Ologies with Alie Ward - Minisode: Ologies Upgrades & Changes for 2019

Episode Date: January 8, 2019

A few things are changing in the world of Ologies and I just wanted to take a few minutes in this bare-bones minisode to lay 'em out. Transcripts and bleeped versions will be available in the next month or two, donations are going to specific Ologist-chosen charities per episode, and finally, Ologies puts on big pants and has sponsors. Will I call you and talk to you about a bra? I just might. Thank you for listening, for being Ologites and friends and Patrons. I love making this podcast and I'm excited to bring you another whole year. Support the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

Oh, hi, it's old Poddad here. Okay, I wanted to make you a little mini-soat to tell you some things that are changing withologies. It's all very exciting. Okay, let's have that mini-soat theme, shall we? Okay, here are some upgrades to the podcast. So forever, y'all have been asking me if I have any transcripts of the episodes for people who are hearing impaired or who are writing papers or who just want to read the information and not take notes. And forever, I've been like, lily, lily, lily, no. So starting in about a month or two, I will have transcripts for pretty much all the episodes. There's an amazing listener named Emily White, who is a professional transcriptionist who is working with a team

of volunteers who are listeners to head up sorting them out, distributing them, and everyone's taking a couple or one or more than one. It's an awesome group. Also, if you ever need a professional transcriptionist, hire Emily White. That's her email, hire Emily White. She has been amazing and the work that she's been doing to help make this podcast accessible is just, it's gorgeous and astounding. The first transcript she sent me, I was like, oh my God, it's all there. So hire Emily White if you need a transcriptionist, hire Emily White at Gmail. Okay, the other thing that is going to help with some accessibility is getting versions bleeped available for download for anyone who wants to listen with kids or

wants to listen at their school, but their school won't allow them to hear the word fuck and shit and whale dick and stuff around kids. So I'm hiring a few extra editors to go back, use the transcripts we have and bleep episodes and those will be available for free as will the transcripts through my website, alleyword.com. They're not up yet, but we're working on it. So all of these things take more time and more people and more money. But they are upgrades I've really wanted to do and things that I wanted to have available for people so that more people can just enjoy theologists and all of the knowledge. So those are things I've been working on. The other thing is some people have been worried that

I won't be able to keep doing this podcast. I'll just burn out because it is a ton of work. It's just a fuckboat of work. And I have a couple other jobs that I do, but good news. I just signed a contract. I'll be doing 50 episodes this next year. So 50 episodes guys, that's pretty much once a week, you'll be getting a New Orleans episode, a million DJ Airhorns. So exciting. So I can't burn out. I'm contractually obligated to keep making them. And I'm contractually obligated because I did sign with a network. So I joined the mid role company and they produce and run ads for some of my favorite podcasts, Oprah's and WTF and a lot of really great ones getting curious. And so it's been a

long time in negotiating with them because I wanted to make sure that I had the opportunity to pick the advertisers I wanted to work with that made good stuff. And there were products that I thought you guys would like and actually use. And so they've been rad. And so I start advertising with them starting this next episode with cats. And so I'll be telling you guys about stuff that I've been using and what I think of it. And I could have just done regular ad reads, but I decided to make a little bit more work, but make it a little bit more fun. And I wanted to let all the patrons know who have been supporting the podcast since literally day one, I would not be able to make this podcast without you guys.

Honestly, the support that you've allowed me to give editors and paying myself a bit to do this as a job has been, it's been irreplaceable. So to patrons, you know that I'm just thirsty for your love and I love you very much. And so I wanted to include patrons with the ads, just to let them know that they have a really big voice in the show and they're a really big part of the making the show. So I started just calling patrons. I asked them, I was like, hey, give me your phone numbers. And then some of them did. And then I just called them and I did ads to individuals and I recorded them and you can hear them. There'll be in the break before Patreon questions. So my ads are in the form of just marketing to one

individual at a time. I mean, then we had a chit chat for a while off air. It was great. So if you're a patron, especially at the oligies BFF tier, I see you. I may be calling you soon. Maybe I'll talk to you about vitamins or a really cool lecture course and then we'll shoot the shit about your bird in the background. Anyway, so those are some of the things that are changing with oligies. The other thing that having ads is going to allow me to do other than pay myself and a wage that is fair for the amount of work I put into it is every episode I'm going to be donating to a charity that's relevant to the oligies. So I've been asking the oligists and then having them pick and then I'm donating part of the ad revenue

to them because I think a lot of us listen to these episodes. We're like, I want to help. I want to do something. I want to help. So I want to know that if you're listening to ads, if you're supporting on Patreon, a fraction of what you're supporting is going to help these causes and these oligists and these fields of science directly. So that money goes through me and into the charity. This will also allow me to hire more people to work for me. So I just hired a very, very part-time assistant to help me get a lot of my Patreon rewards in order and just help me organize spreadsheets and reach out to different oligists so that I can spend more time actually writing and recording the show. And I can do

more travel. So I'm planning to do some travel to interview some really great oligists in Minnesota and South Dakota and North Dakota later this spring. And so I can take some trips to go do that. And I've steadily been giving raises to people who work on the show. And so I was able to give them a big bump because I'm doing ads, which I'm really excited about. So you'll be hearing some ads and oligies. And you'll also be hearing some patrons talking to me about ads. If you want to be one of them, you can always sign up on Patreon. You guys know that this is a really big passion project for me. I was really hesitant to do ads for a long time because I didn't want to say fuck less. I didn't want to change

the tone of the show. And I didn't want to take money from companies that I didn't believe in. So luckily, with Midroll, they've been awesome. I don't have to change the tone or the content of the show. I advertise with people I want to advertise with. And the money I make gets to help charities, give people raises, help some people in my life, and then also let me build a little bit more of a nest egg. And maybe I won't always be recording in my closet. So 2019, I hope this year all of you are making lists of what you want to do in 2019. Perhaps some of you out there listening are oligists. I'm going to interview in the future. Who knows? We may meet. Thank you for having an interest in eating crickets

and the apocalypse and gut flora and volcanoes and chimps on birth control. I'm very glad to have found my people out there. So thank you for listening and thanks for supporting. And if you have any feedback on how the ads are or what you do or don't want to hear about, just tell me because you know I'm all ears. Okay. And for the customary secret at the end of this, I do want to tell you if you are making to-do lists and you need a little bit of extra incentive when you're making it to-do list, make that to-do list on paper, but then buy yourself, treat yourself to like a gold Sharpie. And then when you cross things off your list, you're like, oh, look at that. Look at that gold. And then it also makes

it opaque. So you can't even see the thing you just crossed out. It's like you obliterated it completely. And then at the end of the day, you just have a bunch of gold lines on a paper and you're like, look at what I've done. Look at this majesty. So gold Sharpie is 2019, guys. It's my strategy for getting shit done. Okay. I love you all. Bye bye.