Rob Alvarez Bucholska
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Helen Hooper First Figures Out How To Make the Players Feel | Episode 332

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Helen Hooper is head of learning design at VirtualSpeech which creates soft skills training solutions based around immersive practice in VR and online. Helen has a particular passion for creating engaging and effective learning experiences that involve active participation by the learner.

Her rich background includes twelve years founding and running two award-winning educational startups focused on child development through active storytelling. And, long ago, after graduating from Oxford University – Helen spent nine years working in the UK Civil Service and European Commission (which she hated!). When not working she’s often found taxiing her 2 teenagers around or walking in the countryside with her husband and French dog, Garry.

 

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Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Rob:
Engagers welcome back to another episode of the professor game podcast, and we have today with us Helen. But Helen, we need to know, are you prepared to engage?

Hele:
I am.

Rob:
Let’s do this. Let’s do this. Helen Hooper is the head of learning design at Virtual Speech, which creates soft skills training solutions based around immersive practice in VR and online. She has a particular passion for creating engaging and effective learning experiences that involve active participation by the learner. So that’s what we’re all about for sure.

Rob:
Her background includes twelve years of founding and running two award winning educational startups focused on child development through active storytelling. Long ago, after graduating from Oxford University, she spent nine years working for the UK Civil Service and European Commission, which she didn’t enjoy too much. But when she’s not working, she’s often found taxiing her two teenagers around or walking in the countryside with her husband and french dog Gary. But Helen, is there anything we should know that we haven’t mentioned yet?

Hele:
No, I’m sure we’ll cover it. There’s anything that’s missing?

Rob:
Yes, we certainly will. So Helen, give us a quick run of what a day or a week looks like for you. We want to be in your shoes and know what it is like, basically.

Hele:
Okay, so I’m very english, so my day has to start with a cup of tea, at least one to get me going. And then I embark on my long commute from my bedroom, through the bathroom and into the study or the spare room, which is where I work. So yeah, nice long commute. And then once I’m there, a typical day. There’s not really such a thing as a typical day because the role is very varied.

Hele:
So I might be maybe researching theory for a course, or I might be designing an interactive learning experience in VR. Or sometimes I’ll be meeting with a customer to find out about their learning needs or onboarding them. I might be filming something or recording a voiceover for an experience or another, or a TikTok. Sometimes I do that. A lot of my time recently has been spent working on generative AI, prompt writing and testing.

Hele:
So in particular creating backstories for avatars in AI and making them respond in character and arming them with enough knowledge to be able to give a meaningful roleplay. And also we’ve worked very hard on feedback, so I’m doing quite a lot of that at the moment. Also with AI to make sure that those avatars are able to give really good feedback on the conversations that they have with the learners, then yeah, there’s loads of tea interspersed with all of that. And at the end of the day, I usually drive, as you mentioned, I drive my daughter to dance, and then I’ll go for a spinning class, bike class, that kind of thing. And then I’ll either think, while I’m waiting for her to finish, think a bit more about work, or at the moment, I’m going back to my writing children’s stories.

Hele:
So I’m spending quite a lot of time in my spare time deliberating over rhymes for children’s.

Rob:
Interesting, interesting. Creative avenue right there, for sure. So, Helen, how about we go into a story? We were discussing the pre interview chat that Helen loves to give us stories, so let’s dive into one. But this one, we want to look into something know again, creating these experiential learning, if it has to do with some sort of game or simulation, that would be great.

Rob:
But a situation, Hele, it was maybe your favorite fail or first attempt in learning, because we want to be there with you. We want to take away those lessons and see what it was like. We want to be there with you.

Hele:
Okay. So for this, I don’t see it as a failure, because I can’t really. But it’s definitely a journey, a very long journey. And it’s the journey that kind of led me to where I am now. So if I go back 15 years, that’s probably when I started working in earnest with games based solutions, or as I’m much more likely to call it, learning through games or learning through active participation.

Hele:
So it was about 15 years ago, my children were very small, and I gave up that really boring job in the civil service, and I set up a storytelling business with a friend for preschool age children. And it probably sounds like there isn’t much link between that and what I’m doing now in VR and AI. Actually, the overlap is surprisingly very big, and I revert to what I learned doing this on a daily basis still. So the business was all about getting the children to develop through a whole range of skills, through actively experiencing stories. So we would write a story, and then for each story, we’d take the children on an adventure where they’d relive parts of the story, they’d explore character, they would play with language, they’d experience emotion.

Hele:
They’d also challenge their physical coordination. So much learning through these games and activities, and it was brilliant, and absolutely everyone loved it. It was very popular. And like I said, I take a lot of this. I think a lot of my core learning design values I take from this time working with the children.

Hele:
So what went wrong? It wasn’t so much that it went wrong, it was just so much hard work. I’ve never worked so hard in my life, never had so much job satisfaction either. But it was physically and mentally demanding. I guess it wasn’t really sustainable long term because it was all too much on me or on the individuals running the class.

Hele:
It was just too much. It wasn’t scalable. So I wanted to find a way to make it scalable. I wanted to find a way to get that energy and learning and the magic of these sessions into nurseries or into homes without me or anyone else having to physically be there. And I guess the cycle kind of broke when we moved to France.

Hele:
I moved to France with my family and it gave me a chance to reflect. And that’s where I started learning about the power of digital and I started really getting into how you can use digital to enhance these kind of learning experiences, make them more on demand, make them easier to access, cheaper to access, and. Yeah, so I did loads of research out there. I started researching quite a lot on interactive books. I used my mum’s beautiful.

Hele:
I work a lot with her, beautiful illustration. She’s amazing. She does these gorgeous pictures in a watercolor. So I did that. I learned how to film, use green screen, edit, use basic animations, basic interactions.

Hele:
And I spent quite a few years really researching this whilst doing other things as well. And eventually I found a learning management system which uses interactive video. And I set up the animated, as it’s called, the educational storytelling platform that basically takes the core concepts of those live sessions. But it’s on demand and it also inspires connection between the grownups and the children. It does link to what I’m doing now, because what was really important with this, it was so easy to slip into getting caught up in the technology.

Hele:
It would have been so easy to just know you’re just creating beautiful YouTube videos. And it was so important that I made sure that it wasn’t that, that it was really all about the learning about the child moving around and that we were using the technology to enhance that. And that is such a strict rule I had then, and I use it still all the time now in what I’m doing now. So I’m not doing that now. I decided I wanted to take a break from running my own business, not least because it was about finding that balance in my life.

Hele:
I think I’m someone who finds it quite difficult to switch their ideas off, and I’m sure there’s probably other entrepreneurs who listen to this podcast who probably understand that and it’s a choice. And I felt that I wasn’t quite in the right balance. And yes, also I needed more of a steady income, definitely. I think I probably got caught up too much in the creation of the activities and making it and learning and just creating and not enough on the marketing, which wasn’t really so much what I wanted to do. But yes, it’s a long journey to get here, but I don’t see it as a failure because I learned so much.

Hele:
I couldn’t have learned more by going on a course, doing a master’s or whatever it was, because you’re learning through passion and through wanting to learn. So I decided to try to get a job and I thought, what on earth can I do? I’ve got such a strange set of skills and I thought I was going to have to choose. Like, is it the stories, is it the writing, is it the producing videos? Is it the digital stuff, is it the learning on its own?

Hele:
Well, I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher for sure. And then this job at virtual speech, I saw it and they were using exciting interactive technology to enhance learning experiences, to allow people to learn actively. And I’m like, that’s exactly what I do. So whilst it’s a completely different target audience, it’s different technology, different age, it’s exactly the same other than that. So I apply all of that learning to this and it’s really great.

Hele:
So working on someone else’s ideas, exposed to new people, different ideas, a different angle, but yeah, it’s been really good.

Rob:
Sounds like a pretty nice experience. But I wanted to make a quick sort of sum up of many of the things that you said because, yes, definitely there’s many of things to take from your story, but if you had to maybe summarize it up to one or two things, one of the things, maybe I’ll give you a hint of what I’m thinking, but that doesn’t have to be what you’re thinking as well, is you were saying that getting to the digital and you spent many years doing this and that if perhaps you found somebody who was in a similar path, perhaps what would be the advice you would give them? How would you help them move better, faster? Or would you just let them do the grind? And what would it be?

Rob:
Perhaps. Maybe that’s a key to your answer, or maybe you want to take it an entirely different way, but to just summarize. And what’s the one? Maybe two things that you want everybody to take away from that story.

Hele:
I suppose the first bit was about going with your passion and making something that works, but then what are your objectives like? Do you want it to be able to be scalable? Because if you do, then you’ve got to start differently, maybe be very clear on what you want from your project. And then in terms of if you’re wanting to, like, it wasn’t really career change for me, it was more evolved. But if you are wanting to do a career change, to be confident, to realize that you can do it, you don’t have to go through years of starting your own businesses like I did.

Hele:
You could go and do a course and you absolutely can. You can learn new skills. There have been times when I thought, oh, I’m really old, I can’t do this, I’m really not old, and you really can do it. So definitely. And also, I suppose the other point that I made, which is about the, when you set up your own business, you can get really caught up in it.

Hele:
And it’s about if you are going to set up your own business, that you do need to really make sure that you build in time to find balance in your life and that you don’t overdo it. Because I should think most people who are mad enough to set up their own businesses are probably the kind of people who do find it hard to switch off. And you do need to be able to switch off. And this is me saying, so I’m not very good at it still, I’m better than I was. But that is really, really important because you can’t do everything.

Hele:
And I think there is a tendency to want to, when you’re doing it.

Rob:
Making your own business, there definitely is, and there is a value of specialization. And even though in theory it’s always nice to know that you would be able to do everything or almost everything, that doesn’t mean you have to. I couldn’t agree more with you. It’s really hard to realize. It’s really hard to accept it, but it’s something that we need to accept and realize when you’re running your thing, because if you don’t, that means you’ll never be able to scale.

Rob:
And I’m pretty sure that’s not where you want to be. I’m pretty sure you don’t always want to be doing absolutely everything.

Hele:
And also, do you want to be running your own business or do you want to be working with other people? Because I think for me, certainly I’m not in the headspace for doing my own thing at the moment. Not to say I never will again, but it’s really great to share that pressure a bit and not for it all to be on you. So, I don’t know. I think you have to be very sure that’s what you want to do.

Hele:
Although, that said, like I said, I couldn’t have learned more by doing a course. So if you’ve got an idea and you are passionate, you probably should go for it as well.

Rob:
So there’s a balance here to strike. There are all sorts of things to think about. So, hele, I’m not sure if this covers as well, your success story, because I do feel that in the end, this was actually more of a success than. I mean, it was a challenge, for sure, but it’s also a little bit more of a success rather than a fail moment. So I don’t know if this covers it or you want to go into another quick story.

Hele:
I’m quite keen to borrow the story of the founders of virtual speech here, and I did have an idea for something personal as well, to do with virtual.

Rob:
Go ahead.

Hele:
But let me tell you about the founders of virtual speech, because I think that’s actually a really interesting story and it’s quite inspiring. So our co founder, Sophie, she used to hugely struggle with social anxiety to the point that she didn’t want to order her own food in a restaurant. And I think it was when she was at university and she had a presentation coming up, and she thought, I can’t do this. I can’t do the presentation yet. If I don’t, I’m going to fail.

Hele:
And that was when the other co founder, Dom, said, I think we could use virtual reality to practice speaking to a simulated audience. And so that’s what she did. She gradually exposed herself to speaking to this simulated audience. And then they added in the AI feedback on how you speak, your speaking pace, eye contact, et cetera. And it was really amazing and it worked, and they’ve just grown it since.

Hele:
And now we’ve all joined on. There’s a whole team of us now, and we’re adding in more things all the time. So we’ve now added in generative AI, which gives you feedback on the content of what you said, as well as the way you speak. And that’s really cool. And me personally, I’ve done quite a lot of work on the generative AI, in making those role plays work, and making those role plays as realistic as we can within the limitations of it being avatars and the text to speech.

Hele:
To text, all that sort of thing. And some of those challenges have been really interesting to try and overcome. So, for example, one of the role plays we’ve been doing recently is on crisis management. So psychological first aid, this is for people who need to be trained in how to talk to people who’ve just experienced a traumatic event, like it might be perhaps survivors of a terrorist attack or something really quite harrowing. So we are trying to do simulated conversations to help them practice.

Hele:
So we’re making the avatars be the victim. And it’s quite a challenge to get the tone right when you’ve got within these limitations of basically robots. So we’ve been trying to get the emotions in so that this can be as realistic as possible. So the tech team, they’ve been putting in animations, body language and facial expressions to get some emotions in. And I’ve been trying to get a level of emotions through the words that we’re getting them to say.

Hele:
I’ve managed to get them stuttering to show that they’re really. I’ve got them to say things like, I thought I was going to die. And that shows a lot of emotion, but it’s always a balance, because if you go too far, it might then say, hey, Chellen, I can’t believe I’m here. So you’re trying to, as you solve something, another issue arrives and it’s getting the balance where you get as close as you can to being real without going too far, trying too hard, and it becomes just not good and detracts from the experience. So I would actually say it’s not actually all about making it perfectly realistic, it’s about creating.

Hele:
What we’re aiming to really do is create an emotional response on the part of the user, of the learner. So we’re trying to get these simulations realistic enough to allow the user to fill in the gaps with their imagination, because the brain can’t actually tell the difference between something real and something imagined. So whilst when you’re having these conversations, you know that you’re not having a conversation with a real person, you know it’s an avatar, you know it’s not a real person. But if we’re doing our jobs right and if the user is motivated, the user’s imagination will naturally fill in those gaps and their brain will trigger an emotional response in themselves. And that’s what we want.

Hele:
We want them to experience something. So in this particular role play, if we get it right, the person who’s practicing should experience empathy, they should experience feelings of anxiety and stress. About whether they’re saying the right thing. And that’s what really makes these simulations work. A simulation is always going to be a simulation game, is a game.

Hele:
But the emotional response, if you can get that to happen, that’s real. And that’s what we are aiming for. And we’ve had some pretty good success so far. Like I said, interesting.

Rob:
You were mentioning this right now and talking about how real and not real simulations are, and there’s many different settings where simulations are used. And I’ve had this discussion many times, again, for different reasons, but just, I think it was like this week or the last week I was talking about using simulation for forecasting and for looking into waiting lines in operations. Right. And how real do you want it to be? Like, do you really want to see every person walking in?

Rob:
Well, actually, no. You want to make it as real as whatever capacity of analysis you want. In that case. In this case, you want to make it as real as it triggers the emotional response, because it’s never going to be real or as real as reality because it’s a digital space, and reality is not digital, it’s analog. Right.

Rob:
So you’re always going to be missing one extra detail and one extra detail and one extra detail.

Hele:
You don’t want it to be completely real.

Rob:
Exactly.

Hele:
Otherwise it’s not a safe space. You can’t try things out.

Rob:
Exactly. I mean, if flight simulators were so real that everything was not simulated, then why bother doing a simulator? Get on the plane and drive it and run all the risks? Because risks are part of the simulation if everything is to be simulated. So that’s kind of hele I was trying to get at.

Hele:
Right.

Rob:
Like you’re saying it’s close to real, but it’s just as close as you need it to be.

Hele:
Exactly.

Rob:
As long as it gets you the objectives you’re trying to achieve. Thank you for that.

Hele:
One also is the user’s motivation, because if you’ve got someone who’s willing and wants to learn, which is what we want, motivated learners, they will fill in the gaps. If you’ve got someone who’s, like, coming in saying, oh, this isn’t real, then it won’t be. That’s what we’re aiming for. They’ve got to be motivated.

Rob:
It won’t matter. It’s good because it’s not for your audience. Your audience is not that person who says, oh, this is not real. That’s not the person you’re designing for.

Hele:
No, that’s good.

Rob:
And you’re fine with that. And that’s a good news.

Hele:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Rob:
So, engagers, keep this in mind. Not targeting absolutely every single person in the world is not a bad thing. It’s actually good. You want to do it that way. All right, so, Helen, you have started in this new venture with working with other people, not your own venture.

Rob:
It doesn’t matter. Like if you were going to start again, your own venture, or with somebody else, and you were to create an experience, one of these interactive experiences, whatever it looks like, do you have a process or how would you go about it? What’s your thinking around this? If somebody were to replicate what you do, how would they do it? Basically.

Hele:
So, absolutely always you’d start with what is the solution? What is it you want? First of all, you don’t start with the game. You start with what is the learning need? What’s the problem that needs to be solved?

Hele:
What are the goals of the person that you’re solving it for? And then I think the game side of it comes in as part of how to engage those learners or those users. So for me, if I’m creating a learning experience that is effective, I will need to ensure that it’s active. I want to have the learners to in some way be participating actively because we all learn through active experience. So maybe they’re physically doing a task, or maybe we’re forcing them to think or make a choice with consequences, something like that.

Hele:
And they have to be actively involved. There has to be a really strong purpose. So the learning experience has to enable the learners to meet their goals. It has to be targeted and effective and not just drift into for fun. So the purpose has to be really clear.

Hele:
And the third one is the learners have to be motivated, so they have to be motivated to try it out in the first place. And then they have to remain motivated throughout. So they need to believe it’ll work and that it’s worth the effort, and they have to also enjoy the process. So it’s got to be fun or satisfying in some way. And I think some of the things that can help with that are storytelling for context, to get people into your zone and your way of thinking, try to make it a personalized experience as far as is possible, particularly if there’s some kind of feedback or consequences for choices, so that you feel that your efforts or your attempts are noticed.

Hele:
And in our case, we are using a lot of the AI for that. The AI is becoming, there’s amazing so many things we can do with AI, and that certainly helps with the personalization and the feedback side of things. So, yeah, I would say active, really strong purpose and make sure the learners are motivated. That’s my starting point.

Rob:
Amazing. Thank you for letting us sneak peek into your mind, Helen. That’s great. And Helen, in your experience, from all the things that you’ve done in creating these interactive experiences, these games based learnings or whatever we want to call them, would you say there’s a best practice, not a silver bullet, but something know you do and your project, your solution will be at least a little bit better than it was if you didn’t do it?

Hele:
I’m always going on about the active thing. I would definitely always try and do that. And I think the other thing that we spoke about earlier, the emotional connection, so if we can get the user to have an emotional reaction of some sort, I think that then that’s probably the key, because then you’ve really got them, they’re hooked, and that is how you learn. So, yes, like we were saying earlier, it doesn’t have to be totally, totally realistic, what we were saying earlier. So our simulations are very often, they’re very, quite realistic in the sense that they’re usually in a work setting.

Hele:
But I would argue, actually, and they probably won’t agree with me, but I would argue that we could achieve exactly the same thing using a fantasy world setting. It doesn’t matter what characters or creatures, it doesn’t actually matter because what really matters is that emotional response. So I would say that to have that in mind, if you’re creating a game based learning solution, looking for the.

Rob:
Game aesthetics from the mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics, thinking about how you want to make people feel.

Hele:
Yeah, exactly. All that’s got to be first and then the how you do it. And the technology has got to be second, because otherwise it won’t work. You’ll get caught up in it, get caught up in the exciting technology and lose focus.

Rob:
Amazing. Thank you for that. Now that you’ve answered plenty of questions and you kind of know a bit of what the podcast is about, what it looks like, is there anybody that you would think, oh, I would really like to listen to this person answering these questions. Maybe it would inspire you. Maybe you want to spread the word about this.

Rob:
Does somebody come to mind when I ask this?

Hele:
Yeah, somebody came to mind. I don’t know if they’re quite game based learning, but this was somebody who did a webinar with Sophie from virtual speech. And he was such a good speaker. It’s really, really engaging. And he talks a lot about, well, he uses AI in a really creative ways in his career service.

Hele:
And I actually think it’s really inspiring to anyone who wants to learn how to use generative AI in interactive ways. His name’s Danny Merza, and he’s head of talent at Coventry University, London. And he’s just really funny and engaging, and I think that he’d be a very good speaker.

Rob:
Sounds like an interesting one, for sure. So, Danny Moza. Right?

Hele:
Moza. M I r z a. M I.

Rob:
R z a. Amazing. Amazing. And Helen, keep up the recommendations. Is there a book that you would recommend the engages?

Hele:
Well, you know, I listen to audiobooks all the time. I’m not going to give you a workbook. I’m going to give you a book for relaxing and switching off, because that’s something that I struggle with doing. So audiobooks really hele me with that. I’m currently listening to a book by Leanne Moriarty, and I think she’s brilliant.

Hele:
I think in her books, not a lot necessarily happens, but she’s got amazing characters and she always has. Each individual has a different take on a situation and her observations about the world. She can take, like, an internal thought process, just an ordinary, mundane, relatable thought process. But the way she writes it makes you realize how ridiculous a lot of our thought processes are. So I’d go for any Leanne Moriarty book.

Hele:
I’m currently listening to the last anniversary, but I really loved apples never fall as well.

Rob:
Well, that sounds very interesting, and perhaps a way to gather inspiration. Storytelling is one of the things that I think we usually need to get pretty good at in these creations that we make here.

Hele:
Yeah.

Rob:
Helen, what would you say is your superpower in this learning experience place? What would you say is that thing that you do at least better than most other people?

Hele:
Well, I think I’ve got this kind of working zone that I sometimes go into. It’s when I’m really inspired and really excited by my work. I go into this kind of zone, and I know when I’m in it now. And when I’m in it, it’s amazing, because everything just completely flows, the ideas flow, and I can write, I can analyze, and it’s just amazing. The only thing is, I do have to be careful, because if I stay too long in that zone, then I’ll carry on creating stuff in my sleep, and then I’ll wake up in the morning with these amazing ideas that I’m too tired to act on.

Hele:
But when I go into that zone, it’s amazing. And it does feel like, does feel like a superpower when I’m in it. So. Yeah, I got that when it comes.

Rob:
Brilliant. Very necessary as well to have that every now and then, even if it’s not. And I don’t know if you want to be on in that sense all the time. I’m not even sure that’s a good thing, to be honest.

Hele:
Yeah, sorry, carry on.

Rob:
No, go ahead. I was going for the next thing. So please wrap up whatever you were thinking of.

Hele:
When it’s on, it’s great, but you’ve got to be aware of being able to try to switch it on.

Rob:
So we were talking about, emotionally, where do you want people to be at and setting up those spaces. So maybe it’s something you want to look into, like, when that happens, where are you at? What are your emotions? Where are they at? What’s happening around you?

Rob:
Maybe that way you can help yourself trigger those moments a little bit easier. Again, it’s not foolproof. These things know how the brain triggers and sparks. It’s not always something foolproof, but it might help you in the future to get closer to that area, so to speak, if that makes sense. Helen, what would you say is your favorite game?

Hele:
Oh, gosh. Favorite family game that we play is a game called the hat game. And it’s a bit like charades, but it’s in four rounds. Everyone puts, like, four names in a hat, like a woolly hat. And then you do.

Hele:
It’s like charades. You’re in teams, but the first time you describe the names, the second one, you can only say one word. The third round, it’s charades, and the fourth round, it’s like static, like a static statue. And it just gets really funny because you get to know who’s in the hat, and it just all ends up being silly. We had God and Brian Cox having the same static, and everyone knew it was either one or the other, so it gets very silly, and it’s inclusive, so it’s quite fun.

Rob:
Sounds like a good one, for sure. Helen, this has been amazing. I think we’ve gotten a lot of food for thought on this podcast from you, a lot of experience from what you’ve been doing, from both perspectives, from a time when you were trying to do it by yourself. Now that you are working within a team, as you were mentioning before, is there anything that you feel has been left unsaid? Any final piece of advice?

Rob:
Anything you want to go for? Now is the moment, of course. Let us know where we can find out about. More about you. Virtual speech.

Rob:
Again, any call to action anything else, this is the time for you to speak up and say, go for whatever you want.

Hele:
I would just say again that just don’t start with the technology. Don’t make it be about the technology. Use the technology to make the learning happen in the real world. It’s got to be about the real world. And I think a lot of people start the wrong way around, so everyone will do a better job if they think about the real world solutions, first of all.

Hele:
And also, then when you do have your ideas, to go and not be afraid to make mistakes and use trial and error, and it’s always an iterative process, in my experience.

Rob:
Absolutely. Hele, can we find out more about you, your work, virtual speech? Where can we find you in the world of the Internet, essentially.

Hele:
I think. Are you sharing the contact details?

Rob:
Yes, it’ll be in the show notes as well.

Hele:
You can find us@virtualspeech.com as well. Yeah, I’ll be there.

Rob:
Brilliant. Thank you very much for that. Also, I’m sure many of the engagers are now curious to see, what does this actually look like, that thing you’ve been discussing? How does it look in real life, as you were saying, when you actually get to it? So, Helen, thank you very much for investing this time with us, with the engagers.

Rob:
Thank you for sharing your experience, your knowledge. However, Helen and engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. Hey, engagers, we have some sponsored content here. It’s one of the very first times that we do this, and it is because this is a podcast. And if you have yourself considered getting into podcasting, I would like to share one of my not so well kept secrets.

Rob:
I use Zancaster to record my episodes. The main feature, at least for me, because I have an interview based podcast, is the fact that the voices of the guest or guests and myself are recorded on separate tracks. You might be asking yourself, why is that relevant? Well, for me, it means that when I have to do any edits, for example, if I sneeze, which happens often, especially in spring, I can easily clear that specific part of my speech, which is a sneeze out of the track without affecting whatever the guest is saying at the, you know, this is very important. It’s also very easy.

Rob:
I can create a personalized link for every guest, and all we need is a browser for the call to happen. I also know that Zencaster is an all in one solution for podcasting, where you can record, you can edit, you can publish episodes to all major platforms. So whether you are considering podcasting or you are already podcasting and you might want to try this out, you can go to zencaster.com pricing and use my code professorgame all one word and you’ll get 30% off your first month on any podcast or paid plan. I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It’s time to share your story.

Rob:
Engagers, thank you for listening to the Professor Game podcast, and if you want more interviews with incredible guests, please go to professergame.com subscribe and get started on our email list for free. We’ll be in contact. You’ll be the first to know of any of our opportunities that arise or that are already existing, and we will have them available just for you. Please remember before you go on to your next mission, before you click continue, remember to follow or subscribe whatever that looks like on your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of professor game. See you there.

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