I am incredibly lucky sometimes. Jo Cook asked me to lead a session at the TJ60 event in London last week and gave me the chance to turn it into a podcast episode.

Laura Overton, Kirsty Lewis and I spent an hour talking about what’s changed in L&D over the decades and what hasn’t. I shaped it into a short seventeen-minute episode, but the real work didn’t happen in the room. It happened in the weeks before and says afterwards.

• Agreeing the topic
• Meeting the speakers
• Finding the narrative
• Crafting questions that would support the session
• Understanding the technical limits
• Choosing the kit
• Recording
• Reviewing what we captured
• Cutting it back
• Adding the sound design
• Publishing the piece

People ask me how to make a podcast, and this one was a reminder that even with all the prep, things still go wrong. My microphone gain was too high on my mic and it picked up everything (including the panel’s contributions), and the audience comments were distorted and blown out. It took a lot of careful listening and editing to fix it; removing echo is HARD.

And that’s the bit we never talk about. The craft behind the podcast.

Shaping a conversation so it sounds natural but still lands the message.
Asking questions that open something up rather than close it down.
Helping guests feel relaxed enough to be honest.
Listening for the threads that hold the story together.
Cutting twenty minutes of “good” to protect sixty seconds of “great”.
Balancing voices so everyone feels present.
Using silence as much as sound.
Turning a moment in a room into something someone can learn from the next day.

None of that is accidental – it’s deliberate work.

This is why I’m running the Podcast Learning Festival next February. Voice, conversation and sound are powerful ways for people to learn at work, and the craft behind that work deserves more space, more sharing, and more honesty.

If you want to get better at that part, come and join us in London on 26 February 2026. Early Bird tickets are available until the end of December and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

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#PodLearnFest #PodcastingForLearning #TJ60