Capstone: Big Quan Theory

Introduction

Podcasts are interesting because they require relevant and quality content plus you can listen to it at any time. I haven’t always been into podcast because as a child, I spent my time doing more productive activities like playing outside and youth sports. Although, as I became older I found podcasts to be entertaining to listen to and a way to escape from reality and the stress of school. Podcasts also play a pivotal role in society because radio is not going anywhere anytime soon.

When it came to thinking about what my Capstone should be, many things were running through my mind but I knew that I wanted it to be related to sports since ultimately I want to become a sports broadcaster. Once I was sitting in Professor Young’s class and he brought up that you could do something like a podcast, that spoke volumes to me. I’ve been involved in the radio program for about 3 years now and this is something that I want to continue in my career past college. I also hosted a sports show in the past and had an internship at Cherry Creek Radio doing sports content. I had experience in this and thought this was the opportunity to really show what I’ve learned throughout my college career and apply it. It was so helpful to have this option because I have the skills in this department plus I’m passionate about it which enhances my excitement and show off my talent. Using research of sports topics, analytics, critical thinking, and social interaction with an audience, I decided to conduct a 6-7 show podcast that would talk about the biggest controversial topics in the sporting industry and how they affect a younger generation. I’m obsessed with sports because I’m always following a sports show, watching games, streaming live stats, etc. and since my dream job is a sports broadcaster, then I knew that this was going to be something special and I have to say that it was.

Learning Objectives

• Apply my knowledge of Adobe 1.5 to edit down my show and touch it up.
• Learn how to upload my podcast on Pod bean and share it on my Facebook and iTunes page.
• Inform people about the decline of discipline shown by professional players.
• Use outside research and resources to support the topics.
• Actively promote and manage my podcast through the use of social media and drive some traffic towards it. 

Original Program Learning Outcomes

Theory: Being in the radio program here at Dixie, I have to communicate to listeners in St. George and connect with students at Dixie. I'm also on the Cross Country team and have been for the last 4 years. I thought it was fitting to do a sports podcast because I love watching and participating in sports and love voicing my opinions and having conversations with others on the radio. Working in small groups when it comes to pod-casting is essential and can add some great content. Last semester I had a sports show with one of my friends on the radio and it was fantastic because we were able to bounce ideas off each other and it just added a lot of content and can be useful for business. Being able to have enthusiasm during a radio podcast is necessary because people want to hear some excitement in your voice otherwise people will turn the channel.

Content Creation: To reach my audience, I have created a Facebook, Twitter, and iTunes page to follow along with the podcast. To upload my podcast, I will use the application Pod bean and SoundCloud to do so and then that will translate it to those various places. This way, it'll be easily accessible to my followers and hopefully it'll be shared beyond that and reach plenty of people. My method will be to inform people about the lack of discipline shown by professional athletes and how that affects the younger generation.

Critical Thinking: I feel like it'll be a challenge doing a solo podcast but I feel like if I have shorter episodes which will be about 15-20 minutes long, it won't drag on and as the show progresses, I'm sure I will find different ways to enhance the shows as time goes on. The problem solving in my opinion will come as my show develops and as I can learn about things to improve my show and this will be updated by the end of the semester.

Research: My research for my sports podcast will come from ESPN primarily to get most of my sports stories because they have more in depth information about athletes rather than scores and statistics. Once I have that, I will boggle down to the main points and that will help me prepare a lot better and offer my opinion and will sometimes bring guests on as well to conduct interviews. My interviews will include local athletes specifically at Dixie State and ask their opinions about the latest controversy going on in the sporting world at that time. For example, the biggest sports story going around is the Colin Kaepernick sitting down during the national anthem because he believes the U.S. is oppressing African Americans.

Global Perspective: Using social media is a perfect way to obtain my content to my audience and having several platforms will be a huge boost because at first I just had a Facebook page but Eric told me to widen my horizon and so that's why I created a Twitter (I don't personally like Twitter) and an iTunes because he told me that would be the easiest way to stream the podcast or download. Facebook and Twitter will specifically give me that voice to express myself and keep my listeners engaged at the same time.

Results of PLO’s

So, I went through and created a Facebook and Twitter account which seemed to be successful especially Facebook but I will hit on that later. I already have an iTunes account but I’ve had some trouble uploading some of my shows there. I also have a Podbean and Soundcloud which is actually where all my content is stored. It is split because I couldn’t get everything up onto one site? It has been a struggle putting it on iTunes but I do have some of my information there. It was experimental though and sometimes things don’t go your way but nonetheless, I have my content on the Internet. I have received feedback on my Soundcloud that people love my shows and like some of the things I was doing such as the Big Quan Question of the Week which I added on later during the semester.

When it came to critical thinking and the length of how long the podcast would be was also experimental as well. I originally thought that my show would go for about 15-20 minutes an episode because doing something solo, you need to have that flare to keep the audience engaged. Preparation has a lot to deal with that. I gathered my information from ESPN primarily and other sports news websites and made a Word Document where I would put that information and highlight the important parts to talk about during my show. Once I did that, my first episode was about 30 minutes long but I kept the rhythm going and there wasn’t a lot of dead air. I feel that comes with experience of being in the radio program and using those skills that I’ve developed over the years.

Social media is huge nowadays and a perfect way to connect with an audience. I created a Facebook and Twitter page called Big Quan Theory (which is what my podcast is named) to post the news stories, podcasts, Question of the Week segment and more. I’m not a professional at creating web pages but luckily, when I took Eric’s New Social Media class, we had to create a page on Facebook associated with some sort of business and so I used my knowledge and skills that I accomplished from that class and applied it to forming it for Capstone.

When it came to getting the information on sports, it wasn’t that hard. They had top stories that were going on around the sporting community and if it was interesting and applied to more the world rather than just the sport then I would talk about it and inform people as well. ESPN was a huge source online but also I’m constantly tuned into SportsCenter, sports shows like First Take, Undisputed with Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, etc. I love to watch crazy post-game interviews, trash talking, anything that riles up and sparks a debate. For example, when San Francisco 49ers’ Quarterback, Colin Kaepernick decided to kneel for the national anthem, people went berserk and it started a movement (which he has supported by donating money to certain organizations) and it lasted for a while. This happened coincidentally when I started my show so it ramped me into something really controversial and had a powerful lead off to it. That was probably the biggest controversial story that happened during my time doing the show but it helped kick start me.

Here is screenshots of the news I generated:

Plan

I wanted to do a podcast related to sports but it was too vague so I had to think deeper. Being a male in this world, especially an African American, people tend to look at you a little differently. I’ve been discriminated against a little bit and thought I should talk about something that I can relate to. My podcast was meant to inform people about the problems going on in the sporting industry, inspire individuals that want to pursue this as a career and provide entertainment to the general public but specifically sports fan around the world. Big Quan Theory was used as a way to inform people about the latest sports controversial news, stream videos, offer my opinion to it and leave them with a question to ponder with and respond to. The guests I had on my show were very informative and they were on my cross-country team and so it was interesting to hear their opinions when it came to other sporting issues. 

It utilized the skills that I’ve learned in my career here at Dixie State University such as audio editing, using applications like Adobe Audition, Pod-bean, and Soundcloud; qualitative and quantitative research. The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a great podcast and has shown me that you need to be very well prepared, accept criticism, do research to have background knowledge and sound confident. There are several theories that can be applied when it comes to pod-casting. Cultural Studies is probably the biggest one because it has to deal with how the media influences and plays a pivotal role in society. Learning about different cultures is important because you should study where people come from whenever there is a certain situation arising. Group-think is also one I put into this plan because adding the question of the week required others to get involved and for me to respond. This allowed for an ongoing conversation and have me understand where they were coming from and try and relate. In my eyes, it was rewarding to peek into dimensions of someone else’s perspective.

Execution

So, I have a portion of my shows and questions on iTunes but I’ve had problems with this because I haven’t been able to upload all of my shows which has been kind of frustrating but nonetheless between the two pod-casting sites, Pod-bean and Soundcloud, I have uploaded all of the shows. I put my limited shows on iTunes pretty late because I had trouble with it in the beginning so I haven’t received a lot of shares but hopefully with some promotion, that will be effective. I did however keep track of the information on both Soundcloud and Pod-bean. Soundcloud managed to generate 3 total likes on the sites and 53 plays total while Pod-bean had 47 total downloads over the 7 episodes that appeared on there. I recently however added a Podomatic which I was able to upload all my shows and questions on there. Unfortunately, I created it November 21, so it hasn’t had a lot of time to marinate itself but I am doing what I can to promote the word out there.

September 2, 2016 Episode 1 Big Quan Theory uploaded 13 plays, 2 likes

September 16, 2016 Episode 2 Big Quan Theory uploaded 9 plays, 1 like

October 1, 2016 Episode 3 Big Quan Theory uploaded 5 plays, 2 likes

October 7, 2016 Episode 4 Big Quan Theory uploaded 6 plays

October 17, 2016 Big Quan’s Question of the Week #1 uploaded 8 plays

October 24, 2016 Big Quan’s Question of the Week #2 uploaded 10 plays

October 28, 2016 Episode 5 Big Quan Theory uploaded 3 plays

October 31, 2016 Big Quan’s Question of the Week #3 uploaded 6 plays

November 7, 2016 Big Quan’s Question of the Week #4 uploaded 6 plays

November 11, 2016 Episode 6 Big Quan Theory uploaded 10 plays, 1 like

November 14, 2016 Big Quan’s Question of the Week #5 uploaded 6 plays

November 21, 2016 Big Quan’s Question of the Week #6 uploaded 6 plays

Overall Statistics on Podomatic including my new Question of the Week 11-28-16

Analysis of the Plan’s Effectiveness

Between my Twitter and Facebook accounts, I consumed way more content and feedback from Facebook because that is where my traffic was coming from. I would place my Podcasts and Questions of the Week on both platforms and my Facebook would drive comments, likes, shares, etc. My Twitter did generate some likes but no re-tweets whatsoever, which I wasn’t really concerned about. I do have to admit that when I started out with just the podcasts and posting news stories, I wasn’t developing much audience engagement, which is what I was striving for. I realized that the podcasts were a half an hour (which no one really has the attention span for that long) and they weren’t really engaging for people to participate in. Although, I did try and ask my audience questions whenever I would post a news story to try to provoke their attention but nothing was happening. I asked Eric if I could implement a segment for more participation and he said if I thought it would be effective. That is why I came up with the question of the week that would be a short 1-2 minute segment where I’d ask a question involving the sporting industry but specifically something that had to deal with a controversy and have my audience respond to it.

I love how this plan worked out because then my audience was, in my eyes, encouraged to participate and that is what I wanted more than anything. I didn’t really want to force anything on them, I wanted them to feel like they were able to express themselves and for me to be there for support and evaluation pickup. My twitter was effective, not in the same way but it was. My Dad actually picked up a story that I put on the site and posted it to Facebook, which he tagged me in it and wrote, “The next radio talent in the family on his podcast bound for stardom. Keep doing your thing Shi-Quan I see you.” I’m not writing that to gloat but rather explain that he was able to transfer that information over to Facebook for his followers to view and thus, drive more traffic and followers over to my Twitter account so I’m glad he was able to make that happen. Now, even with all that, my Facebook was still more effective but both were ways to deliver the news to my audience. Facebook just allowed for the feedback to be heard and easier for me to respond to.

Twitter results

Facebook results

Survey Monkey

I also conducted a survey which helped me analyze my data and put things into perspective as to how to evaluate myself and what I could have done better. I used Survey Monkey to gather my data and here are the results of it.

Self-Evaluation

Preparation and patience are the two key words I took away from this experience. Now being in radio, I have already learned about staying prepared because that helps you sound better whenever you’re talking about something. I’m speaking about being prepared when it comes to things you don’t expect, like the building shutting down (which happened to me early on) and having a contingency plan. Otherwise known as crisis management because you will be hit with stuff that you aren’t necessarily prepared for and it is your job to deal with the consequences but remain calm in the situation. Patience, on the other hand, comes whenever you’re trying to convince people to put trust in you even when you might not have or built that sort of credibility with your audience. You will need to have patience while developing those skills.

The Good

It was a great experience but the good came whenever I experimented and messed up. It showed me that nothing is guaranteed and you have to put the work in to strive to be great at something. The addition of Big Quan’s Question of the Week was one of the strong suits and probably the best thing I did while finding out what the channel was about and more about myself. To see the countless reactions of people complimenting the music or the authentic question, put a smile on my face. I love that I was able to add something about halfway and for it to be a success. Bringing on the guests initiated a conversation that I was unable to have by myself and added another perspective to the group. I would have to say the audience engagement and sharing my thoughts with others, via social media and interviews proved to be the best way to get my point across.

The Bad

While there were good things about the program, the bad comes with that as well. First off, I couldn’t connect all of my content associated to iTunes which was very frustrating because I wanted to have all my information in one place (even though I found Podomatic later on). ITunes would’ve essentially been the easiest place to have all my information and people would’ve definitely been able to podcast it off of their rather than search through Soundcloud or Pod-bean. Also, having to change my schedule up so often because of breaks in the semester, Cross Country meets, or whatever the case may be, I felt like I was letting down my audience which did not sit well for me. I tried to do my best to counteract these problems and improve.

The Ugly

Talking into the mic way too loud so there is distortion was heart wrenching and unnecessary for me because I should know better being in radio. I would just sometimes become way too animated about a certain topic that it would cause me to freak out and yell into the mic a little bit. I also found myself deciding at the last minute how much of a sound clip I wanted to play. It is not a good idea because that goes back to being prepared and that just goes to show that I wasn’t always fully prepared and thought I could do things half way since I had an advantage of being in radio. Remember my message about nothing is guaranteed, well that just proves it to you that even those with enough experience make mistakes sometimes.

Overview

Overall, I had a fantastic time developing this sports page and is really something that I hope to continue in the future. I am very passionate about these kinds of subjects and if I want my dream to become a reality then I will need to keep practicing and capitalizing on these sorts of issues. I watch debate shows generate these conversations all the time and I want to be someone who fills their shoes and keeps that conversation going. I am so grateful to Eric Young for letting me have the opportunity to embark on something that I love and have devotion towards. I am hoping that in the future, I can help it grow and add some other permanent people to enhance the quality of the show and drive it forward. For now, I’ll enjoy what I have accomplished here and keep striving for greatness.

Harriet Tubman once said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

You can access and listen to any of my shows or questions right here at Podomatic. I hope you guys enjoy this because I had a blast conducting this project this semester!