“this IS research”
Author: Marshall V. King
Nick Berente – Professor for IT, Analytics and Operations Dept. at Notre Dame
Competitive Game of Pool Leads to Successful Idea
As they played pool at a conference in Hawaii, Nicholas Berente and Jan Recker made plans for a podcast.
Now at conferences, doctoral students who have become fans of the podcast are asking for photos with them.
“The podcast has really taken off,” said Berente, who is Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. Recker is a Nucleus Professor for Information Systems and Digital Innovation at the University of Hamburg.
The two had talked before 2020 about starting a podcast, but finally launched “this IS research” in February 2021.
Jan Recker – Professor for Information Systems and Digital Innovation at the University of Hamburg
Recker and Berente are professors who do research and teach in the Information Systems field. Their podcast focuses on that work. When they drop a new episode, about 2,000 people download it immediately. That’s impressive given that their field includes roughly 4,500 professors and doctoral students (based on membership in the Association for Information Systems).
Highly Academic Episodes on Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly
Berente joins Recker on Zoom and they record a podcast. Recker tends to the editing and posting. As Berente says, he just shows up. “This is how we talk at conferences,” he said.
Some episodes are highly academic, focusing the two primary academic journals in the field and how to be published in them. They talk a lot about Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly. They are both editors at MIS Quarterly and often have other editors come on as guests. The duo offers their wisdom on how to navigate those journals. As the description for the episode titled “Our bag of tricks for getting published” states, “We can talk about impactful, joyful, and meaningful research all we want, but most of us just want to get published. Literally, our careers depend on it.”
Berente added, “It’s all about ‘publish or perish,’ You need to publish your papers or you don’t get tenure. Anymore, you don’t even get a job.”
Other episodes may appeal to a broader audience as they discuss data privacy or project management.
Their goal is to address the substance of scholarship and then how to do it, Berente said.
Whatever the topic, there is a lot of banter and a light-hearted tone.
“This is how we talk at conferences,” said Berente. Initially, the duo focused on their audience of colleagues who, like them, were researching, publishing and teaching at the intersection of business, technology, and academia. They realized early on that students and younger professors were also listening. That helped them to brainstorm topics and then record episodes.
“this IS research” Podcast
Professional Yet Authentic Tone and Surprising Recognition
The rapport between the two is clear and they want to be professional without being stuffy. They try to “keep it real” and often hear from listeners that the friendly tone is what keeps them coming back. “Authenticity works,” Berente said.
They continue to be surprised by the response. In early 2022, they started handing out the Trailblazing Research Award and Innovative Research Approach Award, which they created to honor work they believed was outstanding in 2021. The episode was titled, “Welcome to the Oscars.” They mailed certificates to the winners. Some winners then put them in their curriculum vitae and shared on LinkedIn. “We made up awards and now people want them,” Berente said.
Their sound quality has gotten better and they work to not do too many monologues. After every episode, they hear from listeners critiquing their style and content. They aren’t perfect, but they do have a bond with their audience who wants to hear their message.
“In this crowded space of podcasts, the smaller the niche, the easier it is to get traction,” Berente said.
The podcast is available on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Youtube, and Amazon Music.
For questions or feedback you can email thisisresearchpodcast@gmail.com
