I am very honored to be calling Aela Callan as my first guest on the second season of my podcast RAT.HUB. Aela is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker, she worked as a foreign correspondent at Al Jazeera and produced documentaries for Al Jazeera's 101 East program. She was selected for a prestigious John S. Knight fellowship for journalism innovation at Stanford University and a few years ago she started her own company called head set.
When I met Aela more than five years ago, we regularly discussed how virtual reality is going to change journalism and how it can help tell better stories. How times have changed. I remember Aela always went to all the international conferences to see the latest and best VR experiences and she's had a very clear understanding of what immersive technologies can do for journalism. i am beyond excited to speak with her.
Some key takeaways:
- head set is an immersive technology company that offers virtual reality training for people who work in high-risk environments, e.g. journalists, humanitarians and diplomats. head set develops immersive scenarios that help prepare physically and emotionally for what happens when you are in the midst of a big story.
- She understands herself as a journalist first rather than an entrepreneur, so setting up a sales process has been something completely outside of her comfort zone.
- Aela underlines: "Journalists are on a 24/7 frontline now, whether it's physically covering unrest in the streets because of Covid protests which is very relevant to our scenario or on the frontlines of Twitter with the cyberbullying and harassment that goes on now. We have a culture of many different parties attacking the media."
- VR training sessions are different from traditional training sessions - "Journalists find it more realistic and more emotionally impactful than scenarios played out by actors."
- With regards to her company, she states "I don't think you ever finish product development."
- She tells us how she set up her company team and highlights "recruitment is difficult [...] Knowing what you need is half of the battle. But then being able to ask helps with attracting the right talent to your team and being able to keep them with interesting work and interesting projects."
- Some management tips for a digital-first company:
- during the pandemic, she has managed her team via zoom and slack
- regular stand-up meetings help - open for anyone on the team (even if it is not their specific topics being discussed)
- leave quietly at any time is possible
- every day of the week is devoted to something: product development day, dev days, co-founder meetings
- regular lunch roulettes
- Friday open door coffee for non-work related subjects
- read-outs from every meeting with specific action items is imperative
- As a manager, you want to be checking in, not checking up.
- Some tools to use
- Canva
- Miro
- Trello
- Keybase
- Slack
- Whatsapp
- Google Drive
- "An exit doesn't have to look like what investors say an exit is"
More links:
Welcome to the international edition of my podcast RAT.HUB. I am your host Linda Rath and I interview entrepreneurs who I admire and look up to. I want to know more about their business AND: What drives them? What inspires them? I believe you need so much more than just talent and skills to be successful in business. So, let's find out what secrets our entrepreneurs will reveal to us.
If you have any questions or want to share some thoughts, feel free to contact me via Twitter @Lynda420. I am your host Linda Rath and I am looking forward to connecting with you in my next episode.
This episode is brought to you by
Media Tech Hub Potsdam. It is one of 12 digital hubs in Germany, initiated by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy – and the only one with a focus on MediaTech. it encompasses a working space, an accelerator and an annual conference and i highly recommend you check it out if you want to start a business and look for networking opportunities. I am an entrepreneur myself and our startup Vragments used to be located at the media tech lab in Potsdam.
Credits:
- Produced by Linda Rath
- Photo Aela Callan by Aela Callan
- Photo Linda Rath by Stefan Walter for Causalux Fotos
- Podcast Cover by Nicole Koppe
- Episode Cover Art by Stephan Gensch
- Music/Jingles by Mara Niese
