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And joining us in the PBJ spotlight today two podcasting rock stars Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick host of

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Stuff to blow your mind and the brand new podcast invention that was just launched

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Robert and Joe, thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks for having us

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So the first question I'd like to ask everybody is how you got into podcasting?

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Oh, well that's Robert you should go first

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Well, basically I joined how stuff works as a writer

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This was I guess 10 years ago

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and at the time the company was just beginning to

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Dip their toes into the the podcasting world and they basically said hey who's interested in trying this out and

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I just generally make it a practice that if there's some sort of new initiative at work

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I'll give it a shot at any rate. And so I ended up

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Hosting a co-hosting a podcast called

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Stuff from the science lab

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Which it turns out the title didn't work all that well because people either came in expecting something harder or lighter than

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Than the balance we actually delivered but that show eventually evolved into stuff to blow your mind and I'm still here co-hosting it today

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Let's see and I you know, neither of us actually came from an audio performance background

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I started also as a writer. I was writing for

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A video series that we were doing back in the house to work stays called

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Forward thinking and I i'd been doing scripts for that video series and they wanted to start a podcast

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With the show so I was brought on as one of the hosts of that podcast with my co-workers

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Who still of course work with us Jonathan Strickland host of tech stuff

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And uh lauren vogelbaum one of the hosts of saber a food podcast here

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And it was so we did that together and it was a lot of fun

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But I remember at the very beginning. I had no idea what I was doing on mic. I I probably said uh for every

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Maybe 10 times for every word. I spoke it was just horrible, but I

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Came to really love what I was doing. I'm not quite sure how that happened

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Given how uh how terrifying it was at the beginning, but now it's I wouldn't want to do anything else

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So so how was the chemistry between the two of you when you first started working together on the show?

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It was good. Basically, what was it three or four years ago now?

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Yeah, it's been a while

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So when I came onto the show that we had another host christian saiger who came on at the same time, right?

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So so basically my original host co-host was a science editor for house to fire

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A science editor for how stuff works allison lauter milk and then when it was rebranded to stuff to blow your mind

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julie douglas

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Joined the show and so she was my co-host for years and years

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uh, and then uh

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She departed that to work on some other podcast projects and it's still a part of the company here working on on various

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podcast projects, but at that point I needed a new co-host and um, and joe and christian both were looking to

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To to work on some content. I had a pretty good rapport with both of them

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And so they both joined the show and we would switch back and forth

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I would do an episode with joe then I do an episode with christian

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And so I thought it was actually pretty great synergy between us because for years I had been watching

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What robert was doing and I was like, I kind of want to be doing that like he was hitting exactly

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The strange kind of subject matter that fascinates me and that I assume a lot of other people

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Might not have the tolerance for that. I that I would but like the intersections of technology and religion

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Uh that that's exactly what gets me going and uh, and robert was, you know writing blog posts about I don't know what it was

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You know robot mummies and stuff like that

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So, uh, so once I actually got the chance to come on the show with robert

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I was really excited and it turned out wonderful. In fact, I think one of the earliest sets of episodes we did was about

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Techno religion. I remember that being the kind of thing. I was like this could actually be done on this show where we could talk about

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John Murray spear the the spiritualist creature who wanted to create a robot messiah in the 1840s or 50s

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Right. Yeah, and yeah, that was yeah, I remember those episodes well

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So talk about how cool it is to work for a company where you know, you really

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We talked to independent podcasters who were working from their bedroom or trying to get a podcast launch from their closet

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And what equipment to buy and all that and here's a company that's that's that's really behind it

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And it gives you some freedom to do some research things like that

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Talk about you know, how neat how neat that is for you know, be able to do it for so many years

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Oh, it's fantastic. I don't have to know anything

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I don't know. I don't know. I have to know what equipment we're using. I have no idea what i'm talking into right now. I uh

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Yeah, it's it's a blessing. Yeah. I mean really we have we we get to work with some very talented people

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We work with some very talented producers

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alexander williams tarry harrison the two individuals we're working with with now and

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They handle all of the technical stuff and gives us the room

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We need to just focus on content and of course delivery making sure we have the appropriate levels of caffeine in our system

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And they are truly they are truly fantastic as producers. We we could not do what we do without them

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So how do you guys uh qualify what blows somebody's mind?

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Well

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It basically just has to

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Intrigue us and then sort of uh and and also we think about the audience at this point

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We have a pretty good feel for what listeners are looking for

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and uh and

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Generally, we don't have to to rein ourselves in too much. We uh, we just sort of go go by gut and we keep up with uh with

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Current news, uh, it's coming out of science. What is we look at the journals?

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And also we're just if we have something just knocking around in the back of our head where we might just think oh well this

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This is the the time we should finally do an episode say on the ark of the covenant and see if there's anything

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You know sciency there that we can uh loop into the episode

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You know, I think it actually is best not to pander and not to worry too much about

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What you think somebody else thinks you should be talking about because you can hear a podcast where somebody's talking

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About a subject that they're not actually personally all that interested in and it's just dead in the water

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You've got to talk about what you yourself have passion for and so uh, so yeah

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We focus on topics that are personally interesting to us

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And hopefully that comes through with the kind of like energy and enthusiasm that we bring to the subject matter and that gets other people

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Interested do you get feedback and suggestions from listeners and has any of that helped has any of that really taken off in a

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Show for you

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Oh, absolutely

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We we try and feature one listener mail episode generally a month these days

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Where we we actually read mail that comes in and and it's great because our listeners will

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They'll ask additional questions about topics that maybe we didn't think about or address

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At times we will of course be corrected

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And and more more often than not they'll just add a level of experience and sometimes professional expertise

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To what we're talking about for instance

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Two great examples. We recently did some episodes on squirrels

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Which was far more mind-blowing than I think we were even prepared for and of course everybody has experience observing squirrels at least

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You know

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Certainly in North America and so they wrote in with their experiences to us

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But we also heard from quite a few listeners who worked directly with squirrels in like

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wildlife rehabilitation centers and

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Stuff like that, you know, so they'd be working with squirrels in some kind of research or rehabilitation capacity

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And they had the best stories about and say a bird getting loose in a facility and then a squirrel catching it and eating its face

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Okay, so you you you come up with a topic like green tea and make that blow somebody's mind

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What was what was the research that you put into green tea?

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Let's see. I think this was an episode that I did with christian and and if I recall correctly

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He found one particular angle about I believe it was sort of xenophobic ideas about the effects of green tea from

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From from history and you know that just kind of gives you the I guess it's like climbing or something

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You know it gives you that that one little bit of advantage to then say. All right. Well, what else is there?

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What is the this gives us an excuse to then talk about just the basic

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drier science of green tea and and also what

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Look at other historical dimensions of the topic

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But also part of our motto is that the world is so much weirder than you realize moment to moment day to day

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The underlying reality is almost always mind-blowing if you know how to look close enough

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And so almost any topic I won't say any topic

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But almost any topic can truly be fascinating if you're willing to dig deep enough to think hard enough

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To ask the strange questions that people wouldn't normally think to ask

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Did you ever come up with a topic that you published as a show that turned out to be a dud?

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I mean, yeah, I mean we've done shows that are better than others. Yeah, I mean there probably been some cases where

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I would say that sometimes space topics as is amazing as space exploration is

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There have been times in the past where it's it's maybe a little more difficult to relay the subject matter to listeners

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Just because it in words in words because it is so impersonal

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Sometimes but then again, we've had some some some really fun topics about say black holes

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But black holes are kind of the superstars of

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Of the universe so

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That work in our advantage for sure

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So so who's listening to the show and approximately how many do you have each episode?

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Oh, man, I have not checked our numbers recently I uh

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This is embarrassed. I should have a better answer to that

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That's the kind of thing we've looked up in the past that I don't usually keep in mind

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Yeah, we've been so busy, especially right now just getting through the holidays and banking episodes that we haven't been

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Personally paying as much attention to the metric which again is one of the benefits of working for a company

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Where we have other individuals who?

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Have their you know their finger on the pulse here

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I think last time I checked it looked like we were getting around three and a half million downloads a month like

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in October or something, but

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But yeah, I can't I can't vouch for that number. Yeah, and I think it's uh, what about the big ballpark is what?

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100 million downloads to date. I think that's uh,

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Okay figure that is frequently cited so you can see how you can see how on top of the business we are

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So those listeners are from you know, all different backgrounds all different jobs

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It's not just a science listener. It's it's more than that. We hear from a

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Really diverse cohort of people at least the people who choose to write in I know that's a subset and probably doesn't represent the whole but

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At least the people who choose to write in

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Yeah, we we hear from everybody we hear from a lot of artists actually very often people say that they're

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you know, they work in in arts or sculpting or

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Crafts or knitting and stuff like that and they say they listen to us while they work

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We also hear from just tons of people who you know work normal jobs and listen to us in the car

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While they're doing spreadsheets or whatever. Yeah, it seems like people all over and definitely all over the world

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And you guys don't really pay close attention to the length. I've seen 45 to an hour 37

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Well, it's uh, so recently we've been trying to do a little better about keeping it to an to an hour

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uh, and that's both

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It's both like a like a listenership issue like we don't we don't want people to to really feel like that the show is a slog

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Oh, no, no, maybe not slogs the word. I know that people have for instance those that get a lot of attention

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An hour of podcast is a good idea. But then selfishly for us. There's this realization that well if we do a two-hour episode

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Couldn't that just be a part one and a part two?

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And then we can maybe get through the week a little easier

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We have because we ultimately only have so much time and so much mental energy to put into the the episodes for a given week

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Well speaking of that you guys launched in Venom

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What what is that? You know, how's that going to be different than uh than the first one?

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Well, uh, obviously it's a different subject matter

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So we're going to be looking at human creations there and I think we're trying to bring the same kind of curiosity and you know

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The weird question motivation to inventions that we bring to scientific topics

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So we're not just going to be looking at the same kind of

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Straightforward biography of you know who invented this and and how it was invented though. Of course, we are going to look at that

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but we like to

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Whenever we can figure out what's the stranger question about this invention?

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Like how is it influenced human culture in ways that people might not expect?

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What are the you know, what are the things that may have come before inspired it that people never would have thought of?

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Right, so we're going to be looking at the

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What are the things that may have come before inspired it that people never would have thought of? We're always trying to bring something new when we can

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Like for example one of our first episodes of invention

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We actually looked at the guillotine and we discussed how how the invention of the guillotine may have affected people's views about

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About life and death and the value of life

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Yeah, another aspect of it too is just like it's not only like who invented it or or what?

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Or even what time period in ancient history came out of but the questions of like but why now?

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Why this particular individual why this particular culture and not another?

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What what was it about this time and place or individual that made them put the existing pieces together?

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Into this new way of doing things this new technology

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So outside of how stuff works give me one or two of your favorite podcasts that you listen to and why?

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Um for for me, I'd say some of my favorites. Oh man. There's a there's ideas which is a cbc radio show that uh that I really adore

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Um, they put out so many different fascinating topics that cover

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History current events politics philosophy a little bit of science here and there. That's probably one of my

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My favorites and uh, I also have been really enjoying code switch

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Uh the npr podcast that talks about uh about race and culture and and also a fair fair amount of history

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Uh, that's that's been one of my favorites on on long drives recently

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Uh, i've really appreciated a lot of history podcasts. Obviously. I love uh, you know a big favorite of everybody

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Is his hardcore history, which is you know, almost more like audio books, uh with dan carlin. That's great. I really enjoy

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Uh, you must remember this with kareena longworth, which is about hollywood history

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I think she does a fantastic job with that and that's a subject that i'm

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Sort of interested in robert and I are both sort of fans of b movies and we end up threading discussions about

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trash cinema into a lot of our

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science conversations

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So, um, why do you guys love to be podcasters?

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Well, I I kind of feel like the luckiest guy in the world getting to do a job like this

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I mean, it's literally

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A job where I get to spend my time thinking and writing and talking about the weird stuff that personally interests me the kind of stuff

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That I would be reading about and writing about in my spare time if I wasn't doing it for my job

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so yeah, I feel incredibly fortunate to have a job like this that uh,

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Uh that I can especially

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I feel I feel most fortunate in the times when I get to dive into topics that I feel like

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Almost nobody would care about unless I gave them a good reason to

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For me, you know, I'd say it's it's it's much of the same thing. It's about like having

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the freedom and the incentive to engage in these topics and to to write and research and and also to have

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Uh, I mean sort of free rein in what we do

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I mean, we're very fortunate in that that nobody's nobody's coming along and saying all right hit this hit this topic

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Here are your you know talking points for the week

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Uh now we we pretty much have free rein to explore whatever we want

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And uh, and then of course just getting to connect with with listeners as well. Uh, that's that's always a joy

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So what advice do you guys have for uh for other folks that are interested in becoming podcasters?

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Uh, not everybody, uh, you know, we'll get the chance right off the bat to work for a great company like yours

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Maybe eventually they would but uh, what device could you give them to get started and and stick with it to the point?

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Where they're successful at it

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Focus on what you're passionate about

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Your your subject matter should align with the things that you care about and have a natural enthusiasm for

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If you're trying to talk about stuff that you don't actually care about it's it's probably not going to work

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Absolutely. Um, yeah, you've got to you've got to have your your passion in line for it

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And and that's realizing too that there are just so many different types of podcasts out there

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Uh, like I remember when when I first started podcasting

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I think all the podcasts I listened to were were musical and form

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Uh, so when when when people were saying oh we're doing we're doing these podcasts

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It was kind of like a switch for me to start thinking about podcasts as talkies. I guess instead of just uh, you know musical experiences

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Yeah

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I'd say from personal experience also, uh

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I would say don't don't sand down your edges

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Be yourself and be weird in the way that you are weird. I think people actually respond quite well to that

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Yeah, I think that's that's one of the the strengths of our show

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I think it's one of the reasons people keep listening to us and uh, keep coming back is that

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We're we're honestly ourselves and we we lean into that on the ship

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So what are your thoughts on the podcasting industry as a whole there's there's been a you know

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A lot of news about podcasting over the last year. We launched a brand new publication just for podcasting

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There are others that have launched and uh, the revenue seems to be moving that way

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What are your guys feelings overall about uh, how the industry is is going?

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I obviously I I like it. I'm all in favor of there there being being more

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more investment in podcasts more

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Advertising possibilities more marketing possibilities and you know, it also it opens up

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It makes room for for new ventures in podcasting even in a company

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Like ours, even though we've been doing stuff to blow your mind for so long and the product

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Hasn't really changed that much and and likely will not

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Change, you know, we're going to stick to the format we're doing

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But it gives us the opportunity to try other ventures on the side within the company

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Yeah, I uh, I feel pretty good about the state of the industry I

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Again, i'm not i'm not the biggest business to get guy. I'm not gonna pretend to be uh

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That person but from what I know it things seem to be looking good and um, I do wonder about about different sort of uh

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Revenue models in the future like if podcasting is going to remain

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Mostly ad driven or if you're going to have more kind of uh, like subscription

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Audio content services in the future. I mean certainly you already have that

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As uh as with audiobooks like their audible and stuff

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But yeah, I wonder about that kind of thing

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But overall I I feel good about the industry and it's it seems like a good place to be right now

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On the uh, the what you mentioned about the ads. What do you guys feel like works best for?

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An hour-long podcast one of the big knocks against radio

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Is that I mean there's just so many commercials playing uh during an hour that uh, it's driving people away

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What's the right number and where should they be in a podcast?

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Well right now we're doing what a pre-post and two mids. Yeah, and that I mean who knows somebody could come along

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Tomorrow and say actually the new standard is three mid rolls

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And I don't you know that i'm not sure that we could object too much if that's what we had to do

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But like right now that really feels like a good balance uh for an episode

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this length

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And uh, I think that

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I think most listeners that understand like the necessity of having those those ads there and also the more that they are in our voice

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And then they're they're not some sort of um, you know obnoxious

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Radio tv style ad not that all radio tv ads are obnoxious some are quite captivating but

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As long as they're uh, they're they're not obnoxious. I think people are cool with it

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Well, I don't know what you guys think about this but as a listener

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I think the most uh annoying thing is when you get jacked up about listening to a podcast and then the first thing you hear is an ad

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A pre-roll. Yeah. Well, uh, specifically I would say the the ones that get me or when it seems like the content is about to start in the house

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Is they're talking but then they start doing the ad read that that one always really like

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Slows me down when you have sort of the front-loaded ad reads like hey, i'm here i'm here to do the podcast but first 15 solid minutes

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Well guys any final thoughts before I let you go, I know you're doing a lot of work. I know you have a lot of things to do

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Uh, no, I mean, uh, just uh, thanks for the opportunity to talk today. Uh, and uh, it's been a pleasure to be here

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Yeah, and uh, you know, obviously we uh, we encourage uh, anyone who hasn't listened to our show to check out stuff to blow your mind to check out invention

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Invention has launched. There are only a handful of episodes out, but it's going to keep publishing once a week

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Publishing every week on monday stuff to blow your mind comes out twice a week with a rerun of vault episode

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We call it on saturdays and obviously on every platform

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Available where podcasts are available. Oh, yes, everyone else great. Thank you so much for your time guys. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks for having us