A podcast about a podcast. Hello, I'm Charles Denny. This is AgCast, brought to you by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. Podcasting is now a popular form of entertainment and a great way for listeners to learn something.
You should know you're listening to one right now. Two University of Tennessee Extension agents are producing their own podcast that's growing in popularity while also delivering helpful and humorous information. Let's listen in. So in this edition of Bring It Home with Sarah and Smeal, we're ready to cozy up for Ball.
I'm so excited. Ball is my favorite time of year. Are you one of these pumpkin spice people? Not really.
I mean, I like it, but I'm not a sis. Okay, people are obsessing with pumpkin spice. Couple of girlfriends having a chat with a mic from an iPad capturing it all. Bringing It Home is a podcast starring a couple of vivacious ladies.
UT Extension Family and Consumer Sciences agents Tenille Short of Haywood County and Sarah Poole from Crockett County give advice about a range of issues. Relationships, food prep and safety, home ownership. Each podcast includes information and humor topped by a side order of SAS. Here's Tenille's take.
Well, all the topics that we discuss on our podcast have to do with home and family. And so all of the things that we teach in our jobs as extension agents, we wanted a way to help people to bring that information home and apply it to their lives. And we do that by sharing a lot of our own experiences in our homes. Sarah and I are both wives.
We're both parents. And Sarah has her say. Well, this podcast is definitely Tenille's brainchild. She called me one day last fall and was like, I've got a proposition for you.
And I just said, okay. And she said, let's do a podcast. And I said, okay. It's definitely just us having a conversation.
There's no camera in the room. It's just she and I talking with an iPad, having a good time, but trying to educate the population on a certain topic each week when we do it and have fun doing it. The FCS agents were looking for a new way of connecting with people. And social media and podcasting seem a great method of communication.
And Poole says the audience is listening. Sure. Yes. We've had people tell us they listen driving to work, like, you know, exercising.
It's just a great way. There's a lot of time. People do have time during the day to listen to things. And they don't have to be fully engaged to, like, watching a screen.
They can just listen while they're doing whatever they're doing. The agents are part of UT Extension's famed Kitchen Divas, here doing a cooking demonstration to a receptive crowd at the Summer Celebration Field Day in Jackson recently. The podcasters believe their message has been effective because so much of what they talk about is based on their own experiences. The Neal Short says the key to a good podcast is knowing your audience.
We go through a lot of things that everybody else goes through. And so we try to be very transparent, which makes it a little humorous sometimes, but just really be relatable. Yes, they want to discuss the topics with us, which is great. We want them to discuss.
Similar to when we do the classroom-style learning. You know, we're still able to get that feedback via social media, via email, but then just people coming up to us on the streets and saying, your podcast last week, I really enjoyed this, and it made me think about this. You can find past podcasts of Bringing It Home on Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Stitcher, Podbean, TuneIn Radio, and even smart home speakers like Alexa. UT Extension agents often teach in classroom settings, but podcasting is yet another way of delivering information and impacting others.
Neal and Sarah have plenty of ideas for future segments. When they talk or podcast, if that can also be a verb, their words, their message, brings it home. So, in the words of our friend, Mr. Bob Marley, we want you to live the life you love.
And love the life you live. Cheers. Bye. That was good.
Thanks for listening. I'm Charles Denny. For more real-life solutions provided by the UT Institute of Agriculture, go to our website at ag.tennesse.edu.