BJKS Podcast

119. This (audio only) podcast is dead - long live the podcast? With Dan Quintana

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This is a special episode: this podcast will change after this episode, from remote audio-only interviews to exclusively in-person video interviews. Dan Quintana, professor at the University of Oslo and host of the Everything Hertz podcast, joins me to discuss why and how I'm making this change, podcasting and science communication more broadly, time management as an academic and podcaster, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: An obnoxious episode: podcasters talking about podcasting

0:02:22: Why Dan and I started our podcasts

0:07:15: Video vs audio podcasts, YouTube as a podcast platform, and social media

0:13:08: In-person vs. online/remote recordings

0:18:40: My plans for recording in-person video interviews

0:28:55: To start a remote podcast, you only need a laptop now

0:30:58: Managing a podcast while being a full-time scientist

0:39:14: Inviting guests to do interviews

0:43:20: Is podcasting a waste of time?

0:48:22: Science communication

0:49:56: Should I change my podcast's name and logo?

0:55:55: Final recommendations for the podcast from Dan? And for people who want to start a podcast

1:04:02: A book or paper more people should read

1:09:50: Something Dan wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:12:11: Advice for postdocs

Podcast links


Dan's links


Ben's links


Other links & references

Samson 2QU microphone: https://samsontech.com/products/microphones/usb-microphones/q2u/

Latour & Woolgar (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts.

Morris (1979). The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

Todes (2014). Ivan Pavlov: A Russian life in science.

[This is an automated transcript that contains many errors]


Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] Yeah, so I mean, I guess this is gonna be one of the, how should I call it? The obnoxious genre of podcast episodes where podcasters talk about podcasting.

Um, so who, what a fitting guest. Thank you for joining me.

But I mean, I think I'll just, uh, start right out and say kind of why we're doing this, because, uh, the, the, the straight reason is that, um, I am, so this podcast is gonna have quite a, quite a change. I did, I think by the time this will come out, this will be the hundred and 19th episode, something like that, uh, of remote audio interviews.

And that is going to change. So from well after this episode, all of my interviews are going to be, well still with sound, but, uh, video, uh, will also be recorded. So it'll be a video podcast in which I will interview people in person. With video, uh, format is still gonna be largely the same. [00:01:00] Uh, it's still gonna be a mixture of science and, you know, behind the scenes, that's the phrase, um, of what it's like to do science and how it can we prove and that kinda stuff. But, uh, yeah, anyway, so it's gonna be, maybe for the listeners, it's not gonna be that much of a change, I dunno, because I'm still assuming most people will listen to it rather than watch it.

But for me it's gonna be a big change. Uh, so I thought it'll be fun to have a discussion now that there's also nearing the five year anniversary of the podcast about podcasting, about, you know, why we both started our, and how it changed over time and all that kinda stuff.

Dan Quintana: I'm looking forward to it, and congrats for getting over a hundred episodes. That's a, that,

that's a massive, a massive achievement and really looking forward to the, the new format of the podcast. So I'm very keen to learn a a bit more about that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's, I, I guess this is probably this the case in, in most kind of, of these, I wouldn't exactly call it creative endeavor, but these, like, where you produce something yourself, where, you know, in the beginning it feels [00:02:00] like you're putting in all this effort and then you're like at episode four and, and suddenly then you're like, oh wait, I have 110 

Dan Quintana: it goes so quick. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Um, it's nice to finally be on the, the quick side of that and not on the sludging to get another half episode out.

Um,

yeah, I thought, to kick off this conversation about podcast, I'm just curious. So, I mean, you've, you know, been on a podcast before, uh, but, and we talked a little bit about this stuff, but I don't think we really talked about why you started yours and all that kind of stuff.

So, um, why did you.

Dan Quintana: this, our podcast started about 10 years ago, and this was back in the day where Skype was a thing, and I am doing this podcast with, with James Heathers, who, I first met because we were thrown in together into a, an office doing our PhDs, and we both had finished our [00:03:00] PhDs. I went to Oslo, he went to Boston, and we had just continued chatting.

We were chatting over Slack. We had Skypes here and there, and then I thought to myself. Why don't we record this and try a podcast? Back then, there weren't that many science podcasts happening, um, at all, really. Uh, and I thought we can, we can give this a go. Maybe someone will appreciate listening, listening to us talk. Even if they didn't, we'd still have a lot of fun doing it anyway. And so we initially thought we would do a psychophysiology podcast, which was why we chose the name. This is the name of, uh, of one of one of James's papers talking about some of the limitations of heart rate variability research. Um, and one of the metrics we use, or one of the measurements we use is, uh, is, is is herz.

The therefore Everything Hertz. Uh, but then after a couple episodes, we decided maybe that's a little bit boring. And we started talking about different topics and then just kind of went [00:04:00] from there. So it initially started just as an excuse to catch up with a friend and almost we're about to crack 200 episodes.

So I think we're up to 180 something. And that is still the podcast. It is still me just catching up with a friend and we are recording it and just going, going from there. So that was the initial motivation and it still is the initial motivation, but I guess, uh, a couple of episodes in kind of around episode 10 20, we, we noticed that a lot of people started giving us feedback going, wow, I've never heard this stuff before.

'cause a lot of the stuff we were talking about was the behind the, the behind the scenes of science, how science is actually done. And a lot of people are very lucky to be part of very active labs or very active departments where this, um, this stuff is spoken about explicitly how publication really works. Um. The, the [00:05:00] incentive systems within academia. But these were things that we were talking about, and a lot of people were like, I have not heard these things, and these are the first times I've heard about these things. And getting that sort of feedback and talking more about these issues has been one of the big motivators for us, because we've been very lucky to be part of these conversations about how these things work.

But, uh, a lot of people aren't, a lot of people are, uh, academically isolated. Even if they're part of a very big university or, or a big department or even a big lab, they still feel very, very isolated. So this has been a very big part of why we've done it and why we continue doing it. That's been great getting that sort of feedback from, from listeners over the years.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, it's, it's just so funny because in to some extent this is, in a way, I was almost on the flip side of that

because, I mean, for me, it was also part of the coincidence that, you know, my PhD started and then a year later there was a pandemic. And, uh, and then [00:06:00] our lab also moved. So like, basically for like the middle part of my PhD, I saw like three people. And, um, I, I guess for me it was almost the flip side of being like, I'm not seeing any of this and I want to meet more people and connect with 'em and

find out why they, you know, why they didn't X or Y in that paper.

Which is also why in the beginning some of podcasts were a bit nitpicky and like I've, I've slightly gone away from some of those very precise questions that. Bored me even during the editing. But, um, yeah, it's funny for me, for me, I, I know in a sense the the, the motivation for, for why you keep doing it and why I started mine was probably to some extent somewhat similar in this, the, the recognition that there's lots of things that are, even though they're not explicitly hidden, they're just, you know, there's not really a, I guess it's like this classic thing, right?

In a paper, you, you want a quick summary of what people find out and how they did it, right? There's not really much room for this whole behind the scenes kinda stuff.

Um, [00:07:00] and I guess for me it was also partly finding out about interesting things from a scientific perspective, but then also getting that behind the scenes look and then, you know, because, 'cause I can just record it, sharing it also with other people.

Dan Quintana: and it, it, it's, it's so cool that you're changing this, this format. 'cause this, this is something I've been been thinking about as well. We have done this, we have done a few video episodes where Everything Hertz. Um, we even tried doing a few live ones. That was a lot of fun because you just have no idea what's gonna happen.

We even managed to integrate live questions as well. So it was, um. It was tricky though. It was, it was quite stressful actually doing the podcast, but also producing the podcast live at the same time.

Now there are platforms, um, uh, like Riverside and you are using just Descrip squad squad

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, this is a squad cast. Yeah.

Dan Quintana: yeah. And with these sort of platforms, it is actually possible to have a, uh, a, a producer that's also sort of jumping in and, and helping out and doing [00:08:00] stuff. But this, this was all me on a, a laptop with just wires and gear going everywhere. It was a lot of fun, but it was, um, it was, it was, it was pretty crazy. I like this idea of doing, of doing video stuff. 'cause I think a lot of people are accessing, it's, it's crazy to hear the amount of people that listen to podcasts via YouTube. This is something which I would never do, and I know a lot of people listen to music via YouTube as well, which I think is quite strange. But a lot of people do it and a lot of people are listening to podcasts, um, on YouTube. And this isn't even necessarily. Video podcast. It might just be somebody who's uploaded a video or just just a, a audio file and have a static image. And people are listening to stuff this way. And I think video I i is, is very, is very interesting because a lot of the ways that we record podcasts, particularly online, you're doing it via video. Um, and it's great to see that you're doing it, but you're, you are taking the approach where you're doing it in [00:09:00] person. Um, that is a lot more work than actually recording it online. How come you've gone for this in person route instead of

doing the more kind of

online approach? 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, so first, a quick comment on what you said. One thing I found fun is that, so since beginning of last year, or this year, I can't remember, uh, YouTube automatically allows for RSS feeds so you can automatically, so I automatically upload my podcast to YouTube. You know, I, I don't do anything for it, it just happens when I publish my normal episodes.

And it is funny that like, you know, I assume no one would ever listen to them because it's just an image, you know, it's just a, the, the logo of the podcast and then a two hour conversation. And, um, so for me it was more like, you know, YouTube being one of the biggest or second largest search engine, that kind of thing.

Um, and why not? Funny enough, I do have, uh, one episode that is also my least scientific one with the, with the biographer of Vladimir Nabokov. [00:10:00] Um, Brian Boyd. That one actually has something like 500 views on YouTube now. Something like 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. But it it, 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: 10% of which actually listen to the entire thing.

Dan Quintana: it's incredible. And it, it's, it's purely, it's, it's the algorithm. So I think in many ways these algorithms suck. That, that is, that is the downfall of, of, of Twitter. I'm not called x I'll

call it Twitter. Um, but the things like YouTube and also to a degree Spotify, these work incredible because. Somebody out there has a very niche interest and these algorithms can bring the person that's making stuff like a podcast on a very specific episode with someone out there in the world who is very interested and they might not even be interested in the sort of theme of your entire podcast, but that specific episode, their algorithm, bam, they listen to it and they're listening to the whole thing.

So that is why stuff like, uh, uh, YouTube is, is very interesting [00:11:00] because one of the problems with the podcast, which I'm sure you know, is the problem of discovery. How are people gonna find what you're talking about? Traditionally, the way that we would do it is either word of mouth or social media. Five years ago. 10 years ago, that was Twitter. We had many scientists using Twitter, and it was very easy to focus on that platform and promote your podcast that way. But now things have fragmented a lot. Of course, a lot of scientists have moved to Blue Sky, and surprisingly, LinkedIn is going really well. Like I never would seen the day.

But like, I'm almost getting like more engagement and responses on my LinkedIn posts

than Blue Sky. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: the, okay.

I don't know. I've only, I, I only, I'm, I'm on Reddit sometimes, I mean, I don't have an account, but I'm on the, you know, userless on the web on the front page and sometimes it shows LinkedIn lunatics and so it's just people facing the dumbest stuff on LinkedIn. So that's the only context I have on LinkedIn these days.

Dan Quintana: it, I mean, it, it's so weird. Like I feel like somebody there is. [00:12:00] Just tweaking the dials on you seeing really weird lunatic LinkedIn stuff versus normal LinkedIn. And some days I'm like, this is okay, this platform is totally fine. Other days I'm like, yep. Now we're seeing the weird LinkedIn stuff. But the days that they tweak the algorithm and it's good, it's actually quite good. But what's interesting is the level of engagement that you get on LinkedIn is just seems to be, seems to be quite high. Again, it's the algorithm and the tail is very, very long on Blue Sky. If no one's seeing your post within a day, it's never gonna be seen on LinkedIn. You're getting stuff you know, responded to like a month later

because the algorithm sets just some people are logging in once a month. It works really, really well. So every now and then I do sort of social media talks for, for students and the faculty and just other workshops here and there. And it's weird now recommending LinkedIn, it just feels strange but it, that's just. Where the, that's just where the data is, that's where the re right now [00:13:00] at least it is on par with Blue Sky in terms of getting these sort of responses. So it's, um, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting. But all that to say video is interesting. 

Why have you gone for the in-person rather than the

online 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it's funny, it's one of those things where you have like a couple of reasons that kind of interact with each other in weird ways. Um, so one of the initial, one of the big problems of my podcast, right, is that one, number one, it's completely self-funded, right? So I can't send my guest microphones for their interviews.

And I mean, I could, but that I couldn't eat. um,

Dan Quintana: that's important. You

need to eat. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I have clear preferences here. Um, no, but the problem is basically that the, the thing that always annoyed me is that like, you know, your, your. You start this podcast and then my first episode has terrible audio on my part, and it gets better. You get better equipment.

At some point you have pretty decent sound on your part. But the problem is, when my guest comes, I [00:14:00] have no idea what the sound is gonna be like. And it is generally improving because, uh, laptops are getting much better than they were even five years ago. Especially because, you know, five years ago people had laptops that were maybe three years old.

Uh, but if people now get a new laptop, it's often quite good. But nonetheless, and there's no way to predict what it's gonna be like for me, for my guests. Usually. I assume younger people are better, but I've had some young people with just like, oh, I needed headphones and, you know, blah, blah, blah. Um, and so the initial problem of my podcast is basically that I don't speak much on my podcast, but I have usually much better sound than my guests.

And that annoys me to no end.

And so one thought I had was like, well, why don't you know. If it's, it's a bit of a crazy idea, but why don't I travel to people? Um, because, and another thing that I always found annoying is that often I have very nice conversations with people. You know, we talk for 60 to 120 minutes and sometimes, you know, a bit before and after whatever.

[00:15:00] And it's often just this annoying thing where you talk to somebody in a nice conversation and then at the end you just go like, okay, well bye. And then you press end conversation and then you're just, you know, back in your living room. Right? I mean it's, it's, in a way, it's of course the magic of, of actual magic of technology, right?

In that sense that I can talk to, you know, Brian Bod, the guy who, he's in New Zealand, right? We can talk and, uh, I was slightly tired because it was like 7:00 AM but um, you know, we can, we can talk over thousands of kilometers and blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, it's also kind of annoying if you have a nice conversation with someone that then, you know, there is still this disconnect between in per meeting someone in person and online and, um.

So then I, I, I just initially I just had this idea of, okay, like I want to do in-person interviews. And, uh, again, during my PhD that wasn't really possible because of the pandemic and because no one was really where I was in that sense. [00:16:00] Um, but it's kind of been this thing I've had in the back of my mind.

And the second thing is also, as you mentioned, the, the discoverability of podcast things. And this is, I think, a much bigger factor for me than, for example, for you because I don't really do social media. Uh, when I started this podcast, I, I think I technically had an Instagram account and I think that was it.

Uh, I might have had a like silent follow five people on Twitter account, but that was about it. And, uh, I don't like social media. I don't really use it to this day. I have very stereotypical, non inspiring posts whenever have an episode. Um, and. You know, it is annoying thing on Twitter. I started getting some following, right?

Slowly but exponentially, and then it just falls off, right? Because of the, because of the, the Twitter situation and so on Blue Sky, you know, it is the same thing. But yeah, basically the, the problem for me is just that even though I have a very niche podcast, I feel like in that sense, uh, where I [00:17:00] ask some pretty specific questions, I still want people to listen.

And the problem is just that, uh, if you don't use social media and you're not famous in other ways, or you have an established lab or something like that, also, like none of my supervisors has have ever really had social media.

it's it's genuinely, like, I've just been in this like, social media whole, my entire academic career.

So anyway, so those were like two thoughts I had. And then, you know, the obvious question is, why don't I just try, uh, why don't I try to, you know, I wanna do in person anyway. Video helps with, supposedly with discoverability. So why not just do that? Um, the other thing is I

don't,

so I think, how should I put it?

I just don't like, so I sometimes watch, uh, interviews on, on YouTube, uh, but I just don't, I never watch one where it's just two people on, like, now what? We have a split screen and then, you know, they're in separate places and you have this flat, uh, image from [00:18:00] a, from a webcam and that kinda stuff, right? I just don't like that.

Um, so that was written never really an option. It was basically either video in person or not. And actually, initially I also thought I was not gonna do video, but still be in person,

um, just because of the stress and cost associated with buying cameras and then having to deal with another. Dimension, uh, to your whole recording.

Uh, but then I thought that's stupid. Uh, if I have, you know, all the stuff, I might as well just add video to it. Um, so yeah, it was, it is, again, as I said, it's not really like a specific reason. It's just this like convolution of things. And I mean, now also a bit by coincidence, although I think I would've done it anyway, uh, ish where I'm right now for my postdocs, actually a lot of people come through who I want to interview and, um, partly at our institute and, but also in ish general.

Um, and so that allows me to, [00:19:00] I'm hoping interview 10, 15 people a year just by being here. And, 

Dan Quintana: that. That's really good.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, it's, I'm still surprised how Zurich has a way outside at pool also in like, art and like, it's like music and that kinda stuff. Like, it's surprising,

um, like for a city of half a million people or something.

It has, uh, like, I like classical music. It's crazy who comes here anyway. Um, yeah, so that's that. And then basically the plan is to take one or two trips for two to three weeks total, where I just go to a place and interview a bunch of people.

Dan Quintana: just around Europe.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, initially I thought, yeah, I mean, so initially Europe, um, in principle, I mean obviously like, so I'm obviously like limited by finances, my lease, so I would have to go to a place where there's lots of people.

So a place like Boston is obviously a great place for me to interview people. Uh. Quite frankly right now, I don't know whether I want to travel to the US with [00:20:00] a suitcase full of cameras and microphones.

Dan Quintana: Yeah, yeah. I get that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm not entirely sure I'm gonna come back with my equipment, um, or be able to do any of the interviews.

But, uh, yeah, I mean for now I've got plenty of people I wanna interview in Europe. So,

I mean, actually one final thing like here is that about the Europe thing is that I feel like also the general landscape is pretty US heavy for, you know, often language reasons, but also other reasons. So I think actually interviewing people in Europe is actually a bit of a niche that I think is probably slightly underdeveloped

Dan Quintana: sure. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: compared to me going to Harvard and MIT and interviewing people there.

Dan Quintana: That's exciting. When are you gonna start?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, well, I wanted to start a long time ago, but I'm very lazy. Um, no, so basically in, so now it's end of August, so mid-September, hopefully, uh, it depends a little bit on, so I haven't really planned this yet much. Uh, so we'll see when the first episode comes out. I mean, I, I have people wanna ask, but I haven't done that yet.

Um, [00:21:00] still have to buy some cameras. Um, but yeah, the plan is to start in a couple of weeks, uh, to a month, something like that, and then release from October.

Dan Quintana: I, I think conferences could be good for that as well. 'cause a lot of people are in one space.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I'm wondering, do you, so that's something where I've gone back and forth. Part of me thinks that's a good place to do it. Part of me thinks it's a bad place to do it because it's, everyone's there to like catch up with people they haven't seen in a long time and they don't really have time. And

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I don't know, part of me thinks like I'll just be there and just kind of be a nuisance.

Dan Quintana: Yeah. I actually, it's something I thought about as well. Like, I, I've, I've got a, um, a conference coming up and I'm like, do I bring my gear? Um, and because this one is a much, much smaller conference, it's not one of these big mega conferences, I also had the same sort of thought, would I just be a nuisance?

But I think at the same time, it doesn't necessarily have to be long, these sort of things. Um, it could even just be a short, uh, a short [00:22:00] 20 minute conversation somewhere in the corner of a bar. I mean, the sound might not be great, but at least, uh, you know, I think a lot of people have a lot of grace for worse audio depending on the, depending on the context.

But I think, I think that's an idea as, as, as for gear, something I've been playing with is just doing more recordings and more video recordings, and I found simply modern smartphones, uh, good enough, I think at least. So if you have a modern smartphone and something like, uh, we we're getting very technical here, but something like, um, uh, one of the road, uh, wireless transmitters where you can basically get. A transmitter, put it inside a microphone, and then that transmits straight to the phone. And so you have your audio, um, straight video straight in your phone, and the audio comes from these pretty high quality microphones as well. That just a, just a thought, but that, that's something that I've been playing around that with, with and, um, uh, always like looking at new bits of gear and bits of technology and, and how to do these kind of things a bit better.[00:23:00]

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So this is still a big decision I have to make and I'm going back and forth on this. So, so one background thing is I take photos. So for me, the idea of, uh, using my phone for something is just a

however, so that's why initially I started off being like, I'm gonna buy proper cameras, and never. Then a couple of months ago I realized like if I, especially if I'm traveling, mobile phone is absolute perfect because I have.

The camera. Any, I have great battery, right? Any other camera? You need like an external battery or something like that. You have storage. You don't have to think about that. You can, you know, get an iPhone with a terabyte. Um, they fit, you know, I can have one in my right pocket, one in my left pocket. I've kind of done, I need a tripod, but basically I, yeah, I could basically travel with two tripods in each tripod in each of my hand and that, that could kind of be it.

Um, so that's, that's what I thought until Reese a couple of weeks ago. And then for the last couple of weeks I've been thinking, well, if I'm spending [00:24:00] that much money, because I, you know, I would want to buy like a new, one of the best phones right now. Right? I might as well just spend like a couple of hundred dollars more and get some actually good cameras.

Uh, I dunno. It's really tricky to me because, so there's, there's also two just separate aspects to video quality, right? One is the, um. So the phones, I, I, I, I actually bought, uh, the, whatever the new iPhone 16 promax, whatever it is, it's, it's very good. I tried it. Uh, you just, you know, pointed at something and it looks pretty good already.

Um, so the, the kind of automatic features you have in there, because, you know, the image quality in the phone is good because of the computational power, not because of the camera. And so that's amazing. On the other hand, I think if you know what you're doing, you can probably get much nicer image, you know, out of camera that's 

Dan Quintana: for sure. For sure. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I'm, I'm going back and forth on it. Um, thing is also have tripods that are big enough to [00:25:00] carry a proper camera and that kinda stuff. So it's a bit of a, so the microphone's already bought, uh, with, with all the XLR cables and the blah, blah, blah. And I recorded one episode already with it. Uh, but or only audio.

Um, that was great in. Uh, first in person interview and luckily that confirmed my suspicion that it was gonna be more fun to do an in 

Dan Quintana: Oh, for sure. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm glad I didn't hate it. Um,

Dan Quintana: it's so much better. I think we've done like maybe, I think only two or three in person. Um, one was, uh. A live recording in, in Frankfurt that we did. And um, we had, we had a guest there and, uh, that was live and that was, that was a lot of fun. And then I think we did a second one in, in Frankfurt as well.

And then we did a semi-live one where I was traveling through Australia and um, I was with the guest in person and then James joined us online. And there's just nothing like it. It's just,

it's so much better. Do, do, do, doing it in person. I [00:26:00] think online's great 'cause of the convenience, uh, especially if you guest is from New Zealand, but doing it, uh, in person is, is a, is a lot better if, if possible.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean, I think, so for me, I think it was maybe a little bit, uh, uh, unrepresentative. So the interview I did was with who, uh, I liked a lot, just as a person. Uh, she was at the institute and visited, and she was a lot of fun. I think she does really interesting stuff. Uh, and then we started the interview about talking about how she grew up in French Polynesia.

Dan Quintana: Oh wow. That's great. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so, you know, it's, uh, uh, I, I'm not sure this is the most representative episode of what it's like to be in person. And I, you know, I've, I've got on fine with all my guests, but there have definitely been some interviews where like, uh, I'm not sure what, you know, like that's probably gonna be a bit less fun in person.

Um, but, uh, yeah, no, I, it's so far it's been great. Um, but the camera thing is, yeah, I, right now I'm tending again to the world saying, you know what, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it. Here's the other thing, right? I. [00:27:00] The financial investment. So I don't have kids or family, let's just say that. Um, and I don't plan to, and um, the financial investment, let's say I buy like a really nice camera with a good, uh, or like a good camera with a good lens and that kinda stuff, it's gonna cost me maybe 3000 euros per camera.

That would be a really nice camera, right? That is a lot of money. But also relative to the time I put into it, the investment is big on the time side than on me spending six, 7,000 euros that's gonna last me a couple of years or five to 10 years or however long. Right? Like, I dunno. Um, so part of me also, so I'm also thinking just like, just spend the proper money, then you have the proper equipment and then you don't have to think about it.

Dan Quintana: Yeah, exactly. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Otherwise I'm stuck with a couple of iPhones that.

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm not gonna be serviced in five years anymore, so, yeah, [00:28:00]we'll see. We'll see. Um, but no, I, I definitely agree that cameras are for the most part good enough and if I was starting out today, I would do that,

Dan Quintana: but

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but I also know that I've done 119 episodes now, so I'm, I can roughly estimate whether I'm gonna stick with it or not.

Dan Quintana: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

It's, I think you know it by now. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I'm gonna, you know, I don't know how long I'm gonna keep doing this and uh, uh, I can't do it at the pace that I did, especially the, uh, first two years, let's say, where I did almost an episode a week. Um, but I'm gonna do this for another two, three years at least. So why not just 

Dan Quintana: why not put it?

all in there 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno if kids are gonna start. So,

yeah. So we'll see. I mean, uh, I have to make the decision pretty quickly, uh, or like within the next two weeks, let's say. We'll see.

Uh, but yeah, I mean, just briefly whilst we're on the equipment side, uh, just we [00:29:00] mentioned this before we started recording, the, uh, the one thing that's really changed in the five years that I've been doing the podcast and presumably even more so in the time that you've been doing it, is the quality of inbuilt laptop microphones and cameras for that effect too.

But, um, the microphones is astonishing. I mean, I have, so I have the, you know, what is it called, the short SMB seven or whatever it is, the like nice microphones. I bought those and uh, I use them for some of my episodes. And then I at one point had some sort of internet problem. I dunno exactly what it was.

For some reason they didn't, it didn't work with a microphone remotely. So I used my laptop microphone and I was like, this is fine.

Dan Quintana: They're

getting so much better. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, and I, now, I'm using, this is my MacBook Pro microphone. I mean, I've, you know, made sure the room is slightly better than it could be, uh, or would be naturally. Uh, but, you know, I'm on holiday now.

I'm basically just using my laptop. And quite frankly, I think if people wanna start a [00:30:00] podcast now, you, if it's remote, you just need a laptop.

Dan Quintana: Yeah. Yeah.

I think they, they, they're getting much better to that point now, whereas you couldn't say that five, 10 years ago.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, I mean, especially like, I mean, my first episode is terrible audio quality because I was in spontaneously, I had to be in a room with, I didn't realize at the time, terrible audio. Um, but I had an external microphone even at the time because my laptop was even worse. And the quality of my first episode is terrible.

Um, so that, you know, my microphone would've been, or my laptop would've been absolutely atrocious. Um, but now. I mean, again, if you're in a really bad room, I think that's where these professional microphones can make all the difference.

Dan Quintana: bad. Yeah, 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but I mean, if you're doing it at a home in your bedroom, just use it after.

Dan Quintana: yeah, yeah, for sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, I have one question, uh, or one topic, unless you, there's something you still wanna add 

Dan Quintana: no, no, that.

that, that's fine. Okay. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, so one, one big topic for [00:31:00] me, uh, which is going to be to some extent, exacerbated now by me doing in-person video is the time question. Uh, as I mentioned a bit before, that's the biggest investment. Um, and I'm curious maybe a little bit first on what your situation is there because, you know, I'm a, I was a PhD student, now I'm a postdoc.

I said I don't have anyone I have to care for in that sense, or even pets or anything like that. Right. Um, so I can kind of. I mean, I, I do have a scientific career that I'm trying to get going.

Um, but uh, apart from that, uh, you know, I don't have a huge amount of time investment. So I can, I can do this podcast and, but even then, I will say like if I took the time that I spent on the podcast and put it into my scientific work, I would be in a bit much better position.

I think that's at least short term, that's definitely the case. Long term, I don't think so, but short term, having a paper or two more at this stage of my career would make a difference. Um, [00:32:00] anyway, so I'm curious because you have a different situation, you have some sort of responsibility apparently. Um, and you know, right now you could be spending time with your children, but you're talking to me instead.

Uh, it's a choice you made.

Dan Quintana: no, I mean, I mean they, they're, they're preschool and school, 

so 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: thank God.

Uh, no, but the, um, my point is like, how are you thinking about the time it takes to do the podcast? I mean, it seems to me also you are doing fewer episodes now than you used to a couple of years ago. Uh, but how are you thinking about that? Yeah.

Dan Quintana: Yeah, so we used to do, uh, two episodes a month. I think there was a period we're doing even, even more than that, but at, at a minimum we're always pushing for that. But then. With family commitments and also with, with James's schedule, it just wasn't realistic enough to be able to do two episodes a month because it's, it's not just the recording, the, the, you know, the recording takes however long it takes, but it is also the editing, which, um, also can take some time. But [00:33:00] then other things like doing the, putting together, the episode notes, posting online, uh, we like to, so we have a more permanent record of our episodes. We post all our episodes on open science framework as well. That's just, it's just duplicating the information that's on the website, but that still all takes. A fair amount of time. So with that, we've, um, pulled back to, to one episode a month. 'cause I think that's a, that's a little bit more realistic. Um, but in terms of time, I still think, I still think it's absolutely worth it. One, because again, it's just catching up, catching up with a friend, but two, just to be able to have that, um, opportunity to talk about these particular topics, uh, I think is, is, is, is, is, quite, is quite useful.

So I think it's a, it's a worthwhile time investment doing that, doing that sort of stuff. I wish we could do it more, but, um, just with, with life and with having two young kids is just, it's just not possible. I had so much more time both for, [00:34:00] for podcasting and also and also for work as well. But that's, um, that, that, that's, that's certainly changed.

And this, this might change in sort of five to 10 years. But, but for now, this is what I'm doing and it's, and, and it's totally fine, but it's just a slight change of priorities there.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I think actually, so one thing I've noticed is that I feel like maybe just imagining this, but I feel like also, so I dunno when exactly you made that adjustment to once a month, but I feel like the episode's also getting better because of it. Because it's a bit more like, I mean, to some extent, especially because, uh, I mean there's obviously lots and lots of stuff to talk about, right?

I feel like it's a bit more, you know, a bit less but a bit higher quality now that it's once a month. And now I actually listen, you know, I think I'm not just saying this because you are, uh, 'cause you're here, but I actually listen to every episode right now because it's like every once in a while it comes out, I'm like, oh yeah, I'll listen to it.

I haven't listened to it in a while and like every time I look forward to it. Whereas if it's, you know, every two weeks or even more [00:35:00] as a bit of a like, oh, another episode, I haven't listened to the previous one and 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. And I mean, PE people have long podcast cues. A lot of people just have, have, have a long list. And if you're doing it, uh, regularly, then, then stuff can fall behind. But then the ones that come once a month, you know, ah, it's, it's coming and, and here it is. And I guess, I mean that there is always a lot of stuff happening in science, but if you're doing it once a month, you're more able to, to hit that, oh, this is the thing that everyone was talking about this particular month.

Um, so in terms of, in terms of topics, yeah. Uh, maybe, maybe the topics have, have, have, have gotten better, I'm not sure. But it gives us more time and more options of things to talk about. It gives us more time to get, uh, questions from listeners as well. And

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, it's also more things ha happen. I mean, I guess in the last episodes, it seems you've talked more about James' work than yours, for example. Like if, I mean, because he had some news with the grant he got and 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. The, the medical evidence project. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And that's the kind of stuff where I also feel like, you know, things just take time to [00:36:00] progress, right.

So just having more time between episodes allows it's, it's a more of an interesting update because it's just more, I mean, I guess it's not been much of an update yet because it's all pretty new with that situation. But, um, uh, yeah, no, it just, it just, uh, it, it's, I find it really interesting because there's this, like, for me, there's this big trade off where I notice if I.

So I have a very irregular posting schedule.

Uh, I think I've published like one episode in the last three months, but, uh, I'll probably publish weekly for the next month or something like that. Um, so I have this like very, like sometimes weekly, sometimes not at all for two months kind of thing. And I, but I also had a time when I publish pretty regularly every two weeks kind of thing.

And I notice like if I publish weekly really leads to more downloads. Like it's a pretty clear, like there seems to be some like super additive effect there.

Dan Quintana: that's 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, and I mean, may, I've never done it consistently for more than like half a year. So, you know, maybe at some point that falls off again. But I've just noticed like when I, uh, you know, [00:37:00] you have the downloads for the episodes you publish and then the old stuff, right?

And I just feel like all of this gets more when I publish weekly.

And, um, and another thing that's good about doing more episodes is I notice that. So after my PhD, I had, I took a bit of time off and I did like one month where I recorded like seven interviews, something like that. Right? Again, I, I just took some time off.

I think I once had three in like two days or 

Dan Quintana: Wow. Okay. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's a bit, you know, stressful because I prepare quite a bit for most episodes. Um, but I also noticed I'm just, I was just better at it, you know, because I'm more in the, I dunno, maybe if you, it's a little bit different because it's more talking about your actual work and stuff you're doing and thinking about.

Uh, but for me it's often, you know, I, I'm kind of always diving into someone else's world 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: interviews and that, and conducting an interview by, you know, having things you wanna talk about and, but still listening to the person and, you know, following that line of thought. But keeping it all constrained in time with these things is [00:38:00] a skill that I feel like.

When I do an interview again, the first time after two months, it takes me a bit to 

Dan Quintana: Yeah, 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: back into it.

Dan Quintana: you can. 

You get a bit 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So it's this real trade off where I'm, in a way, I wanna do more episodes because I, it has all these benefits, but at the same time it's just not sustainable.

Dan Quintana: Yeah. Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I dunno whether, and so one way around that would be to batch them

in a way, right?

To just say like, okay, I'm just gonna have two, three times a year when I record a lot of them and then I release them all once a week and then I have a summer break or something like that.

Dan Quintana: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, you have to be organized for that. Let's start with that problem. Um, but the other thing is obviously now that I do in person, uh, completely falls apart, uh, because people are here when they're here and uh, sure I still have this when I travel somewhere, I can do that, but.

Yeah, I dunno. I think for me the, the biggest problem, uh, is really this like time management thing because it, you know, a podcast is as much time as you want to put into 

Dan Quintana: Yeah, exactly. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, [00:39:00] and I feel like it's easy to put more and more into it, but, uh, and it feels like a bit of a waste of time. You know, when you should be, do wanna be doing your own research and then you spend 10 hours reading papers by someone else,

Dan Quintana: I don't think, I don't think it's, I don't think it's lost time. I think especially if it is vaguely related to the work that you're doing and you are talking to, I, I, I see so many instances of people like cold emailing, some famous person going, can I pick your brain over, over a, over a zoom for half an hour? Of course they don't have the time for this versus, can I interview you for, for, for my podcast? People are like, yeah, like people, people love talking about their research. I think we've had like, like eight 80 plus guests, and I think of all that. Um, only one person has said back to a, sorry, don't at the time, but they were kind enough to go, but my colleague has a bit more time and can answer a lot of questions about, about what you wanna talk about. People generally say [00:40:00] yes to this kind of stuff and

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry, but that's, I don't wanna push back. But that is an in incredi, like I get about, I would say about half the people I contact respond,

and about a third of the people actually do the, in like in total. Uh, so how do, what do you tell them? Do you send them pictures of their children or something like that?

Just like you better do the interview or,

Dan Quintana: I, I think some of it comes from, look, this, this could be a bias response rate. 'cause some of this could be a, I interacted with this person on this topic

on blue sky, and then they have that, they have that context there. Um. Or it just could be that we, we might mention, oh, we, we spoke with your colleague as well a couple of months ago.

Or this is something that our audience is interested in because of X, Y, Z. So there could be some, some biases there. And most, many of the people, I would say we have some sort of interaction beforehand. Very [00:41:00] few would be completely cold from, from, from memory. A lot of them would be because they wrote this interesting paper and we spoke to them online.

So we just wanted to discuss more. So I, I, I guess, I guess that's a bit of a, that's a, that's a difference there.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I guess one difference is also that your podcast is more focused in terms of theme, uh, to some extent because I, you know, I do competition, neuroscience, social psychology, meta science, and random stuff. Um, so yeah. But yeah, that's, I mean, actually one thing I wanted to, to say though is that if anyone wants to do an interview based science podcast, I will still.

Agree with the general point that this is probably one of the easiest groups of people to interview or to get to interview. Um, I mean, one downside is that they often, at least the people I've spoken to often don't have that much public speaking experience,

uh, or are being interviewed often. They say I'm the first person who's interviewed 

Dan Quintana: Oh wow.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:42:00] Um, and, uh, that has its own problems,

you know? But, um, I mean, my, my, one of the reasons why I was comfortable, again, I was a PhD student, right? Like, I felt very uncomfortable interview asking people to interview them, right? Because it's just like, I feel like, especially in the beginning when you have nothing to show, you're just wasting the time, right?

Like I have, I have like, you know, two episodes and three listeners that kind of 

Dan Quintana: It's from the, it starting off is hard,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly. And so, but one reason that I always felt comfortable asking people whether I could interview them is because I have been, that's probably most academics have multiple times in my career been at.

Uh, at a talk somewhere where someone flew in or took a train, a long train ride from another country to talk in front of 20 people, half of whom were only there to fill the room. And so I was like, okay, I think I can get 10 people.

Like I can, I think I can get 10 people to listen to 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And yeah, so, so [00:43:00] then basically what I mean is just basically academics are used to traveling

for free

to talk in front of basically no one.

And, uh, any podcast that's gonna be better than a lot of talks I've been to in person.

Dan Quintana: yeah, I, I think that's, that's, that's certainly gonna help. But all that to say, I don't think a lot of people look at these things under the broad umbrella of, of science communication. Or of saying that like this, if it's not directly related to your work, this is a waste of time, but I think it can definitely inform your work. I have found out some of the coolest stuff that I've done, at least I think personally has been from reading slightly outside my field, so all gonna talks slightly outside my field because when you are totally in your field, everyone's reviewing each other's papers, everyone's using the same sort of methodology as well.

This is great. And no one is really spending time outside their field. [00:44:00] But then if you hear talks or reading papers slightly outside your field, people are using very interesting methods that you could apply to your field. And when you're, when you start applying 'em to your field, people are like, wow, this is novel, this is new.

And you're like, no it's not. People have been doing this for a very, very long time. And I think that's the same for podcasts. 'cause especially when you're doing guests and you're interviewing people, you're looking to their background, you are learning stuff, which you could, which you could apply to your own work. You are, um, meeting with people as well. And it's always good to, to grow your network that way too. So I don't think it is the, uh, of, of course it is taking time, but I don't think it is, uh, a waste because it's not directly producing a paper, collecting data, writing up stuff. It's all, it's all it compliments that I think.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's this, I think I mentioned this earlier, right? It's, uh, to me it's a long term versus a short term kind of perspective because, I mean, again, you know, each of my episodes is what, like almost 90 minutes on average, right? And I've done more than a hundred and editing takes more than it takes me [00:45:00] to record the thing.

And then it's preparation. So like I've, if I, if I'm being very modest, I've spent more than a thousand hours on this podcast, right? And, um, that's a lot of time

Dan Quintana: Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: for the last five years, right? It's like, it's basically 45 minutes a day every day for the last five years.

And, um. I do know that like, I mean, that's what I meant earlier.

So like on a very short term basis, I know I would have more papers if I didn't do the podcast.

Um, but I also think, uh, again, if, if you take a long term perspective, you know, I am meeting, I mean,

well, okay. Randomly we might have actually met because you started some sort of collaboration with my PhD supervisor, right.

Or something like that. So we, okay. We, okay, this is a bad example, but for 90% of my guests, I might not have met them ever in a couple of years afterwards. And especially because I also do interview people from outside of my field. Um, and that's super cool. And, [00:46:00] uh, Mia I think you, you do have to take a bit of a longer term perspective, but one thing I'll add, which is kind of a cool thing that happened in the last couple of months is that, um, so again, one thing I've noticed is that there seems to be.

At least for my podcast, there was a bit of an inflection point I think, in terms of people's perspective. Once I hit maybe like 70, 80 episodes, something like that. I think before then it was always like, oh, okay, you have a podcast, whatever. But at some point, like I think if you have enough episodes, people are like, oh, this is like an actual 

Dan Quintana: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: isn't just like you doing five episodes and stopping.

And I think, um, it was really like after around that time that I think people's response when they found out I had a podcast got a lot more positive than it was before.

And, um, the best example of that I think is that, so I've been, uh, you know, applying for fellowships and that kind of stuff and, um, I can't remember which one it was.

It was one of the ones I didn't get. But, um, [00:47:00] um, both reviewers. Commented positively on my podcast

and, uh, I mean, I mentioned it in my cv, right? It's not like they, they both just knew it, right? Um, but it's still the kind of thing where they both said like, oh, this is a really impressive thing and whatever.

So I, I, I feel like it's starting to actually have some direct

Dan Quintana: No, it's, it's super positive. I, I'm, I mention it in all my grant applications when it comes to science communication. Anyone can say in a job, in response to a job advertisement or a grant or a grant application. These are the things I'm going to do.

But very few people can say, this is what I have been doing and what I'm gonna continue on doing as well. And job applications are grant applications and fellowship applications are ridiculously competitive. Anything that you can do to get that 1% edge looking into applications, well, you know, everyone has, you know, comparable amounts of publications. Well, some don't. [00:48:00] These, this is the one thing which can really differentiate you from, from other people.

So I think it's, I think it's a, I think it's a positive thing in that way as well. It's certainly been positive for, for my career, being able to say, yeah, this is, this is, this is what I've done and this is how, this is one way to communicate research. So that's, that's been, that's been really good.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Do you actually consider your, so one, one thing. I ha So the question was whether you consider your science of communication or how, how you actually think about it because. For me, it's, I don't, so science communication for me is usually, I, I interpret that as meaning to the general public,

but that's not at all what I do.

Like mine is very much four scientists. Uh, and I mean, for example, my mom has a PhD in toxicology and she's, she listens to like two episodes. Like, I have no idea what you're talking about, you know? 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: um, uh, it's not just like for a scientifically literate audience. It's specifically for people in my field and adjacent fields.

Right. Um, which, uh, I mean has pros and cons, but it's just, I have little [00:49:00] interest in using new metaphors to, you know, tell people what neuron is. Um, but am I correct in assuming that's also the case for you, or does yours go a bit broader than that?

Dan Quintana: I would say it's a bit more broader because a lot of the stuff we talk about are just issues across science. Of course. Sometimes we'll get a little bit more specific about particular papers, but I guess there is that focus on the biomedical sciences, particularly psychology 'cause

that's our background.

But I would say it's a little bit more broader. And while most of our audience would be scientists, um, quite a lot aren't, they're just people who are interested in science and have a, a, a, a decent knowledge, a decent working knowledge of our science works. So, yeah, I mean, it's very hard to say what, what constitutes science communication, but I think ours, just by virtue of the topic that we have, is a little bit more broader. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a pretty, it's a pretty wide audience.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So here's a question. So this is a question I've [00:50:00] for my podcast, uh, that I've been wrangling with since episode, since before episode one, right?

Uh, which is name and logo.

And in my case, I, uh, I know that I have a terrible name for my podcast. It's my initials, and I know it's a terrible name because literally people I work with in the lab were like, what's your podcast called again? I was like, it's my, you know, it's my initials. You know me. How have you forgotten them?

So, I know I have a very non memorable name. I mean, it's sayable, but it's not memorable.

Um, my logo is. I'll be, you know, not to pat myself too much on the back, but I believe I started before Charlie XCX's brat campaign. I believe I already had the logo. They stole it from me. They did it to be intentionally ugly.

I did it because I thought, why not?

Um, it's slightly different motivation behind it.

Um, but it [00:51:00] was funny seeing that in lots of places. You're like, that's my 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. They've taken it. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, uh, but yeah, so one question, uh, in a way I have where I just basically, should I change the name or not? And should I change the logo or not?

Because right now I have a name that doesn't mean anything.

Uh, it's completely non-descriptive. Uh, it's not memorable. And uh, that probably doesn't help. But I also wonder actually whether it makes any difference, because I often don't know what podcasts are called that I listen to. I just know it's the, that whatever podcast, I find it, and then.

I

Dan Quintana: It's the logo. 'cause you look, I mean, yours is very distinct with that, with

that, 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: distinct that that was what I tried to do. Exactly.

Dan Quintana: I, I mean, if you are gonna change it, I reckon now would be the time

if you're doing a format, but I'm not sure about the value of that. I don't think it plays that much of a big role. Names are weird. When you think about band names, [00:52:00] a lot of, a lot of the popular bands like Pearl Jam, what kind of a name is that? But it's Sound Garden. I'm showing my age by mentioning, uh, nineties grunge bands. But names is so

strange and it's not the 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: heard of those names,

Dan Quintana: of those names. What was that?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I've heard of those bands. Not that I can tell you what they do, 

Dan Quintana: but but people have heard of it. They, the, the, the, the power isn't in the name. It's a, it's, it's, it's in the podcast. I So many, yeah. I, I just don't think it makes that much of a difference. Like if you had a very specific topic that you were talking about, then maybe it could be something around that topic.

But. don't think it makes that much of a difference. So yeah, I mean maybe, but like if you're gonna do it, do it now. But I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. Yeah.

Dan Quintana: I don't think it's, it's, um, because like you said, like sometimes you just look in your, on your phone, in your podcast app and you see the logo, you're like, that's it, that's the podcast. And given that so much discovery is about algorithm rather than, [00:53:00] um, people actually searching like I do, people actually Google, like neuroscience podcasts, I don't know. So much of it just comes from, uh, just word of mouth and, and social media and that kind of thing. So yeah. As for names, I don't think it's that important.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, the only, and the, the thing is like, the reason why I haven't show, you know, I've thought about this before, right? Whether I should change the name or not, and I could have changed it any time. But you know, you're right. Obviously the reason I'm asking it in public now is because now is the time.

Um, but one reason is I just couldn't come up with a better name at the end of the day because. My, so my podcast is getting more focused than it was in the beginning. In the beginning I really wanted to have a be a bit of a, everything I wa, everything I'm interested in show, right? So the initial 50 episodes I think show that quite, it's very wide.

There's some literature, like book discussions, there's a bunch of different things in there. Uh, I've completely stopped doing that. And basically now I do only do science interviews, so it is more specific and uh, or sometimes I have [00:54:00] like a random episode that isn't science, but, uh, 95% is, and um, but I, yeah, I just dunno what else to call it, you know, because like there's, you know, the easy branding thing is a calling it the Neuroeconomics podcast or whatever, which would be closer to what I do in research.

But like most of my stuff is Neuroeconomics, right. In the podcast. 

Dan Quintana: plus that, that would limit you. If you were to

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, exactly.

Dan Quintana: it limits you to those, to those things, which might be good, but if you

wanna have a bit of 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it might've been smart to start that way and then broaden out the name, but I think having a broad name, then making it narrower and then.

Dan Quintana: yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean, the only thing, the only genuinely good name I can think of, which is only a good name for, uh, for because of the URL is, if I call it Ben Talks too, then I could buy the Trinidad and Tobago domain of, to then I could call it Ben talks.to,

Dan Quintana: to. I don't that, I don't mind that. I don't mind that at all.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: no, I like it.

But then that's only for the URL,

it makes no,

outside

of that it, um, [00:55:00] but then also you only know it's a guy called Ben who, who, who talks to 

Dan Quintana: yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: again, it doesn't tell you anything else. It's more memorable.

Dan Quintana: yeah, that's the thing, ma maybe a name can help when it comes to me memorability, but,

um, I'm, I'm, I'm not super convinced.

It's just things get shared not because of, of cool names.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, that's my hope.

Dan Quintana: find 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: also actually fun, fun thing about your, your podcast name. I'm not joking. I listened to more episodes than willing to admit before I realized that there was a pun in the name.

Dan Quintana: yeah. 

No, no. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I didn't, I just was like, oh yeah, it's about hurt some, you know, measurements, science, whatever. I didn't, 

Dan Quintana: not many people. I, I think we, we bring it up every now and then the, the origin of the name and sometimes people ask us, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's a paper based on a pun,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, exactly. But the, the pun completely alluded 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: for a long time. Anyway, maybe a very broad question. Any, do you have any final recommendations for me? I mean, [00:56:00] so we've, we've talked about in, in a couple of weeks I'm gonna be doing the first video interviews. I still have to.

Decide what equipment to buy. sticking with the name, everything seems uncertain right now.

Um, but, uh, yeah, I'm just wondering, anything you wanna, anything I should that we haven't covered that I should do? Uh, according to your opinion, or,

Dan Quintana: I think looking at. One of the cool things with these online platforms like Script and Riverside is that now it's very easy to take very small snippets from the episodes and to post those sort of things online, LinkedIn, for instance, or, or Blue Sky or what have you. And the, because the amount of effort is so small, you may as well do it. Many people do not want to commit to listening to, uh, a, a, a long episode. Once you're into it, it's great.

But 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: snippet. You mean like the 30 seconds or, okay. really 

Dan Quintana: like 15

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: five minutes, but 

Dan Quintana: No, no, no, no. [00:57:00] But just literally 15 seconds because now the software there is there to do, to do it really quick for you. And because you are doing something unique, you're not doing the typical interview in a web browser, you're doing it in person. I think it's gonna be really, really interesting to actually get those snippets and, and, and posting them. And because it doesn't take too much time, it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be worth the effort and it, you are doing something which most podcasts aren't doing, which is that in-person video element.

So I think that's really gonna set things apart. And again, I think you're gonna be really surprised by how well it goes on YouTube by posting these things. 'cause not only do you have

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I fucking hope so.

Dan Quintana: Well, I, I, I, I, I, I, I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I don't wanna put all this effort in that nothing 

Dan Quintana: happened. I, I, I, I absolutely think so because, because of the algorithm there and many people are just gonna listen to the audio.

But actually having some interesting video there is, is great. And this is something that I would love to do if I had a bit more time. Um, because at, at least with, with everything her, it's, it's just not possible other than the once every couple a year [00:58:00] in person thing. But this is gonna be, um, this is gonna be a really cool experiment and I'm really looking forward to seeing the, uh, 

to, to, to seeing these episodes.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, one quick question on the, I mean, so one quick comment also on video is like, one reason why I want to have YouTube is because, not because I think people actually listen to it per se, but because I discovered a lot of podcasts by watching five minute videos

excerpts on YouTube. So that's actually one of the main motivations for doing it.

But is it actually that little time nowadays? Because like I remember I once or t once or twice, I can't remember, um, try to do like an audio excerpt.

Dan Quintana: yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It took me like half an hour

because you have to get one where actually it's in itself contained and makes sense.

Dan Quintana: now on these, um, I, I don't know what it's like on the script, but on Riverside it, it automatically finds like 20 snippets 

and of those like [00:59:00] 10, I could probably post five are really good in, it

gets a self-contained part. And you can say, I wanted to, I want, if you remembered, oh, there was a great conversation, um, about scientific publishing.

You could even put in, make a video about scientific publishing and it finds that 32nd snippet does it all for you. The subtitles are like 95% accurate. And the amount of time Yeah. Doing this. I used to do this manually at the very beginning and it took a lot of time.

Now it's done automatically. So, um, it's so quick.

It is, it is so quick. It works really

well. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. I'll, yeah, I, I once have tried, but I have a bit of a lingering doubt because of that, but Okay. I haven't looked at it in years. Yeah.

Dan Quintana: Try again. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, it was just, I did it once. It was so much, I was like, this is not worth it. No one cared either.

I guess it did now,

Dan Quintana: Give it a 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but yeah. Okay. Um, uh, any final recommendations for people who wanna start a podcast?

I mean, I 

Dan Quintana: just consistency. Just be, be be consistent and have a [01:00:00] plan for at least 10, 10, 20 episodes. Record them and, and release it. And just don't, don't be obsessed with, with don't be obsessed with numbers and make sure you're doing a topic which you actually like and you would still get benefit from. Even if you had no listeners,

I would still keep recording the podcast with James even if we had like 10 listeners, because it's just us catching up, shooting the breeze, throwing ideas off one another. Um, I would still do it. The fact that you have people listening, that's a, that's a bonus. So

just be consistent. Just do doesn't have to be with the, with the, with the same guest. Um, I mean I think, I think the single, uh, host podcast is a very tricky genre to do, but doing it with a cohost or doing it with guests, I think is a much better way. But picking topics and picking guests is stuff you generally, you, you genuinely wanna do. Um, and being consistent there, that would be the main thing. And don't worry about having that niche topic. 'cause now, now it's becoming easier for people to find you [01:01:00] and it's much, much better to have 10, 20 people that are just really into what you're listening to than to have thousands of people who just sort of might listen to an episode here or there. 

The niches just, uh, yeah, just run with it and don't worry about numbers.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, yeah. And I guess I'd just add, don't be too embarrassed about inviting people to a podcast. They seem to generally ignore you or like it,

Dan Quintana: Yeah, exactly. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And, uh, also, again, equipment does not really affect anymore that much. Uh, 

Dan Quintana: as 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: basically do it for free if you have, I mean, you, like many people will have a laptop from their work, which is a new laptop, and then

Dan Quintana: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you can probably do 90% of, of a professional show, which is with that,

Dan Quintana: Yeah. It's, it's the, the, the cost of entry is, is much, much lower. So I used to previously always recommend get, get a microphone, but now you may not even need to be able to do

that 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: if you can, it's still better probably, but yeah,

Dan Quintana: Yeah. Yeah. I think the, the, the, the [01:02:00] beginner one that I would recommend is the, uh, the, the Samson two qq. I think that's how it is.

It's

thi this is a nice microphone. 'cause it's go, it's got USB input, so you can plug it into anything, uh, XLR cable. So you can

also record audio that way. And it's got a, um, an, a headphone out so you can monitor your audio. It is a, it's a nice, I I think it's like, like 80 US or something.

So it's, it's, I mean, it's not cheap, but it's, it's, you can definitely, as you would know, spend a lot more money on, on, on microphones.

But

I think I, I wanna see. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: cables.

Dan Quintana: I wanna see more people doing this. Uh, I now teach a, a course in podcasting. Well, it is a course in scientific communication for masters and PhD students. And one of the seminars, uh, is, uh, is a practical course on how to actually do this. We're, we're

very, very lucky at the university. We've got like, um, a professional podcasting studio, which staff and students can, can book for free. And then the first part of the, [01:03:00] of the lesson is just learning how to use this stuff. And the the second part is the students actually go in there and record their own thing. And they do. Amazing. I'm so impressed with the, with the episodes.

They, they get into groups with three and four. I'm so impressed with the episodes that they, they, they, they, they come together. So it is so much fun being able to, to be, being able to, to, to teach podcasting, science, communication. 'cause I think more people should, should, uh, should do this sort of stuff.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's really interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. 

Dan Quintana: There you go. There, there, there's your, there's your spinoff. Start to teach how to do this stuff.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, it's, it's a, it's a MLM scheme at the end of the day, you just need more people to do it. Um, uh, do we still have time for recurring questions 

Dan Quintana: can do recurring questions. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: okay. So, yeah. So the, uh, for, I think I started about, uh, 10, 20 episodes after you appeared on the podcast. I had started recurring questions where I asked the same guests the same questions, um, uh, the first, and so, you know, [01:04:00] it's, uh, catch up and do that now.

Uh, so first is, what's a book or paper you think more people should read? Uh, it can basically be anything old, new, famous, unknown, uh, can be related to what we talked about. Doesn't have to be, uh, yeah, just anything you think people should pay, pay more attention to.

Dan Quintana: what I got an old book, an older book, which was, uh, written in, in the late, in the late seventies, which is kind of related to what we're talking about. This is called, uh, laboratory Life, the Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Have you heard of this one?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes, I've, I might have once even added to my Amazon cart, but I haven't bought it or read it.

Dan Quintana: It's very good. So this is by, um, uh, Bruno, Bruno, Latour and Steve Woolner. And this was a, one of those books that someone else was like, this, this, this book's very interesting. You should read it. And it is essentially, uh, a book describing, uh, two anthropologists visiting a lab in the seventies and describing how science is done. But [01:05:00] they kind of play this role of the, the ignorant, ignorant observer so they know how science is done. E even though it's a different research field, I especially like this book 'cause it's about neuroendocrinology, which is my field of research. Um, but I think even if you weren't into neuroendocrinology, if you were involved in the biomedical sciences. It is so interesting seeing an anthropologist looking at how science is done and how do we produce facts and reading how this is done and seeing a complete outside of view go in there. 'cause we sort of, we do science because we're, we're living in it and we're doing it, but they're actually looking at how, how, how these pacs are, how these packs are produced and just observing that.

Yes, it, it, it seems to be that the main goal of these scientists is to produce papers as if it's this, this sort of David Attenberg type character watching

this, uh, this, this, this newly discovered tribe.

But seeing how science has done, and I think especially within the biomedical sciences, we'd like to think that we are just out there discovering facts [01:06:00] with this very dispassionate.

We're very objective, but it really drives home the human element of what we do and that there is human decisions going into what do we choose to investigate. How do we interpret our data? How do we, how do we choose how to publish this stuff? And seeing that from this perspective is very interesting.

It's also very interesting to see that nothing's really changed. The technology that we used has changed. So the historical element is interesting because you just realize how much work went into doing all these sorts of things where a lot of this work would now within wet labs be automated, but there was just armies of, uh, of, of graduate students doing this kind of stuff. And that historical element is, is great, but it you also learn that nothing has changed and the incentives that we have within academia. Is just not a new phenomenon. Another related sort of side recommendation book is this, uh, biography of Ivan Pavlov, uh, by, um, Daniel Tos tos, [01:07:00] Daniel Toads, that's the name. And this is a monster of a book, and I cannot imagine how long it would've taken for this book to be researched, but it's talking about the life of, of Ivan Pavlov, um, as my research is in psychophysiology is also an interest of mine. But then reading about this, it science has not changed. It. The, the, the incentive systems and the, the pettiness within academia. It's all there. It's all there. So I think it's good to, to read. I've been trying to read more about the, the, the history of science and the history of psychology, but laboratory life is a fantastic read just to see how we as scientists construct facts. And it's, uh, yeah. So get it outta that cart and, and, and buy it.

'cause it's a

very, I I think it's also, I think it's also like. Online for free somewhere as well, for those that wanna have a, a, a flick through. But, um, I think, yeah, I, I personally like having the, the hard copy of things. So

Yeah.

that's a, that's a book that I recommend,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But [01:08:00] two quick aside here. I, number one, I would pay good money for David Attenborough to go like, 

Dan Quintana: that'd be amazing. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: look, look, look at the young man crying because his paper got rejected and he now has to submit to a slightly worse 

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I would, that would genuinely, I would watch that.

Dan Quintana: um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, the other thing is I also love these like encyclopedic biographies that kind of, uh, just give you such an insight into the entire time and place and all that kinda stuff.

And, uh, so yeah. Anyway, uh, I'll, I'll say, I'm gonna check them out. You never know.

Dan Quintana: But Pav

Pavlov is a monster of a book. I, I've been reading it on and off. For about two years 'cause it's so big. And, um, I'm sort of now the, he's, he's, he's almost about to retire. He, he's, uh,

he had, he had a long career. Um, so he is almost about to retire that, that's where I'm in the book. But hearing about his early life and how he did science and the, the, the, we kind of think, oh, these Nobel Prize winner is just, just work nonstop.

And he did, but he also took a solid two months [01:09:00] off every

year. Um, so it's just hearing about that and the context of how science was done is Yeah. Is very interesting. So yeah, sub

recommendation, but only if you're up for reading Monster biographies.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And one thing I add to that is that I, uh. Recently listened audiobook to one of the big biographies. And I think that might actually be better because you can, especially with lots of voice, you know, so I listened to the one, the Rise of the Roosevelt, which I think is also probably one of the great, like encyclopedic biographies.

It's like, I dunno, 30 hours of audiobook and it ends when he is like 34, something like that red.

And um, but listening to that was fantastic. So I dunno whether this one has an 

Dan Quintana: Yeah, I'm not sure. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, I think or this might be one of the best uses for audiobooks, I think, um, in my limited experience so far.

Anyway. Um, second for con question is something you wish you'd learned sooner. This can be from your work life and your private life, whatever you want. Uh, just something. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Dan Quintana: I think, um, in terms [01:10:00] of work, knowing how much potential overhead in there is in the decisions that you make, because quite often people will go, are you interested in doing a book chapter? Are you interested in doing this? Sort of this, this thing? And the cost and the time isn't about just doing the thing itself, but it's also about the thing that's associated with that.

So if, say, if you're doing like a, like a book chapter, it's all the emails back and forth and the, and the proofing and, and signing the forms and all this sort of stuff. I used to always forget that and I'd see this thing come across my desk on my inbox and I'm like, that sounds great. And then as I'm doing it, I just forget.

I'm like, oh man, there's so many emails back and forth. So just being more deliberate about those choices and realizing that, and accounting that as well. And uh, I think related to that now, kind of got like a, like a hell yes. Rule when, when an invitation comes,

like, unless it's a hell yes, I just, I probably should say, should say,

no. because, 'cause [01:11:00] there's just, it's not just about doing the task, but it's about that task being part of a wider to-do list as well.

And there's a cognitive cost. I think I used to think, ah, I'm so good at juggling all these things, but I'm not, and I think a lot of, some people maybe can do it, but I, I'm simply not like I work best when I'm, like, today I'm just focusing on this one paper. But being able to juggling six different things for me just doesn't work.

So that. Overhead of doing tasks also is just, it's just another task to add to that sort of rotisserie of, of, of, of

tasks there. So becoming, realizing that more I think has, has been, has been a, has been a lesson that I still have to learn. 'cause I'm still not great at that, but I'm learning it better.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I've, I've, you know, because I'm still more junior, I have more freedom and uh, but it still obviously creeps up this kinda stuff. And I recently, a couple of times I will have like five days where I can just do one project.

Dan Quintana: Yeah. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's just the best.

Dan Quintana: Oh, what a luxury. Oh, that 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: just great. Yeah, [01:12:00] exactly. Like there's, uh, uh, but anyway, I'll do a podcast and ruin it by having to have this, do an interview in the middle of that now.

Um, anyway, uh, final question. Uh, wait. Oh yeah, final question. It used to be advice for PhD students slash postdocs, but I'm now a second year postdocs, so screw the PhD students. Um, this question is a, this question is aging with me. Um, so any advice for postdocs.

Dan Quintana: I think a lot of this would only be for, you know, I mean if, if, if, if you decide to do a postdoc, it is likely because you wanna continue within, within academia, and so this is more towards that. But I think the one thing, I would say something similar also to PhD students, but also I think it's very relevant to podcasts, is essentially just to figure out where you want to be in a couple years time and work backwards. Look at the job descriptions and the job positions for the jobs that you want to get in a couple years time and look at the requirements. If you start looking for jobs and then you say, oh [01:13:00] wow, I should really have a skillset in this particular thing. You can't just have that skillset within the, the, the two weeks or the month before the job deadline. Thinking about these things, like academia is like a, like a big ship that just takes a while to to, to navigate. If you wanna go to that direction, you have to start turning a lot earlier than when the actual thing comes, comes towards you. So. Seeing what those requirements are and getting those skill sets there.

I think, I mean, of course there's, there's so much luck involved as well. So, so many times when these positions come up, it isn't a specific, uh, topic or specific research area, which often isn't yours. So I think having that, um, knowledge in at least two different areas, I think is, is gonna be better for your career because then you are more likely to have a position come up, which is, which is within that particular area.

Whereas if even, you might be so good at what you do with that particular thing, but if there's no role there and it, that doesn't come up, it kind of stuffed. But if you have two or [01:14:00] three things under your belt where like, yep, you know what, I, I could say that I'm pretty strong in these particular areas.

And at least that opens things up for you when it comes to, to academic positions there. But yeah, look forward, figure out, figure out where you wanna be and then work backwards from there.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, that's something I have to do more of. I think my PhD was very much, oh, just do whatever I want. And now I'm like, okay, maybe, maybe let's also do be a bit more strategic. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's, I think that's also advice that I specifically needed to hear. Anyway, um, that was my final audio only episode.

Uh, thank you for joining me for that

Dan Quintana: no, it's been, it's been a, been a pleasure. I'm looking forward to the next, next chapter of the podcast, whatever

it, whatever, whatever it may be called,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Whatever might look 

Dan Quintana: Whatever it might look like,

yeah.

I'm very, um, I'm very keen to, uh, yeah, very keen to see this. So I'll be, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll be there at launch looking at the, uh, watching the, watching the first podcast.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Very good. Thank you.