Introducing the CreativePro Podcast

David: Welcome to InDesig… not Quite! Welcome to the CreativePro podcast. We mentioned this in the last episode, but here it’s getting serious. We have changed the name to CreativePro Podcast and along with me right here in the studio is Teresa Jackson, the CreativePro Program Manager. And we’re going to talk about this. We’re going to talk about what happened. Why are we doing this? Where are we going? Um, so, Teresa, welcome to our brand new podcast. Theresa: I’m not Anne-Marie. David: You aren’t. You are not. It’s true, it’s true. Um. In fact, I started realizing, you know, maybe Anne-Marie should have been here, too, because we want to talk about the story a little bit. But Anne-Marie is not here. You’re here. Theresa: So you have me instead. David: Today we get to have a conversation with the two of us, which I’m really, really happy about and looking forward to. Um, and it is new. It’s a new format, and it’s a new idea that we want to talk about today. So welcome to the podcast. Theresa: All right. I have questions for you. David. Are you are you ready? David: I’m always better answering questions than coming up with something new to say. So yes, please. Theresa: That’s not true. So I’ve been curious about this for for a really long time. InDesignSecrets was is I guess we should talk about, you know, what’s happening to InDesignSecrets. But 20 years, 20 years? David: Yeah, yeah. Theresa: That’s like that’s like raising a child and sending them off into the world. 20 years is a long time. So how did it. Whose idea was it? I have this, I’m just imagining this, that one of you had this idea, and maybe I’m totally off base, but I’m imagining one of you had this idea, and the other one was like, that’s crazy. Why? You know. Do you think we could do that? Why would we do that? David: Why would we do that? What were we thinking? I think that’s right. Now, here’s the thing. Anne Marie. Anne Marie Concepcion and I had just finished working on a book together called InDesign Breakthroughs, which was kind of a problem solution type of book. Here’s here’s the problem you have in InDesign and here’s a solution. And we got this published through Peachpit Press, which was we were doing a new imprint for Blatner Books. We were like, oh, wouldn’t it be cool if we had Blatner books? So I got all excited about that. Um, and so we did the book, and it was I thought it was a very good book. And then we were kind of casting around, thinking about, what are we going to do next? How do we let people know about the book? And then there was this new thing happening, and Anne Marie, probably Anne Marie said, you got to check out this podcast. I’m like, what’s a podcast? Who’s ever heard of a podcast? Theresa: Because when did that start? Like when did podcasts start. David: My understanding is that the concept of podcasts started in 2004. At least that’s when it was named. And the idea of having this audio recording that you could subscribe to, and it would sort of be delivered to you. Theresa: And people thought that was something they wanted to listen to, right? David: And so that started in 2004, end of 2004. In 2005, the book, our book comes out and there’s a few of these little podcasts starting to come out, and there’s this one guy who does a podcast on InDesign. He starts this podcast on InDesign and Anne-Marie’s like, you got to listen, David, you have to listen to this podcast. I’m like, I don’t even know how to download a podcast. So but I had an I had an iPod, remember podcasts. The name podcast comes from the iPod, the Apple iPod. I had an iPod and I figured out how to download a podcast to it, because that’s how really the only way people were listening to podcasts at the time, I think. And I listened to this guy’s podcast and it was so bad. Oh it was. Theresa: He’s not listening, is he? David: No. Well, I hope not, I hope not. It was, um. I don’t even remember the name. He only did, like, 4 or 5 episodes. It was not, um. I mean, there were a bunch of other ones that came later, like Michael Murphy did a really great one later. But this first InDesign podcast was just so bad. And I remember I remember calling Anne-Marie and saying, okay, you got me listening to this, but I can’t. It’s just… I can’t stand it. We’re going to be talking about InDesign, and InDesign is a very interesting program. I mean, it was just I couldn’t do it. So, um, the I, I had this thought, look, somebody has to do this, right. Somebody has to actually make InDesign fun and interesting because, look, this was our happy place. InDesign should not be boring. We should not be talking like this about InDesign. Um, so I said, let’s do it. Let’s just try it. Let’s try and make a podcast. That’s what I remember. You know, later on we’re going to hear from Anne Marie. We’ll I’m sure she’ll call me right up after she sees this and says, no, no, no, no, I told you. But I remember that I said we should do this podcast. And she said, okay, sure. What? Theresa: So how did you record yourself back then? We didn’t have fancy microphones, did we? David: We had crappy microphones. And we didn’t have video back then. We weren’t worrying about video. It was just the audio. Um, we cobbled something together, which was with a basically, we used these old Plantronics headsets for years, and we cobbled it together and Anne Marie realized, oh, here’s what we should do. We should we both start recording with audacity at the same time. So for like 15 years we both would come on up, we would both be on and we would say one, two, three, and we’d clap our hands and that clap would make a spike in the audio form. And then later she would send me her audio and I would get my audio, and we would put them together into a single stereo track. And it was we did that for 15 years. I was the audio engineer just trying to measure up, get that as close as possible. Theresa: That’s you didn’t you must not have hated it because you did it for 15 years. You enjoyed the being the tech, the audio tech guy. David: I always loved being the tech guy. Ever since elementary school, I was the tech guy. Yeah, I enjoyed that. That kind of techie getting in there and editing the audio. Theresa: Um, well, I just want to say thank you on behalf of the entire audience because it was a gift. You, you and Anne Marie created a gift for for all of us to realize InDesign didn’t have to be boring. We could have fun with it. David: Thank you. I, I really am happy about that. I’m happy with what we’ve done. I love the 20 years, the 332 episodes or something of InDesignSecrets that we did. And I want to emphasize it’s not going away. We’re not stopping InDesignSecrets just because we’re starting CreativePro podcast. CreativePro podcast is going to be just bigger. It’s going to allow us to do more in the same way that just because we switched from InDesign Magazine to CreativePro Magazine doesn’t mean we stopped doing InDesign content. It just means that’s one of the things we do in a larger context. So InDesignSecrets is not going away, and Anne-Marie’s not even going away. She and I will still be doing this sometimes as well. Theresa: So what a relief. It reminds me of when CreativePro Week the conference started because before CreativePro Week. I’m not sure how many people in our audience remember this, but you had multiple different smaller conferences, right? And then there was a year or two where they all ran in the same week, but they had different each day, had a different conference, brand it. And then it all got rolled into CreativePro week. And it just it made a lot of sense. It felt good. So that’s what we’re doing here. David: That’s what we’re doing here. We’re rolling it all together into one experience. You’re right, we had PePcon and the Photoshop and Illustrator PS/AI event. We had um, and then we had the InDesign conference. So we did the InDesign conference for a very long time as a separate thing. Amusingly, it’s kind of funny now that InDesign conference is not spinning out, but it’s turning into its own online thing on the side that we’ll be doing later this year. So if you haven’t heard about InDesign Conference, everyone out there who’s listening or watching, make sure you find out about InDesign conference at Creativepro because that’s going to be an awesome four day InDesign deep dive. Where where we just can’t go into that much detail at Creativepro week because we’ve rolled all this stuff together. But the InDesign conference, we’re going to be able to go really deep. All right. That was this little side note there. Sorry. Theresa: Well, it’s going to be awesome. I have been working on it so I can say that. David: Yeah. You have. Theresa: I’m very excited. David: And so so it’s important to note here that that Theresa first of all, Theresa started speaking at our events back when it before CreativePro week. Right. Um and has been working with us ever since. Now you are the program manager and you’re pulling this together, and you’ve built this amazing show at the InDesign Conference. You have pulled together great speakers in it too. Theresa: And we’re both speaking, too. David: And Anne Marie is too. That’s right. You know, part of this is bringing all of our friends together and and bringing new people in as well. People who are the experts we want to. We always want to get the the top level information and then communicate that to the audience. That’s our goal. And bringing it back to the podcast. That’s the goal of the podcast to top level people in the industry and allow us this distribution method through the podcast world to to pass that out to people, get that out to people without. And you don’t even have to have an iPod anymore. How about that? Theresa: You can listen anywhere. David: You can listen to anywhere. So yeah. Theresa: Easy access. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I’m curious what your vision is for where we’re headed now that InDesignSecrets is not going away. It’s getting folded into something bigger and better, and we’re just getting started with it. So where are we headed? David: Well, the vision, it’s one of those visions that’s. It’s not crystal clear. There’s some blurriness to it, but the the overall idea is we want we want to connect. We always want to connect people. Our goal is to connect design professionals with other design professionals, connect them with great solutions and great and connect them with great information. And that podcast is all about connecting, connecting, continuing to connect, but not just about InDesign. So we want to do more interviews, sort of more general interviews with the design with other design professionals, and let your voices be heard. Bring those voices to the surface. We really want to have more insights into the bigger design and publishing world, not just here’s how we do it in InDesign, but how does InDesign fit into Photoshop, illustrator, PowerPoint, Acrobat, print, Epub, digital publishing, all of those. The much larger world. Um and then design itself. What do we as design professionals need to understand about design and marketing so that we can do our jobs better? We can improve the communication that we’re that we’re creating. So all of that, we want to kind of wrap up now, what does it really look like? I don’t know, Teresa, what do you think? What’s what’s your vision for where this is going? Theresa: I want to add add to what you just said about the community and connecting people. I’d like to see an aspect of what keeps us creatively inspired, too. It’s one thing to know how to execute, but to keep in that place where you’re really feeling the joy of it. One of one of the things that we hear every year at CreativePro Week is how the the community is so powerful. People love being part of that community, and when they’re there, they really feel it. They feel seen and heard and understood. They’re with their tribe. The people that they’re meeting get their world, and then they go home or they go back to work. And it’s hard to. It’s hard to carry that feeling through the whole year. So I’m thinking about the podcast from that lens, like, how do we how do we keep the community feeling connected and seen and heard? And possibly one way is having not just interviews with speakers, but interviews with members of our community. What I want to know what are you working on? What are what are you learning? What’s your you know, what’s your focus right now? What are your challenges? What are your successes? How do you stay inspired? David: Yes, yes, there is so much wisdom out there in the community. People listening to this, people watching this. There’s so much wisdom out there in the community. I love that idea of surfacing that and connecting people, connecting more people. You know what you’re saying also reminds me of what Mike Rankin has just started doing for the for the CreativePro members. So CreativePro, of course, has a membership program and it’s pretty inexpensive. And any member can go to his office hours once a month now. So he just had his first one. And the idea of how to stay connected and enthused and excited, you were at his his last one. Last one. Right? Theresa: I told myself I was going to just listen and observe and be quiet, but that’s a really hard to do. I ended up, you know, engaging and sharing and asking questions, and I loved it. It was so fun. The hour went by so fast. David: Yeah, that was very exciting to see happen. Um, and again, this is all connected to the larger CreativePro purpose, the office hours, the membership, the events, this podcast. The greater purpose of CreativePro is to help you thrive by design. That’s the goal. And so we can do that by using all the different parts of the CreativePro network together to help you thrive by design. So I’m super excited to see what comes next. Theresa: I am too. I’m a little nervous because it’s so blurry, but that makes it. That makes it fun and exciting too, because we’re going to figure it out as we go. And I, I really hope for some input from the community. I, I would love I’m going to be responsible for programming the podcast the same as programming events. So I want to hear from our community what what do you what would you like to hear? I was going to say, see, but not everybody’s watching from the podcast. Who do you want to hear from? What topics should we cover? David: I love that — what’s what’s how how should they contact you? Theresa: Email is best. That’s my email is simple Theresa at Creativepro comm. But you have to remember the H spell. Theresa the correct way. It has a name. Theresa with an H. Theresa with an H. David: Good point. Um, I love that you can also leave a note on the show notes for this podcast. You know, every episode has its own page at creativepro.com/podcasts, so you can always go there and leave a comment on that on that page. And that’s another way to reach out to us. But email is probably easier, especially if you have a specific topic that you are interested in. Let Theresa know. I’m excited about this. It’s been it’s been an amazing 20 years of of podcasting. Theresa: Pat yourself on the back, David. 20 years. David: I can’t reach that far! Um, it has been amazing. And I, I have loved every minute of working with Anne Marie on this. She is, she is. She has always brought the the humor and the… There’s just so many good memories of times when she’s just cracks me up. And that makes me really, really happy that we get to keep doing that on occasion. Theresa: Do you have a favorite? Do you have a favorite funny moment when Anne-Marie cracked you up and you couldn’t you just couldn’t recover. You were laughing too hard. David: I don’t have a specific one, but I. I think some of my favorite memories have been doing the podcast live. We did it at CreativePro Week last month. We did it at the InDesign conference some years ago. Um, and she she never fails to say something that is just inappropriate enough. That I that it just stops me in my tracks, she’s like that. It’s awesome. Um, it’s it’s been great. And we will be back doing more of that. And we’ll be doing more of these conversations, interviews with people in depth, deep dives on other topics as well. Theresa: And whatever other things we haven’t thought of that. You’re going to share. David: That’s right. Um, so you’ll be seeing new art coming out for the podcast. You’ll be seeing new podcast, new episode art as well. Um, and and new ideas. So. So yeah, please write to us, let us know what you want to see and where we can take this. That’s going to help you thrive by design the best. That’s what we’re that’s what we’re hungry to do. So yeah. Theresa: I’m excited. David: Teresa, I am so excited that you are moving this thing forward. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you today. And I’m really excited to see what comes next. Theresa: Always easy talking to you David. I love these conversations. We’re like what are we going to talk about? I don’t know, we just do it. David: We’re just gonna do it. Yeah. Thank you all out there. Welcome again to the CreativePro podcast. It’s going to be awesome.