Updated: 21 November 2025
We will typically invite you days or even weeks in advance to join the livestream at a particular date and time. Since it is a conversation and not an interview, we will not have an advanced list of questions for you. You may aim to promote something such as a book or film, and that is fine, but we want to engage directly with you. We also want the conversation to be driven by audience questions and comments to the extent possible, and we don’t heavily filter these. There is no requirement to stay “on topic,” since there is no formal agenda.
That said, we will avoid asking you about your personal life, and will not venture into private matters. If you volunteer such information, then fine, but we will generally pivot away unless it is relevant to something else we are discussing.
If you wish to discuss offline the general topic areas we will cover during the show, we will be happy to have that discussion. Also, if we receive any questions for you in advance, we will share them with you as soon as we can.
If you would be so good as to provide a headshot and a brief bio a week or so before the livestream, that will help us promote it. We are also happy to put links into the video description to help people find you and your content.
Technical Requirements
You will need a device with a microphone – an iPad or laptop, for example. The audio output from your device is best monitored through headphones or earbuds. A broadband WiFi or wired Ethernet connection is best. If there is a problem with bandwidth, you may need to turn off your camera. Please connect from a reasonably quiet, smaller room with good acoustic damping to minimize room acoustics.
If your device has a camera and you elect to use it, please make sure the lighting on you is ok. You might also have a separate webcam, which generally produces higher quality video, but can require more bandwidth.
We are not expecting you to create a podcast studio just for us, but the best case is a directional microphone using an interface device into your computer – like a typical podcasting setup – in a fairly quiet room without much echo. Some studio microphones can make the room acoustics worse, so avoid them unless you have good sound damping in your room. Dynamic mics are better for this reason.
The Day of the Livestream
Generally, there won’t be a technical rehearsal, but if you request one, we will attempt to accommodate you.
The sequence of events on the day of the livestream:
- You should have received an invitation e-mail some days prior. The invitation will be for a Zoom or Google Meet meeting, or possibly another platform. About 30 minutes before air time, click on the link in that e-mail and follow the instructions. The exact time for you to make your entrance may vary, but we’ll let you know.
- Check into the online meeting early so we can check your audio and get you oriented. You can then take a break until we are ready for you. Just before your entrance, we’ll unmute you and route the video into the livestream.
- There may be questions after the Conversation, so please stick around to answer any directed to you. it’s best to monitor the meeting chat (not the livestream) to see the questions.
Note that the livestream will be delayed a few seconds, so be prepared for that if you are watching it, and please mute the audio from the livestream. We’ll have someone monitoring the chat for questions and for moderation purposes.
You can cuss if you want to, although it’s not strongly encouraged.