Here are my main reasons:

1. I wanted an outlet to be more creative in research communication
When I was younger I used to love creative writing. I even once won a prize for a story I wrote called “The Chicken from Outer Space”. I miss that. When I first started as a scientist I tried being creative and entertaining in my writing. But as most people that have been through the publication process well know, reviewers will stomp that out of you right quick..”Too colloquial”, “Not appropriate for a scientific article!”, “Stick to talking about what was actually measured”. So, I gave up on trying to write creative journal articles years ago. Just the facts, ma’am. I don’t really even have that many creative article titles..need more Psych Science submissions I guess 😉

I used to satisfy my creative fix pretty well by trying to do colorful and fun talks at conferences. But I don’t go to all that many conferences anymore and most of the the time I get assigned a poster instead of a talk. So, to heck with them! I will start my own virtual conference where I am always the keynote speaker and can present about whatever I want!

I also thought about writing a blog but there are already a lot of great one’s out there and the idea of do even more writing doesn’t really excite me. Plus…

2. I am a big podcast fan and I always wanted to do one
As a person that rides a bike to work, goes on long drive road trips, and has a hobby of long distance running, podcasts are a godsend for me! They have kept me company for many a mile. And the people doing them seemed to be having so much fun! Its liking having your own radio station.

I had thought about doing one related to my personal interests… running (no, there is a ton of those already), Dr Who (there is even more of those!). Plus I am not sure when I would find the time. So, I came up with the idea of…

3. I am using this material as part of my teaching materials
As I have mentioned a couple times on the podcast, the impetus for me starting the podcast now was that I needed to update my materials for a few online courses I am teaching. My choices were: (a) Do what I had done before and spend a bunch of time staring at a screen narrating my power point lectures to create output I would send only to my students or (b) put a little more effort into creating episodes (with my slides as supporting material) and release them to the world! I also hoped my students would enjoy the mobility and style of this format more, which they do seem to so far. With (b) as my choice my intention was to release one episode every 2 weeks but I started having too much fun with it and have gotten a bit carried away 🙂

Something I was secretly hoping would occur seems to be happening also…

4. I want to help facilitate better connections between practitioners and researchers
Because of the podcast and related interactions on social media I have made some new connections with coaches, trainers, analysts and people working at sports tech companies, and I hope this will continue. I have already convinced several of these people (along with academics I already knew) to do interviews which will be coming on the podcast soon. I think the issues of transferring research to practice, and using practice to help guide research questions need to be considered much more in psychology, sports science and human factors. I am hoping that through the podcast I will be able to get more of a two-way discussion going.

And finally, something a few people may have been wondering..

5. Am I making any money off of this?
No, not a dime. I am actually footing the bill for the media hosting and website myself. In the future I would be open to having a sponsor/supporter help me cover some of these costs if I thought it would be something people in this area might be interested in, but for now, I am not too fussed about it…just having to much fun with it!