Messaggi Vocali recently turned six months old, and I felt it was the right time to take a step back, see how things are going, and decide whether there was anything I wanted to change.
Actually, this is something I like to do regularly: about every three months, I try to figure out what is working, what is taking up too much of my time and, most importantly, which parts of the project I genuinely enjoy.
And this time, I came to a fairly simple conclusion: I want to spend more time on the part of the podcast I actually enjoy and reduce as much as possible all the work that comes with it.
Running a podcast on my own means dealing with much more than just recording: editing, transcripts, PDFs, the website, automations, newsletters, different platforms… Some of these things are useful, but they are not necessarily the things I find most rewarding.
And since over the next few months I will also need to dedicate time to looking for a job and building my new life in a new country, I want to make the podcast as simple and sustainable as possible.
That doesn’t mean there will be fewer episodes, though. In fact, there will probably be more.
What’s new
1. One episode every week
The first change is probably the most important one: from now on, there will be a new episode every week, instead of every two weeks.
Recording episodes is actually one of the parts of the project I enjoy the most. I don’t find it particularly difficult to come up with topics, prepare an episode or talk into a microphone. Quite the opposite: I often really enjoy it.
So I thought: why not do it more often?
For now, I already have a few episodes of around 30 minutes recorded and ready to be published, so you’ll still find a few episodes of that length over the next few weeks. After that, I’d like to experiment a little more with the length.
2. Longer, more spontaneous episodes
This is probably the change I’m most curious about.
From the very beginning, I decided to keep the episodes around 30 minutes because it seemed like a reasonable length for maintaining concentration and, above all, because it made the production and transcription process easier.
But I’ve realised that 30 minutes can sometimes feel like an artificial constraint for the way I like to talk.
I don’t exactly have a gift for brevity. 😅
When I start talking about a topic, I like to explore it in depth, make connections, add examples and follow my thoughts wherever they lead. More than once, I’ve found myself reaching the end of the 30 minutes just when I still had things I wanted to say.
So I want to give myself more freedom when it comes to the length of the episodes.
If a topic takes 20 minutes, I’ll talk for 20 minutes.
If it takes 40 minutes, I’ll talk for 40.
And if I need an hour to really explore it in depth, why not?
Lately, I’ve been listening to and watching a lot of long-form content, and I’ve realised just how much I enjoy it. Perhaps we’re so used to extremely short content that it’s worth getting used to listening to something without constantly feeling the need to get to the end.
And of course, you don’t have to listen to a long episode all in one go. An hour-long episode can easily be listened to in two, three or four sittings.
I simply want to stop myself from cutting an interesting discussion short just because I’ve reached the 30-minute mark.
3. The free transcript is staying, but it will be available on request
This is where I will be streamlining the workload.
The transcripts will still be available for free, but they will no longer be available for automatic download from the website.
I’ve realised that there have been relatively few requests for the PDFs compared with the amount of time it takes to prepare them and set up all the automations that make them available for download.
A transcript can be very useful, especially for learners at an intermediate level who want to follow the text while listening, or check how a word they didn’t quite understand is spelled.
But perhaps not everyone needs one, especially people who already have an advanced level of Italian.
So I’ve decided to make things much simpler:
If you’d like the transcript, just email me.
You can send me an email and I’ll send you the PDF containing the transcript of the first 30 minutes of the episode for free.
So, if an episode is longer than 30 minutes, the free transcript will only cover the first part.
This limit simply depends on the tools I use to create the transcripts: to transcribe very long episodes, I would have to switch to paid versions, and at the moment it wouldn’t really make sense to take on that cost for a service that is requested so rarely.
In the future, if the podcast grows and I’m able to have someone help me with production, I’d definitely like to bring this option back.
4. Video episodes might be coming
This is still an idea I’m exploring.
The podcast is already available on YouTube, but for now you’ll simply find the audio accompanied by a static image.
I’d like to figure out how to create a proper video podcast, while naturally keeping the audio format on Spotify and the other platforms.
Personally, I love watching podcasts in video format, and I find it interesting to be able to see the person who is speaking rather than just hear their voice.
The problem?
First, I’ll have to overcome a small personal obstacle: my shyness in front of a camera.
I’ve never been particularly comfortable with photos or videos. I’m the kind of person who, when someone says, “Wait, let me take a picture of you!”, immediately freezes and ends up making exactly the same awkward expression in every photo.
But I’d like to try to get over that a little.
So, if I can find a reasonably simple way of doing it, you might eventually see me on YouTube too.
5. Interviews and conversations with other people
Another idea I’d like to experiment with is having someone else to talk to every now and then.
Not necessarily formal interviews, with a long list of prepared questions, but rather spontaneous conversations with different people.
I’d like to do this for several reasons.
First of all, to bring a little more variety to the podcast and let you hear different voices and accents.
But I also think it could be interesting from the perspective of learning Italian.
Listening to one person speaking on their own is one type of exercise.
Listening to a real conversation, on the other hand, with two people interrupting each other, asking questions, changing topics, laughing, picking up a previous point and reacting spontaneously to what the other person says is something different.
Not necessarily more useful, but definitely a different and perhaps slightly more challenging listening exercise.
I already have a small list of people I’d like to talk to. Some are friends or acquaintances, while others are people I follow online who have podcasts or YouTube channels.
Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even find the courage to write to them and ask: “Would you like to come and have a chat on my podcast?”
Why all these changes?
The simplest answer is: I want to follow the principle of doing what I enjoy a little more.
This podcast has been one of my greatest sources of satisfaction over the past year.
Not because it has brought me fame or money (it absolutely hasn’t), but because it’s a creative project that allows me to express myself and, most importantly, something I genuinely enjoy doing.
Recording an episode doesn’t feel like a chore.
Coming up with a topic doesn’t feel like a chore.
Talking about something that interests me for half an hour, an hour or perhaps even longer is something I enjoy.
What I find more tiring, on the other hand, is all the technical and organisational work that comes afterwards.
And at this point in my life, I also need to leave room for other things. I’ve moved to a new country, I’m building a new sense of stability and I’ll need to dedicate time to finding a full-time job.
For the time being, then, teaching will continue to be part of my life, but probably as a second job.
I’d like to keep the podcast going precisely because it’s one of the things that gives me energy.
So the solution I’ve come up with is fairly simple: less infrastructure, more content.
Fewer automations to maintain. Less technical work.
More episodes. More freedom.
Do you have any ideas?
As always, I’m really happy when people get in touch with me.
If you listen to Messaggi Vocali and have a question, a request, a topic you’d like me to discuss, or simply an idea for an episode, feel free to send me an email.
I can’t promise I’ll reply immediately — sometimes it takes me a little while — but I read everything, and it genuinely makes me happy to know that there is someone on the other side listening.
And if you have a creative idea for an episode, even better: I might use it for one of the upcoming episodes.
See you soon!
