The Other Side of the Mic

International Podcast Day is coming up, and, in case you missed it, SolarWinds has its own podcast called TechPod, so we want to celebrate! Much of the time one of us (Head Geeks) get to host the podcast, but today I want to talk about what it’s like to guest on a podcast.

I want to preface this discussion by first thanking the incredible team who runs and supports TechPod. These beautiful people keep the whole thing running and make us sound good. They record us, edit out the flubs, work through audio issues with us, keep us on track (and time!), work with our incredible guests on scheduling and whatnot, and so much more. So, thank you for being awesome!

Our incredible guests allow us to have fun and talk about great things, and we’ve been lucky to have several THWACK MVPs on as guests. They’re wonderful people and continually make this community better for their presence. I thought I would take a few minutes to highlight the guest experience for TechPod.

You might be wondering: what’s the process?

When you agree to be a guest, we try to make it as little work as possible for you. Typically, there’s a topic in mind, and we set up a preliminary chat. This accomplishes a couple of things: we get to know each other a bit or catch up if we’re already friends, we go over the general outline for the podcast (intro, talk, outro, and any other odds and ends), discuss the technical needs (audio check, what platform we use, etc.), then we discuss the topic a bit. This lets us get to know your stance, how comfortable on the mic you are, and when we have multiple guests, it allows us time to learn to balance personalities. Then, we schedule a date/time to record the podcast, actually record it, and then let you know when it’s published. That’s about it.

The goal for us as hosts is to ensure you have a good time, keep the conversation flowing, and do the boring intro/outro bits. We do our best to meet these goals every time.

In my experience as a guest and host, it’s a fun time for everyone. It’s like sitting in a room with colleagues and friends chatting about things we care about. Sometimes it’s a friendly debate, sometimes it involves a lot of laughter, and impassioned speeches. We get to discuss things ranging from pieces of tech, favorite tools, “soft” skills, careers, and more.

In the before times, and maybe again in future times, the podcast was recorded in a studio, so we also got the opportunity to hang out in person. Our wonderful team pivoted to remote like the rest of IT last year. As with much of the last year, it provided both challenges and opportunities. One of the greatest opportunities has been the flexibility to have more guests on, no matter where they are or how busy their schedules are.

While we haven’t been able to meet up in a while, we have had some great conversations with our MVPs on TechPod. As you may have noticed them around the THWACK forums, they are a font of knowledge and generally good for fun conversation. I always relish the opportunity to hang out with them, and TechPod allows us to do that while benefiting from their vast experience.

So, if you missed their appearances on TechPod, I have a few of interest listed below. I want to thank them all again for hanging out with us and sharing their stories and experience with us all. The community is only better for having them. I look forward to more in future.

Futureproofing. Your Other Full-Time Job Part I and Part II featuring silverbacksays

Automated Compliance featuring CourtesyIT

Tech Career Origin Stories featuring mesverrum, jm_sysadmin, and Radioteacher

Celebrating SysAdmin Day 2021 featuring zennifer

From Monitoring Engineer to Leadership featuring Radioteacher

IT Monitoring: Managing Up featuring HerrDoktor