretty technical. Does anyone want to hear it? And if they do... How do I go about doing that? I think what we're hearing is. One, you can do this. Two, think about some stories ahead of time. Three, if you've ever survived a job interview, you can survive a podcast. And four, the only way to get a couple episodes that you really like is to start with this first few. James - 00:35:47: And define your acronyms. Just define them like you're talking at the kitchen table to your friends or your family or Thanksgiving or something. Just make sure that you can bring other people into the conversation. And then you can build on a scaffolding of technical knowledge on top of some baseline knowledge that we all share. Sarah - 00:36:01: I love it. I honestly might go home tonight and over dinner, I'm just going to talk to my kids about what I do and see if any acronyms come up. It'll be the acronym game. I wonder what we'll find. And maybe we'll have like some Spaghetti or some like alphabet themed food. Yes. I love this. Okay. We have a couple lightning round questions that we like to ask our guests. I'm so excited. Do you like lightning round? James - 00:36:20: Of course. Sarah - 00:36:20: Great. Okay. Let's do this. How have you seen a podcast episode change someone's career, life, belief systems? Like one podcast episode, there was life before it and life after it. James - 00:36:31: Well, it was a YouTube channel, but when I had Ron Paul on my YouTube show, it really was life before and life after it because then it was like, oh wait, you're that kid who interviewed Ron Paul in your dorm room? That's kind of weird, but kind of cool and kind of weird and YouTube-y for the moment. And I got featured in like the Washington Post after that and the LA Times and it became known as that guy. So yeah, it did change it for that. Sarah - 00:36:50: And I just, as someone's hearing that, I want to. Bring in the reminder that you really started that as an experiment. James - 00:36:57: Yeah. Oh, you know what? Actually, I'm wrong. I think the Ron Paul interview came after the Washington Post, but it was the fact that I was doing a couple of episodes that caught the eye of the Washington Post in the first place. Sarah - 00:37:08: And that's what- James - 00:37:09: So yeah, doing that show absolutely changed. Changed the trajectory of my life because I was going to go be some boring consultant in New York. I was going to graduate and I had this consulting gig lined up. I already cashed the bonus check that they gave me after I signed. And I was just kind of coasting. And I found this other passion for YouTube and content creation. And I would have hated that job, by the way. But this turns out to be a viable business and it's continued. Sarah - 00:37:36: I wonder what you would have been doing today if you had taken that job. You wouldn't be sitting here with me. James - 00:37:42: I don't know, golfing or something. Or probably looking at a spreadsheet is really the answer. It would have been terrible. For me personally, no offense to any consultants out there. We need everybody to make this world work. Sarah - 00:37:52: Yeah. We don't need another exact answer. James - 00:37:54: But they can start podcasts too, actually, which they probably should. Sarah - 00:37:56: Yeah, they probably should. We're encouraging everyone. All right. Next rapid fire question. If someone wants to be a podcast guest, what's one thing you would tell them? James - 00:38:05: Well, we already said do it. That was kind of the most lightning round answer I could give. It's probably easier than you think to pitch yourself to podcasts. That's probably a whole other topic. I'm sure that this podcast series covers that or will cover that. A lot of podcasters are looking for interesting guests. And there's a whole industry, honestly, of people that, even when I had my Kotecki on Tech podcast, which I said is a passion project, a side project, I got on a list of podcasts, and then all these tech companies started pitching me. And that was cool, and I needed that because I needed to kind of keep the wheels turning for all the different guests. So you can appreciate good pitches. And if you're in something niche, there's probably not a ton of podcasts about it, and you can contact the people that are doing that. And just as much as you can pitch anyone to be on a show, you can also pitch anyone to have them on your show. You can pitch probably anybody to be on their show as well. Most of us are very approachable and easy to find. Sarah - 00:39:03: And to your point, we're going to have lots of episodes about how to write that pitch and what that should look like. And so if that's something that's at all interesting to you, the Podcast Alley website is going to have a lot of information on that. But I love about what you just said is remembering that folks might be excited to hear from you. If you have done your homework and looked up some podcasts that might be relevant to your topic and your expertise, they're going to be like, oh, sweet, we were looking for you. So just make it clear in that pitch what you could bring to the table. James - 00:39:28: I guess you could also create a little sampler of yourself and put it on YouTube and just have your friend interview you and just pretend like you're a podcast guest on another show. Sarah - 00:39:34: I have literally done that. James - 00:39:36: Why not? I'm not kidding. Put a mic in front of you, do it on Zoom or Riverside or something, and just record your side of the conversation as if it's a quote-unquote real podcast. And that's your sampler of different answers that you would give. Not only is that good practice, it helps with your stories and your speaking and everything else like that, but it's just a little video clip that you can show people. Because the other thing that I'm looking for in a guest, and you I know are as well, is like, okay, they're smart, but are they going to be an interesting, energetic, are they a good talker, basically, for this? In a particular format. And so show people that you are in a few minutes, and they'll be hooked. Sarah - 00:40:05: And you can do that on your own. You don't need anything but a friend and a Zoom account, and we all have that, right? James - 00:40:10: Unlike me in 2007, webcams are built into most computers, so you don't even really need that much. Sarah - 00:40:14: You don't even need the 2007 webcam. James - 00:40:16: No. Sarah - 00:40:16: And I will say, just a quick note on something you just said, I do think that podcast guests are looking for folks who can talk, who can have a conversation, but that is a skill you can absolutely learn, isn't it? James - 00:40:25: Yes, that's a skill. You can learn that. Sarah - 00:40:28: Not bored with that. James - 00:40:28: You've already learned your technical expertise. That was probably the best thing. That was probably harder. You can layer on the other stuff, because you can take an improv class. Sarah - 00:40:35: All right, last lightning round question. How can our listeners and viewers connect with you? If folks heard this and they were like, oh, that guy's cool. I want to connect with him. Do we recommend going back to the 2008 archives? James - 00:40:46: Do they Sarah - 00:40:46: need to check out? James - 00:40:47: People can Google that. I don't know if that's a fair representation of my interviewing skills now. I would hope that I've advanced a little bit. That was actually not only the first time a politician came to some kid's dorm room on YouTube. It was the first time I'd ever interviewed anybody in that context, really. So I was just kind of fumbling my way through it. My girlfriend, now wife, was a broadcast journalism major. So she was giving me a couple of tips just based on her, again, not her experience, her classes at school. So people can go back to that. LinkedIn is the hottest thing for me right now. So you can just, I think I may be the only James Kotecki on LinkedIn and it'll be pretty obvious which of us is the me that you're looking for. If there are a couple of other of us floating around, LinkedIn is a great place to connect. And if people want to check out the CES Tech Talk podcast or my other stuff at CES, just Google CES James Kotecki or CES Tech Talk. Or CES C Space, which is the series I do at CES. And you can see tons of those interviews. Sarah - 00:41:39: And I highly recommend it. And it's fun knowing James and watching some of those because he's at CES. He's at this big show. And you're like, I know him. You're like, elf, like, I know him. James - 00:41:47: So what am I like Santa in this scenario? Sarah - 00:41:49: Yes. The Santa of CES. James - 00:41:51: Okay, great. Again, I'm 38 years old. I'm not old enough to be a Santa yet, but I guess I'll work up to it. Sarah - 00:41:57: I can't thank you enough for this. I'm taking so many things away. I think the acronym game is really fun. And not just acronyms, but when I share what I do with folks, what do they kind of look at me like, what's that? So I love the acronym game, but I also love this permission to start, this idea of just jumping in, hearing your story, knowing how you started and how you can continue to view, even though you've reached, I think, a level of mastery, you continue to view this as a practice. And I think that gives a lot of us who want to be doing what you're doing. A lot of permission to keep practicing. Absolutely. Yeah. So great. Well, thank you for joining us. James - 00:42:29: What a great pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm James Kotecki and I'm a podcast ally. Sarah - 00:42:36: Thank you for listening and watching this podcast. If this content was helpful for you at all, and we hope that it was, please be sure to follow us. You can find us on any podcast app or of course on YouTube. And you can find us at social media. You're going to see at Podcast Ally. And if you're looking to be a guest on more podcasts, check out the resources that we have at podcastally.com. I'm Dr. Sarah Glova, and I'd love for you to follow me on LinkedIn as well. So you can find me on LinkedIn or you can visit sarahglova.com. We'll see you again soon on the Podcast Ally podcast.