Mike Sullivan - President, Utility Safety Partners
You can literally find a podcast on any topic today and when a big part of your business is promoting awareness, just dipping your toe in the expanding ocean of podcasts isn’t enough. Doug Downs convinced me of that.
Some years ago, Doug, Utility Safety Partners’ advertising agent, suggested (rather strongly) that we try our hand at a podcast. “Really, Mike. I think you should try it.” Trusting Doug’s judgement, and also satisfying my curiosity for the unknown, I replied “OK, let’s do it.”
And just like that, the Safety Moment podcast is in its fourth season!
Now, we’re not kidding ourselves; we know we’re amateurs but that’s also part of the appeal of the podcast. Anyone can do it and there is literally an audience for everyone and everything. And, in the wonderful wild world of public awareness, I’m a firm believer that we need to be firing on all cylinders—or at least as much as budgets will allow—and the cost of producing a podcast is low compared to traditional advertising.
Over the last three years, we’ve hosted a lot of different chats with people from all over the world. We’ve chatted with Glen “Cookie” Cook and learned about Australia’s overhead power line safety and awareness challenges and success, the science of the brain and why we take risks, how the Saskatchewan CGA grew those Dig Safe Breakfasts to become so popular, and we even heard some human interest stories like Brad Sigouin’s discovery of a post-1897 sword in his backyard and the Tunnels of Moosejaw.
The Safety Moment, which initially began as The Prairie Podcast, has been downloaded over 2,500 times. While this might not sound like a huge number, Doug says, “Think of it this way; you just had coffee and a conversation with that many people,” and he’s right—that’s a lot of coffee!
This week, Utility Safety Partners celebrates its 40th Anniversary delivering damage prevention services to Alberta and neighbouring provinces and we’re excited to host Glen Cook, Cliff Meidl, Wylie Davidson, Jon Lovink, Benjamin Dierker and so many others as we continue to evolve and improve the damage prevention process and public, worker and community safety.
All Utility Safety Partners’ Podcast episodes can be found on our website. We hope you choose to follow the podcast from our website, Apple or Spotify, or your favourite podcast directory.