Beat Creative Burnout: Where to get Ideas for your Next Podcast
October 28th, 2006 by 
adminIt happens even to the most creative and passionate podcaster. You’re staring at the computer screen, your mind blank. After so many episodes on the same theme or topic, you’ve run clean out of ideas. Meanwhile, you’ve promised your advertiser or sponsor to run the podcast for several more months, and your clients are asking you for your “calendar”. You need to give them one, soon, or you may lose the advertising deal. Unfortunately, your brain isn’t cooperating. You’re stuck.
Relax. Many people have been in the same shoes—podcasters, copywriters, magazine editors, and even bloggers. (This article, for example, was inspired by the need to create a new podcasting topic. So yes, even we get stuck.)
The last thing you should do is sit in front of the computer screen. In fact, you should be heading to the phone, where you should call someone who (to you) represents your target audience. You are about to conduct an unofficial focus group. Big companies do this all the time, they get feedback from consumers (and pay “consumer experts” a lot of money to analyze that feedback). The idea is that you ask your listener what they want. Interview them to find out what their common concerns or setbacks are. Find out what’s really bugging them. Somewhere in that conversation you’ll find a topic—and you know there’s a real demand for it.
Another thing you can do is to take an old topic, but do a follow up report. Not only will it encourage new subscribers to go through your archive, but you can go more in-depth this time, and tackle questions or concerns that weren’t included in the original discussion. You can even invite an old guest back, to see if his opinions or experiences have changed since the last time he was on your podcast.
It’s also possible to return to a controversial topic, but this time you can invite a panel discussion, so people can throw opinions around and react. This is particularly useful for topics that got a lot of feedback from listeners. You can even include their emails in your discussion: read them aloud or invite them to be interviewed. This is a great boost to your relationship with your listeners; people like knowing that their ideas matter.
Still stuck? Instead of changing topics, consider changing the way you executed the discussion. For example, if you invited an expert last time around, this time go around and conduct man-on-the-street interviews. (Bring a tape recorder, then transfer the contents for editing.) Or invite an expert who’s known for a completely opposite opinion, and air his side. Be sure to include excerpts from the first podcast to give a bigger context to your podcast—not everyone would’ve listened to your previous episode, or even remember it if they did.
And don’t forget, you can also get ideas from magazines, newspapers, books and television. It’s a good idea if you keep a notebook where you can randomly list interesting trivia or website addresses. When you feel stuck, you just check it for any ideas.