We constantly get told “you’re doing it wrong”. We’re almost numb to it now, to be honest.
So to have someone tell us we’re doing it right…well, that’s simply outstanding. Especially when it comes to the show where we’re predominantly flying blind – it’s not like events where we can look around and say “Hey, lots of people here doing good stuff. Solid event!” Nope, the show is all hunches and metrics and after the fact numbers and intuition and hoping that we’re doing it right.
Sure, we see numbers and scope the metrics…but we don’t always believe them.
We keep running into people who listen to our show…but we don’t always understand why they listen.
So it’s really nice to get some feedback from someone who is a complete outsider to our group – never been to an event, never listened to our show before, doesn’t know any of the three of us at all – and to hear that we’re doing exactly what we wanted to do, and that even amidst the inside jokes and 80s movie montage songs…that what we’re helping.
Which brings us to Lauren…
Lauren reached out to me with a friend request on Yelp of all places last week.
Her note was pretty straight forward – she’d checked into the place where we hang out every week before our show, had read my reviews, and put two and two together that I was the guy involved with this group and the show she had read and heard about. She’s not in IT, but thinking that maybe she wants to be, and so we got to chatting a bit.
Over the course of the ensuing conversation, I told her what I usually tell people in those circumstances – dip your toe in the water and figure out if it’s something you’ll actually wind up enjoying and wanting to do for a career before diving in head first. I referred her over to Girl Develop It – Detroit to check out their meetups and classes. I mentioned next week’s event at BlackFinn and that she should try to make it, and since she mentioned it, I asked if she had sat down and listened to our show yet.
She hadn’t, but she was planning to listen on Monday night.
So, naturally, on Tuesday I shot her a note off asking if she’d had a chance to listen, and if so, what she thought about it.
I couldn’t have asked for a better response…and candidly, this is probably the best thing anyone will ever tell me about what we’re doing with our broadcasts:
“I really enjoyed it for a few different reasons. This is going to sound weird, but I kept chiming in and talking, because it’s like a conversation with buddies. I grew up hanging out with mostly male friends who were programmers, geeks, etc. much like yourselves so it’s really natural to me to be able to follow conversations like this. The laughing, drinks, quips… that’s like home…
…You guys are really inside baseball sometimes but that doesn’t bother me as much. I know just enough about IT to follow the conversation and I find it interesting. I think it is awesome to give a platform for local guys to come in a pitch what they do. I know that’s just the essence of your group, but I think it really lends itself to the radio format.”
Awesome.
Simply…awesome.
If you were to ask me what “perfect” was when it comes to feedback about what we’re trying to do…that would be it right there.
To read that someone who, again, doesn’t know us, hasn’t been to any of our events, never listened to our show before…and yet still completely “gets” us to the point where she’s finding herself talking back to us as if we were having a conversation?
That’s a win.
That’s a major win, actually.
I’m always hunting for feedback about what we’re doing, and the show is no exception.
Candidly, because it is such a “blind” thing for us, it’s even more important that you give us feedback so that we can know what we’re doing wrong, what we’re doing right, and what needs to be tweaked.
So here’s what we’d really like you to take a moment and do for us.
Go hit our SoundCloud feed – https://www.soundcloud.com/ITintheD and leave us some feedback.
Or catch us on iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/it-in-the-d-read.-meet.-listen./id839642514 – and do it there.
Or however you listen to us…feedback, feedback, feedback!
We really don’t ask for a whole lot from people…but this is one of those things that’s really important to us and so we’re asking.
Thanks in advance…and next we’ll start working on getting you to call in while we’re live on the air…