Today on Journey Map, we're joined by Isaac Allen, Founder of Spark Agency. In this episode, we talk about Isaac's love of adventure in business, the importance of intention, and the many facets of the insurance industry Isaac has experienced on his career path.Learn More from Isaac and Spark Agency:Visit Spark Agency: https://www.linkedin.com/comp…

Today on Journey Map, we're joined by Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, Chief Creative Officer at FCB Canada. In this episode, we talk about her word geek history, the challenges that come with transitioning into leadership, and the valuable work that FCB does with the Canadian Down Syndrome Society.Learn more from Nancy and FCB Canada:Visit FCB Canada:https://…

Today on Journey Map, we're joined by David Barnes, President & Creative Director at Charrette. In this episode, we talk about the role of creativity throughout his life, the career jumps that he made over the last few years, and how interviewing different agencies pushed him to start his own.Learn more from David and Charrette:Visit Charrette: htt…

Today on Journey Map, we're joined by Nick Verity, CEO of Cleverly. In this episode we talk about, how Nick got his internship at Dreamworks, the messaging change that was a turning point for Cleverly, and the secret to getting tons of company reviews.Learn More From Nick and Cleverly:Visit Cleverly: https://www.cleverly.co/Connect with Nick: https…

Today on Journey Map, we're joined by Joseph Delaney & Mark Goldwell, Founding Partners at Zero. In this episode, we talk about the stories behind their names, how they first connected over Outback Steakhouse, and the important ethos in their company culture.Learn more from Joseph, Mark and Zero:Visit Zero: https://zero.nyc/Connect with Joseph: htt…

In this episode, we talk about observability from a performance engineering perspective. We talk about how this new emphasis on observability is a game changer for performance engineering, typically once viewed as a solo activity, but not something that benefits the whole team. Some good quotes: "the whole, the whole rationale for investing in obse…

In this episode, Abby talks about Site Reliability Engineering, Service Level Objectives, Toil, the power of Storytelling, influencing Management and why Quality Coaching and Site Reliability Engineering have a lot in common.By Anne-Marie Charrett

In this episode, we talk about large projects, how to explain our job to non-technical people within an organisation and creating a shared vision of success to enrich the UAT process. We also talk about Mentoring, Enthusiasm, Empathy and Community.By Anne-Marie Charrett

In this episode we talk a lot about learning, different approaches to learning, being a catalyst within an organisation and sitting with discomfort. Some classic Maaret quotes: "Automation is how we document Exploratory Testing" "FAIL -> First Attempt at Learning" "Accepting the discomfort of not knowing is a skill" Next episode completes the discu…

We continue our conversation with Beth Skurrie co-founder of pactflow.io and all round awesome person. We continue talking about PACT applied, making conscious decisions around tool selection and keeping tech relevant. Some 'more' Bethesque quotes "end to end test are the wrong type of tests to check low level, request and response fields" "what it…

In this episode we talk to Beth Skurrie co-founder of pactflow.io and all round awesome person. We talk about quality (of course!) and what quality is from a coding perspective. The difficulty in using tools to assist in quality. Levels of abstraction and the test automation pyramid and how its useful in trade offs. Plus some stuff on when to write…

In this episode, Tim talks about how collaboration, visualisation and metrics in an open organisation can help teams to achieve exceptional business outcomes. We also discuss plumbers.By Anne-Marie Charrett

This is the final part of a three part chat (for the moment) with Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory and Anne Marie Charrett. In it we talk about what's next for agile teams and testing and the importance of taking small steps. We also mention not being taken in by smoke and mirrors, resilience, observability and complexity.…

This is the second part of a three part chat with Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory and Anne Marie Charrett. In it we talk about remote working and coaching remotely, consulting vs coaching, finding a Purpose, Pomodoro and taking small steps when in unchartered waters. Plus, more about donkeys.By Anne-Marie Charrett

This is the first part of a three part chat with Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory and Anne Marie Charrett. In it we talk about the similarities between quality coaching and whole-team quality and we also talk about Elephants and Donkeys!By Anne-Marie Charrett

In this episode we speak to Tim O'Brien from Wargaming Sydney. Heard of the game "World of Tanks"? It was brought to you by these lovely folks. I wanted to chat with Tim to give us an understanding how quality coaching fits into this unique context. We talk metrics (in particular rework), we talk about the key to being influential. Also how teams c…

Joao talks about being a Quality Owner, how it came about, how he uses Riskstorming and the fact that change takes time. The youtube presentation he references is found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlygHJIFjTABy Anne-Marie Charrett

By Anne-Marie Charrett

By Anne-Marie Charrett

By Anne-Marie Charrett

By Anne-Marie Charrett

In this episode, the second part of our chat with Rob Meaney, we talk about the challenges of quality coaching and creating a common vision.By Anne-Marie Charrett

In this the first episode of the podcast, we talk to Rob Meaney, Quality Coach at Poppulo. In it, Rob talks about his career and using his experiences to help him grow.By Anne-Marie Charrett

>>>>>>>> r We’ve morphed! Saltcast is now HowSound. Same content, same host, same backstory to great radio storytelling…. only the name has changed. Just as good, perhaps even better. But you need to subscribe to know for sure! Please, click on over to HowSound.org or log onto iTunes and subscribe. The Saltcast blog posts and free streams of the Sa…

Okay. First and foremost. Do. Not. Panic. Yes, this is the last Saltcast, BUT…. Saltcast is now HowSound. rBy Rob Rosenthal, SaltCast

Jeff Letellier demonstrates how to hold a pigeon. (Photo by Nicolas Tanner, courtesy the Salt Archive.) We talk everyday. But, step in front of a microphone, and everything goes to heck in a handbasket. We forget how to talk and, instead, launch into “reading voice.” What’s the secret to avoiding “reading voice”? Rachel James has some answers. Last…

Producer John Biewen interrogates John Steinbeck. (Photo by Diana Garcia) I seriously suffer from wanderlust. Summer comes and I want nothing more than to shunpike — make my way cross-country taking back roads. Can’t do that this summer, sadly. But, fortunately, I have John Biewen’s latest documentary to satisfy some of my road trip ya-yas. In 1960…

The English Channel On this Saltcast, further evidence of the infiltration of Radiolab into the ears of new radio producers. Matt Kielty interviewed the guts out of Pat Charrette, a 60-year-old woman who attempted an English Channel swim in 2008. Pat was a great talker and Matt thought assembling the story would be a cinch — until he listened to th…

Amy O’Leary wowing radio students with a four-hour, non-stop, mind dump of storytelling genius. r It all started with a vox pop about cheeseburger fries when she was a student at Salt in 2003. Now, Amy O’Leary is a Deputy Editor at the New York Times working on multi-media stories. Amy visited Salt this semester and let her mind all-hang-out — narr…

p Salt Radio has been invaded. Sonically. The welcome interloper? Radiolab. Some ten years ago, students arrived at Salt heavily influenced by Ira Glass and Dave Isay. While Ira and Dave continue to inspire, Radiolab’s producers and hosts, Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad, have now wormed their way into the hearts and ears of students. (By wormed, i…

Paul Schipper, “The Iron Man of Skiing.” Photo by Katherine Gnecco, courtesy of the Salt Archive. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting Greg Warner on the radio these days. The dude is everywhere. Just in the last few months, Greg produced a story for Radiolab, had a piece featured on Re:sound, and he assembled a series on health care in Russi…

“How the heck am I going to find a story?!” Students at Salt ask that question incessantly at the beginning of a semester. And trust me, they don’t always say ‘heck.’ To spark thinking on where to look for a story, for many years we’ve used “50 Places to Shop for Story Ideas” by Gregg McLachlan. I think it’s an excellent starting point. One thing m…

r At Salt, we use the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics to guide us through tricky editorial decisions. But, how’s a student supposed to figure out the best path to take when the teacher breaks the Society’s code around “avoid(ing) conflicts of interest, real or perceived.” I suggested a student interview my mother-in-law for a sto…

A toucan bit my mic once. Another time, a cow licked my mic. I’ve had to wipe fish guts and seaweed from it. O, the places my mic has taken me. Just in the last few months, with a microphone leading the way, I’ve been to a Rio de Janeiro ghetto, a nothern Maine historical society, a funeral and a prison in Malawi, and the American Folk Festival in …

The USS Cole towed to sea with a hole blown in its side.Photo by Sgt. Don L. Maes, U.S. Marine Corps. r On October 12, 2000, seventeen sailors were killed and dozens injured during an attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. Ten years later, Salt radio grad Matt Ozug produced a segment on the Cole for an hour-long documentary by America Abroad. Matt was so…

r Salt radio student Georgia Moodie turned part of Salt’s somewhat standardized production process on its head. Maybe it’s because Georgia’s from Australia? (Sorry. Couldn’t help it.) Typically, students write and edit scripts before producing a story in ProTools. Georgia produced a story first and wrote a script as she went. This isn’t a productio…

Carol Broebeck received this picture of her son from her social worker just after his adoption was completed. It was the last she saw of him until twenty years later when he turned up at her job — by surprise. (Photo courtesy Carol Broebeck via radio producer Shea Shackelford.) r “Where do ideas for radio stories come from?” In the case of the awar…

r My brain tingled while interviewing Dan Grech for this Saltcast. Dan is the News Director at WLRN in southern Florida. He’s also a producer for the station’s public affairs program Under the Sun. Early in 2010, Dan produced a story about four doctors who traveled to Haiti soon after the earthquake. One of the doctors videotaped part of the trip a…

r Producer Jamie York has decade long list of success in public radio. He’s worked with Dave Isay of StoryCorps fame, WNYC, American Radio Works, and Radio Rookies. He’s been at On the Media for six years. And, his first national broadcast was a doosey. In 2002. Jamie co-produced “Mohawk Iron Workers, Walking High Steel” as part of the Kitchen Sist…

r I hope you’re sitting down. I’m going to say something heretical. Ready? I’m kinda tired of StoryCorps. Let me explain. On so many levels, StoryCorps is genius. It’s the nation’s largest oral history project — ever. And, it’s peer to peer (mostly) with people interviewing one another. The stories are heartfelt and honest. What could be better on …

r Here’s what I’d like you to do after you hear this podcast. Nothing. Just sit there (or stand if you must) and do nothing but listen. In fact, listen until it becomes a bit uncomfortable, like you’ve listened long enough. Then, listen some more. Listen deliberately. Tell me what you hear. Really. Try it. Cheers, Rob PS – Below are links to the wo…

Irish radio producer, Ronan Kelly. r This Saltcast we break from the format a bit. Ronan Kelly, from RTE, Radio Ireland, visited Salt for a week in October. He hung out in class and worked with the students. What a treat! While Ronan was in Portland, we chatted on tape as he played DJ featuring clips from some of his favorite radio stories. You’ll …

r Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. That’s the sound of tyranny — the tyranny of the clock. Typically, radio stories need to fill a specific length of time in a radio program — no shorter, no longer. Right. On. Time. Lots of content from a story gets cut to meet those time constraints. One of the first things to go is the questions asked by the reporte…

Crow’s Lightwriter speech synthesizer. (Photo by Emily Bender) Crow bathes with a caregiver. (Photo by Emily Bender) Crow died of ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2007. (Photo by Emily Bender) r A very successful radio and multi-media producer got her start at Salt. She’s worked for a major public radio program and a major newspaper conducting training…

“Why now?” Producers often dread this question. “It’s simply a good story” they might say. “It doesn’t need to answer ‘why now?’ This is a classic tale of (fill in the blank). It’s universal!” But editors ask this question all the time. They’re looking for relevancy, for why a listener should care beyond those important elements. I see the merit of…

A cypress knee — Jay Allison’s memento from a visit to Florida, a tour of a cypress knee museum, and a radio story about “an elevated, transcendent beauty we become aware of at death.” (Photo by Rob Rosenthal.) r “Cypress Knees” by Jay Allison is one of those radio stories that’s hard to describe. Even Jay kinda, sorta stumbled over explaining it w…

Katie West smiles to change the world. (Photo by Avery Moore.) r Radio producer Avery Moore heard the following mantra for *four* years at journalism school: DON’T USE MUSIC! Over and over, DON’T USE MUSIC was beaten into her. Journalistically speaking, the logic is simple — don’t use music unless it’s part of the story. If it’s not part of the sto…

President Franklin Roosevelt examines a model of the proposed Quoddy Dam, Eastport, Maine in 1935. The project barely got off the ground before it failed miserably. (Photo courtesy the National Archives.) Leslie Bowman and Normand LaBerge keep the dream of a dam in Eastport alive seventy-five years later. (Photo by Emily Friedman.) It’s hard to sta…

Guglielmo Marconi, inventor and early radio technology pioneer. r Radio producer Tony Kahn once said of an interviewee “She lives in her voice.” What a remarkably succinct way to say how one’s voice communicates more than just the words that are spoken. Cadence, pauses, inflections… all are non-verbal cues about character. I’m a fan of one non-verb…

Glenn Johnson’s business card reads “Dowser, Consultant to the Universe.” Photo by Katherine Hays (2004). A recent interview with This American Life host Ira Glass on Slate.com got me thinking about about an old Salt Radio piece called “Dowser, Consultant to the Universe.” It’s the story of Glenn Johnson, a dowser who makes a mistake. And, therein …