Under any circumstance, a pivot for a future of work podcast is jarring. But for Dan Smolen, making a sudden pivot for his podcast, to a new identity, was absolutely necessary.
"Now, everything seemed fine until early September 2020 when we discovered that something was amiss. The Tightrope Podcast had inexplicably disappeared from the web and social media.

What happened?"
The sudden pivot for a future of work podcast is now complete. Today, we debut The Dan Smolen Podcast.
Some back-story:

One week ago today, on October 2, 2020, we discovered that well-known academic and social media pundit Dr. Cornel West launched "The Tight Rope Podcast." Surprisingly, his podcast [with the same name as ours] redirected our listeners and prospects to his podcast hosting destinations. What is more, Dr. West aggressively promoted his podcast episodes to over 750,000 followers across social media; his podcasting campaign kicked into high gear during the first week of September 2020.

Looking back, it all makes sense as to why our listenership fell off of the tightrope.

We were astonished by our discovery. And we knew that we had to pivot our future of work podcast quickly to a new brand identity.
The re-branded Dan Smolen Podcast focuses on future of work and meaningful work topics. We will host experts in business, academia, public service, and workforce to benefit our future of work and meaningful work journeys.
Looking forward, we will "real-time reimagine" how the future of work presents in our lives. And right off the bat, we will tackle challenging issues that keep us up at night, like hybrid work arrangements and policies, so that we thrive in the face of sudden change and adversity.

The best minds in branding say that the process of re-branding a product, a service, or a podcast should take time. A re-brand should carefully consider the full array strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the podcast and its community.

But in our case, we had no time for careful and deliberate processing. Our re-brand from The Tightrope had to happen immediately. In fact, the sudden pivot for [our] future of work podcast happened in less than seven days.
Now, as The Dan Smolen Podcast, we know that our best days lie ahead. Please join us each week on this podcast for new episodes and an amazing journey to a future of work doing meaningful work.
EPISODE DATE: October 9, 2020
Please Subscribe to The Dan Smolen Podcast on:

- Apple Podcast

- Google Podcasts

- Pandora

- Spotify

- Stitcher

- The Dan Smolen Podcast Page

...or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image credits: Female podcast listener, Rg Studio for iStockPhoto; Behind the podcast mic, Dan Smolen; The Dan Smolen Podcast covert art, J. Brandt Studio for The Dan Smolen Experience.
Please check out our most recent podcast episodes and blog posts on The Dan Smolen Experience website.