“Podcasts for the Workplace: Yes, And.”

By Brian Landau and Kelly Leonard

When The Second City was sold about a year ago, our new owners came in enthused and eager to help the company build upon its core portfolio of clients - especially in the corporate area. So it wasn’t exactly surprising when Jason on the ownership team sent me a note to introduce me to a friend of his who was leading a startup that might present some interesting opportunities to us. I’ll be honest, I suspected that Jason might just be connecting me to one of his college drinking buddies - but that turned out not to be the case.

I’ll let Brian describe the platform, but the thing that intrigued me most was that it was centered on the human voice. In our collaboration with the Booth School of Business, we became aware of Nick Epley’s work in this specific area: the power and impact of the human voice. In an article from The Chicago Booth Review, the author puts it this way:

“Research by Chicago Booth’s Nicholas Epley suggests that no matter what the next innovation in communication might be, there is no substitute for the human voice when it comes to conveying one’s humanity, intelligence, and state of mind. Recognizing that is not intuitive for many of us—but it can have important consequences for our careers and personal relationships.”

Hi, this is Brian. When I was 22, I moved to Chicago for my first job out of college. I knew nothing about Chicago. I knew no one in Chicago (except for Michael Jordan, and I didn’t really know him). One brutally cold, classic Chicago night, I found myself at an improv show at The Second City. The theater felt personal. The actors felt accessible. I laughed. A lot. And, for the first time since I moved to Chicago, I felt at home.?

So, when years later, I launched Vennly – an audio platform that enables businesses to easily and securely share audio content to their internal channels of communication (such as Slack, MS Teams, FirstUp, and Notion) – I knew that I wanted to partner with The Second City because we are both invested in how the human voice can help people navigate their relationships. What’s more, remote working and the rise of podcasting has shown the world what we already knew: audio content is powerful, and it can power your experience at work as much as it can your personal life.

The Second City has created an audio series called “First Takes,” which details how improvisation skills can help employees in their jobs. “First Takes'' is available in Vennly’s customers’ dashboards so that it can be shared easily and securely to a company’s intranet and/or collaboration platforms. Vennly provides robust listener metrics, so that you can know exactly how each piece of content is performing.

Please visit www.vennly.co/secondcity and register to get started with The Second City and Vennly today.

We welcome you to take a listen. And we’re looking forward to laughing and learning together.