Continuing Studies: for Higher Ed Podcasters

Fabian Marrone: Academic freedom is at the core of what we do.

And you have to be willing to tell the story of the entirety of the institution, and we're here to serve the public good.

It's our job.

If we haven't given people the opportunity to hear that academic voice, to understand that research, to understand that expertise, then we haven't done our job.

Neil McPhedran: Welcome to Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher education podcasters to learn and get inspired.

I'm Neil McPhedran, founder of Podium Podcast Company, where we help university podcasters level up.

Jennifer-Lee: And I'm Jennifer-Lee, founder of JPod Creations, podcasting is broadcasting.

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.

Neil McPhedran: Don't forget to check out HigherEdPods.com where we are building a community of higher education podcasters,
and we actually almost had a thousand university podcasts in the network, the directory that we've created there.

So yeah, it's, we're growing it every week.

Jennifer-Lee: And it lets us discover great new podcasts like the one we interviewed today.

Neil McPhedran: That's right.

But before we get there, we gotta remember to remind everyone preregistration is open for the Higher Ed Pod Con in Chicago in July, July 12th.

And that URL for preregistration is Higher Ed Pod Con, HigherEdPodCon.com.

Hope to see you there.

And yes, Jen, we talked to our first Australian podcast in this episode.

Jennifer-Lee: Down Under.

Neil McPhedran: Down Under.

We had a really great conversation with Susan and Fabian from Monash University, which is in the Melbourne area.

And their podcast, What Happens Next, which is for the whole university, this is sort of one of their key communication channels for the whole university, actually.

Jennifer-Lee: And it's so unique.

It's so gutsy.

I love it.

The topics they have, you wouldn't even think of.

It's not your typical podcast that we've been interviewing, where it looks at academia, looks at different things that are going around on campus.

This one is like, what's going to happen with climate change?

Neil McPhedran: Yeah, big, hairy topics.

Jennifer-Lee: Yeah.

Like the one that I looked into, which I'm really fascinated right now is like, just people being angry and getting upset with everybody.

So just like road rage or just walking on the street and how everybody's angry.

So they do a lot of different topics.

Neil McPhedran: Because Susan and Fabian have such great accents.

We're just going to let them introduce themselves.

Jennifer-Lee: Love it.

Let's get into it.

Dr. Susan Carland: Hello, my name is Susan Carland.

I am an academic at Monash university.

I am a sociologist at Monash university.

I specialize actually in the sociology of religion.

I am part of the What Happens Next podcast.

I have the least important role, which is I'm the host.

I'm the shop front, but all the important work is done behind the scenes by other much more impressive, thoughtful people.

And the podcast, What Happens Next, the title kind of implies what it's about, which is, we were really
curious to look at, there's all these big challenges facing the world, sometimes called wicked problems.

And in many ways, it feels like the world or certain countries in the world or certain societies, are careening down this one way direction of a highway.

It looks like things are getting worse and there can be this sense of doom and gloom that we all have.

Things are not getting better.

Why are these not improving?

What happens if we don't fix these things?

Like how bad could things get?

But similarly, working at a university, we're surrounded by people whose whole lives and their jobs are about trying to solve and tackle these wicked problem.

And actually they have great ideas about how things can be changed and things can be fixed.

What Happens Next is also about, it's an exploration of what happens if we don't change, but what happens if we do?

What happens if we use these great realizations, revelations, discoveries, inventions that are awash at every university and learning institution and, and think tanks and all these places.

What if we actually implement what they're saying can fix things?

How could the world look different?

Jennifer-Lee: I love it.

And Fabian, how did you get started with this podcast?

And how did you come up with different topics?

Fabian Marrone: Thank you, Jen.

And thank you, Neil.

Thanks for having us here today.

Um, my name is Fabian Marrone, I'm the Chief Marketing, Admissions and Communications Officer and I'm the Interim Chief Executive Officer of Monash College.

Um, in 2016, 2017, we explored the university's, uh, brand value proposition and therefore it's positioning out to the world.

And we came up with something called, if you don't like it, change it.

It's kind of a rallying cry and saying, you know, the world's at a particular injunction.

And if you want to come somewhere to make change, or you see a problem in the world, Monash is the place to come as an educator to create change, as a student, as
a researcher, professional staff member, or really just as a community to find different avenues to create change than those that are typically in the mainstream.

What Happens Next is, it's almost an extension of that.

We highlighted a lot of, as you know, Susan has explored wicked problems, grand challenges, climate change and geopolitical insecurity, all of those things within that brand campaign.

But What Happens Next kind of brings it to a different level and a different perspective.

It looks at the trajectory of possibilities in the future depending the decisions we make as a human race.

So if we make this decision, this is the outcome.

If we make a different decision, the outcome could be totally different.

And it explores that in a way that also then gives really practical advice on how you can contribute to creating positive change towards some really wicked problems.

So it actually brings that really big, not only brand idea and purpose of why universities are there to serve the public interest and highlight it, but it says, this is the way you can make change.

And that in some cases, isn't coming to a university to create that change.

It's doing some really practical things in your life.

And it just appeals to different audiences in, in different locations.

And I think, you know, the, the complexities around how you come up with topic areas, I think this is as much about content curation as it is
about the news cycle, as it is about things that are important to our community and our people, but also things that are important to the world.

So ideas have come from in and about everywhere.

They come from academics who are doing amazing work and research at Monash.

They come at really difficult times, um, in society and climate change and different things.

They come up with and align with newsworthy or big moments in time.

Um, so there's a whole different range that these topics come up.

And Susan is central to some of the, the topics that come to mind in her role as a, not only an academic, but someone who's an integral part of Australian society.

And so we get a lot of ideas for a lot of different places.

I guess my role in that is part of the curation of those ideas.

I'm really only the facilitator or enabler.

I, I take a back seat and these guys do all the great work as does our academics and guests.

Neil McPhedran: That's great.

So just so I understand then, and just for the audience as well, this podcast is a voice for the whole university then, right?

It's not just a school within the university or a faculty within the university.

This podcast really plays into that brand positioning that you so well explained, but it also is an overall voice for the university.

Do I have that right?

Fabian Marrone: Yeah, I think it's an overall voice for the entirety of what we define our university community to be.

So while we'll have academics from different faculties involved, we also have alumni, we also have current students.

We've also explored professional staff being involved in some of those components and future students.

So it extends to all the audiences across our communities and all the different faculties.

So it is, you know, university wide.

Neil McPhedran: Why a podcast then?

Like you could have, sort of done a YouTube channel or, you probably have a mix of other channels, but I'm sort of curious how you settled on, as
our audience as podcasters, how you settled on a podcast to be such an important medium channel for this really big topic that you're tackling?

Fabian Marrone: I think What Happens Next is part of a multi channel, multi content strategy.

So we've done a full feature length documentaries and we've done installations.

We've done brand campaigns.

We do physical, uh, short installation documentaries in a different lens.

And What Happens Next, and podcasts appeal to different audiences and in different, you know, on commutes in different places that our other brand campaigns don't reach in some cases.

But it's also just in a way that some people like to digest information.

We've got a brand strategy which focuses on content rather than paying for media and those types of things.

Let's just produce really fantastic content and then we will reach the right people.

So that's where our investment goes.

And podcasting is a different way to tell a multifaceted story and explore topics in a more conversational
manner, if I'm really honest, has a lot less curation and editing from our part than our other pieces.

It is more of a flow.

And we don't, put the scrutiny as we would on some other brand pieces because it's not intended to be a heavily branded piece of content.

It's tended to be focused on the different three-sixty views on a particular topic.

So it's a different audience in some perspectives on a different channel, but a different approach with greater flexibility and greater conversational tone.

Jennifer-Lee: Listening to the podcast, I think probably yours is one of the best produced podcasts I've listened to.

And Neil will tell you that I'm really harsh on sound and I really pick things apart.

But I was like, wow, you guys do a little bit of kind of documentary feel where you're like doing voiceover and then you're putting music under it.

And you're doing things that are not just the regular flow, I guess, of podcasters.

Sounds amazing.

I was like, yes, I like listening to this podcast.

Is there a topic that you have not done yet that you would love to explore?

Dr. Susan Carland: The way we pick and decide on topics is very collaborative and it's a long process.

So often the smaller podcast team will come together and, and throw ideas up.

And often it's just been things that we're personally interested in.

Like I'm interested in this, what's going on here or things that we're hearing a lot of people talk about.

And so we sort of chuck all that into the mix and then we have a vote.

What's interesting, and there might be, there have certainly been things I'll put forward.

I keep pushing this.

I think we need to do something specifically on the role of religion in society, and I may be slightly biased.

But I feel like this is, you know, it's so contentious and not just talking about religious practices.

That's not what I'm trying to talk about, but religion and politics and culture and the way they combine.

We see it everywhere.

Around the world.

And it has such an impact.

Strangely, no one else seems interested.

I keep putting it on the board and then it gets voted down.

So it's very democratic in that perspective, but also, you know, what we've realized is we've done nearly, I think I've done nearly two hundred interviews.

I think we also, we've covered a lot.

And so we start to feel that even when we get into the specific ideas, often we keep coming back to the broader themes that we're exploring.

We have gone through a lot.

I'd like this on the public record.

I think we need to do something on religion.

Maybe I'll get that into the last season, but it also has to be democratic.

And that's actually been really good because we need to also make sure that this doesn't just become the hobby horse
of one person who has something that they really care about, but it needs to have broader market appeal as well.

And so a lot of people are involved in the topics that end up on the cutting room floor and the ones that we do focus on.

Jennifer-Lee: Fabian, any topics that were nixed for you or are all your topics winners?

Fabian Marrone: I think this is all about timing, and I think, what Susan mentioned as a topic there in
religious impact on our society and its intersection with politics, the timing is probably right for that now.

And I think that it's important to share the three-sixty views on a topic because, you know, it is about, as I said in the beginning,
what is the, you know, we've got to make decisions as a society and depending on those decisions, our future looks very different.

And there's a lot going on in that space that I think should be unpacked and explored.

So I think that would make a very good next discussion topic for our podcast.

As Susan says, look, we've done so many podcasts and I think now it's about, probably, you don't go back, but you might explore different parts in more detail.

I think there's a lot happening in the AI space.

There's a lot happening in the crypto space at the moment, and there's a lot happening in the, those spaces
and intersection with policy, um, that's happening in a lot of countries, which is really interesting.

And I think that there will definitely need to be exploration in that.

I think there is a lot happening in, in social cohesion in society, and we have a lot to contribute in that space, and that might link it with some of what Susan was talking about previously.

But our role is to really put our expertise, thought leaders, and academic experts, and the community into the spotlight to explore different options
on how we face some of these hard issues and I think, you know, we're at that time that there are some hard issues that we need to explore in a society.

And I think we might be looking into some of those areas in the future.

Neil McPhedran: I love your process, the, the way that, you know, you've got a larger team that sort of picks your topics and whatnot.

And as Jen said, your show is quite high production.

So, as our audience is other podcasters, what is the structure of your team then?

And there must be a bunch of people on the back end working on this.

So, just sort of curious about your structure, because I know that's one thing we get.

You know, in the university podcast space, there's a lot of like one and two man bands.

And then you have others like your show, which I'm guessing has a bigger team structure.

Fabian Marrone: There's a team that works on the podcast in terms of production, in terms of the researching topics and the finding and
selection of individuals, and the project management component of it, developing the digital assets and then the sound and proofing.

But there is then the teams that sit across, which we look at the communications of that.

So feeding into a social media team and feeding into the media team, which would do press releases in relation to the topic.

And then integrating into more of the marketing marcoms where we will say, this is our full landscape of topics that we will cover across our entire brand ecosystem.

And how does that intersect and connect?

There is the core team that do the development of the podcast.

And then there are the team that integrates with and intersects to make sure that it finds its place, not only within our ecosystem, but has its space to breathe and grow.

But, you know, our podcasts, I will be part of the review process and the listening process.

So will people, our vice chancellor, listen to those and understanding how they're topics.

So these are really thoughtful, but they're really well known pieces of communications from our area.

So there's a bigger team that goes into it, but Susan might tell that the behind the scenes.

Dr. Susan Carland: Yeah.

And I guess I, I want to jump in and add on this because since we've started the podcast, I've had quite a few people reach out
to me internally at Monash University, but also from other universities saying, how do you guys do it, like, what's the mechanics?

And what they don't realize is how many people are behind it.

So it's lovely that you say it sounds good.

And that's because so much is invested in this.

And I think a lot of people, and understandably, they sort of think, look, I've got a microphone and a laptop and there's editing equipment available free online.

Why can't I start a podcast?

And you can, absolutely you can, but for something to sound polished, like, you know, so much goes into the audio and the editing and so much goes into the production.

So much also goes into the research of guests.

I think people just listen to an interview and think, oh, they were good.

They have no understanding of what it's like to find talent.

Good talent and bad talent, people who can speak really well in an interview, people for a whole host of reasons, just are not great talent.

So finding them in the first place, finding people who will be good on the podcast, takes a lot of digging and researching.

Who's good on the topic, but who can speak well, and then editing that down.

So we have a team, we have an executive producer, we have a producer, we have a sound engineer and an editor, and we have a videographer.

And that's not including me also coming in as host as well.

And you know, so from the idea of an episode to the end, when it's, it's published as a podcast, that's about three months of work.

And not just, you know, twenty minutes a week, there's a huge amount of work that goes in behind the scenes to bring it all together, to create a narrative, like I said, to find good talent.

And so I think people, you can certainly start a podcast with fewer people, less time, less resources, less skill.

For us to try to create something that sounds slick and professional, a lot of people are behind the scenes.

And I think if you're just starting out in a podcast, you don't realize that.

Neil McPhedran: I appreciate how you laid that out, Susan, and I think that's really important.

And I think if it's a straight up interview style and you're more kind of that, that YouTube style and you're just looking for low edit of the interview.

And you know, you're, kind of like two or three a week, then I think there's a certain sort of expectation.

I think your sound needs to be good, but what you guys are producing more thought provoking, and you know, as you said, like you're researching the topics.

But also, this show is representing your whole university.

So there's a certain high bar then that you need to, you know, this is representing the whole university.

So there's a certain expectation from a production level that needs to be achieved as well.

Dr. Susan Carland: Yeah, we don't want to turn out rubbish.

I think it's as simple as that.

We want to have great content, but also, you know, the point you make, and I think this is something,
again, people don't understand when they start making a podcast, that the number one thing is audio.

The sound is everything because you are in people's ears.

So I was listening to a podcast by an, an academic and it's really, the content is really interesting.

You know, she's an academic just talking about life for academics and tips for academics, but the sound quality is so bad.

She was interviewing someone, I think he was cooking at the time, and it was unbearable.

Now, if you're watching that on YouTube or TV, you are more forgiving of bad audio, but when it is a podcast, audio is the number one thing.

You need to have decent microphones.

You need people to be in a quiet space, you need to manage your sound levels.

All that stuff's really important.

And so I think if people are listening to this and thinking, we want to start out at a podcast or a university, the number one thing to pay attention to is your audio quality.

Jennifer-Lee: Actually, my favorite saying, which I've learned over the years, someone explained it to me, maybe a teacher in radio school, they said, look, if you have great audio
and crappy video, people will continue to watch, but if you have crappy audio and the most amazing quality video, people won't watch because sound dictates no matter what medium.

Neil McPhedran: Susan, question for you, the podcast covers, you know, potentially the full array of university from a topics perspective.

How do you prepare for that?

You teach in your own faculty, and then that would be your expertise, but you're being asked to, I would imagine there's some research.

And if you're covering off something that's outside of your expertise as a host to you, how do you prepare yourself for that?

Dr. Susan Carland: A couple of ways, some more mechanical and some more, I suppose, philosophical.

From a mechanical point of view, you know, I have to acknowledge again, the amazing producers of the podcast.

They've done all the groundwork for me.

They've done pre interviews with, and we've learned this the hard way from some early episodes where we found someone that we thought would be great, and then they came on and they were not good.

So we like, oh, okay, we better do some pre interviews.

So the producers have done the pre interviews already, and then they put together notes for me and like suggested questions.

So I read through them and obviously I'm aware of the topic.

I'm like, okay, so what are we talking about?

And then I often, even before I read the suggested questions that the producer Steph puts together for
me, I will just stop and think about as the average person listening, what do I want to know about this?

You know, I think it's very important.

And again, as academics, we, well, for this podcast, particularly, there are other podcasts that can be more niche and specialized, but us, our podcast is very much for a general audience.

You don't need to have a degree in physics to be, you shouldn't need a degree in physics to be able to understand when I'm interviewing a physicist, why they are on.

So I just think, I often say to my guests when they come on, you need to imagine that I'm the village fool and you were just explaining this to me.

You were not talking to your peers, you know, over the Bunsen burner in the lab.

You were talking to me and you explaining this to me, how do you explain this?

And so I think one of the reasons I became an academic and one of the reasons I like doing the podcast
is that, you know, when I talk about the philosophical preparation, I'm an inherently curious person.

I'm really curious about what's going on in the world.

I love being proven wrong.

Like I love it when someone comes on and tells me something that absolutely goes against everything I thought I knew.

I find that very exhilarating.

So I come in and think, what am I curious about just as the average person?

What might the average, even if I know about this topic, what might the average person not know?

What am I hearing?

So as a sociologist, you know, I'm just trying to always get the temperature of the current of what society saying about this, how do they think about this topic?

And so that will often lead the questions that I will then add in to what my producer, Steph has put together for me.

But then also, you know, again, and I'm sure it's the same with you guys, I take it as a conversation.

So if they say something in the interview, then I'm like, hang on a minute.

I need to follow this thread and see where it goes.

Then that is what I will do.

And that's part of the curiosity, because, you know, if you and I were meeting for lunch at a cafe, I would not
come with my list of pre prepared questions, ask you the question, they would answer, I would ask the next one.

That's not interesting.

That's not how it works.

It's not nice to listen to that either.

It should be conversational.

It should be natural.

And so I do try to bring that to the podcast.

Jennifer-Lee: Fabian, how do you measure the success of the podcast in terms of audience engagement and its impact on Monash's reputation?

Fabian Marrone: I think that that's twofold.

You've obviously got your core audience engagement metrics.

So, you know, how many people downloaded.

There's obviously awards that come into that.

How many people are listening.

And there's all those important key statistics.

And I think a great measure of success for this, is that we'd exceeded our expectations in all of those things.

It actually went beyond our wildest dreams, shall I say, in terms of, uh, the reach and the downloads, you know, particularly into different markets.

So, you know, the beginning of this, we wanted to say, well, let's not just reach our audience in Australia.

We've got people listening in sixty-seven countries around the world.

And you know, that's amazing for us.

And some of our biggest reach is in markets that is not Australia.

So, and you know, four point eight rating on Apple and Spotify, you know, much better than my Uber rating.

They're, you know, very impressive things.

And they're all core metrics that we measure.

Um, but it is, it's also about representation.

It's also about having difficult conversations.

It's also about not just putting forward a single view of a single side.

It's about exploring it and my, one of our biggest measures is, you know, we've got a massive community at Monash.

If you add the five hundred throusand alumni to the eighty thousand plus students to the twenty thousand plus staff to
all the people we engage with from all aspects of the world, you're talking about a million people around the world.

Yeah, that's a big community.

To represent that community in a genuine and authentic way, um, and have internal commentary say, whether they
agree with the topic or not, this is doing a good thing, we feel represented, and that is the feedback we get.

People might not always like the content or agree with the content, but the way you're delivering it, the way
you're representing the entire institution, and our different perspectives, because that's what universities are.

They're not, we're not all homogenous beings, we don't all agree with the same thing.

It's, this is about academic freedom, different voice, different opinion, different expertise, but also about facts.

So you can have different opinions, you can have different, all those things, but you've got to make sure that we've got the fact check in there, so.

My measure is twofold hard metrics because I love data and that's the marketing science person in me, but the comms person in me is about
telling our university story in an authentic and genuine way and having the feedback from our community suggests that we're doing that.

And that is as much about the production team in Anj and Steph.

and others involved, as it is about Susan making sure that she can, you know, what it's like when you're interviewing.

Getting the information out, trying to pull out those pieces and trying to get people to feel comfortable and safe to put their perspectives and expertise in is an R.

Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, and sometimes pulling out interviews is like pulling blood from a stone.

You've all been there.

Do you guys find though that from this, because you've gotten great awareness, do you ever have people be
like, I'm going to school now because I never knew about you, but I heard about you through the podcast?

Does it ever give the podcast more representation, or is this just kind of a way to kind of build your own community of people who are learning?

Fabian Marrone: Everything we do has threefold look at it.

You know, how does this, universities are, there's reputation, so getting this information out there, getting our expertise out there, helps other universities
be aware of the work we're doing and enables collaboration on those topics, which elevates the academic exercise of exploration into new topics and development.

So that's a, reputation building is a core piece for us.

And there is always a link, um, to people hearing the podcast or looking at, one of our documentaries or something.

We track that back to leads and enrollments and things like that.

And all of these things have a positive impact, as does the podcast.

And then the other piece of it is just, as I said before, the representation and engagement, like are people engaged with what we're doing.

And that's another metric in those engagement measures that I talked about earlier.

So we look across it in those three pieces.

That is it helping to build our reputation?

Is it helping to grow our community?

Um, and then is it helping to keep our community engaged and demonstrate our, you know, authenticity and genuineness in that relationship?

And I think one of the big things there is, I have people come up to me all the time, and Susan has far more, saying, we want to do a podcast.

How do you guys do it?

We want to explore a different avenue.

Can we do that through What Happens Next?

And the answer is always, yes, let's explore it because you never know where it goes.

And we might not take up all of those pieces, but we've got a big exploration waiting list at the moment which is a really positive thing.

Neil McPhedran: I commend you because I think, as Jen and I both work with a number of other university podcasts, I think one of the things that's boiled
to the top in the last couple of months is that podcasts are a great way to almost counteract some of this negative academia or negative science rhetoric.

So I commend you for this because I think that this podcast is a great way to have a direct voice from our universities, from our academia to real science, real work, real research that is going on.

So I think it's great that you guys are like tackling these big scary topics.

What did you call it, Susan, again?

What was the term you gave?

Dr. Susan Carland: The wicked problems.

Neil McPhedran: The wicked problems.

Because I think that it's just like with the noise and our media and whatnot, this is such a great medium to have that direct voice.

So I really appreciate sort of the way that both of you have explained it and the reason for being behind this, behind your podcast.

Dr. Susan Carland: That's a good point.

And I have to say as an academic, it's a tricky time to be an academic when, you know, maybe for the past eight or so, maybe, maybe more like five years, facts don't matter anymore.

Because as an academic, they're like, but this is what everything's about.

And surely if I show you the facts, that should change your mind.

But what actually does change people's minds and facts actually are very ineffective at changing people's minds.

What does change people's minds are narratives.

And so what we try to do with the podcast is actually this great combination of the two.

We are bringing you facts and truth, but it is in a narrative telling.

Human beings, this is what we actually connect with.

This is what we remember long after any podcast or session or information session or book is forgotten, they will not remember the statistics in there.

They won't remember the facts, but they will remember the narrative.

And so what we try to do with the podcast is have the narrative weave that brings in the necessary truth, because of course there is debate about this
at the moment globally, as you've said, but you know, as a university, we're not ready to seed that ground and we're not going to seed that ground.

Jennifer-Lee: I love the fact that you guys are not scared to do these topics because I feel like sometimes when you're in the university
and post-secondary space, obviously, you guys are still protecting the image of the space, but you are doing topics that other people
don't want to necessarily dive into because they could be a little bit more controversial for the university and college's brand.

Are you guys ever worried, though, that there is going to be a topic that maybe you push too far and then your boss is going to be like, oh, hey.

Fabian Marrone: If you get a chance, go back and Google, if you don't like it, change it, Monash University.

Um, and you'll see the first, uh, advert that we released when I, I joined the university and that's a value proposition of being bold and brave.

And when you work for a university in this position and you have the support of leadership and academic freedom is at the core of what we do.

And you have to be willing to tell the story of the entirety of the institution, and we're here to serve the public good.

It's our job, we should be involved.

Susan's absolutely spot on.

We're not going to concede ground in telling the facts and telling that information.

Not everyone's going to like it, and it might not be for everyone, but if we haven't given people the opportunity to
hear that academic voice, to understand that research, to understand that expertise, then we haven't done our job.

So, you know, this is why I say the curation on this is light because it's telling the stories on the topics that need to be told and we need to lean into.

It's our purpose.

It's enshrined in our act and that's the lens that we look through and sometimes, yes, we have to be bold and brave and sometimes the comments are
hard to read when you look underneath your ads or your episodes or you hear it in response, but that's people's opinion and, and that's their reaction.

We can only be responsible for our action and our action is to tell these stories.

Dr. Susan Carland: Or do what I do and just never read the comments.

Fabian Marrone: I don't tend to read them.

Other people do and then come and tell me what they've said and I'm like, I specifically don't read this.

Neil McPhedran: That's so good.

Well, we won't keep you any longer.

This has been really, really good and I think that again, great, great podcast.

Really good to listen to.

There's a couple of things you guys mentioned, Fabian, your link to that first ad you mentioned.

We'll put that in the show notes as well.

We'll make sure that we point out a couple of these things that were mentioned throughout our conversation, but thank you so much for your time today.

Dr. Susan Carland: Thanks for having us.

Fabian Marrone: Thank you guys.

Neil McPhedran: Well, Jen, that was another great conversation.

I really enjoyed chatting with Susan and Fabian.

That's quite the production they have, like real high production value and there's a large team that works on it and they put a lot of effort into each episode.

And it really goes to show the gamut that is in this space of higher education.

We have spoken to literally one man bands where it's one person who's doing all of his own editing and he's basically doing everything himself to, you know, this end
of the spectrum where it's high production, they've got a large team that they went into when we chatted with them, they spend a lot of time thinking about each topic.

There's a lot of effort that goes into preparation and then all of the post production and so on and so forth.

So really cool to sort of, as we've done over the last couple of years with this podcast, really explore the continuum of opportunity.

Jennifer-Lee: And it's just neat to talk to people halfway around the world.

A lot of our guests have been North American, which is great, but it's always neat to see how other people are doing.

Not just education, but podcasts and the fact that they have such a global reach, which I loved.

I feel like we're traveling as well, too.

Too bad we're not in a sunny destination like Australia at the moment.

Only one could hope.

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