In this first-ever Coffee Chat, your hosts Eming Piansay and Sara Robertson sit down, coffee in hand, to spill the behind-the-scenes story of Smart Start Radio’s journey—from its early roots as “Meeting of the Minds” to becoming an award-winning podcast.
Tune in for real talk about rebranding, lessons learned, why authenticity matters in the events industry, and what’s next as they kick off a new chapter of casual, insightful conversations. Expect industry insights, random fun facts, heartfelt moments, and plenty of laughs—because at Smart Start, you belong here.
Co-hosted and co-produced by: Sara Robertson and Eming Piansay
Edited by: Eming Piansay
Editor’s note: This episode of Smart Start Radio was transcribed by Otter.ai and edited lightly.
[theme music]
[radio tuning sound]
[coffee brewing sound]
Eming Piansay How’s it going, Smart Start? I am your, once again, host one of two, Eming Piansay.
Sara Robertson And I am host two of two, here, Sara Robertson. Welcome back to Smart Start Radio for a very special edition, but not quite a special edition, more like the birth of something new that we’re trying out. And this episode is going to be a little different than other ones that we’ve done, because in four more episodes, we always bring in a person to interview and talk about a specific topic in the industry. This time, however, we are going to talk about Smart Start. And if you’ve been following along this podcast for a while now, you know that it’s been a journey. And so, we’re going to kind of give you a little bit behind the scenes and introduce the launch of this new thing that we are trying within Smart Start. Now, do not fret. Episodes as usual are going to remain the same. Every month, we will have an amazing interview for you with tons of great educational content to help you learn and grow alongside us. But we’re going to be introducing a new set of episodes alongside it.
EP Yeah. So I don’t know if we dropped the name of this. Sara, do you want to introduce the title, or did we already do that?
SR We didn’t. We didn’t, so, true to our nature, and true to us both having our cups of coffee here, we are calling this series Coffee Chats.
EP Woot woot.
SR Welcome to Smart Start Radio Coffee Chats, where Eming and I sit down with a good cup of coffee.
EP Or tea.
SR A good cup of joe. Or tea!
[laughter]
EP Or water, eventually.
SR Coffee, joe, tea. Water is good too. Stay hydrated y’all. But over, over this nice, warm or cold drink, whatever it may be, we are going to chat about something—this episode being about Smart Start in general, since it’s a launch, right? But future episodes, you know, interesting articles we’ve written, or are writing, things that we’re discovering in the industry, and really just opening this series up to be even more of a conversation between us and you and, as we all explore this industry together, whether we’re newer or older in the industry, we’re always learning. That’s what’s so special about it, I think, is that everyone’s always learning, and people love it.
EP So to kind of add on to what Sara’s saying, instead of our usual one once-a-month episodes, you’ll be hearing us three times a month, which is a considerable upgrade to what you were hearing before. Before so outside, as she said, outside of our really huge ones that we drop once a month, we will be, you know, coming to you at least twice a month after that with these little chats. So you can, kind of, we can kind of speak more on bigger things us, what we’re working on, stuff like that. So we hope you, we really hope you enjoy this.
SR Yeah!
EP Because I know I will.
SR I’m excited.
EP I like it.
SR I like it too! Before we do anything else, though, we do have some news to share.
EP It’s our own personal breaking news.
SR Our personal breaking news. Smart Start’s breaking news. So, as you heard us mention in the beginning of our last episode, we had been nominated for an ASBE award. ASBE is an award, a set of awards for specifically the publication industry, of which they have a podcast category. So, we were nominated for a regional award for Best New Podcast. And since then, a couple days ago, we heard back.
EP We got the bronze award.
SR Woohoo!
EP Which is really cool.
SR Yeah.
EP Yeah. I’ve been doing podcasts for eight years and never gotten an award before. So ,this is pretty big, yeah, and this Sara’s first podcast ever, so yeah, it’s big on all fronts, and
SR It is.
EP I’m super proud of us. We are, literally turned one year old, like a month ago.
SR Yeah.
EP And we have an award? That’s unheard of, in my mind.
SR It’s pretty amazing.
EP It’s amazing. Go us!
SR It’s a huge deal because, as Eming said, yeah, we literally turned a year old about a month ago. We launched this podcast in February of 2024, I believe. Maybe March. Maybe our first episode came out in March. I can’t remember.
EP Uh, yeah, yeah, in March.
SR But yeah, yeah, it was a great episode on work/life balance with Valerie Ulrich and Spencer Glazer. So if you haven’t listened to it, go give it a listen. But yeah, and since then, we have done so many amazing episodes and talked to some brilliant people. This is one of my favorite things that I do over here at Smart Meetings, is recording these podcasts, talking to these people and exploring this content and these insights, and to have that recognized in an award is just so affirming. And we’ve put so much work into this, so much love into this, so it’s such a huge deal. And yeah, this is my first podcast ever. I had never done podcasting before we started this. Eming has been doing podcasting for a little while and is a bit of an expert, as one would say.
[laughter]
EP Don’t say that. Don’t say that.
SR But yeah, I mean, like, yeah, Eming, what do you think about, like, the significance of winning an award based on your experience in podcasting?
EP Well, okay, so people often say to me, like, everyone has a podcast, like you can, you can swing your arm and hit swim with a podcast. It’s not hard to do. It’s just from where I stand, it’s like, about how you, how good is it? Is it just you doing Zoom and then just uploading without editing and no music and just, like, talking with no like, context or anything. Or is do you actually, like, put hours into it to, like, make it like, be the best that it can be. And I feel we do that every month. Yeah, we try, like, we really want to put out the best content for our audience. And, yeah, the meetings industry, you know, it’s a very special market because, you know, not everyone understands, like, what actually goes on in our industry, and we try to find the words and the people and the, the dialog to really, you know, explain, like, how this impacts the bigger scale of things. And I feel like we try really hard to do that on our part. So, I’m, it really makes me happy that someone saw that like, hey,
SR Yeah.
EP They’re, they’re really creating content that, yeah, doing something and that makes sense.
SR Yeah, I think, I think that’s a really good point about like, this is such a niche industry, and I think that we work really hard to make sure that we are representing the bigger picture. We’re talking to so many people doing so many different things. Like a couple of recent episodes we talked about the culinary world, and specifically in the Bay Area, and what dining means to people and how it brings people together. Whether or not you’re in the events industry. That matters. We talked later about neuroaccessibility with Megan Henshall, and you know not only why it’s important in events, but why it’s important for neuroaccessibility to be part of the way we function as a society to make sure that people feel included and seen and cared for. That’s bigger, events have a lot of power to make that happen in broader society. But it goes wider than events, you know, it touches the whole world. And events, I think, I mean, everyone sees them. You know, we know about these conferences and trade shows and things going on. You see signs around the city, but if you’re not in the events world, you don’t understand just like, how big of an impact it has on transforming how the world works.
EP Yeah, prior to working at Smart Meetings, I would go to events, and I would never think about these aspects of it, like never. And then now that I am, like, you know what? These could have been applied to my, my thought process earlier in my life.
SR Yeah.
EP If I had known that there was the whole industry dedicated to this.
SR Totally.
EP And now it’s like, you know, it’s, it’s the business of people being in one room together and communicating and sharing ideas. And
SR Yeah.
EP It’s, and we often talk about, like, why the larger world doesn’t, like, really give us our flowers in that respect. And I think it’s because, you know, they see it as something like, Oh, I do this all the time.
SR Yeah.
EP I don’t even see it as, like, an industry, because you just do it. But you are part of the industry. You may not be, like, hosting podcasts or webinars about it, but you’re involved in it somehow.
SR Yeah.
EP And technically, you belong to this community, even if you don’t like identify with it immediately, you do, right? You do belong here. And I hate to plug that, because it’s actually our tagline.
[laughter]
EP But it’s true!
SR No, it is true. I mean, even if you’re an attendee, if you’re an attendee, you’ve never, you’ve never even thought about the events industry. Say you’re a tech worker, you know, you go to events all the time. I mean, you have event planners working in your companies who are setting up these, you know, in-office moments for hybrid workers to bond with each other. You know, like, there’s the events industry happening in real life and real time for every single individual who works, you know, and even, like, outside of work, you know, there are like community events going on, like cultural events happening around cities and things like that. You know, events are everything. They’re everywhere. Yeah, it’s really cool.
EP Yeah. One thing I kind of wanted to explore for our episode is, so if you, if you kind of go back to our very beginning, like Sara said, we were a whole different podcast. We were, we were Meetings of the Mind.
SR Yep.
EP And we didn’t really know what we were. We were trying to be this, yeah, we didn’t really know what this was yet.
SR Yeah, we sort of launched Meeting of the Minds because, well, the premise behind it was having intergenerational conversations and seeing, you know, like the original goal was to kind of look at how Gen Z is entering this workforce, and what’s going on with, like, how they’re communicating with people who have been in it for a long time, and how we can all learn from one another. And that’s also something that has to do with like me and Eming being from different generations, and like, working so closely together. And like, you know, as we said, this is my first podcast. Eming has been doing it for around eight years, so we both bring our own perspectives, yeah? So that’s what Meeting of the Minds was really about. But it was sort of a figuring it out as we go along, type of thing, which, let’s be real, I mean, what isn’t? Life is.
EP That’s true, that’s true. But I think for us, like we really wanted to create, like, a brand for ourselves, like this kind of idea. And I think big part of that was, like being authentic, being honest. And we talk about that concept so much, and as someone who I’ve always, I’ve, I’ve been accused of being too honest.
[laughter]
EP I’m like, I don’t know how else to be like, I’m sorry, you want me to lie? But I and so when we were talking about, like, you know, bringing our truest selves to this podcast, I was like, people want to actually know our true selves?
SR Right.
EP Is that was people actually want to hear about? So having worked in podcasts for as long as I have, like, people have a fear of being honest, like being their most selves. And when I would suggest to people, I’m like, You should start a podcast, because you’re really good at it, and I feel like you could, you know, convey certain feelings, and they get very timid.
SR Yeah.
EP Why? Why are you so timid?
SR Right.
EP And, and in that respect, it’s like, you know, it’s in order to, like, create, like, a like, if you’re in hospitality and you’re trying to create your own brand of like, this is what I can offer. It’s like offering your authentic self in any capacity is what is ultimately going to be your goal.
SR Right.
EP Because why would you want to work with someone who you feel is, you know, being kind of fake? Who wants that? Who enjoys that?
SR Right. That doesn’t feel hospitable. I mean, and that’s what hospitality is, is like this creating this energy, this space where people feel comfortable and welcomed, and if you’re holding back, trying to, like, sort of hide parts of yourself, if you’re letting you know, maybe shyness hold you back, and things like that, it’s not gonna feel as comfortable, as welcoming. And you know, people reflect the energy that they see, right? If you’re holding yourself back, other people are probably gonna hold themselves back as well, and vice versa. If you see people sort of acting, operating with a barrier, like, say, at a conference even, or like, not welcoming you into a group. I heard someone talk about like, being at conferences and like, sort of trying to create space for newcomers to feel welcomed. Don’t stand in a circle and talk, stand in a croissant
EP Oh yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere.
SR So there’s an open space for somebody to enter. And like, I personally have experienced that at conferences where I’m like, walking around in everyone’s standing in circles, and I don’t know a single soul in the room, and I am like, well, I don’t know what to do here!
EP Right.
SR It’s so uncomfortable. And I think we can apply the same thing with podcasting. Is like you like by operating with authenticity, by being open, you’re just more engaging to listen to.
EP Right.
SR I think that was something that I personally struggled with when we first started out Meeting of the Minds.
EP I was gonna bring that up in a bit but I didn’t want to throw you under the bus.
SR Yeah, I mean, like Eming said to me, like, hey, like, you seem a little stiff. And I was like, I feel a little stiff.
[laughter]
EP Well, it was, it was more so I would, I’d be watching you, I’d be talking, I’d be watching you. And I thought your screen was frozen. And I was like, is she there?
SR Right.
EP You were just, you were either focused on the script you had wrote,
SR Yep!
EP Or the person that was talking
SR Yeah.
EP And I didn’t want you to have, like this fear, I guess, of like this experience, where it’s different, it’s new, you have to, like, be on and,
SR Yeah.
EP It’s a hard, it’s a muscle. It’s a muscle you have to train.
SR It is, it is.
EP Or else, and just you, yeah, yeah, sputter out.
SR Exactly. So I started out,
EP You definitely grew, a lot, in process like you.
SR Thank you.
EP You got less stiff, which I appreciated. You really grew into it.
SR Yeah. Well, I think I was, I was really trying to hold myself a certain way, right? Like I was trying to mold this particular personality, and I wanted it to be like super professional and, you know, like representing Smart Meetings as like this very professional platform that has these amazing, intellectual, brilliant conversations. But by doing that, I was actually holding myself back from achieving those goals. When I ditched the script, and just started talking like me, talking to people the way that I do in private interviews that I do for stories, having conversation, like on a human-to-human level, that’s, one, just it’s a better conversation. I have more fun. And it’s more fun to listen to, because it feels real.
EP Yeah, and I think for our episode specifically, I feel like since we’ve we’ve changed our format a little bit like we’ve become more open, and therefore our guests open up.
SR Yeah.
EP And it’s always really great when we, like, hit a stride, a conversation where we’re just like, in it, and I stopped looking at like, the clock at some point I forget how long we’ve been recording.
SR Right, yeah.
EP There’s the trust factor of, like, I’m in this with you. I’m not gonna take this and create a fake news scenario. Like, yeah, this is a conversation we’re having, and it’s important, and we think it’s important, and you feel it’s important.
SR Yeah.
EP And being authentic and people, and then people trusting you based on that works on every level,
SR Yeah.
EP Any industry that you work in, especially hospitality, because people can spot people who aren’t being totally real.
SR Totally.
EP It’s really easy to spot that.
SR And I think it kind of, it kind of comes back to our tagline of, like, you belong here, right? I mean, like, like, formerly, and when we’re doing Meeting of the Minds I was trying to, as I said, represent Smart Meetings, this like, super professional, like, really brilliant, amazing. Like, I was holding myself to way too high of standards. I was holding this podcast to way too high of standards. By letting go a little bit, the conversations are actually deeper, and they hold more like, like richness of information and things that we’re learning. And it’s, it’s such a weight off your shoulders to allow yourself to just be yourself.
EP For sure.
SR Yeah, I think it, like honestly, rebranding this podcast represents Smart Meetings better.
EP Yeah.
SR And we’ve created our own energy as Smart Start itself.
EP Mhm. Yeah. And now we can say Smart Start Radio, an award winning podcast.
SR We can! We can.
EP I love that for us.
SR That’s so awesome. That’s so good. I’m so proud of us. We’ve worked so hard. Blood, sweat and tears, you guys, like truly.
EP So many, mainly tears.
SR Mainly tears. Some sweat.
EP Some sweat.
[laughter]
SR Not, not a lot of blood.
EP Not a lot of blood, I mean, unless, like, we fall while recording.
SR Right.
EP But no blood.
SR No.
EP Thankfully, knock on wood.
SR I have wood on my desk.
[laughter]
EP Okay.
SR Okay, so when it came to, like, actually rebranding to Smart Start from Meeting of the Minds, that was, that was quite a journey as well, because, like, it kind of started with, like, I was reading off a script.
EP Well, I mean
SR And I was like and, what’s up? What were you gonna say?
EP We didn’t really, we weren’t really in a position to, like, put ourselves in this yet.
SR Yeah.
EP Like, that was the shift. Like, we were like,
SR Yeah.
EP We’re just, we’re just, we’re just, like,
SR Reporting.
EP The conveyers of these people who are coming on the show, we’re not gonna, like, you know, put our bias on something.
SR Yeah.
EP Because that’s not journalism or whatever.
SR Yes, yes, yes. We were not gonna put our bias into it. That’s exactly what it was. We were thinking about it like writers. Because at the end of the day, that’s what Eming and I spend most of our time doing. The podcasting is sort of a passion project, I would say. And yeah, when we’re writers like we don’t put our own bias into it, like we’re seeking to tell a story based on research that we’ve done. And I think we’re sort of approaching those interviews as research, and trying to take the information that somebody gave us and convey it to you. But then we started to consider, what if we have opinions?
[laughter]
EP We have opinions?
SR What if we shared those opinions?
EP Isn’t that radical?
SR Isn’t it? I will also say, I think that we, like, the name Meeting of the Minds. I am a big fan of alliteration. I studied English. I have a bachelor’s degree in English.
EP Go off.
SR I love alliteration so much. If you look at my articles, most of the titles,
[laughter]
SR Most of the titles rely on alliteration. They really do. It’s true.
EP I to go back and look now.
[laughter]
SR Like it just sounds so much better. But Meeting the Minds was maybe not the best name to go, it was for our goal then, was to have like, intergenerational conversations. The minds are Meeting.
EP It was, it definitely was.
SR But then we were thinking about, okay, this podcast isn’t seeing the results the attention that we want, and it’s not quite conveying stories in the way that we want to either. So we need to rebrand.
EP Yeah. I mean, it helped, because if, if, if you look at, like, our stats, you see this go, Zhoop!
SR Yeah.
[laughter]
SR After the rebrand.
EP Just this upward slide. It’s really funny. It’s like, oh!
SR It’s really cool.
EP That did affect it, like there was a difference in how we were presenting things. And, yeah, I think this, I mean, this is not just for us, like anyone, because so many people are like, you know, they’re trying to, like, find a brand for themselves that makes sense, that people can connect with, and we’re still trying to figure out that, because that’s not easy to do. But I feel like, if you, if you kind of, like, just think about it. You’re like, what am I trying to achieve at this moment? What am I trying to do? Our thing is still trying to figure itself out like, we’re not done yet.
SR We’re not done yet.
EP We’re so not done yet.
SR I mean, we’re literally, this episode is launching another new thing.
EP I know!
SR Working, it’s a step towards that.
EP In any capacity, if you’re if you’re a planner, if you’re a venue, if you’re anyone in this industry, like it’s it all comes back to like, how people, how people perceive you, and how you want to be perceived, and how are you putting yourself out there in a way that people see themselves?
SR Yeah.
EP It’s a small part.
SR See themselves reflected.
EP See a tiny, tiny, tiny litte part of themselves in what you’re saying. It means a lot.
SR Yeah. So one of the things that we sort of determined, well, okay, I’ll backtrack a little bit. We decided we need to rebrand, right? And then there was this day in like July or something, maybe it was July, maybe it was late June, hot summer, in Sausalito and Eming and I were like, Okay, listen, we need to figure this out. So we went into the conference room and closed the door and started scribbling on the whiteboard. And we’re like, what do we want this to be? We want it to be personal, and we want to have a little bit more of ourselves infused into this podcast. So, like, we’re changing from the intergenerational conversations to, the point of the show is conversations, right? And maybe it’s about exploration and exploring the breadth of this industry, and so maybe, Eming and I are active participants in conversation who are learning alongside the listener. And that’s sort of what we determined the character of this podcast would be, and if you listen to our first episode since the rebrand, where we interviewed Gary Diedrichs, who is our editor at large at Smart Meetings, and we talked about his experience as a journalist in this industry. Eming and I, as younger writers than him, wanted to sort of learn from him for ourselves and explore his breadth of knowledge in the industry. Every single guest that we’ve spoken to since, we’re asking them questions about their experience, trying to take bits and pieces away for ourselves, and in that way, you, the listener, is able to do so for yourself. So that’s sort of what we determined the podcast would be, and this was all you know, the result of locking ourselves in a conference room and scribbling on the whiteboard for hours, literal hours.
EP When you said that I have to admit, I had an image of the movie Saw in my head.
SR Oh, God!
[laughter]
EP Not, obviously not that graphic. Sorry.
SR Horrifying!
EP I know, I know. I have a, you know me, a dark sense of humor.
SR Oh yeah.
EP I’ll try to not make that seen in the podcast too much.
SR Well, speaking of Saw, at one point I was on a FAM trip in Tampa Bay before Destinations International. Wisit Tampa Bay hosted me and a couple of other journalists on a FAM out there. And there is, at J.C. Newman Cigar Factory, we took a tour, they have this basement where they store all of these cigars, right? Because they need to, kind of like, sit, like wine, you know? And this basement, they told us, fun fact, they had actually a scene of the Saw movie, or a couple of scenes, was filmed there. They used it as a film site.
EP Which one?
SR I don’t, I don’t remember which one
EP Okay, it’s fine. I was just wondering, yeah, interesting, interesting, creepy.
SR But like, yeah, they told us that. And I was like, Hmm, interesting.
[laughter]
SR It’s actually a really beautiful factory. If you’re ever in Tampa Bay and you have a chance to take a tour, you really should, but it’s a fun little backstory. Like, oh my gosh, I’m on a film site right now.
EP Yeah, we actually, I feel like I get a lot of random little tidbits of information on FAM trips, just like little nuggets. I’m just like, really
SR Yeah!
EP But I’m just like, wow, that’s cool.
SR Right?
EP Like, that’s like, that’s one of the biggest perks, I think, of our job is that we get to go to these destinations and then learn about them,
SR It’s so cool.
EP And then learn things that we would have never known had we not been there.
SR Right? Yeah.
EP Which I think is really cool.
SR Well, I was okay, so I have, I have one. I was, I literally got back from Toronto last night. I was on a FAM trip, and, like with Discover Toronto, and I was staying at the St. Regis Toronto, beautiful hotel, by the way, but they were telling us, as, as we were taking this hotel tour, little tidbits of history about the St. Regis brand, about the hotel itself. And so apparently, John Jacob Astor. Wait, I have it in my notes, let me make sure I’m saying this name right. Yeah, John Jacob Astor is the founder of the St. Regis brand, right? And so he, like, he founded this brand, and he was a passenger on the Titanic.
EP Oh! Wow.
SR And he died. He died on the Titanic, but his pregnant wife survived. And his mother, Caroline Astor, then carried on the St. Regis brand.
EP I didn’t know that.
SR That is the story behind the St Regis brand. Isn’t that crazy?
EP That’s wild.
SR Right?
EP Side note. I mean, it’s related, but there’s a, there’s a new, like a new, a new documentary on the Titanic that just dropped.
SR Oh!
EP And I want you to watch it. Anyways, that’s so not related to what we’re talking about, but just FYI, in case you’re interested. I think it’s on National Geographic.
SR Cool.
EP Yeah, just FYI, in case you ever want to check that out.
SR Awesome.
EP In case anyone wants to check that out.
SR Yeah.
EP Because who doesn’t love, love that kind of stuff? I know I love historical stuff.
SR It’s really interesting. Yeah, me too.
EP So that’s really cool.
SR That’s really cool, yeah, but yeah, I know, like, it’s, it’s really sad, but like, it’s also really amazing. Like, his mom carried on the brand, and like, then, like, his, his wife, his pregnant wife, went on to, like, have this child, and like, the brand was, like, passed down, like hotel brands have been, you know, like, you think about the Marriott family, right? So, yeah, I know!
EP That’s wild. I never, they don’t talk about stuff like that.
SR No!
EP They really don’t. That’s fascinating.
SR So cool, right? I mean, like, cool isn’t the right word. It’s really, it’s incredibly sad, you know.
EP Well, sad, but it’s really interesting, at the very least.
SR But it’s really interesting.
EP Yeah.
SR Yeah.
EP Wow.
SR Right?
EP Well, consider this a really good example of our future episodes.
[laughter]
EP Random factoids that are interesting and on the on the fringes of our industry, which I think everyone interest in stuff like this.
SR Right, and that’s what Smart Start is right? It’s exploring those fringes. It’s exploring the many arms of the industry and where they fit in and like once again, at its core, Smart Start, we are learning alongside you. You know, whether you are new to this industry or you’ve been at for, been in it for years, is one thing I hear again and again from people in this industry, is, I am always learning. I’m always learning. And if you don’t take the opportunity to continually learn, you are not going to grow in this industry and build your career. The way that you want to. Learning is fundamental to any industry, but it’s really, really crucial and important to people in this industry, particularly in events.
EP Yeah, and if, and if our audience, if you if you guys, if there’s a topic you guys want us to talk about on this particular part of the show, please let us know, because we’re, we’re basically down for anything. We love chit-chatting. We love talk. We love going on rants of sorts.
SR Eming and I can talk for like, like we could probably keep this going for hours. Like, we’re, like, really good at talking to each other, like,
[laughter]
EP Yeah.
SR Like, truly. Like, we just keep going. We can keep going.
EP Verbal or chat or slack, or,
SR Yeah, yeah.
EP Anything. It’s not hard.
SR We had a Slack conversation yesterday when I was in the airport and I was like, I’m so hungry. And she was like, the like, travel, hunger is so real
EP No, it is.
SR And I’m like, international travel. I just got through customs, and now I’m getting a giant hamburger.
[laughter]
EP I wonder if you went, wait, which restaurant were you at? Because I think I went to the same airport as you. Maybe.
SR Oh, yeah, I was at, it was a burger bar. It was a burger bar.
EP It might have been the same one.
SR Yeah. But like you sit at the bar, you scan a code, and they bring you a burger. It was awesome.
EP Yep. I think it was the same one.
SR Yeah.
[laughter]
EP Yeah. You definitely gotta love those, those airport burgers.
SR Right?
EP Because those are probably the safest things you can eat.
SR my god, honestly, I also got onion rings, by the way.
EP Mmm. Good choice. Good choice.
SR Yeah, I love onion rings.
EP Well, hopefully you guys are sufficiently hungry now that we’ve talked about food, yeah, but like I said, please drop us a note at our email, at editor@smartmeetings.com, if there is a suggestion that you want this particular chat to explore on Coffee Chat, we’re open to it.
SR We are.
EP Please let us know, and if you, or if you want us to have a different talk, for the other bigger, longer show, also let us know.
SR Yeah. A topic you’re interested in and wanna learn about
EP Because we love hearing things.
SR Yes.
EP Story ideas. We always appreciate it.
SR We really do. And this is such a fun way to tell a story. Like at the end of the day.
EP Definitely.
SR There was one thing that I wanted to mention.
EP Of course.
SR How with Meeting of the Minds, we had chosen that name because the alliteration was so awesome. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this title also has alliteration in it. And Eming, I don’t know if you remember, but I was, I think I pushed for that. Smart Start. S, S.
EP Oh, maybe.
[laughter]
EP I don’t really remember. I mean,
SR Yeah, we wrote down a big, long list of potential names.
EP Yeah, we did.
SR Like, we used like chat GPT to generate some names. I was like, I need alliteration. I need it. We need alliteration.
EP But thank you guys for for joining our first episode of Coffee Chat.
SR It’s so exciting. I’m really glad you’re here.
EP Yeah, I’m I’m glad that we’ll be a little more, more often in your your podcast world. Yeah, I love this. This is great.
SR Me too.
EP I hope we get to do way more, and explore way more. And we hope you guys, you know, let us know how you feel about this.
SR Absolutely. And please do reach out. We want to hear from you so bad. We love doing this. As I said earlier, this is totally like a passion, it started out as a passion project, and now it’s really grown into something very beautiful.
EP Yeah.
SR And we would love to hear from you, what you think, what you want to hear about. We are all for it.
EP But, um, yeah, we, we hope, we hope a lot comes out of this. I hope so.
SR I hope so! Thank you for listening to Smart Start Rdio, an award winning podcast!
EP We’ll see you guys next time.
SR See you next time.
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You’ve been listening to Smart Start Radio, A Smart Meetings production. Interested in being our next guest? Connect with us at editor@smartmeetings.com.
