Georgia On Your Mind One Project

The third season of Georgia On Your Mind will continue the podcast’s mission to explore the relationship between UGA and the State of Georgia.

Project Date: Summer 2024

Role: I edited the audio trailer, organized the content on the prototype, and assisted in brainstorming and researching season theme ideas.

Project Overview: After reviewing the previous two seasons and auditing the podcast’s website, my team and I started preparation for the third season of Georgia On Your Mind. We brainstormed themes, topics, created an audio trailer on Adobe Premiere Pro, and designed a website update on Figma.

The Problem

In preparing for the third season of Georgia On Your Mind my team and I faced two major problems. First, we needed to brainstorm a theme and topic ideas for the new season which needed to be distinct from the first two seasons but still follow the podcasts’ parameters as a series that explores the relationship between Georgia and UGA. After coming up with multiple theme ideas we needed to create an audio trailer for our strongest theme. The second major problem was that we needed to audit the podcast’s website and create a new design for the website to address the current issues and update it for the third season.

The Solution

The first step I took to prepare for the third season of Georgia On Your Mind was to listen to and review the first two seasons. I took special note of the topics and guests for the episode and the flow and editing style of the different seasons.

After we all listened to the podcast my team and I met for the first time to begin to brainstorm topic ideas for the third season. We came up with a lot of ideas and I made sure to keep track of what had been discussed on the podcast before so that we would avoid retreading old ground. The first two seasons focused on major industries and impactful areas that are often overlooked and we wanted to take the third season in a new direction.

As a team, we ideated five or six theme ideas with several episode topic ideas each. We then took a vote and the top three themes would be the ones we would flesh out further. We would create an audio trailer for our top-picked theme.

The runner-up themes were first, the history and founding of Georgia which would explore Georgia’s rich history and provide a look into the events that shaped Georgia’s identity. The three-episode ideas we came up with were the history of UGA, the Native American culture and history, and Georgia’s colonial history. The second theme was the culture of Atlanta which would focus on the art, music, film, sports, and technology that fills the city and how UGA enhanced the city. There would be an episode focused on the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the music scene from jazz and blues in the early 20th century to modern hip-hop, and the civil rights movement.

Our top choice theme was UGA alumni making a difference in Georgia which we later renamed Built by Bulldogs. Rather than in previous seasons focusing on major industries and interviewing guests who are sometimes relevant alumni, our idea for the third season would be to have the alumni be the focus. We want to highlight how the University prepared these notable alumni for their careers and what they have done for Georgia.

For every episode, we found notable alumni who we would love to highlight but we are prepared to pivot to different people if these alumni are not available. The episode concepts and their respective alumni are:

• Topic 1: Impact in Sports — Dominique Wilkins, NBA Legend and Hall of Famer | Ernie Johnson Jr, long-time NBA, MLB sports broadcast and anchor
• Topic 2: Excellence in Journalism — Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Award-Winning Journalist | Dink Nesmith, Community Newspaper and Oglethorpe Echo,
• Topic 3: UGA on Stage — Tituss Burgess, Actor and Singer | Anyone from The B-52s, band | Mike Mills or Michael Stipe, members of R.E.M.
• Topic 4: Trailblazers in Georgia — Dr. Mary Frances Early, the 1st African-American in graduate school at UGA | Charlayne Hunter-Gault, one of the first African-Americans to be admitted to UGA.
• Topic 5: Media from the Hedges — Alton Brown “Good Eats”, Brandon Stanton “Humans of New York”
• Topic 6: Economic Impact / Business — Billy Payne, former chairman of Augusta National, CEO of Atlanta Committee for Olympic Games

I researched the “Excellence in Journalism” and the “Media from the Hedges” episode concepts for the Built by Bulldogs theme. For the “Excellence in Journalism” episode we wanted to highlight Charlayne Hunter-Gault an award-winning journalist who worked for The New Yorker, The New York Times, PBS, NPR, and CNN. She was also one of the first African American women to graduate from UGA. Another alumnus for this episode is Dink Nesmith the co-owner of the Athens-based Community Newspapers, Inc. For the “Media from the Hedges” episode I found Alton Brown who studied film at UGA and created and hosted “Good Eats” among many other popular Food Network shows and the alumnus photographer Brandon Stanton who runs the Humans of New York website.

My team and I worked together to create an audio trailer for the Built by Bulldogs as a proof of concept. Hope, Morgan, and Hank wrote the script and recorded their dialogue while Sydney and I edited the trailer. Sydney cleaned up the audio and I stitched together the trailer on Adobe Premiere Pro. I made sure all the dialogue clips could be heard over the music and landed on the same audio levels. I was proud that I was able to match the final three notes of the song to Hope’s “Built by Bulldogs” line, I think it gives a great punch to the end of the trailer. I was able to achieve this by hiding a cut in the music around 50 seconds into the trailer to allow for the end of the song to connect with the end of the dialogue. Listen to the trailer concept here.

This is the trailer concept for Georgia On Your Mind Season 3.

We needed to audit the current website to create a website prototype that would resolve all the current issues with the website while updating it to make room for the third season. I chose to focus on the content organization throughout the website which meant I touched on the homepage and the navigation.

The first thing I noticed in my website audit was that the first season was missing from the homepage. Meanwhile, the homepage had all the episodes and featured guests for the second season. I felt like listing out all the episodes and their respective summaries along with all the featured guests made a very long and a little overwhelming homepage.

A screenshot of the current website’s homepage.

On the homepage, the About the Podcast section felt a little boring because it is the first thing the audience sees when they scroll down from the homepage header and it is just a large wall of text. I suggested that this could be made more engaging by breaking up the paragraph into smaller sections. This paragraph is also repeated at least four times on the website — on the homepage, the About page, season one’s page, and season two’s page. We need to write new copy for the website so the audience learns more about the podcast as they explore the site.

A screenshot of the About the Podcast section of the homepage.

I looked at the navigation next and I noted that the episode list for season two was out of order. Dawgs in Space is episode 3 but it is listed first.

A screenshot of the current Georgia On Your Mind website shows that the episodes are out of order.

I also realized that the episode names across the first and second seasons are named something different in the navigation bar, the episode’s page, and on Spotify. For example, season two episode one is called “Starting Small, Going Big” in the Navigation Bar, “Small Business Development Center” on the episode’s page, and “Heart of the State: Georgia’s Small Businesses” on Spotify. I think this will be confusing for listeners because they will be unable to find the episode they are looking for. I suggested that we keep the episode names consistent with what was published on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and adjust the titles of the first two seasons on the website accordingly.

A screenshot of the three different titles of Season 2 Ep 1.

For the website’s redesign, we used Figma to create a proof of concept for some of our ideas to improve the website. Morgan sketched a website design based on the team’s comments and ideas. Using those sketches as a baseline I helped design the homepage and I created the entire Seasons page.

Instead of having the homepage list every episode from just one season, I created a new section that showcases the three seasons. The learn more buttons would lead to each season’s individual page with all the information about the episodes, the guests, and more.

Morgan’s sketch compared to the homepage I helped design on Figma.

I also designed the new seasons page based on Morgan’s sketches that contain all the episodes' audio files in one place if someone wants to listen to the podcast on our website. I didn’t want the page to be too overwhelming with just a long list of all the audio files so I broke it down by season. I also named each episode based on the published episode to resolve the naming issue I noticed on the current website. Season three gets priority at the top of the page because it is a new release and seasons one and two can be clicked on and expanded. This page would not replace each season’s individual page, which would have the episode breakdowns and explain the theme and focus of that season.

Morgan’s sketch compared to the season’s page I designed.

Results

I think we have set ourselves up for success for the third season of Georiga On Your Mind. My entire team is on the same page about theme ideas as well as having a plan to redesign the website. However, there is still a lot we need to do in the future. We need to finalize our theme, connect with notable alumni, record our interviews, edit the entire podcast, code the website redesign and so much more. We had to make more decisions than I expected for an already-established podcast, but I learned a lot about preparing for a new season and I cannot wait for the third season to premiere.