Continuing Studies: for Higher Ed Podcasters

[00:00:00] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, so I started getting a lot of emails is how this all started. After I launched Dare to Disrupt, I started to get a lot of emails from other Penn State faculty and staff members saying, hey, we saw your podcast and we need to launch a podcast for our unit. I don't know what I'm doing. It looks like you know what you're doing. Could you maybe help us out with this? And I'm always happy to help people, but I also realized, hey, this is the third, fourth, fifth time I've gotten an email like this. I think all these people would benefit from knowing that they're not alone in this journey, that there's other people who are also working on podcasts at the university.
[00:00:39] Welcome to Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher education podcasters to learn and get inspired. I'm Neil McPhedran.
[00:00:46] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: And I'm Jennifer-Lee. We want you to know you're not alone. In fact, there are many of you higher ed podcasters out there and we can all learn from each other.
[00:00:54] Neil McPhedran: That's right. Before we jump into this episode, we just want to please remind you to follow our Continuing Studies page on LinkedIn.
[00:01:04] Welcome back to another episode of Continuing Studies. Jen, I'm excited for today. We're chatting with Katie DeFiore from Penn State. And she's with a podcast called Dare to Disrupt.
[00:01:15] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Yeah, this one's a little bit different. We're going to get to know that in just a second when we talk to her. But this podcast comes out of Penn State, but the person that hosts it actually came to inspire the idea for it. So can't wait to talk to her more about that.
[00:01:32] Neil McPhedran: Yes, it is quite different from some of the other ones we've chatted with. I'm interested in getting in and hearing more about her path to podcasting. She actually started as a student and now she's teaching podcasting. So that'll be really interesting to unpack that.
[00:01:47] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Yeah. It's really neat to talk to her about, because she actually learned podcasting and is doing podcasting, which is pretty cool.
[00:01:53] Neil McPhedran: She is very cool and she's a hustler. It's great. So let's get into our conversation. Welcome, Katie. It's great to have you on Continuing Studies Podcast.
[00:02:03] Katie DeFiore: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:02:04] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Yeah, I'm really excited to chat with you. Jenna, who has been on the podcast quite a few times, and Neil and I met her at last podcast movement in Denver referred us to you. I know you work with her sometimes and maybe we should just be like, do you have any dirt on her? Has she been able to teach you a lot about podcasting?
[00:02:23] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, no, no dirt on Jenna. Jenna is a wonderful human being. Yeah, she was the one who initially brought me back to Penn State after I had graduated already. And I started the Democracy Group Podcast Network together, which is still ongoing. I've since left my role with that organization, but it's very cool and was a really cool opportunity to have right after graduating.
[00:02:46] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Yeah. And like, if you haven't, I'm going to plug our podcast, listen back to when we talked to Jenna in one of the previous episodes about the Democracy Now podcast, because it's really cool. Especially now that there is an election looming in the states in the fall.
[00:03:00] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, there is. Yep. No, Jenna continues to connect me to cool opportunities all the time, so I'm forever grateful for her.
[00:03:06] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: And did she help you get into the one that you're currently in?
[00:03:08] Katie DeFiore: No, so my current one is with Invent Penn State. So Invent Penn State is the entrepreneurship initiative at the university. And I was actually involved in the entrepreneurship initiative as a student, so I was already connected in that way and got connected again after I graduated.
[00:03:25] So, yeah, the job that I'm in right now, I was actually doing part time at the same time as I was doing the Democracy Group Podcast Network job, and then this job became full time.
[00:03:34] Neil McPhedran: Maybe just tell us a little bit about Dare to Disrupt.
[00:03:38] Katie DeFiore: Sure. So Dare to Disrupt is a podcast about Penn State alumni who are innovators and leaders and entrepreneurs. And we like to, as the name implies, share stories of how these individuals have disrupted an industry in some shape or form. And so it's based on, if you've ever listened to How I Built This. Same concept where they're, we're going into the, you know, behind the scenes look of how did this company start, uh, and interviewing the founder of said company.
[00:04:10] But a Penn State spin, so there's a lot of really interesting and really disruptive alumni who come out of Penn State doing really cool businesses. Um, so it's a monthly podcast, it's hosted by Penn State alum, Ryan Newman, who is a managing partner at Goldman Sachs. And, uh, he is also wonderful to work with. And I am the producer of the podcast.
[00:04:31] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Usually when we talk to people, it's the people working in the universities that start these podcasts. But this one's a little bit different because Ryan actually came to you guys and said, let's start a podcast.
[00:04:43] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. So podcasting wasn't initially part of my job. I was doing mostly newsletters, email marketing, story writing. But I had a background in podcasting, and then Ryan had approached the director of my office, and said, hey, I love what you're doing with all of your entrepreneurial programming. I happen to know a lot of Penn State alumni who are very successful in this space and would love to, you know, he didn't even know what to call it.
[00:05:10] Like he didn't have the word podcast. He was just like, I just want to interview these people and then use that content in some way to support what you're doing. And the director of our office, James Delattre said, well, we actually have Katie on our team who has a background in podcasting. So let's connect the two of you. And it's been great ever since, it's been a wonderful partnership.
[00:05:29] Neil McPhedran: I think that's really interesting. And I think that's something quite interesting for our audience as well to think about, um, because I'm sure alumni organizations have alumni that approach them and want to get involved and whatnot. So can you just sort of dig into that a little bit more for us?
[00:05:46] Katie DeFiore: Sure. Yeah. I mean, it was honestly a wonderful blessing because we were looking for opportunities to engage alumni. And this is sort of like an interesting pipeline for us to have alumni come on the show. And then we can sort of use that as a doorway for them to become involved with other programming because we love to have our alumni speak as speakers at our events for students, to become advisors to different student entrepreneurs on campus and just become involved in our programming in general. So it was just a wonderful opportunity to start that pipeline of sorts. What should have been like a several month process, we kind of did in about one month was from the time the idea was communicated to me.
[00:06:31] Like, hey, we want this podcast. Can you make it happen in like a month? And I said, oh, all right. Yeah, sure. He didn't come to me with like a name or like a plan of what this is going to look like or anything. So I created a whole basically like five, six page document that outlined, okay, what is this podcast going to be about? Who's going to be the people we interview? Who is our audience? Like, who is this for? Who's our secondary audience? Like, what's the format going to be? What's, I did like a competition analysis, like what other podcasts are already out there. So then make sure we don't like step on anyone's toes and we don't do something that already exists. And if something like this already exists, all right, what are we going to do differently?
[00:07:09] So I put together all of that. and brought it back to Ryan and then my director as well and said, okay, here's what I came up with. And then my team actually works with a, an outside vendor to do our design work, or at least some of it, because we have a lot of different programs that we do. So our one designer can't do everything. So we outsource a lot of it and they designed our podcast logo, our branding for the podcast. And, uh, helped us with the thought exercise for what we were going to name the podcast as well. So it was a big process that happened in like three or four weeks before we had our first guest in.
[00:07:47] I think the process started in like July and we launched in like late August or something like that. So it was a quick turnaround, but it was a lot of fun.
[00:07:56] Neil McPhedran: I love how you tackled that as a business. Like, like you were starting up a business almost like with your SWOT analysis and your so on and so forth. I'm sure Ryan would have appreciated that.
[00:08:07] Katie DeFiore: For sure. Yeah. I mean, it's not dissimilar to do the marketing that you need to do for a business, and the ideation you have to do for a business, is not dissimilar from a lot of the stuff that we do here on a marketing team.
[00:08:20] Neil McPhedran: Totally agree. That's a great lens to put on it.
[00:08:22] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Yeah. That's why I always like telling people, especially clients, when I work with them on podcasts. It's like, you're already doing a lot of this stuff for your marketing, so why don't you make it cohesive of your podcast? Because your podcast is an even further, deeper dive into what's going on with your business. So too many people think of it separate, but I love that it's like, no, let's work hand in hand with it. Because it actually just strengthens any marketing strategy that we're doing, even if it isn't podcast related.
[00:08:46] Katie DeFiore: Yeah. That was definitely part of that document I was talking about as well, was how does this fit into the grander scheme of everything that we're doing, right? Because Invent Penn State, the organization I work for within Penn State, has like, I don't even remember how many brands. We manage a lot of different programs underneath of that. And so we had to think through how does this podcast fit within what we already are doing, as well as what we're planning to doing. So we're always creating new programming and, um, building new things in the background. So we had to make sure that everything was going to be in sync and everything could feed into one another rather than, you know, accidentally duplicating work.
[00:09:24] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Love it. And for people that don't know or not familiar with Invent Penn State, what is it?
[00:09:29] Katie DeFiore: Yeah. So Invent Penn State is an entrepreneurship initiative at Penn State University. It includes a lot of different programming, as I mentioned, but some of the bigger programming that people, that may be more visible are the LaunchBox and Innovation Network, which is a network of twenty-one LaunchBox and Innovation spaces. So these are physical spaces where people can take their business idea. It can be a community member. It could be a Penn State student. It could be a faculty member. It could be literally anyone in the community take their business idea to this space and say, hey, I want to start this business. What do I do?
[00:10:02] And so there's accelerator programs that are totally free for those people to go through. And there's lots of resources. There's maker spaces at a lot of them, and they're located all across the state of Pennsylvania, which is also really cool. So just like Penn state has multiple campuses, there's multiple LaunchBox locations. So that's the big one. We also run a lot of other programming pitch competitions for students to get money for. They're for their startups, things of that nature. So this podcast was really just the start into a space that we hadn't really tapped yet, which is the alumni space. We want to get more alumni involved in that programming and have them act as mentors, act as advisors, be guest speakers for all these programs and events that we run.
[00:10:42] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: And it brings more awareness to this organization because that's the thing is Neil and I chat to a lot of like areas like the science department or the business department and they create podcasts but the fact that Penn State offers other things beyond education and like you said community members can go, and if they have an idea create, I think that's pretty amazing.
[00:11:04] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, it's a super cool organization that a lot of people don't know about. We're doing our best in our marketing team to, to get, um, more awareness around the opportunities. I think it's a little hard for people to, to believe that there's stuff like this, that's totally free to them. They're like, what's the catch, but there really is no catch. Like, everyone owns their IP fully. Like we don't take any, anything from them. It's totally a free opportunity.
[00:11:29] Neil McPhedran: So that's amazing. So Ryan is not officially, directly part of your team. And what's, how does that work? And how is that working with a host that isn't necessarily part of your team, which you know, normally, um, that's sort of how these things work with school podcasts. So tell us a little bit about that.
[00:11:51] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: And he doesn't live where you live either, right?
[00:11:54] Katie DeFiore: No, yeah. No, he doesn't live here. It's actually worked really, really well. It's really smooth process. And that's largely because, I will give him major props, because he has this thing called experience transformers, which are basically documents that break down everything that you just did in a project and say, okay, what was the good thing that you did?
[00:12:15] What were some of the mistakes that we made? What are some actionable steps we can take to make this better? And then who needs to do those things? And so what we would do for every single episode, we actually haven't done one in a while because we're like a well-oiled machine now. But uh, for the first like ten, fifteen episodes, we've each filled out one of these documents, uh, and sent them to each one another, and so his focus would be on things that I could do better. And my focus would be on things he could do better, and we just improved from there. So it was really cool. He was very receptive to, to feedback, as was I, and so from there we were able to improve the podcast. in a way that was very easy and efficient for, for both of us. And yeah, I mean, we do email back and forth. I'm his main point of contact for the podcast, anything to do with it.
[00:13:00] So there's not really anyone else on my team that is interfacing with him on it. So it kind of helps that he has me as his go to person if he has any ideas or questions or anything like that. But I work with him to schedule, uh, the podcast as well. So usually I connect with him, find some days in whatever month we're looking to schedule a podcast during, and he tells me like, okay, I'm free this day, this day, this day, from this time to this time. And I send those times to our guest and, uh, we get something scheduled. So it's a totally virtual experience, but we have a process that's pretty, pretty clean.
[00:13:35] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: I like the fact that you guys are critiquing each other and we've never really had that happen on any of the podcasts, that the fact that you're doing it in house critique. It's usually like the communications department is being critiqued by the people on top or vice versa, but never like within a team. So I think that's great that because that really helps you improve when you take a look at what's going on and you're able to move forward and something else that you guys have figured out and something you tried is a live podcast.
[00:14:04] Can you explain a little bit what that requires you guys to do?
[00:14:07] Katie DeFiore: Oh yeah. So we did our first ever live in person podcast episode recording this past March twenty twenty-four and it was a success. It was a lot of work to figure out how that was going to run. Luckily, we could piggyback off of the marketing that was already happening.
[00:14:23] So it took place during Penn State Startup Week. Penn State Startup Week powered by PNC, which is another event that my office oversees as part of Invent Penn State. And so because it was an event that I already had a hand in helping market and my team's already heavily involved in, it was very easy to say like, hey, we're throwing in this live podcast episode recording.
[00:14:43] Like, let's make digital ads for this and have it be in family with everything else that we're already using, all the other marketing materials that we're using for Startup Week. And so that was nice because we didn't have to hope and plead and pray that some people who listen to the podcast would be available that day, uh, to come and become the audience.
[00:15:04] The audience was already made up of people who were already engaged with, uh, the events happening that week. Um, and so it was a pretty good turnout. We had about, I think, twenty-five people in person and then thirty to forty people online in attendance. Um, so it was cool that we were able to live stream it. Uh, the live streaming part, we, I didn't have to, I didn't have to handle on my own, which is great. We actually have a student organization on campus that we frequently work with, uh, to live stream our events. So students get experience with, um, video equipment and live streaming. And then we get their services for a reasonable cost. Um, so that was really nice that we were able to work that out.
[00:15:42] And then, uh, honestly, on my end, it was just like making sure all of the pieces were there and all the pieces were together and purchasing mics because we'd never recorded in person before so I didn't have a need to have, uh, microphones and making sure all of that technology was set up to work properly, uh, making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be and when, and was the bulk of it. So it was really good. Uh, so Ryan ended up interviewing Justin Rosenberg, who is the CEO and founder of Honeygrow. Honeygrow is a restaurant chain that is very popular in Pennsylvania and Maryland area.
[00:16:19] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Great. I was like, oh, that sounds like amazing. I just looked up their website. I was like, Honeygrow, honest eating, growing local. I was like, tell them the franchise in Canada here.
[00:16:32] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, I'll see what I can do. We're still trying to get them to put a location here in State College.
[00:16:36] Neil McPhedran: So it sounds like the live event was successful. You'll plan to tackle others, uh, in the future.
[00:16:45] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, I think it's definitely easier to make those sorts of live events part of events that we're already doing. So we always regularly have startup week so we can do this again next year. We always have regularly, uh, a conference called the Venture and IP Conference. So we'll probably do one for that as well. That's a different audience, but honestly might be more like closer to the audience that we are targeting with our podcast.
[00:17:08] Startup Week is more for current students and our podcast is largely targeted at alumni, whereas the Venture and IP Conference tends to be a lot of graduate students and researchers and alumni and people in business who are external to the university. So those might be able to tap more, uh, alumni and also other people outside of the university to listen in.
[00:17:31] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: And after the live podcast, did you see a spike in audience or better engagement, or like, did you get good feedback from live?
[00:17:40] Katie DeFiore: I did get a lot of good feedback from the people who were in attendance. Um, I didn't see a major spike or anything like that on a listenership side. There was a little bit of one, but it's also really hard to tell what it was from because we also started doing, we ran a sponsorship package on WHYY in Philly as well around the same time. So it's kind of hard to tell where the new listeners are coming from. It could be from that. It could be from the live episode, but yeah, there wasn't a major spike, but we're just happy to have an engaged audience. Uh, I say that a lot, that our metric of success is not the number of listeners. It is rather the quality of the listeners, as well as the engagement that happens from the alumni who are on the podcast.
[00:18:21] Neil McPhedran: Yeah. That's great. I think that makes a lot of sense. It's not necessarily about growing some huge Joe Rogan size podcast. Like as you stated, sort of back in our conversation, you've identified who your target audience is, your primary and your secondary. You know, I think to stick to that and to engage them makes a lot of sense. And with the live events, I found with other podcasts that we work with, your strategy of tagging into an existing event is perfect. I think it does three things. One, it's content, which you need for episodes. Two, it's an opportunity for your audience to, your existing audience, to attend and engage with Ryan, the host, but three, it's also a discovery mechanism probably as well, too. It's a great opportunity to expose the show to others that might not know about it, but haven't tuned in yet. So I think those live events are, you know, definitely more work from a regular episode, but when you put that lens on it and when you piggyback something else, that's already happening, I think it makes a lot of sense.
[00:19:24] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think I said that the audience for Startup Week is a little bit different from who our target audience is, but we do have a student portion of our podcast that always ends each episode where we have a student, a current student guest, come on and ask the alumni guest questions of their own.
[00:19:40] Um, and those often lead to mentorship opportunities where the alumni guest becomes a mentor for the student guest that came on. And so it's a great opportunity for the students in that audience during Startup Week to learn about that opportunity and say, hey, maybe I don't want to listen to this podcast regularly, but I would love to be a guest and talk to the alumni.
[00:20:00] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: And Katie, you're so talented. You actually started off taking a course in podcasting and now you're teaching a course in podcasting. Can you tell us kind of what happened there?
[00:20:10] Katie DeFiore: Yeah. So I was part of the first, uh, ever podcasting class at Penn State. Um, I actually had to like try and beg people to take that class because not enough people were signed up for it. And I was like, I need to take this class. Um, And it was a wonderful class. I learned so much from it. Um, and we actually got the opportunity during that class to meet Sarah Koenig, the host of Serial. Um, the original host of Serial, which is just an incredible opportunity. There was only like ten people in the class, so Sarah Koenig was just like, so, sitting next to me answering my questions. It was, I was a little bit starstruck because she's the reason that I got into podcasting.
[00:20:52] So that was a super cool experience. And then fast forward to now, uh, Jenna actually wrote the curriculum for an online podcasting class for Penn State. And she reached out to me and said, hey, there's going to be another section of this class. Uh, would you like to teach it with me? I said, yeah, that'd be great.
[00:21:08] So I will be teaching a section. She'll be teaching a section, uh, this coming fall. So I'm very excited to dive into that. I've never taught a college level class before, so it'll be a new experience for me. I've taught high schoolers and I've taught middle schoolers, but I haven't taught college, so I guess I'm just working my way up.
[00:21:27] Neil McPhedran: That's wonderful. That's a great story, and I think it shows, um, how that opportunity you had to take that course and where you've taken it and now you're producing a podcast. And when Ryan came and said, hey, I want to do this, and you were there. So I think that's a great reason for schools to think about offering this kind of teaching podcasting and all the positive things that it can bring out from that.
[00:21:52] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, and it doesn't sound like they're going to struggle to fill this class the way that they did when, back in twenty sixteen when I took it. It's going to be, um, a popular course now. I think podcasting is much, people are much more aware of the medium and people, a lot of students are interested in becoming content creators, whatever that may mean. So any class that they can get their hands on, I think, in that sort of sphere is going to be in high demand.
[00:22:18] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: You're also a hustler, Katie, so the fact that you were able to get other people to take that course with you so it would happen, I feel like you're going to go around and get this course built, and it will be like a wait list.
[00:22:30] Katie DeFiore: Well, I hope so. I don't think I have anything to do with the recruiting for this class at this point. I think it'll go well, and I'm very excited to teach it.
[00:22:37] Neil McPhedran: You've been doing something interesting on your end at Penn State from, uh, podcast community. Can you just sort of tell us a little bit more about that?
[00:22:44] Katie DeFiore: Yeah. So I started getting a lot of emails is how this all started. Uh, after I launched Dare to Disrupt, I started to get a lot of emails from other Penn State faculty and staff members saying, hey, I saw your podcast. Which, A, that's great. That means the marketing is working, but B, we saw your podcast and we need to launch a podcast for our unit.
[00:23:07] I don't know what I'm doing. Um, it looks like, you know, what you're doing. Could you maybe help us out with this? Um, and I'm always happy to help people, but I also realized, hey, this is the third, fourth, fifth time I've gotten an email like this. I think all these people would benefit from knowing that they're not alone in this journey, that there's other people who are also working on podcasts at the university. Plus, it was, is worthwhile to recognize, oh, this podcast already exists. Maybe I need to do something a little bit different because there's already one like this at Penn State. The university is so large. There's so many campuses. It's hard to keep track of everything, uh, that's going on everywhere. And so there's also a lot of collaboration opportunities.
[00:23:46] So I said, how can I pull all these people together? Um, so I created the Penn State Podcasting Community of Practice. I basically just tracked down all of the podcasts that exist at Penn State. Um, made a list, uh, found the people who are responsible for them, put them into a Teams channel and said, hey, I don't, you weren't, you didn't ask to become part of this, but now you are.
[00:24:07] You can opt out of it, but I think it's really going to be beneficial for all of you to know that everyone, you know, exists that is in this channel. Um, everyone here has a podcast or is teaching a podcasting class. And so, uh, we do meet quarterly and there's just an open Teams channel for people to ask questions whenever they feel the need to. And, uh, that's been really great too. Sort of have built that one stop shop for people to go saying, oh, I know that there's other people doing the same thing as me and are having the same problems as I'm having. And it's been very low maintenance on my end. A big lift was just at the beginning to find all the different podcasts and connect all the people. And now it's just sort of a, self-sustaining little community, which is really cool.
[00:24:51] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: You're amazing. I feel like you're ahead of like half the people. And I feel like if you didn't have a job, Neil and I would definitely hire you.
[00:25:01] Katie DeFiore: Well, I appreciate that.
[00:25:03] Neil McPhedran: Yeah, that's great. Way to take the bull by the horns there because it needs that first person to get it going. And, uh, I like the name you've applied to it. So the takeaway there is someone's got to just take the bull by the horns and start it, get it going, connect to everyone, and then everyone starts to then, the community there happens basically.
[00:25:23] Katie DeFiore: Yep.
[00:25:24] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: And just, it's very similar and just plug in Higher Ed Pods that we got going on. And I know Katie and a few of you, Katie's also been amazing at spraying the word because a few of the Penn State ones have joined us on a Higher Ed Pods. So, it's the same thing, but it's instead of connecting just Penn State, it's connecting the global community of all the universities around the world. So, we thank you on that. And of course, you can find more information on Higher Ed Pods somewhere, Neil.
[00:25:52] Neil McPhedran: We'll put the link in there.
[00:25:53] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: There we go. I was like, I don't know.
[00:25:55] Neil McPhedran: Along with all the links of the things that Katie talked about today as well, too.
[00:26:01] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Perfect. I feel like we could talk all day long as usual, but we'll let you go because I know you've probably got other stuff to do.
[00:26:08] Katie DeFiore: This is true. This is true. I also do video and story writing and newsletter writing and all the other stuff that I also do.
[00:26:17] Neil McPhedran: Thank you so much, Katie. It's been wonderful having you on the Continuing Studies podcast.
[00:26:21] Katie DeFiore: Yeah, it's been great to be a guest. Thank you for having me.
[00:26:24] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Thank You.
[00:26:24] Neil McPhedran: Well, Jen, that was great. I really enjoyed chatting with Katie and learning more about her background, her career, as well as the, um, Dare to Disrupt podcast. I think one of the things that is a great takeaway for our audience is, you know, I'm sure other people approach an alumni organization or a school and they're like, hey, I want to do something.
[00:26:49] I've got a whole book of contacts and I want to get involved. And I think there's some really good learnings here of pointing Ryan in the direction of, how about we do a podcast. It's a great story of it can work. And I think you can, you know, you can work with outside, um, team members, uh, and obviously, uh, the success that they've garnered is a proof point and a way to engage, uh, alumni that want to really get involved.
[00:27:19] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Yeah. I just feel like we're talking to all these universities and there's so many areas that I didn't even realize that universities have. Because you just think about like, oh, it's the science department or it's the business department or whatever. But like the fact that they have sections that help entrepreneurs create businesses and it's not limited to just the students.
[00:27:41] They want to help the community and engage the community. So I just get inspired by hearing all this. And that's a great thing about meeting all these people and listening to their different podcasts. It's like they're taking the veil off of the institutions and showing all the things that they actually do besides education.
[00:27:59] Neil McPhedran: Yeah. And it just shows how podcasting is such a great way to engage a community and to get that involvement for sure, so. I also really appreciate Katie's hustle in driving the Penn State Podcaster community as well, too. Really, at the end of the day, it's about, it's someone who wants to run with it, and someone who needs to start it, and then it'll kind of get going from there. But the fact that she took that on, and decided, hey, I'm going to track down all the podcasts, proactively invited them all into a Teams or if your university is Slack, whatever it is, I think it's a great path forward.
[00:28:33] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Yeah, she's great. I think she's a hidden gem. I think she is a great asset to the school. And I was like, oh, I kind of want to like scoop her up. She, she's like a head of you and I feel like.
[00:28:44] Neil McPhedran: Yeah, she's great. Okay. Well, another great episode of Continuing Studies and we've got some really exciting guests ahead in the next couple of episodes. So stay tuned.
[00:28:57] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Can't wait.
[00:28:58] Neil McPhedran: See you, Jen.
[00:28:58] Jennifer-Lee Gunson: Bye.
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