Intros and background on Kyle.. Lina: Okay, so introduce yourself. Kyle: My name is Kyle Marshall and I am the President of Media Lab. Lina: Can you tell me a little bit about your past life, before the Media Lab. What are you did and what guided you into the direction you're going into now. Kyle: I went to University for an English degree and move to Calgary right after words and essentially have been doing retail for 14-13 years in many different areas. 7-Eleven was my night job when I first moved to Calgary, then I was the manager at an Indigo store for 3 years and then I worked at Apple for 10 years until recently. Around the time that I started working at Apple I became really fascinated not just with what was happening on the internet with online communities YouTube and podcast. Lina: So why an English degree and why did you decide not to pursue anything to do with that? Kyle: That s a very multifaceted question. When I originally went to the University of Lethbridge I was under the impression that I was going to become an English teacher. That was my goal since I was probably in grade 4. When I got to University I was really thrust into many different outlooks and lifestyles that I had not encountered before in a small Alberta town, and realistically even though I started doing my practicum for teaching you need to be top 1 or 2% of your class to get into get into the teaching program at University of Lethbridge and I was just not there; I just fell right outside of it so I felt like I might as well get the English degree because I've come so far so I might as well finish that portion of it and then decide what I wanted to do afterwards. There was many flights of fancy of becoming a novelist or a journalist, that sort of thing, and I think that at that time in my very early twenties I did not have the confidence that I could do that so I kind of said no it's never going to happen so I'll just be kind of a retail guy for a while. That kind of slowly changed over time, but that s what I was doing before. Talking about books and writing Lina: Any thoughts now pursuing writing? Kyle: Yes, so I do that quite a bit now. I'm quite a big fan of reading specifically and Stephen King wrote in one of his autobiographies how many great writers has to be great readers as well. You have to be up on what's going on in the culture but also just so that your own writing can improve, so I really actually adhere to that. And there's this thing, it s going to sound weird but, it's called nanowrimo which is short for National Novel Writing Month which starts November 1st. So in the month of November what you're supposed to do, people who do it sit down and actually try to write an entire book in the
month of November. It averages to be about 2,000 2500 words per day you would you have to write. These are not finished novels, just rough drafts. I did that a couple years ago I actually did write an entire book in the month of November and it's just been a matter of trying to comb through that and then sending it off to an editor before I feel like it's publishable. I also wrote a kids book like 6 years ago and I've gone through four different illustrators and none of them have worked out but I would really like to publish that eventually. Lina: What were your books about? Kyle: My kids book is about about these anthropomorphized birds and we have a duck as the main character who becomes friends with a peacock and figures out through this friendship that life doesn't have to be black and white. So that's what the children's book is about. And the novel, a good friend of mine he has a daughter and named her Scarlett and there is really no good nicknames and Scar is actually something that you could could call her. So the book is called A lady named Scar and is a fantasy novel about a tyrant king and the Lady named Scar that comes to try and overthrow his rule. Lina: Are you writing any more books at the moment? Kyle: No, I just don't have time right now. I'm really focusing on this (Media Lab) and my other podcasts and YT channels. I really did see myself being an author but for the most part I think that's changed, I don't need to be an author but a storyteller is definitely something that I consider myself and would like to become better and better at Lina: Are those two separate things for you? Kyle: I think a storyteller can branch off into so many different things now, and when I was a kid it felt like the only attainable thing as an author was to be a novelist. And they only really got to work with themselves, which that's not a hundred percent true when you figure out how the publishing industry works. But I thought television writing or movie writing trying to get that gig it was just unattainable. But nowadays over the internet there's so many opportunities, like video writing, you can write your own fictional podcast, you can write on blogs,you can do all these other types of writing that is still writing but is not that traditional book writing type of journey. Lina: People say that there is a book in everyone. Do you think that's true? Kyle: I think there's certainly a bit of truth to that. Talking about YouTube and podcasting Lina: So you say podcast and YouTube channels like you have many, how many do you have? Kyle: Technically all total I have six or seven. Active I would say 3. I do my own YouTube channel and there's two podcast that I do on a regular basis and of course there's always other ideas that go through my mind that I have to filter and it's like on the one or two-year pile.
Lina: If people wanted to look you up where would they find you? Kyle: If they just search for my name Kyle Marshall that'll be the quickest way, or thekylemarshall.com and that will take you to my splash page with a bunch of stuff that I'm a part of. Lina: And what do you podcast and YouTube about? Kyle: On YouTube I talk about what I'm experiencing that week, and it varies from movies that I watch to social economic problems that I have opinions on, to I just want to have like a laid-back funny video where I just talk about whatever so it's just about me my life and what I'm thinking. For podcasts, one podcast is called Whatever This Is and it's a pop culture podcast with my friend Grant where we discuss anything pop culture related and what our opinions are on them. And then the other one is called Assumptions which I do with my friend Daniel who is a devout Christian and I am an atheist. So we just sit down and try to understand each other's world views. This podcast is seasonal, so the first season was all about storytelling and how we approach stories from our religious word world views the second season is coming out so stay tuned. Getting rich from YouTube, what it takes to have a channel and the Media Lab Lina: Did you start any of these podcast or YouTube channels thinking I am going to become rich now! Kyle: There was a little bit in the background when I started it up, the idea of a possibility that I'm going to be making money and I do make some income from it. But I think that's a really bad way of approaching art, to start something like this purely because you want to make money from it. I would still be making videos even if I wasn't making any money at it. Lina: So outside of sitting down and just posting videos on a regular schedule, what else do you think leads to a successful YouTube channel? Kyle: You have to really make the people watching feel like they're part of the show. It's really easy to release videos but it's not being released into a vacuum, people are actually consuming it and watching it. The best creators out there are the ones who are also interacting with fans not necessarily just on the platform but on Twitter and FB etc. It is very important to be speaking to your audience on a regular basis. Don t just be somebody that's just putting content out there and forgetting about it. Lina: What does your weekly schedule look like for posting to YT? Kyle: Mondays or Tuesdays when I like to shoot and then it gets released on Thursdays and then I start to think again about what next week's video is going to be all over again. Lina: Any advice for implementing a structure because if you skip a beat then it's like Thursday at 4 and you know you haven't even done any planning for that week and your videos was supposed to have been posted yesterday.
Kyle: Just figure out whatever works best with your schedule. If you're going to be serious about this then you need to actually make it work and figure out what the best time and make the time and have the discipline to do it. Lina: So when in your retail career did you think I want to start making videos and podcasting? Kyle: Pretty far into it, I was creating videos maybe in 2010 and it was because I went to this YouTube conference that was held in California and I was so inspired that when I came back I just made that promise that I was going to make a video every week and I ve done that every week since then. The Media Lab took a little bit longer, it was the summer of 2015 when the idea first came to me at the same YouTube conference. I've gone every single year since that first one, and I was flying back and I knew that Google had YouTube spaces and I really wanted to go look at one in Toronto, and then I found out that I actually can t go there because I don't have enough subscribers to even enter the building. You need 10K subscribers and that doesn't seem the right way to do it to me. I obviously don t have the money that Google has, but I just really wished that there was something in Calgary that was similar where people can come and collaborate, use equipment and just make stuff and have that Community built up in Calgary. And then I had the crazy idea when I was flying home that maybe I should be the one doing it. Then I spent about 18 months just trying to figure out exactly what it would take to start up this Media Lab and making sure I had all my I s dotted and all my T's crossed. All that prep has helped me here in the first few months since I've opened the Media Lab and being a business owner. Lina: So where is this going for you? Kyle: At the moment, I want to be the community place in Calgary where people feel that they can come and make their own creations. One group and my primary passion, who I really want to help are the creators like the YTers and podcasters that want to up their production value; and then businesses that want to be more up-to-date on advertising or create corporate trainings, that sort of thing. Pie in the Sky dream is for this to be more than just a room, for me to take over the entire floor and have a dedicated audio area and a dedicated editing area, dedicated video area etc. Lina: So what's your next 6 month plan? Kyle: My plan is to post a ton of relevant and fun events and just really get the word out there and to get people to come out and experience the space.