Article
Eric Dybvig and Meredith Baker
Eric Dybvig and Meredith Baker and ‘More of That Podcast'
Summary
Eric and Meredith, co-hosts of the "More of That" podcast, focus on interviewing individuals who have built impactful communities and experiences. Their podcast was born from a desire to connect people and share community-building insights, particularly inspired by Eric's own experience of loneliness in Los Angeles. They face challenges in video recording and editing but have found tools like Podium to streamline their workflow. The podcast has enriched their personal and professional lives by deepening their understanding of stories of global connection.
Introducing Eric Dybvig and Meredith Baker and their show ‘More of That’
Welcome to the "More of That" podcast, hosted by Eric and Meredith, two passionate advocates for community building and meaningful connections. This podcast delves into the inspiring stories of community builders, experience creators, and non-profit leaders who have transformed their passion projects into impactful movements. From the heart of Los Angeles, Eric and Meredith explore themes of belonging, connection, and the power of starting a movement. Join us as we uncover the origin stories of diverse communities and learn practical tips for expanding your circle, embarking on new adventures, and making a lasting impact on those around you.
You can listen to their show here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6OCNRGusWIiAksHbaSj3xz?si=ba0c8ce19b6445e0
Tell us about your show!
On the More of That podcast we interview community builders, experience creators, and non-profit initiatives who have taken their passion projects to scale. We discuss the origin stories of the communities in a "how I built this" type format and cover topics on belonging, connection, starting a movement, and more. This is for individuals who are looking to expand their circle, get out of their comfort zone, host more, start a movement, and have an impact on people around them. A few examples of guests we've interviewed include our friend who grew up in a cult, a community - Worthy of Love - hosting monthly birthday parties for homeless kids in LA and Houston, a mass meditation experience - The Big Quiet - which has held meditations in MSG and similar size stadiums, a global running community - Midnight Runners - started out of London, and Turkish Breakfast Club - a connection experience over Turkish food which was started at Burning Man.
Why did you start your podcast?
Meredith and I started this podcast out of our mutual desire to bring people together and support others on their community building journey. Specifically myself (Eric) knows what it feels like to experience loneliness in a big city - Los Angles - while working in a good job. Coming off of the end of a long-term relationship and unexpected work paths I needed to find community for myself, especially friends to create and go on adventures with. I worked really hard to build this community for myself and now want to share those tips with others feeling a similar way. Meredith and I started an events company together in Venice, CA also called More of That in 2020 during the pandemic, with our first events being virtual. We got inspired to start a podcast after seeing so many other amazing community builders and experience hosts and wanted to share their stories to a wider audience - both to showcase what they're doing and to inspire others to start their own movements! Meredith has been telling stories of global connection her whole life so it was a natural extension of that for her as well.
What's been your biggest challenge so far?
The biggest challenge has been setting up the video recording, deciding how much to invest in gear / products, and not letting perfectionism get in the way of releasing new episodes. We've been leaning on our community to help us overcome this and are developing systems to help us edit and launch each episode quicker. Podium is a really helpful tool in helping us remember the key things we talked about in our podcasts without having to take notes during the pod or hire someone else
How has podcasting impacted your personal and professional life?
Podcasting has mostly impacted our personal lives in being able to dive deeper on stories both of the amazing people already in our lives and those who we meet with a similar mindset. We definitely believe the stories we share can be super impactful to people around the world, but we also get enough benefit having the conversations ourselves to want to keep going. Every conversation helps us see our own world a little more clearly. And it's so fun to give our guest a platform to share as well!
What advice do you have for new podcasters?
Just Start! Don't get overwhelmed with all the gear or everything you need to do; our phones these days are enough to record really high quality podcasts and your voice and thoughts are more powerful than you even realize. Record your first episode and share it with your circle first just to get the momentum going. From a practical standpoint - get yourself a hosting platform to make it easy to publish across platforms, create a few minimal assets, and take video from the beginning so you at least have clips to share out to get people interested even if you aren't going to release the whole video content.
Anything else you'd like to share with the world?
You can't hum if you hold your nose
How has Podium improved your workflow?
We're just starting to use Podium as a tool. It's awesome as we build out our outsourced video clip editing capabilities. The workflow can be to download a transcript with the highlights, note which we think are important, then send all of it to our editor. Getting summarized chapters and highlight ideas saves SO MUCH time compared to listening back to the whole episode. And it gives our editor a lot more clarity on what we talked about in the podcasts. Ultimately we hope to use all of the transcripts and highlights to create resource guides that use the information across all of our episodes using various AI tools available