About different topic of Civil Engineering such as career advancement, Technology, mental health

My name is Abdulrahman Atif. I am from Yemen but I was raised and grown up in Dubai for all of my life. I worked in the Civil Engineering industry for nine years and 6 months. My friend " Dr Ghanim Khawani" is my friend since my college days where we studied together civil Engineering and we kept our friendship together since that time.

My podcast is about Civil Engineering. we talked about different topics such as career advancement, mental health, entrepreneurship, and many other topics that we feel help civil engineering and we love it.

Actually, my listeners are from all over the world but the highest number is in the US, UAE, CANDA, UK, AUSTRALIA, INDIA
 

Well I started listening to podcasts in 2016 and I became addict to it and I love how much Podcast has a lot education and increase and expands my limits. During my Journey of start learning and developing myself, I met Ghanim in one of the coffee shops inside one of the malls in Dubai. we were talking about many topics and how podcasting is important where it amplify your message and can educate you. We were talking about if this topic of what we talked and discussed can be in place such as a podcast. Then he told me, how about a podcast? I said to him why not!! The idea came so randomly even the name came so randomly!! Then the idea came on March 20, 2020. It was of course before the pandemic ( or at the beginning of the pandemic) Then when I came home that day, I did what every engineer do which is googling " how to create a podcast ?"😂. Then the pandemic and lockdowns start but the idea kept going and I start researching more and more of podcasting because you know of the imposter syndrome where I was assuming I have to perfect everything. Suddenly, Ghanim called me and said " let us start even if it is ugly !! let us try it" Then at the beginning, we to record something of Zoom which is the 1st episode!! It took me around a week to edit the episode before publishing it !! even I remember we are not in most podcast apps, so we had to wait until we got in all podcast app platforms!! My initial was to do it for fun and whatever topics we seem it helpful and we loved, we just recording and publish it.
 

Well, actually we release a weekly episode every Friday night as per Dubai Timing. In the begging, it uses to take me around one to one and half hours for 20 min episodes only because I used to try to make it perfect. However, it was overwhelming and the quality feels so unnatural where I feel there is a robot is talking. Someone told me it is ok, you can just edit the main things and other things will be forgiving if your content is good. Now it is taking me around 2 hr for a one-hour episode. Getting time for preparing, editing, and publishing the episode is really tough where I have to sacrifice weekends or sleep late to make sure the episode will be published on time !! Now you can say that it is taking me around 2.5 hr for the complete set from editing to publishing and marketing the episode. Currently, we fund the podcast by ourselves. so that is why I am telling everyone podcasting is not for getting rich quickly!! you might even lose money at the beginning for podcasting.
 

Well actually currently, we don't have any sponsors because we don't have that much of the download yet. However, we have a " Buy me a coffee" where people can come and support us !!! we might get like 5$ from there only because we don't want to push it to the audience 😂. I also enrolled for "value for value " in podcastindex.org as part of "podcasting 2.0" and for some satoshis which is almost pennies 😂. WE made some merchandise also. That is why I am telling people don't go to only ads business models and search for other ways to monetize their podcast. However, the real value for us is when people contact us and said how these episodes are so important and helped them in making great decisions in their life. In addition, it helped us to get a network with many interesting people not only as guests or in Engineering only, but also in podcasting since I am a nerd and love to see new things in the podcasting industry. I connect with many people locally and internationally like the team in Buzzsprout, Podnews, Podcast movement, and many other
 

Well, actually I use many things editing and recording my podcast. In the begging, I used to record directly from zoom using the mic in the laptop. However, I didn't like the audio there, so we bought a Samson Q2U mic which is around 70$ I believe which give you a good quality. Oh, I forget, we used to record at the begging many episodes in the car due to the good quality it has. Regarding the software and audio, I used to record via Zoom, then I shift to Riverside.fm, but I left because they have many glitches and I am using currently Zencaster. for the audio editing, I am using Audacity for editing the Episode and headliner to get some video and audio bite.

Regarding guests, it is not one solution, Some of the guests contact us directly and want to connect with us!! we had some through LinkedIn. for others, we send to them directly because we feel they will add value to the podcast. In addition, some of us came through Podmatch.com, Podbook, Matchmaker.fm. so there is not a single answer.

Usually, I send the interview question before time to the guest ( which we never use it 😅 , to be honest) we start recording and rest just editing and publishing, Then I usually gave the guest the links, soundbites, HD picture so he/she can share the episode.
 

Well actually, I share the episode on our website and other social media and I ask usually the guest to share it also. we have most of the listeners are coming through our website. A big portion is coming from the big three ( Apple, Spotify and google podcasts) rest from many other apps since I already put my podcast in many apps to increase discoverability.
 

One of the things I learn is that enjoy podcasting and do it from a passion and don't worry. You will discover things in the way.
You can check to many areas where they help people such as the following:

1. Buzzsprout: they give good blogs and videos explaining a lot of technicality things in the podcasting
2. School of Podcasting by Dave Jackson ( he put good recourses in podcasting)
3. Podnews By James ( he has a ton of resources from the latest new till even and jobs that is related to podcasting)
4. Podcastindex where they have really cool things in podcasting
4. Many events and webinars such as the podcast movement
 

You can check me through the following Website where you can check all of my social media, blogs, and latest updates there:
https://withkoji.com/@bahr_albahar

You can check Dr Ghanim Kashwani there :
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghanim-kashwani-90739389/

Also, you can check our podcast website at the link below
https://www.civilengineeringvibes.com/