(1/26/23)

By Blake Podhajsky, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation

As communicators, we understand how vital it is to meet people where they are and to communicate with them in ways that best suit their needs. As an ACI member, you might not always read your emails, follow our Facebook page, visit our website www.aci-net.org, or read our newsletter “The Balance Wheel”, and that is ok. Are you more like the approximate 163 million Americans who would rather listen to podcasts to get their information?

I am happy to announce that ACI has a new podcast called, “The Outdoor Communicators”! The idea of having an ACI podcast had been floating around for several years and finally it has become a reality. Primarily through the hard work and planning by the podcast’s co-hosts, Tim Akimoff and Ashley Zeme. Tim is the host of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s podcast “The Beaver State Podcast” and Ashley is the co-host of the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s “Nevada Wild” podcast. They have combined their experiences in podcasting with their love of the outdoors (and love of ACI) to provide our members a new way to stay engaged.

For many of us in ACI, attending the annual conference allows us to learn new skills and meet new people who share our same interests and experiences. Often between conferences, there is a desire to continue those conversations and pursue new ideas. It is our hope that a podcast by ACI members, for ACI members can help fill that void. A podcast is also a great way to shine a light on the great work we do around the country, and it might also serve as a conduit to garner support for our work inside our own agencies.

Recently, I sat down with Tim and Ashley virtually, to talk about “The Outdoor Communicators” and what we can expect with this podcast.

(The following discussion is a transcription of our video chat and has been slightly edited for formatting and readability. The bold text are my questions.)

Today we are discussing something exciting! ACI’s first podcast and it’s called “The Outdoor Communicators”. Share with me, what can listeners expect?

Tim: This is not going to be a true crime podcast. It’s not going to be “This American Life”.
What people can expect really, is a good ongoing conversation about the work we do every day as outdoor communicators, as communicators that are focused on conservation. What we set out to accomplish is extending the conversations that occur during our ACI conferences. Every year they’re often very good. They help us grow as communicators and we wanted to take that and continue it throughout the year, so we’re kind of up on what’s changing, what’s happening in the world of social media, video, writing, press releases, graphic arts- all these things that we do.

The world is very dynamic, it’s changing and sometimes the conversations that happen from one ACI conference to the next, things have totally changed and actually and I felt like we could kind of have that conversation ongoing throughout the year. I think that’s really what you can expect, is a good conversation with luminaries around ACI and even outside of ACI who can really help us continue to grow our craft and improve what we do every day.

Ashley: Tim approached me and asked me. It was his idea, so I must give him credit for it.
He approached me and asked me if I wanted to help because I do the Nevada Department of Wildlife podcast. I almost feel selfish every week because I’m just like, what do I want to know? Even when we come up with topics, it helps me in my position, and I know it helps other communicators. So, it’s been really fun picking the topics, just figuring out, what questions do I have? So, it’s been awesome. I appreciate him for asking me to be part of it.

ACI members such as us, our jobs cover a wide spectrum of skill sets.
Whether you work for a state agency or NGO, a tribal nation, or at the federal level, we pretty much run the gamut of conservation communication. What types of topics will be discussed on “The Outdoor Communicators?

Tim: Really, you can look at almost any communications department across that spectrum. We do a lot of different things within that, and that communication is fairly broad. I mean, you’ve got video, you’ve got a writing focus, you’ve got marketing, you’ve got PR, you’ve got podcast, social media, all these different fields, and sometimes one person is doing all of that, and I think Ashley can attest to that. She does a lot of different things for Nevada and then other shops have different people for each of those jobs. The topics that we’re going to focus on really mirror what we do every day.

We are starting off with an episode that is featuring Sarah Southerland from your shop, Blake. Sarah is viewed as a leader in social media broadly, not just within the conservation realm, she’s very well known and celebrated outside that. And so, Ashley and I wanted to have a chat with her about what’s happening in the world of social media. If you could peek into the future, what would you see? And then I’ll let Ashley talk about the next topic a little bit because she put that one together.

Ashley: Faith Jolley with the Utah Division of Wildlife, she did a great presentation at the last ACI on crisis communications. So of course, being a PIO, I was telling her that it’s something you always prepare for but you don’t deal with it every day. So that was something I wanted to learn more about. So again, I’m being selfish. I think of the topics I want to learn more about in my position, so we reached out to Faith and she gave us a great podcast. Just all the tips on crisis communications. And then, so far, we’ve had another guest, Tim, do you want to take this one?

Tim: We couldn’t get through the first few episodes without having the legendary Jenifer Wisniewski talking about marketing. Marketing is a big, important part of what we do. When I started in conservation communication, marketing was a prohibited word. You couldn’t say it. And Jennifer really broke down the history of that for us. So really, that’s the first three episodes.

Really what we want to do is continue to cover the things that we do every day. We want to get into the heart of the communications room that we work in, and then beyond that, we’d really like to explore topics of interest to other people around ACI. We’re going to hopefully do one of these a month between the conferences and we’d like to tape quite a few of these at the conference with folks from around ACI. Maybe some of the guest speakers that are there and then periodically we want to plug in people even outside of our realm to bring in fresh new ideas.

Ashley: We’ve had a lot of fun learning through these podcasts. We want everyone to take advantage of this. So, if there is a topic you want to hear about, let us know. Also, we want people to be sharing it with their leadership. There’s a lot of people who don’t know what we do as communicators, so this is an awesome way to be sharing what we do within our agencies.

Podcasts have been around for decades, and their popularity has exploded over the past 10 or so years. So why is this the right time for ACI to enter the game, if you will?

Tim: This is an interesting time for podcasts. Like you said, they have been around for a while.
We’ve seen sort of everything go sky high in popularity like the true crime podcasts and every new television show that comes out has an accompanying podcast. But one of the things that I think has become stronger and stronger within organizations, either a business or like ACI, is what’s referred to as an ‘internal podcast’. This is a podcast that tends to focus on information that goes out to people who work in communications and conservation. This podcast is a blend of two things, a conversational format, one that does tie into a particular interest, but we’re also going to launch it broadly.

So, it’s not just limited to ACI in the hopes that it might find some interest beyond that. Podcasting is evolving, audio shows are becoming more and more popular, the formats are changing broadly and widely. And I think the thing that we’re looking at with this is, it’s a contextual tool that allows us to really take some of those magic moments from our conferences that are limited by the number of days we have to be together and extend them throughout the year. So I think that’s really where podcasting shines. It’s just a great way to continue those conversations.

Ashley: Yeah, I agree. It’s a tool that a lot of our state agencies are all using now.
So we know it works. You can provide a lot more context with the podcast, and people are usually listening to them while doing other things like driving or cleaning. So you have someone’s ear a long time with podcasting, so it’s this tool we have. We know it works. Why not use it?

You both obviously have experience in this podcast space, so please, if you don’t mind, share with me your background, each of you, in communications and media and how podcasting has been a part of your lives and your professional careers.

Ashley: Like many of us in ACI, I have a journalist background. I was in the news world and then I wanted something… I guess news kind of freaked me out because you never knew where you were going to be a year into the future, it was kind of stressful. I was kind of ready to settle down somewhere, so I found my job. I have family here in Reno and I came to the Nevada Department of Wildlife where I’m the public information officer, and right when I got here, they were like we have this podcast, and we want you to take it over. So, I started podcasting and they thought I had the news background, so they were like, you know how to do these interviews. But this is a completely different type of interview then I’m used to. It’s long, it’s 30 minutes or more.

I’m supposed to be the agencies communicator, the person who tells the public what we do. What I started to notice is every time I did a podcast, I learned something more about our agency and I have to give the podcast credit. That’s how I’ve been able to do my job as a public information officer, from what I’ve learned through the podcast. Every episode I learned something new. Just like with the ACI podcast.

Tim: I came from a news background. As a young journalist, I just saw myself, you know, beelining straight for the New York Times. That was my goal, to be a writer at the New York Times. And then my my career sidetracked completely, partially because of technology. Initially they trained me to do video at one of my first newspaper jobs, and that led to working in television news. Then from there I was like, well, I’ve already got newspapers, now I’ve got television. Why not have radio too, right? You know, kind of the the media slam. So, I went to work for Chicago Public Radio, which is really where I learned about podcasts. I got to work with “This American Life” and “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and it was very eye opening to me. I learned at that time that podcasting was huge in urban centers and huge in places where people were commuting, and I was like, this is a fantastic tool! It’s storytelling. It’s casual storytelling and people seem to really, really like it.

So, I took a job at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. During the pandemic, I got really tired of the social backlash and the anger and, you know, people frustrated at having to be at home. So I thought, why not start a podcast? So, we started the “Beaver State Podcast”. At that point in time, a very similar time frame to Ashley’s podcast, and so we’ve kind of grown these together.

You both host your own podcast and now you’re cohosting “The Outdoor Communicators”, the ACI podcast. What is it that you enjoy most about hosting a podcast? What drives you when pursuing a story?

Tim: Ashley kind of nailed it on the head a couple of questions ago. It’s getting to ask those questions. Just letting your curiosity kind of fly. I’m a very curious person and getting to sit down with luminaries and really get at what makes them tick. In our particular podcast (Beaver State Podcast), you’re learning a lot of science. You’re learning a lot of biology, and in order to be good at my job, you’re getting that information through asking a biologist questions in sort of a safe space of a podcast where I can play a little bit dumb and say, “hey, you got to explain that to me. I don’t understand that concept”. It’s very, very valuable and it’s been one of my favorite parts of hosting a podcast.

Ashley: I have to agree with Tim. I love learning and I also love getting to know people within my agency, and now with ACI. I told you how my podcast has helped me do my job here and learning so much, and now we get to learn from other communicators. And that’s also going to benefit all of us. So learning, getting to know people and hearing their stories. I love the podcasts that get really personal, not just about what they do, but when we really get to know them. And one last thing I love about the podcast. I actually have a lot of freedom over the podcast, so I like just being able to come and be myself and talk to people rather than on social media when we’re trying to use the department’s voice.

With all the hundreds of talented people that we have in our ACI ranks, I can only imagine you will not have a shortage of premium content to choose from, will you?

Tim: No, but there’s so many great, you know, again, I call them luminaries. Just people with fantastic ideas, people that are trying new things, we might not share geographical boundaries, but we all do a lot of the same thing even if we’re talking about different wildlife species, or again geography. But man, there are just so many great ideas and I get to hear them during the conference, but it’s like you come home and you get back into the swing of things and, maybe some of those go out the way. I’m not great at taking notes and so being able to continue those conversations is just super valuable because there’s so many great people at ACI.

Ashley: One benefit of the ACI podcast is we have personalities. Sometimes that’s a little harder when, as we all know, working with biologists. But with this ACI podcast, all our guests have been great so far. Super dynamic people.

Tim: That is so true.

Ashley: A communicator’s dream! Every single guest we’ve had.

In theory you could have a podcast every day, but I know that’s not possible.
So how many episodes can we expect in a year, and where can listeners find “The Outdoor Communicators” podcast?

Tim: Again, Ashley and I both do podcasts and we’re busy people. So, what we wanted to do was not take on a bunch more work. We wanted this to be valuable to us as creators, and so we’ve decided to do one episode a month. Each episode is going to be anywhere from a half an hour to 45 minutes. You’ll be able to find it on the ACI website. That’s one place you can find each new episode and the other place you’ll be able to find it, is really anywhere you get your podcasts currently. Could be Apple Podcast, could be Google Play, Podbean- there’s a bunch of services out there.

We are going to be hosted by Libsyn, which is a really good podcast host, and they distribute to all those channels. If you can’t find it on your favorite place to get your podcast, let me know. I can go in through Libsyn and set that up. So, there will be a lot of different places to find it. I’m sure we’ll probably have excerpts on some of our ACI social media as well.

Before we part ways to actually tend to our jobs that pay the bills, is there any last thoughts you would like to share with our audience?

Ashley: I would just say, just listen to one podcast and you’ll be hooked! It really is, like Tim says, it’s just a great way for us to stay connected past the conference. We get such a short amount of time at the conference, and it is my favorite conference I go to out of the year because, like I said before, we’re surrounded by people who are like us, who are fellow communicators. Nothing against our biologists, it’s just the people at ACI are a little more my speed. And I just think people are going to love this podcast.

Tim: One thing I learned in Chicago working with some of the best podcasters in the world was why they’re so popular and why people like podcasts. What I came to learn is that people want to be in a conversation, even if they can’t speak into the conversation, you want to hear it. They want to know what’s going on. Somebody once told me that it’s like sitting on somebody’s shoulder, listening in, and humans really want that. They need that. So, I think that’s one thing that this podcast will hopefully be. I’m hoping Ashley and I will channel a lot of your questions, your interests, the things that you want to know about improving as a communicator because a lot of it is just based on our curiosities and the things we deal with every day. So, we really want to kind of build that, and then you already have that magic that a podcast is, which is just listening in on a good conversation.

I’m excited to see how this podcast evolves over time, and I do appreciate you both joining me today to talk about “The Outdoor Communicators”. This is exciting, and I look forward to following along with you both on this journey.

Tim: Thanks Blake.

Ashley: Thank you Blake.

To watch the full interview, please visit ACI’s YouTube channel or click on the link:

https://youtu.be/jq0bHES60dg?si=LaR54-LdtmfouAFD

“The Outdoor Communicators” is now available at www.aci-net.org as well as all your favorite podcast platforms. If you would like to reach out to Tim and Ashley with topic ideas, or simply give them your feedback, please email them at timothy.a.akimoff@odfw.oregon.gov and azeme@ndow.org.

I hope you find “The Outdoor Communicators” interesting and entertaining. Please share it with your staff, friends, and family.