Tag: podcast

  • I got my wings!

    Sometimes I just latch onto a prop and an idea that just has to happen. When I saw the wings in Beth Slevcove’s office I had to use them for the podcast.

  • A Few Ways to Connect with Me

    Maybe you’re ready to take this relationship to the next level? Let’s say you come to Adam McLane’s site every day. And you’re thinking to yourself… “Adam, I dig what you have to say. What are some ways you can check out what else I do online?” Here are a few ways I suggest you do that.

    #1 Subscribe to my RSS feed. This will make sure you get every post delivered to your RSS reader, iGoogle homepage, or even by email.

    #2 Subscribe to the YS Podcast. You’ll see my pretty face each week on the weekly show that I host. Sure, it isn’t much… but it’s just enough Adam McLane to not feel like a total stalker. Don’t use iTunes? Subscribe via YouTube.

    #3 Join my delicious network. Now we’re getting serious. (Rounding 2nd base!) Each day I bookmark all sorts of things. Blog posts, news stories, adolescent research studies, new websites, and all manner of web goodness. Like the links in the YS newsletters? This is like the full monty of that.

    #4 Check out my shared items on Google Reader. These are blogs that I read on a daily basis and posts that I think are worth sharing. In other words, let me filter through the lame stuff for you.

    #5 Follow me on Twitter. If you’re curious what I’m up to 10-20 times per day, I post to this micro-blogging site in 140 characters or less.

    #6 Be my friend on Facebook. You won’t find me on Myspace anymore. I haven’t deleted my account, but I never ever go there. You will find me a lot on Facebook. Me likey Facebook.

    #7 Of course you can get to know Kristen too. It’s like getting to know our family 360 degrees. Kristen blogs a lot about family life, recipes, contests, and kids books.

    #8 Check out some of our new projects. Kristen and I have started some projects under the umbrella of McLane Creative. Our first project is a collaborative site giving real-world reviews of things to do in San Diego, called Beyond the Zoo.

    #9 Meet me in person. I know, that’s not a Web 2.0 way to get to know me. (What is wrong with me?) But it’s completely practical. If you’re ever in the San Diego area I’d love to get together for a cup of coffee and meet face-to-face. Drop me an email.

  • Nashville’s Ghetto Recap

    This is quickly becoming one of the fun things I do… I totally love being a part of the podcast. Here’s something I heard 3-4 times this weekend that blew me away. People love the way I end the show. I kind of get tired saying it, but it’s one of the driving things behind the whole show… “you may not here it from anyone else, but we want you to hear it from us… what you do matters.” One guy even told me that sometimes he doesn’t have time to watch the whole thing so he just scans to the end to hear that, because he needs it. Amen.

  • I’m not all that amazing, really.

    This weekend has been a lot of fun. I think I’ve gotten a total of 15 hours of sleep over the course of the last 4 days… so I am exhausted and still running strong at the same time.

    I spent the whole day on Sunday running from video shoot to video shoot. Meeting heroes of youth ministry, voices new and old. There was a moment around dinner where I thought I was just plain done for. I mean, really… really… tired.

    But then, right after dinner in a sheer moment of madness I got to fulfill this little, somewhat embarrassing dream of mine. I got to shoot some video of David Crowder for the YS Podcast. It was only a few minutes… yet it rejuvenated me to get through the rest of the night. (As if I had a choice!) Like a lot of youth workers I totally dig the David Crowder Band’s music. I think I know why too. In those dark times periodically over the past 5 years or so their music has been my escape. When I was questioning all sorts of things I knew I could always jump in the car and scream, “You are my joy, you are my joy, you are my JOY!!!!” at the top of my lungs. Somehow those moments of shouting helped me. Technically speaking, my favorite song of theirs is Deliver Me. But anyway, I digress from my fan-boyness.

    It was a great time in Pitt. It’s weird to me how different each location is with the same content. I’ve got lots more the say and process but that’s it for now.

  • The Chicago Edition

    Each week I have fun shooting the podcast. But this particular episode was special because we had the opportunity to do a Chicago special.

    The concept of a Chicago special really didn’t come to me until Cathy and I got off the plane in Chicago. We had Andrew Marin booked to do the devotional and I knew I wanted to shoot my parts at North Avenue beach… then it hit me. If we added Jason Raitz from Willow Creek we could complete the Chicago-trifecta. Thankfully, Jason was able to squeeze us in. And just to show us he was a pro he did his segment in one take.

    Some tidbits about this episode…

    We shot Andrew Marin’s part on the rooftop deck of his condo. Technically, we walked past his deck to the unfenced part so we could shoot the city in the background with no fencing. If you look carefully… behind Andrew is Wrigley Field. Cathy went up there with me even though she is afraid of heights. We were about 15 floors off the ground, Andrew sat down about 5 feet from the edge… and Cathy stayed back a good 20 feet taking pictures. She was a trooper!

    Then we drove over to North Avenue beach.     When Kristen and I first started dating this was a favorite spot. In fact, just 100 yards north of where I shot my parts Kristen and I had our first real date. Romeo students will recognize that spot as well, we always took our mission team photo right there.

    From there, we went out to Willow Creek to meet Jason. I’ve known Jason a few years and I really love his passion for middle school students. The thing a lot of people probably don’t know about Willow is that while they have massive middle and high school ministries, they are 99% run by volunteers. As Jason shares in the podcast, a big part of his role is setting up those volunteers to lead small groups. With a staff of 4-5 full time folks they lead something like 1700 middle schoolers. Think about that… 4-5 adults oversee an organization that impacts 4-5k people any given month, including parents.

    When it was all said and done, shooting this 11 minute video and all the travel time was about 12 hours of our day. Totally worth it. I hope we get to do more location-based podcasts soon.

  • Oops. A little over technology

    It seems my eagerness to spread the word about the YS podcast may have actually hurt our distribution a little. I think the right word is “counterproductive.”

    With the new format for the podcast I thought it would be helpful to cross-publish it a few places. So you may have seen it pop up on Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, and Blip. This is fine, and the numbers of viewers of the podcast have been great.

    The factors

    1. Blip.tv. Blip is cool because it has a great interface. As a content publisher I love the fact that I can upload a video, it gets published there… then I can select a bunch of places to crosspost. So I upload at blip and it does all the work for me to send it other places. (Facebook, myspace, twitter, and blogs)

    2. iTunes. Unfortunately, one of the places it sends the podcast is iTunes. And since we already use another way to publish podcast to iTunes the double feed gets both banned! (iTunes fixes the problem, but it is embarrassing and ends up making the show harder to find for th 24 hours it takes.)

    The lessons to learn.

    Being overeager sometimes has negative results. My initial reaction to “put it everywhere” had some negative implications.

    Good content will get found. To the core of my web-being I know this to be true. I know that less channels is better for content than more channels. This was just a case of trying to jump ahead of the curve… and in the end it hasn’t worked out.

  • YS Podcast Episode 4

    Loving how the podcast is working out. Every time we shoot a segment we take some time to restate to ourselves what it’s all about. It’s all about encouraging youth workers… paid, part time, full time, volunteer, parent, sunday school teacher, whatever… you totally matter.

    In church leadership? You need to get this thing in the hands of whoever does youth ministry in your church.

    Want to see me every week in video? Subscribe to the YS Podcast on iTunes.

  • YS Podcast #2

    I’m a big fan of this show’s host. He’s handsome and really smart.

    Here’s the official podcast page.

  • YS Video Podcast

    Here’s a project that I help lead. We just launched our new weekly podcast at YS. I know the majority of my blog readers are not youth workers… so this may give you a tiny insight into my new gig.

    Also check out the YS Blog. I help put that together as well.

  • What am I working on?

    Here’s a quick rundown of the things I’m up to over at YS.

    #1 I post regularly at the new YS blog.  Here are 3 posts you should check out. Big vision for Cabot. Youth Workers Who Twitter. Carrie Clausen and Her Youth Group. I’m loving the blog. It’s really a fun way to connect people together.

    #2 The big 3 of social networking. I spend some time each day talking with people on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. If you want to friend us, follow us, or join our group just click on the links. 

    #3 Custom social networks for our events. This is very unique to YS. We’ve created full-blown custom social networks for people coming to our flagship event, National Youth Workers Convention. Here’s the one for folks headed to Sacramento in October. So far there are a total of seven websites associated with NYWC this fall. I’m helping the YS convention get web-o-riffic in a hurry. 

    #4 Relaunching the podcast. Starting very soon is a brand new format to the YS podcast. I’ll bring some of the flavor of the YMX podcast to YS as well as some other cool features. Keep an eye on this page. We’ve got the first few episodes ready to go… great content in the new format!

    #5 YMX stuff. Since YS purchased YMX back in June things have changed only slightly. Seriously, I think the only thing that got changed was the privacy policy and about us pages. The first change is coming soon as YMX will host the next generation of the website, YM Women. There will be a special section of the website dedicated to women in youth ministry. I think this is a cool compliment to the HERstory conference that meets at NYWC. Looking forward to YMX going to “generation two” of its existence.

    #6 Experimental stuff. Just think of my office as Area 51 for YS. OK, not really. But I’m always playing with new ideas and seeing what will work or not work on the social media front. When I first started I talked to the internet team about “Adam’s sandbox.” I said, “Just give me some place I can create things, try out things, play with ideas and strategies, and basically do things with no fear of failure.” So I’ve got room to do that! I love knowing that everything I try has to be safe enough to succeed. Think of a lot of what I do as Google Labs. Some experiments make it past beta testing and some don’t. 

    What about you? What are you up to at the job these days?