Over the last two weeks, I shared a series of reviews of the branded company podcasts from 10 top U.S. business schools. They each have compelling shows and valuable lessons for the podcasting approaches of other organizations. Across the schools, four themes stood out:

1. Professors discussing their research (with an excellent host) is such a great format and many more schools should be doing it. I could even see potential in schools pooling their resources on this - like a podcast for the overall University of California system.
2. Savvy schools are also developing shows for two stakeholder groups in addition to the general interest listener: prospective students and alums. With prospects (and their parents), audio can do a great job of demonstrating the student experience and standing out compared to competing options. And alums are such a major driver of schools' funding and long-term affinity, not to mention being a great source of accomplished professionals as episode guests
3. Branded university podcasts can have the best chance of success if they're integrated into an overall thought leadership ecosystem. The big business schools have existing written publications of their research and insights, which podcasts fit nicely into. And they can take a more inclusive approach to promoting not just the shows created within the school, but also external shows with their professors as hosts.
4. Education industry podcasts show the full range of production models. There are polished, narrative shows made with full service production companies (Harvard + Lower Street in particular) that are comparable to general interest shows. Plus industry pure play production companies (University FM), freelance producers and editors, and companies doing it all in-house