Home Office & Podcast Studio Setups – PCI 352

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Kind of that fun thing to add. It's a little bit of that, you know, fun lighting that I'm sure will entertain me and keep me away from those like sad winter blues because yeah, like it's you wake up and you're like, okay, I need to actually make this something that you wanna walk into.

Speaker 1 00:00:17 You're listening to Podcasts Insider, hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow and thrive through podcasting. All with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting Blue. Welcome. Let's dive in. This is Todd Cochran, c e o and co-founder of Blueberry Podcasting.

Speaker 0 00:00:40 I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist here at Blueberry.

Speaker 2 00:00:43 And I'm Mike Dell, the VP of Customer Relations here at Blueberry. And now that blueberry is fully remote company, we thought it'd be fun to talk about home offices and studio setups. It's a lot of podcasters are also remote workers. Should be interesting

Speaker 1 00:01:04 Today. This is a classic example. Mike, you're in Traverse City, Michigan. I'm in Coldwater, Michigan in Mackenzie. You are down in cold Columbus. So we're really, the team today at Blueberry is, is really all over the map. I guess that's the best way to say it. And our once bustling Columbus office is now, well I guess it's in a bit of disrepair as we're transitioning into a, as we like to put it a quiet relic of the pass . But beings, it's the fifth Thursday of June. We thought it would be a great opportunity to share with you some insights and tips on how our team has really been doing, setting up the remote workstations now this is just not relevant for standard work from home set. These tips can also, that we're planning to give you help those of you set up in your own podcast stage. You find a lot of this will cross over in our dis in our discussions today.

Speaker 2 00:01:55 Yeah, I figured with this, you know, a lot of people that are doing remote work also, you know, it applies to podcasting cuz a lot of these same things, you know, were good for both.

Speaker 0 00:02:06 So you guys had a headstart, the two of you specifically had a over, everyone else at blueberry besides, you know, like a handful of other people working from home full-time. Yeah, so we had the Columbus office and I was there and I was, when we were building it up and we moved to a new location when we were, you know, expanding. And I, it was exciting to see all of this, but at the same time I was like, there's a lot of benefits to working at home too.

Speaker 2 00:02:31 ,

Speaker 1 00:02:32 You know, and I think if we think about it, if we go back to our origins, you know, we were remote for many, many years and then when our former CIO basically started to hire some people, we said maybe we need to have an office front. And remote work at that time really was not a thing because there wasn't great tools really. There wasn't a lot of great tools to do remote meetings and that type, there was always messaging systems, but you know, just the remote part of the world was, you know, business wasn't really set up to do remote. And you know, thinking back to, you know, the day that we moved into the big office there in Columbus on East Campus V Boulevard. To me that was exciting as well. And I wasn't even there. I was still in Hawaii at the time and when I, when I transitioned to Michigan in 2019, the goal for me, really part of that move was to spend half my time in Columbus and half time here in Michigan to be with the team. And that was really, to be honest with you, it was pretty fantastic those first six or seven months.

Speaker 0 00:03:34 Yeah, that's really all you got out of it. .

Speaker 1 00:03:36 Yeah,

Speaker 2 00:03:37 I, I remember when we first, you know, when I first started, you know, of course I was always, I've been always remote, but when I first started we were running the whole company on email. We didn't have Slack. We didn't have Zoom.

Speaker 1 00:03:49 No, not at all.

Speaker 2 00:03:50 And now it's a whole different sort of thing, you know, I talked to you guys more than I talk to my wife sometimes, you know,

Speaker 1 00:03:57 So it's, it's interesting because when I moved back to Michigan, I had already pre-planned to build a studio in a offsite location from where I was living. And I was fortunate enough, my sister owned a, a commercial building and there was an old dentist office that was a vacant, had 1100 square feet. And I, you know, I worked really hard with her to get a good price that I could afford and, you know, rented, basically signed a lease and, and started building the studio out and at the same time had an office to work in because I really didn't feel even before Covid that I could work from home. I just, there too many distractions, too much ability to turn on the TV or, you know, stay in bed a little longer or just crawl on the couch and take a nap. Now subsequently, I bought a couch when I built the office so that I could do a, you know, 10 minute combat nap.

Speaker 1 00:04:46 But I, I think really the key for me was, was really about having a good environment. And one of the thing I did with the studio was actually more for the more for the podcast than the office was I had sound treatment done. I actually put some sound treatment tiles in. And, and so today this studio that I'm in now, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's perfect. It's perfect for work and it's perfect for doing podcast work cuz I've had a little bit of sound treatment. But at the same time, uh, you know, I needed a few things. I needed standup desk, I needed a nice chair. Nothing beats be honest with you, if you have a great chair you can almost suffer through almost anything else. But it's, I think that's really, really key.

Speaker 2 00:05:30 Just don't make it too comfortable. I, I think I have that problem.

Speaker 0 00:05:34 Yeah. Mike, you went a little too comfortable for my, for my days,

Speaker 1 00:05:38 and, and for those that don't know Mike, cuz you've got a, what is it, Lazyboy for your, your desk chair?

Speaker 2 00:05:44 Certainly do. I put casters on the bottom of a, an old lazyboy and it's wonderful.

Speaker 0 00:05:51 I could never,

Speaker 1 00:05:52 Never, never do it because I'd be in the chair in like five minutes. It'd be like my keyboard would be, uh, stuck on the letter Z and I would be fast asleep. I'd mean

Speaker 0 00:06:02 Same Todd ,

Speaker 1 00:06:03 Just not enough.

Speaker 0 00:06:04 I would not stand a chance with that set up. Well

Speaker 2 00:06:07 You know, I got the standup desk so you know, I try to stand up, you know, at least an hour in the morning and I an hour in the afternoon. So yeah.

Speaker 1 00:06:13 But, and same thing too goes to desk space even though we're virtual and we deal largely with digital paperwork. You know, I print stuff out from time to time. I have a notepad on my, not a notepad, but I have a journal on my desk where notes and you know, just stuff kinda gets, you know, cluttered up and enough to have enough monitors. But I have a friend, his name's Kirk, he lives in New Jersey and he works for Verizon. And when Verizon went fully remote, he really had a very, very small home with a wife, a special needs child. And his mother-in-law all lived in the same place. And, and he was telling me about his work setup and he basically took this monstrosity of a remote workstation home and couple of monitors and like found literally a cubby hole in the kitchen to work in.

Speaker 1 00:06:59 And the best way he described it, he says, my desk is about the size of a desk you would have as an elementary school. So he was miserable, you know, because he did not have enough space to work. You know, he was basically in a cubby hall where the, where he was spacing a wall and then he had a wall on either right or left hand side of him, almost like he would picture where a refrigerator would stick in but not. And then, you know, some shelves above that. And he really truly got shoved into a cubby hole. So, and I understand why he was miserable. So I think you just have to have enough desk space and a little bit of breathing

Speaker 0 00:07:34 Room. I mean, I'm buying a new desk fairly soon, you know, I've chosen which one I wanna get and the one that I have right now that I bought, you know, like a year into in 2021 or whatever it is, it is actually a wonderful desk. I have no regrets buying it, but it's only 32, it's only like 24 inches across. Really?

Speaker 1 00:07:52 Yeah, that's narrow

Speaker 0 00:07:53 . It's not super ideal. However, I did just move out of working in my, like literally a corner in my living room into a full room by itself. So I am looking forward to that. Because your environment weighs on your, weighs on you. Yeah. Whether you realize it or not. And one of the things that like I really, really appreciated was in 2020 we all just kind of looked at each other and we were like, we need to go home. And you guys all just said, take absolutely whatever you want from the office, go home, be safe, we'll see you whenever we see you and just, you know, make, do whatever you can in your home. And, and it, you know, we all took that to stride in different ways of like, what do we wanna do with this? How long are we actually gonna be here? And you guys were so flexible with it, like the blueberry as a company was so flexible. And I think all of us just really enjoyed not having that be like another worry.

Speaker 1 00:08:50 And I think from my perspective too, I had bought a four foot wide desk thinking I was good and it really was not enough desk space with two monitors because that single monitor and I have the iMac in front of me and just, you know, you shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle screen, shuffle screen shuffle screen shuffle screens. And finally when I added a second monitor and really I lived like that for a long time, I was like, man, what have I been doing for all these years? Why was I not running second monitor here in this office? And cuz I had a second monitor in the office in Columbus because I had a big fat wide desk. So when we decided to start shutting the office down, I, I grabbed the desk, one of the standing desks and we'd spent all this money with Steelcase and I'd, you know, get, what are we getting 25 cents on the dollar when we sell stuff?

Speaker 1 00:09:36 So for me it was like, tell the team, just take this stuff home. You know, I'd rather have the employees have a nice desk, nice chairs, nice monitors and if the monitor sucks then throw it in the trash. Well don't throw it in the trash, donate it , you know, let's order, you know, monitors are cheap. That's the cheapest thing you can do to improve your workspace. And I think adding that second monitor to me has made me more productive. And Mike, I see that you had in the show notes here about a study. What was that study about? About two monitors.

Speaker 2 00:10:04 Yeah. They say that uh, when you add a second monitor to a workstation, you know, somebody that works on the computer all the time, that the productivity goes up quite a bit. And funny thing I thought about this is when you add a third monitor, it doesn't hurt anything, but it doesn't give you any more advantage. And as I'm sitting here looking at 3 27 inch monitors, ,

Speaker 1 00:10:29 I had read too somewhere and I think it was like almost half again, more productivity with a second monitor, but then only like 67% more productivity with a third. It was just little small increment up. And for me, I don't think I need a third monitor. You would, if I did, it would be something, it would always be open just sitting there where I'd look at occasionally. But one thing too, and you know, I know that because when I built the studio I got plenty of great lighting. But where I do the podcast and where I work are two separate rooms. And Michigan in the winter when it gets so gray and it really dark in the morning and dark darker, it just, to me it's just like I had this, you know, this almost, you know, winter blues. And what I realized was is I was coming in the office and I wasn't turning on the office lights because in the summer there's plenty of lighting. I never have to turn on the lights in the office in the summer. And, but in the winter, as soon as I started turning those lights on made me feel better just because the room wasn't so gloomy from, even though there's windows wasn't so gloomy from the outside. And it just made whole world difference in my mood. Yeah,

Speaker 2 00:11:40 I've got set of those color, you know, you can change the color of the lights Uhhuh and I put it in the wintertime, I always put it on daylight so it gets, you know, it almost replicates the sun a little bit. You know, I, I was originally in my basement,

Speaker 1 00:11:57 I remember we used to hear your sump pump go gurg, go gurg, go gurg, go gurgle

Speaker 2 00:12:01 . During 2020 when everybody was locked down, I uh, I built an office in my backyard. So I've got a basically a shed, but it's 10 by 10 office and it's got windows on three sides and it's much better environment. But with the lighting again, you know, like you said in the wintertime, I come out here, it's dark leave here, it's dark and it's gloomy a lot and, and all that. So you know, having good lighting, not only for your on-camera look when you're doing Zoom calls and whatnot, but having good lighting in the office overall just makes your mood a little better.

Speaker 1 00:12:40 Mackenzie, and sometimes did you put lighting in at all or did you just use lamps or what did you do for your place?

Speaker 0 00:12:45 So what I was downstairs in the, in the living room, like I would've, the first thing that I would do every single day was open the blinds all the way. It probably did not look so great on the zoom. Like there was just, you know, like that white blob in the background. But that was the only sunlight that I was getting. And so upstairs is, is definitely a little bit better with the windows. But I also moved a TV in here that, like, I'm looking at her right now and it is a paused Spotify playlist because, and like I moved a TV and a soundbar up here because I don't wanna have to like, I don't enjoy, you know, the earbuds all day. So like the second I get off of Zoom, it's press play on the playlist again. And I got, um, you guys were talking about lighting, I just added the like light strip that, you know, you can like stick to the back of your TV and like it's, it's a nice green color and before it was purple earlier today and it's just like kind of that fun thing to add.

Speaker 0 00:13:45 It's a little bit of that, you know, fun lighting that I'm sure will entertain me and keep me away from those like sad winter blues because yeah, like it's, you wake up and you're like, okay, I need to actually make this something that you wanna walk into. No,

Speaker 1 00:14:00 I just spent a month international traveled and working remote and it was the Airbnb that I rented said it came with a desk and it turned out that it didn't. So I really spent a month working on a couch with laptop in my lap and it, you know, it was one of those situations where I'd have to get up every two, three hours and just, you know, do the, do do the stretch. And while it was, while I was productive, I, man, I was so glad to get home and get sit down at the desk and turn those nice big monitors on and, and uh, so I, I think, you know, if I was ever to do that again, I would probably pack a couple of monitors in a spare suitcase and make sure that the place I was staying at did have an actual desk and desk chair.

Speaker 1 00:14:46 So if any of you're running Airbnbs and want remote workers, make sure you , you know, that's a great, great tip. Have a great pass. Yeah, yeah. And even include a couple of monitors. But another thing that was a challenge on the international travel was the, it was 90 degrees where I was at. So the air conditioner was, I mean, always working full time and I could never seem to, it was either too cold or too warm. I could never just get it just right. So I'm pretty, pretty pleased. I'm back here. I got central air and I set the temperature and it's good. And Mike, I know you suffered with that a little bit with try trying to get the temperature, but you insulated so well in your, in your new office that you basically just, you don't have to run much heat to get it warmed up comfortable?

Speaker 2 00:15:27 No, I, I run a little Eden pure heater as the, the heat in the winter and it, I can crank it up to 80 degrees in here if I have to. And uh, I get a little window box air conditioner that keeps it nice and cool in the summer. And that's, you know, temperature control is important. You know, if you're sitting there shivering cuz you're too cold or you're, or you're sweating cuz it's too hot, you're not gonna be productive and you know, if you're doing podcasts you're not gonna wanna do it as much. ,

Speaker 1 00:15:54 You know, when I was living in Hawaii, I, I took over a, a bedroom and I did that really early on. I did that in 2005 and I basically commandeered one and then my boys doubled up and my daughter had her own room. Uh, but you know, I was in that office for more than 10 years and of course the boys were getting into teenage years and, you know, they really did not like being, you know, bunked up together. And as, as you know, getting to 16, 17 and one was, you know, five or six years younger become a bit of a, a stressor. So I think a lot of people that are working remote today are probably in that situation where, where, where do I work? You know, and not cause the kids so much discomfort. And I'm sure that some people are probably have converted garages and all kinds of different places for remote working.

Speaker 1 00:16:47 And that was even a discussion point when I was in Hawaii is with let's, you know, let's change the block off the garage door and make it an actual room and kind of do it undercover because of legal constraints. You know, how you're supposed to use garages in Hawaii. But I think that when I moved to stuff out of there and the boys were able to separate and have their own rooms, of course it wasn't very much longer, one moved out anyway, but cuz he graduated high school and was going on his own, I think that's something a lot of people probably are challenged with today that are, you know, have a partner and have kids. You know, it's,

Speaker 2 00:17:22 Yeah, when we were in Columbus for our, our yearly retreat and to help close down the office, one of our other team members has a, a pole barn in his backyard and he's gonna cordon off, you know, 10, 12 feet of it and build an office similar to what I did except for it's gonna be inside his pole barn and, you know, so I'm gonna be consulting with him a little bit to do what not to do. He's, he's in a similar clo cold climate, so I will definitely, uh, tell him insulate, insulate, insulate, .

Speaker 1 00:17:57 But this remote work really crosses over into podcast studios and what PE and how pe and I'm sure a lot of folks that were podcasters and already had set up a space in their homes to record their show. I I'm almost betting probably 90% of them that become their, their remote workstation if they stayed remote for their jobs.

Speaker 0 00:18:16 Well, I mean, right now being upstairs, like the, the AC sucks going upstairs in my house, it just doesn't really work that well. And so I have a fan running, which you guys have told me in the past that like you can't hear when we're recording and I'm like, wonderful, because if could not, I would hate being up here

Speaker 1 00:18:35 . Well, you know, I, I had no central air in my home in Hawaii. It was typical Hawaiian home. We'd open up the windows, we had some wall units, but the windows were always open and of course we were getting, you know, inundated with the red dirt of Hawaii. It was always in the air, so you had to dust like on a regular basis in a heavy way. But I always was recording my show and my invariably on a Saturday morning someone would start up a weed whip or , something like that. I'm like, okay, we gotta hold, you know, hold the recording here for 45 minutes while, while someone's out there running a, you know, an air blower or something. So I live,

Speaker 2 00:19:12 I live a mile away from my, one of the biggest Coast Guard air stations in the country and I get helicopters flying over, but you guys always tell me you can't hear it, so that's good. It rattled my windows, but

Speaker 1 00:19:25 Yeah, when, but when you were in a spare bedroom and the windows are open and the next door guy is running a, you know, a gas powered weed whip that's no hiding that recording. No, there's not. Or in a zoom meeting, so I'm sure that's a challenge. So anyway, I, I guess really here is, you know, we'd love to hear from all of you, you know, how has, if if you, if you're still remote or have you always been remote, you know, what are you doing? What are your setups? Is it, is it dual, dual purpose also act as your podcast studio? Um, I think we're kind of curious what people are doing and I know a lot of people have had to go back to the office too, and I'm sure much to their disgruntlement, but again, my friend in New Jersey who works for Verizon, he was thrilled to go back to the office cuz you know, and he's back in his cube, he's got lots of room he can spread out. He's, he, he can sit up straight, doesn't have to worry about someone banging dishes in the kitchen, you know, all that stuff. So I think it really depended on the circumstances.

Speaker 2 00:20:23 We'd definitely like to hear, uh, how are you doing it to either your podcast studio or your remote working setup

Speaker 0 00:20:30 And you know, if there's any Columbus, Ohio adjacent listeners out there that are interested in a podcast studio desk for multiple microphones and just, you know, really decking out a studio, we have something that you might be interested in . So,

Speaker 1 00:20:49 And if it doesn't get bought, it's coming here to Michigan, so

Speaker 0 00:20:52 . Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're selling a podcast studio desk, so that is something you were interested in. Let me know.

Speaker 2 00:20:59 Yeah. And some other desks. So got those big. If you got lots of room,

Speaker 1 00:21:05 Got a Jack and Jill workstation. It's pretty beautiful. Yeah, yeah. All right. All right. I hope these, I hope you had some enlightenment in here and let us know. Let us know what you're doing. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for joining us. Come back next week and in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com for more information to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. Check out the latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease because we can't afford the ease.