Introducing Our New Podcast: Buffer CultureLab
Former Director of People @ Buffer
Whenever I’m working on a new challenge and keep getting stuck, there’s one post that I seem to return to again and again. It’s by our CEO, Joel, and it’s called “I Have No Idea What I Am Doing.”
We’ve likely uttered that exact sentence 30 times over the course of the last month as we worked to figure out the ins and outs of launching our new podcast today.
Despite talking a lot about podcasts at Buffer—sharing the podcasts we love, talking about podcasting tools, even providing a blueprint for starting your own podcast—it took us until now to manage to start our own.
This is mostly because we had no idea what we were doing. And while this can obviously be a bit of a challenge, there are also some big benefits to being a beginner—curiosity, an open mind, not getting hung up on “the way we’ve always done things,” an eagerness to learn and improve.
Perhaps not coincidentally, those are some of the exact elements we explore in our new podcast, Buffer CultureLab.
Exploring the culture of work
We hope CultureLab will be a destination to deeply explore the culture of work—how all of us, together, might make work happier and more human.
I’m lucky to host this new project with the empathetic and thoughtful Carolyn Kopprasch, Buffer’s Chief Happiness Officer.
In every episode we’ll humbly share some of our experiments and lessons learned at Buffer, and then turn it over to a new guest (or guests) to talk about everything from how many exclamation points you can use in a work email (short answer: it depends) to why a diverse team comes up with more creative solutions to challenges.
We want CultureLab to be fun and reflective; detail-obsessed as well as big-picture, consistent yet evolving—much like great work itself.
Most of all, we want it to be yours. We’re very new to this and would love your insights and feedback to make CultureLab a destination where you’d enjoy hanging out and spending some time.
Ready to binge? Here’re our first episodes
We’ve made our first 3 episodes available in a few different ways in case you might want to have a mini-marathon of listening:
And here’s a quick way to explore our first episode (and beyond!) and get a feel for our overall philosophy and plan:
- Episode 1 is a bit of an introduction to Carolyn and me and some thoughts about why work culture is so important
- Episode 2 features Lauren Moon of Trello and Alison Groves, then at Zapier and now of Highrise, in a roundtable conversation about working remotely
- Episode 3 welcomes guest Dr. Sasha Wright, an ecology professor at FIT who wrote an incredible Medium piece about women in the classroom
We’d be so appreciative of anyone who might take the time to have a listen and offer some feedback.
If you’re an iTunes listener, we’d especially appreciate it if you might subscribe and/or rate and review the podcast. (Another thing I didn’t quite know how to do! If you happen to be like me, here’s a great primer on how to do this on desktop or mobile.)
What’s in store for upcoming episodes
I can’t wait for you to hear even more of the great interviews on the way, including chats with:
- Maurice Cherry, Editor-in-Chief of Revision Path
- Natalie Johnson, a former People Analyst at Google and current partner at Paradigm
- Kanyi Maqubela, a partner at Collaborative Fund (and a Buffer investor!)
- Brennan Byrne, CEO at Clef (check out their unique salary formula)
- Ariel Lopez, founder of 2020 Shift and More Than Code
- Rand Fishkin of Moz
- Buffer’s CEO Joel Gascoigne (and perhaps a few other Buffer cameos!)
Know of someone who might be a great guest? Let me know!
A lot of thank-yous are in order for seeing this project to the finish line!
At Buffer, thanks to my cohost Carolyn Kopprasch, to Tyler Wanlass, who created our beautiful show art, to the many Buffer teammates who encouraged this project and offered feedback (Darcy and Kristl, you were invaluable!) and to our great marketing team for their advice (Kevan, Hailley, Brian and Marcus S., you rock).
Outside of Buffer, thanks to Relationary Marketing, a Nashville-based podcast production agency, for all their consulting help, to Clark Buckner for our snazzy intro and to Tours for our peppy theme music. :)
We’d love to hear from you!
Thanks to all of you in our amazing community who have encouraged us to do this for so long! We’re excited to have no idea what we’re doing, and hope you’ll come along for the journey as we learn!
If you’ve got thoughts on what you’d like to hear more of (or less of!), new ideas for segments you think would be great, topics you’d want to hear explored on CultureLab, or anything else at all, please let us know!
We’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or you can catch me on Twitter at @courtneyseiter or via email at courtney@buffer.com. Happy listening, and thank you!
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