Today, my guest is Ariel Nissenblatt. Ariel is the community marketing manager at Descript. She's also the founder and head curator of the Earbuds podcast collective. She's also the host of the Trailer Park podcast, which is a show that showcases podcast trailers. And she does more than I could possibly fit into this section of the podcast. If you wanna see what I mean, just go to Ariel Nissenblatt.com, scroll down, and look at the audio related things I've done on our website. It's a while. I've been looking forward to chatting with Ariel about 2 things in particular. Number 1, Descript and all the awesome features it has as an audio and video editor. Number 2, how the heck she manages all the things she does. As you can tell from this intro, she's got a lot going on with a 1000000 moving parts, and I'm really curious about how she makes it all happen. So that's what we talk about in this episode. Let's dive in. This is the show for digital creators by digital creators, hosted by me, Dylan Schmidt, a Los Angeles based content creator who loves to blend marketing, creativity, and business. Join in as we explore online entrepreneurship, creator best practices, and more. Each week, I'll bring you interviews with successful creators, tips and tricks for growing your online presence, and simple insights into the latest trends and strategies I'm seeing and using in the space. Welcome to Digital Podcaster. Ariel, thank you for coming on Digital Podcaster. I'm so glad you are here. Thank you for having me. You are I'm just gonna go out and say it, the queen of podcasting. That's nice, and I'll take it. I won't refuse it. Thank you. Thank you for accepting it, actually. I'm trying to be a little bit more easy, you know, so I'm not gonna fight you. Hey, Don't fight, don't fight it. We can fight about something else maybe but not about the queen of podcasting. You have been doing this for more than 2 weeks. Yes. I was in class. Yeah. Yeah. I started, I started about 3 weeks ago. So 3 weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. So you're almost off probation. So you've been you were with SquadCast for how long were you? Years. Right? 3 years. 3 years. Just about And then recently, SquadCast, I feel like this is gonna just digital podcasters should just become you know what, Scripps should just really acquire me just because Okay. I understand that. Little acquihire situation. Yeah. I don't know. Just like adopt me. It doesn't have to be like a professional thing. It could be a personal thing. No. We'll just like take you on vacation. Yeah. I'm just a fan. I'm I'm not like, When I'm a fan of a product, I'm, like, loyal, you know, and I will work through the things. It's like a relationship. If if Descript wants to go to therapy, we could do it. I'm there. I'm committed. Other products or services and kinda like, you know what? I'm canceling this thing and, you know, whatever. I'm gone. And so I'm excited for SquadCast and Descript coming together. Do you call it Descript or Descript? I When I first started said Descript, and now I go 5050 actually. And I'm making that decision consciously because it really is both. She's It's it's so that we have this conversation. And so I really am trying to do 5050. And I listened to an interview once with, the CEO founder, And he he said, you know, like, I call it Descript. And then, a second later, Amy says Descript and then the host, like, what? Yeah. That's tricky. We're just trying to throw you off. Keep everybody on their toes talking about it. It's like how Kleenex is Kleenex and Kleenex. I'm just kidding. It's not okay. Or your first name. I at the beginning, I'm like Oh, let's go with that. Yeah. I like that better. Yeah. It's That would have been such a better joke. It's like how my name is Ariel and Ariel, if you wanna cut that. Yeah. Yeah. And I get all the time, is it Dylan or is it Delaam? Delaam. Yes, of course. No. I don't get that. It is. I do get that. My doctor would call me that for years. Yes. And it makes you feel past medical school. And, you know, it really makes you feel like you're in good hands if Yeah. If they're corrected and then they don't remember and you're like so yeah. So You, obviously, have been in podcasting for a second. The tech. I wanna talk about the tech, because you're You're on both sides of I feel like the microphone. Right? You're like, you're you're in it. You're seeing the inner workings, the improvements, all of that stuff. You're also You also have your own podcast. Balancing the 2, is it hard to balance for you as far as, like, how quick tech is moving these days? Tech is moving very quickly, but, no, I've never really had an issue with podcast tech. Where I do have issues is project management software tech. I feel like I've tried all of them, and I'm always On the hunt to make my personal and professional life more efficient, and I'm always trying out Notion or Linear or Asana or Trello or Whatever. And I for the life of me, I'm just not the I I have never claimed to be the most or well organized person in the world, And that is what trips me up sometimes is the project management software, especially when it comes to keeping my stuff together around podcasting And, you know, keeping all of my my projects together, the the podcast that I work on, the what I work on within Descript, the community members that I'm in touch with, all of that can be hard to keep track of, but I'm learning my way. So, no, I I don't find that the technology in podcasting is moving too rapidly. I I think there are a lot of advancements in AI to keep track of, but thankfully, Descript makes unbelievable YouTube videos Pretty much for every single new AI feature release, we're making a YouTube video explaining it, or making a video that's available on Instagram, Reels or TikTok or YouTube Shorts. So not just a script. Like, pretty much to be a product led company at this point, You need to have a video component talking about all of your new your newness that's coming out all the time. So As long as you as a consumer or as somebody who is making podcasts knows how to be educated via YouTube or via Video at all. I do think that these companies are making it easy to learn about their latest and greatest. So I didn't used to be a YouTube consumer. But Over the past few months since I've been at Descript, I've been just pretty much going on to YouTube and searching Descript and watching the videos that Descript makes, Yes, of course. But also watching the videos that other people make about Descript and trying to see how people talk about the product when they don't work for the product. That's fascinating. Yeah. I I don't know. You probably see this internally or something. I have so many projects and Descript. It's insane. Yeah. Me too. I I would love to, like if there was, like, a ranking of sorts, I'm like, I gotta be high up there. Because Like, usage time? Yeah. Of usage time, of transcription, of all that stuff. I know I've got a lot in they're excited, like, are running my business using Descript. It's like the basis of it. Speaking of efficiency and workflow, how do you find yourself utilizing AI as a component of being efficient. I have been using AI lately to, here I've been using ChatGPT to do the following. This is just like a fun little trick that I've been using that I think people might get a kick out of. One time somebody asked me for my bio in 1st person, and I had it written in 3rd person, so I asked ChatGpT to change that. And it did it, and I was like, that saved me time. You know? So that's just an example of AI, you know, of of things that I I was like, I wonder if if this could happen. I wonder if this could work. So, yeah, people ask for your bio all the time When you're a guest on podcasts, and some people want it this way, some people want it that way, some people want it to emphasize one thing, some people want it to emphasize another thing. So I just Go to ChatGPT, and I ask it to do that. So that's great generative AI. I for my own podcast production, I use Descript AI Tools, in a number of ways. One of the ones that I use is the ability to detect filler words. I have a podcast about podcast recommendations. And The way that my production workflow goes is that my newsletter and podcast coordinator, her name is Devin DeComo. She's awesome. She writes my script. I then go in and I put flourishes on it that make sure it's in my own voice, then I record it, but I also try to go off script a little bit so that it sounds natural. But when I go off script a little bit, I throw in some umms and ahs. I try to make jokes that don't Sara Lee Land. I retake a line because I didn't like the way I said it the 1st time, and then I am recording that all into Descript actually because it's a solo podcast, so I don't have to Record remotely with a guest or with a cohost on SquadCast. I just record right into Descript's recorder. And then when I'm finished recording, I press the studio sound button, which is an AI feature that sort of smooths out everything, really makes the audio sound amazing even if I'm in a cavernous room such as the one that And now and, yes, I'm using a microphone, but still it's not gonna be perfect sound because I'm not in a sound treated room. You know, there's the the subways of Brooklyn are right below me. So I I really make an effort to press the studio sound button every single time. And sometimes the studio sound button will overcorrect a little bit too much, in which case I'll Bring down the intensity of it. Really, really easy to use. And then I go in and I shorten my word gaps, especially when I'm recording alone. I can take my sweet time. Right? I can pause. I can get a sip of water. I can Keep the recorder going while I cough. I can keep the recorder going while I rewrite a sentence and then resay that sentence. But I don't necessarily want all those pauses in there, so I shorten my word gaps. I say, if there was a pause of a second or more, let's shorten it to 0.5 seconds. Or let's If there was a a pause of 5 seconds or more, let's shorten it to 1 second or something like that. And click of a button, that's done throughout my whole script, which is unreal, saves me a whole lot of time in editing. And then, of course, the filler word removal, I pretty much ask Descript to identify filler word that it highlights them automatically. And I Go through those actually 1 by 1 to make sure that I wanna get rid of the ones that are really egregious and then keep the ones that Sort of add to the overall feeling of the show. You know, I don't wanna take out any breaths that make it sound like I'm actually breathing. You know? I think a lot of people tend to over edit, and then it sounds like they're not taking a breath the entire time that they're speaking. So those are some of the AI tools within Descript that I use. There are more, and that's just my audio only podcast. But I've also recorded videos, and I've used the eye correction feature. Have you used that yet? Yeah. I was just gonna I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah. It really is unreal. In a good way. Yeah. Yeah. It is unreal. And, And I love it, and it is a little bit creepy sometimes, especially when you know your own eyes, you know, when you know where your eyes were looking for. That way. Yeah. And it was like, oh, I didn't lose eye contact. It's handy though, especially using a teleprompter too. The subtleness Oh, do you? Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes. That's awesome. And, like, the subtleness of the eyes reading the line, it kind of bugs me a little bit. So just to use that to correct where it just is a little bit more straight on. It's not it's very subtle, but it just locks it in, you know. Yeah. Have you used regenerate yet? What is regenerate? Such a good question. Thank you so much for asking. Basically, if You say a line or if you're interviewing somebody and let's say you because there's ethical implications, I think, when you Edit somebody else. But let's say for you for now, and then we can talk about the ethical implications after. Say you record a line. Sorry? Maybe I'll regenerate you. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, look, if I say this right now and I trail off at the end and, you know, you don't really necessarily like the emphasis of the way that I put this, you want my emphasis to be elsewhere? We need this, let's get the no. Just Exactly. You want my energy to change. You can essentially highlight the transcript of me saying this. Press regenerate, and it'll give you essentially a a redo of the way that I said that. It'll put the emphasis elsewhere, or it'll Instead of the audio dragging out at the end. It'll make the audio drag out like that. It completely changes it. If you don't like the way it was done one time, you can press regenerate again, and it'll do it again. So, obviously, this is something that I've done on my own audio. I don't necessarily do it for my guests because I don't want to assume Cadence, or I don't wanna assume excitement when there wasn't excitement, but, you know, play with it as you as you'd like. Yeah. So does it change when you do that? Does it change the, like, emotion and mood? I guess it depends how you interpret emotion. I think mostly it should be used for if somebody's trailing off at the end of the sentence, and it shouldn't be a trail off. Maybe they turned away from their microphone and it Brings them back more towards the center of the voice. So that's one way that you can do it, and it is able to do that through its use of artificial intelligence. So It's really, really powerful, and I do recommend playing around with it, especially on this interview where I gave you some prime examples, you know, where you could highlight the words and just Try it out. I got an email this morning about some new AI beta features. Maybe that was in there. It probably was. Christiana, who is my colleague and also a community manager at Descript, she made a video last week that we posted on Descript social channels about how, Regenerate can actually fix vocal fry. So if you tend to lean on your vocal fry And you'll hear people sort of grumbly. It'll be like that. You can sort of hear, in some people's voices when they trail off or when they're I I don't even know how to really explain Vocal fry now that I think about it. That's like maybe like that. Yeah. Yeah. I can hear it. I can Yeah. But I can't necessarily put it into words. Yeah. But but necessarily put it into words. Yeah. But but Regenerate can fix Vocal Fry. Regenerate can say, let's revamp this and get rid of your Vocal Fry. So again, Something that you might wanna do for yourself, but before doing it to somebody else, you might wanna ask. Yeah. Yeah. And before they hear themselves. Yeah. It's like really chopping up. Yeah. I love all the tools inside Descript, that it just makes it easy. All the, like, b roll, the GIFs, sound effects, music, photos, like the green screen feed, like there's so many features in there. All in one baby. All in one. And I really love how and I know this sounds like a commercial, but it's just I know. It's just worth talking about. Like, it is worth saying. It's like one of those that's Why I did the one is at the beginning, like, I don't just talk about this about other products. Not trying to sound like QVC or something, but seriously, You know, it's it's changed the game so much that when I open up, like, Final Cut Pro or Logic, I'm like, this feels limited. It feels old. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I Yeah. What's interesting is from my perspective, I never knew how to edit video until Descript. I would have to and my sister has been editing video for a few years. So anytime I needed to edit a video, I would record usually using, like, QuickTime or something like that, And then I would send it to her and have her edit it, and I think she was using Final Cut maybe. But for me, now, I fully am capable with Indesript, which is awesome. I have so many ideas for videos all the time, and then I make them and then I post them. And I wasn't able to do that 6 months ago because I was not using Descript then. So, yeah, it's pretty great, and it's Very, very much. You can again, this sounds like a commercial, but you really can do everything within it. Some people I know like to export their audio or their yeah. Mostly audio to, let's say, Pro Tools or something like that to get Final mix down or to really do the minutiae of the fading in, fading out, crossfades, things like that. But you can do a lot of that on Descript, And I do everything I need to do on Descript. I like building any project I work on in a way that it can be just done in Descript. It doesn't need to be multiple projects. If you build it From the start, like, hey, this could be done in Descript, then just do it that way rather than, like, have to export it and then re export it from some other tool, you know? But having that feature too, you know, there's People out there, like, can't do this, whatever, but it gets you there, like, really most most of the time. That's Incredible. Yeah. And I'm sure there's, like, so many more features coming on the way. So you are and I don't wanna mess up, like, your exact title, community manager? I think, technically, community marketing manager just because my background is in marketing a lot, so we just wanted to throw that word in there. Yeah. I love that. And what what does that entail? Like, what what's what I always wondered what, like, a community I know. I know. It's a great question, and It it's a role that straddles a bunch of different aspects of a company. Some people liking it more towards the marketing side of things. Some people liken it more towards the customer retention slash customer success. We also do social media, and that is because it's an emerging field, community management. I have heard ideas that in the next few years, community will be a role that's in the c suite. For now, it is usually the next Step up from this would be a marketing role, but community really is important in and of itself. What I do or the way I see community is There are however many hundreds of thousands of people that use a product. Descript, for example. So however many people that use Descript, That is the community. That is the community, but then there are subsets of communities within the larger user base. Some of those people want to be involved with Descript more than others. Some people want to be involved just to the point that they record or they edit, and then they're done. You know, they don't care about the script. They they use it, they love it, but they don't necessarily wanna interact with us. And then there's the people on the complete other side of the spectrum that Use it, love it, and want to attend every event that we do, wanna talk to us, wanna give us, feature requests, wanna give their feedback, Wanna be highlighted by us, and then there's most of the people who fall somewhere in between. So my job is to identify those different groups And figure out how all of them need or want to be served. Again, some want to be served more than others. And some of those, community members are business to business People, some of them are very much more on the indie side of things, but all of them need to be nurtured in one way or another. Right? The people who are Independent creators who will never make a dime in their life from their video or audio related projects, they need to justify paying for a service like And how can I help them justify paying for a service like Descript? It's by creating free events that make them excited to be part of this community. Or it's people like more on the b to b side of things who they are happy to be highlighted in a blog post that says, here is how this person from this company uses Descript. And that's a great thing that they can share with their stakeholders. Right? So it's identifying these different communities within this larger community and then figuring out how to serve them so that They evangelize the product to more people. And that manifests in a number of different ways. Like I said, it could be Figuring out what kind of events they wanna be attending, figuring out if they should be highlighted at those events, figuring out what kind of blog series we can do to highlight our community members, figuring out what kind of presence we we wanna have at podcast or video creator events, Figuring out what kind of swag we should have at those events based on customer feedback, figuring out how to keep the Discord active And useful for people, figuring out what kind of social posts will highlight the community and everything in between. And then also, you know, we border on the content side of things too. Because if we decide to have a Descript podcast, for example, I will push For community involvement. I I want the community to be highlighted in some way. So community, flows through everything that I do. So 2 things. 1, are you saying all I had to do was ask you if I wanted to be dripped out head to toe and just script, swag or something? Just You just gotta ask. Locked up. Just locked up my Make your tuxedo. My shirt a tuxedo. That would be that would be amazing. I'm officiating a wedding, next month actually. So Just saying, beautiful backdrop. Owns a tuxedo shop. You should get a tuxedo. I just script just just d's every We'll get him the branding, and he'll he'll make it happen. Yeah. It just it would it would that would next level. Dad owns tuxedo shop. That's amazing. And I will say on the Thing of d's here, dad, descript, Dylan. The Discord is fantastic. I have oversubscribed to Discord that I don't know if it's the right word, But I whittled it down to just a couple, and Discord is definitely my most visited one. The Discord. I mix those words up all the time. You cannot imagine. Yeah. The Descript Discord is fantastic. Like, there's so much going on, and it's like a community within and I guess that's probably something too for you. Right? Like, it's a community. Even in there, there's, like, the channels within There's so much happening. Right. Yeah. How do you people that wanna be involved at all stages. You know, some people just wanna come in and leave a comment every once in a while. Some people Or hanging out there all day long answering other people's questions. So There's 1 guy in particular, Chris Christie. Christie. He started a TikTok, And I was like He has a great YouTube channel too. Yeah. And I was like, it's like the the most popular guy on the descript Discord. He's like, I don't know about that. I'm like, Dude, you are everybody that has a question No. He's very popular. And and for good reason, like, he's just so on it. He's good at the script. Oh, very good. It's just so helpful. And coming across people like that, it's, like, you know, it's just awesome. How do you manage it all? Like, it seems absolutely overwhelming. Everything you describe sounds incredible. And from, like, 1 person's perspective, like, how do you stay on top of it without Losing Your Mind. I have 2 answers. The first is a little bit in jest, but it's definitely true, which is that I have undiagnosed ADHD. So My brain is very much, like, very efficient when I needed to be efficient and when I love something. And it is very easy for me to accomplish great work when I love something, and I'm so grateful that I found a profession that I love. My 1st job out of college, I did not love. It was a fascinating job. You could not disagree that I was not good at this job. I just was not good at organizing myself. I I worked it was a at a Jewish nonprofit. Fascinating job. Worked with synagogues throughout the South, but I just really was not great at it. I I was great at maintaining the relationships with the people and Actually, going to the synagogues and hanging out with the kids and things like that, but keeping organized was something that I was just not great at. And it was because My passion was in podcasting, but I didn't know it yet. And my passion was in audio, and my passion was in community management. And I I just didn't know that yet, and then the fields We're still emerging at that time. And so when I found the world of audio, the world of podcasting, and then the world of community management within audio software, Audio and creator economy software. I really just I can get anything done when I love it. So that's sort of my ingest answer, which is that I Get work done because I love it. And then my my real answer, like, how do I actually get things done, is I'm a big, mark as unread girl. I love to mark as unread. So the way that I know that things are not finished is if I've marked them as unread. So my email inbox, I try to clear it out every day. But if I don't finish something, I'm marking it as unread. If I have not answered a text message, I'm marking it as unread. If I haven't answered a LinkedIn message, I'm marking it as unread. Twitter does not allow you to mark things as unread. Things for me have, you know I've been lost to the ages because of that. But yeah. I mean, that's sort of how I would sum up my follow-up hustle is just being able to say, I I cannot get to this today. And, again, those project management softwares That I mentioned earlier in our conversation. I really believe that if I can master those project management softwares, I'll be unstoppable. So, I'm I'm working on it. Then it becomes the opposite. We gotta get her off these. She's too powerful. She's taking over the world. That's incredible. She just dropped so much great stuff there. But the thing is the thing about that is, like, it's not an inspiration. Right? The the I'm a mark as on red girl. Like, that's not an inspiration. It's not like You're not gonna be like, oh, you know, I'm listening to this conversation with Ariel and Dylan, and Ariel said something that I've never considered before. Like, everybody knows Mark has unread. And I'm not saying I'm the most efficient person in the world. In fact, I would love for somebody to watch me work for a day and be like, here is where you're inefficient. Like, I would I would pay for somebody to sit right here, watch me, not make any comments, and then say, Ariel, you you did 2 extra hours of work today because of All the tabs that you had to click back and forth between or this number that you didn't have saved and then you had to spend 5 minutes searching for that number and then figuring out who it was and how to respond to them. Like, those are all things that I know that I need to do and I wish I could do, but at least I'm aware of them. So if my rant right now helps you realize that you also could benefit from having somebody sit on your shoulder and ask you how you could be more efficient, then maybe that's the takeaway here. I will say as someone who has been told they're one of the most, like, productive people, you know, and inbox 0. No emails in my inbox right now, unless well, there is 1. Someone Well, it's been a few minutes. So Yeah. It's been a few minutes and I see there's 1 notification. I keep it as 0. I think there's something to the mark as unread though because I am like a snooze person, you know. Emails, I'm constantly snoozing to a better time. And especially with these days with, like, communication it's, Hey, I just sent you a message, you know, that was on 3rd time, not yours, you know. I think I think there's a lot of value in in marking something as unread because then you know where to look. Also, sometimes I wonder about the productivity rabbit hole because you go down so far and eventually, where do you end up? What are you doing? What do you do? What are you doing? You know? Yeah. Too many things to continue to check off At that point, you're making work for yourself. Oh, and then especially, like like, with research and things like that, or, like, you can always plan ahead, and you can always get further and further ahead. It just seems like, at a certain point, it becomes it just feels like a a loop, I guess. You know? Yeah. Unless I listen to a great podcast called The Productivity Show. Do you know it? No. It's so good. Every episode it starts off with, If it's a guest, the host asks the guest, give it give me your top 3 tools for productivity. And it could be a software. It could be a service. It could be a brand. It could be Literally just getting up and going for a walk. It could be a book. It's great. And then they get into the discussion. So they'll be like, here are our top tips for using Notion. Here are our top tips for using the calendar app on your phone. It's so great. So that's helped me a lot. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Yeah. And apps in itself is a whole thing of, Yeah. How many to do list apps there are? I don't think it's for me. Every time I try a new to do list app. My issue is I don't wanna have to go To the Internet and type in my things every time. So I just, you know, good old fashioned pen and paper, cross things out. Shout out shout out to pen and paper, offline mode activated, always works. Also speaking of, like, clicks and keeping things efficient, You have to have a lot of things coming your way in terms of listen to this, listen to this, listen to this, or have you you know, how do you manage the influx? Do you have like a because I I on Amazon, I have like a to read list. That's like hundreds of books that I'll probably never read, but It gives me a cue, I guess, if I if I wanna go to it and then I never do. But how do you organize recommendations that come your way? No. I definitely miss things. I listen to to things based on what I'm interested in, but I listen a lot. I listen to 5 to 7 hours every day, so I'm getting through a lot. And, of course, there are gonna be things that I miss, but I also listen on a faster speed. Some podcasts I listen to at their at the speed with which they were created. And then others, I definitely speed up because I I work in podcasting, and I I have to listen. But, honestly, it gets easier, and I genuinely enjoy listening to some podcasts at a faster speed. And Some people who are creators listen to that, and they're like, oh, you know, you're sullying my work. But I say, you know what? I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I don't feel like I'm sullying your work. I feel like I love it, no matter what. And if something is really, really beautiful, I will slow it down and listen back. But chat shows don't necessarily need to be listened to with the the beauty of Everything said it one x. So I listen to a daily news podcast that I speed up. Actually, I listen to several daily news podcasts. I listen to a lot of investigative shows. I listen to a lot of chat shows, a lot of comedy shows, a lot of pop culture shows. But, yeah, I'm constantly listening. And The way that I get recommendations is mostly through podcast recommendation newsletters, and so that sort of acts as a backlog of content. So if I'm ever Interested in listening to something that I heard about a long time ago, but I can't really remember what it is. I just search back in my podcast recommendation newsletters and check those out there. But for the most part, I know a show is gonna be something that's worth my time if it's popping up everywhere. If it's popping up in multiple podcast newsletters, if it's popping up on the podcast apps, If I'm seeing people posted about it on social, then I have to listen to it. Most people don't know this, but this podcast, digital podcaster, is actually meant to be listened to in 0.5 It's so useless in half speed. And, Yeah. That's and that makes sense because I do talk fast. So Yeah. Yeah. It's probably like normal speed. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But you get used to it. The brain acclimates to that faster speed, and then it become anything else becomes slow. You know? And then some people's brains acclimate to TikTok speed, and then next thing you know, you're talking in dances. Love it. I'm curious what you think, but I've found that, You know, listening is great. And if if listening at 1 x speed is, like, only so much, but is the amount of things we hear in a day, the information we're taking in, Reading that's why I love Descript is reading is so much more efficient in a lot of you like cases. Right? It's so much faster versus I have to hear this. I have to process this. Something about the text is incredibly fascinating. I love both. Yeah. That's why I love an a good audiogram. You know, let me hear it and read it as it's coming. I agree. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I was gonna ask you, what would you like to see more of in podcasting? Transcripts. Transcripts. Yeah. What why what? A standardization of transcripts. And I think every podcast to a certain extent Should be prioritizing transcripts. And this is, you know, of course, for folks who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also because There are people who like to consume content by reading it or reading it while they listen to it. Or here's my use case. I'm on the subway. I'm listening to a podcast. Another train is coming by. It's way too loud. The tracks are screeching. I don't wanna turn up the volume and blow my ears out, so I would much rather Text pop up across my screen, and I can read it. And we can I don't have to pause it, and we could just continue on? I would love that. You know, on Spotify or Apple Music, you can see the lyrics. Lyrics? Yes. Why don't we have that for podcasts? Because 1 song gets listened to a 1000000,000,000,000 times, And 1 podcast might get listened to that much, but there's also gonna be another one the next week. Right? So I just don't think that that they're getting getting as many replays as the song is. Mhmm. But if you're uploading the transcripts with it, wouldn't it just be like a no brainer? Yeah. It would be. It would be. Isn't it just like Not everybody is uploading the transcripts With it, not everybody is naming their speakers in the same conventions. Not not everybody is doing their contractions the same way. Not everybody is editing out their umms the same way. Some people are doing transcripts, but not subtitle. It's like, what is the difference between all of those things that there's an education play that needs to come into existence? So I just think there's some standardization that needs to take place, and that is what I would like to see more of in podcasting. That is lovely. This is more specific. What would you like to see more of when it comes to, like, women and podcasting? More of them. More creators, more female non binary creators getting paid To make content whether that's advertisers believing in them and and spending money on their shows or larger networks green lighting their ideas. Beautiful. And this is a bit of a prediction. This will be fun to look back on. It doesn't have to be wild. It doesn't have to be actually anything. You could say the same. Where do you see podcasting going in the next 3 to 5 years? I think that more and more the concept of Media is branching out, so people who have podcasts. Some, of course, will continue to be audio only, But I think more and more people will understand that having a video element to go along with their podcast is going to be Maybe not necessary, but definitely additive to the experience for the consumer. So even just, You know, the conversation that we're having now. Say, you're listening to this later and it's audio only. But maybe you found us by way of clip on TikTok or by way of a clip on YouTube. I think more and more people are gonna realize that that is how a lot of people are discovering audio is by video first. And, you know, the research is in. Coleman Insights put out a research survey a few, I wanna say a month and a half ago. We're recording this now in late September. But at Podcast Movement, it was a really great study revealed that a lot of People who are discovering podcasts are discovering them for the 1st time not as podcasts. They're discovering the creators. They're discovering the guests on TikTok or Reels or YouTube. And because of that, it could be that you still wanna be somebody who listens to podcasts, listens to podcasts, does not Watch podcasts, but there are definitely people out there, Gen z, even older folks who are the algorithms on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram are so strong That they're feeding people content, and they don't know that those things are necessarily podcasts. They don't know that those things were once audio only. And also YouTube will, in theory, be ingesting RSS feeds in the coming months, so there should be more news on that front soon. I was talking to my dad the other day, and he doesn't really know much anything about podcast, but he said something that I thought was interesting because I had asked him, like, do you listen to podcasts? And he's like, yeah. He's like, but I watched them on the clips. Yeah. I've heard that. And I thought that was interesting. I was, like, oh, like, I didn't wanna correct him. You know, he's, like No. And also you shouldn't. Right? Because, like, Yeah. We are not the norm. And I have to remind myself that constantly, that just because I listen to 5 to 7 hours of podcast every day And I'm making generalizations about podcast listenership. I cannot be doing that because I am I'm an outlier. Right? So when I hear people who are Not outliers talk about their experience with podcasts. My first instinct is to say, oh, you know, that's that's not how I do it or, like, here's how you should see it. But then, you know, I I try to be quiet back up and say, okay. Yeah. Give me like, let me do my user research. Let me do my behavioral research on How you consume podcasts. Pretty much everywhere I go, I I ask people how they listen to podcasts, and then I say and if they say, oh, I watch podcasts, I say, oh, you say you watch podcasts? That's fascinating to me. Thank you. Tell me more. Instead of watch podcast, what the hell? Yeah. And then they go on a list somewhere, and then, you know, like, this person yeah. Big Trouble podcast, please come in for them. You go to a lot of podcast conferences. I do. I I feel like you go to all of them. It's just safe to say you go to I don't I don't go to Podfest. I have not really been to Podfest, but I do go to a lot of them. You go there I mean, you're going there because you work in podcasting, but for podcasters going, is there like a 1 or 2 tips of, like, go there with this intention? Yeah. Schmoozing. Who? You're gonna lose money if you go to a conference. That's just the way it is. They're the return on investment For your plane tickets and for your ticket to the event, you're not gonna get that money back right away. But over time, You'll make connections. Maybe you'll grow your show. Maybe that will lead to sponsorship dollars. Who knows? But most importantly, it is Going to introduce you to other people who are in the same boat as you. I, for a long time, tried to justify cost, And you just can't, and that is so okay because you I mean, the 1st podcast conference I went to was Podcast Movement in 2017, And I got to go for free because I advertised for podcast movement in my newsletter. You know, I paid to drive there. I paid to park. I paid you know, and I was young. I was, like, 24, and I paying for parking $50 a day, that definitely stressed me out a little bit. And, I was worried about that return on investment, and that's not even a lot compared to some people flying in and paying for hotels and things like that. But I justified it because I said, if I meet 5 people and those 5 people lead to more conversations I mean, literally, at that event, I met folks from Castbox, a podcast listening app, that 3 years later, I started working there. Right? So I got paid, eventually. It took a while, and it took Immense hustling, but I think if you go in with the right idea, you're going to have success eventually. So I would say Go in with the idea that you're going to meet people who are in your niche, in your podcast niche. And, also, this is just a general tip that I have for networking, which is If you feel awkward, you are not the only one who feels awkward. If you wanna walk into a room and it looks like everybody is talking in a circle and you're gonna be the odd person out of the circle, Most likely, that circle does not actually know each other, and they just look like they know each other. So pop in there and, like, announce that you feel awkward because It will garner sympathy. That's fantastic life advice right there, especially for an introvert like myself. And I know that a lot of other people who listen, feel similar. That's tactical. That is really helpful. Thank you. When it comes to the virtual side of things, and it's okay to share things that, like, you're actively involved in. It doesn't matter if you're biased. I'm totally cool with that. But say someone is, like, a podcaster And they're, like, yeah, I mean, I they follow me. They're just learning about you, and they're gonna follow you, especially on LinkedIn. Shout out to Ariel on LinkedIn, but they wanna be active. Is the Descript Discord, like, where should podcasters be hanging out these days virtually? Yeah. Descript has a really great Discord. So If you use Descript, you should definitely be there. Twitter continues to be a great place for people to go and ask questions about podcasting and to, you know, Talk about audio ideas and source guests and things like that. Twitter, x, whatever you wanna call it. There's, another great Discord channel that I manage, which is called the Podcasting Community on Discord. I can share links to that. Buzzsprout has a really great Facebook group. I think it's Buzzsprout community. Podcast Movement has a really great Facebook group. Those are some great places to hang out online. And then if you are somebody who podcasts about sports or you're somebody who podcasts about women's issues, there are probably niche Communities for you to join as well. And where should people go? I mean, like, I feel like you've got, like, 8,001 things going on. But if someone was just to, like, Hear this, and they're like, this girl sounds awesome. You know, where I don't know. Like, what where do you want to send people that listen? Yeah. If you go to the Descript YouTube channel, you will find me and my colleague, Christiana, talking about Podcast community and tips for creators and things like that. If you wanna contact me directly, my website is Ariel Nissenblatt.com. If you Google any spelling ish of my name, you should be able to find me because I believe I'm the only one who exists with that name. And it's also it really does it's spelled how it sounds like it's spelled. I would be curious about how people are gonna spell it after they hear that. But, yeah. We'll see it. We'll see it in the They'll also put it in the show notes of this episode, I imagine. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for coming on Digital Podcaster today, Arielle. Thank you for having me. What a blast. You're a good question asker.