Local entrepreneur expanding educational outreach through podcast, Domi Station partner
Creatives searching for an effective method to advance their message are fueling the expansion of social media in the digital era with podcasts as their top choice.
For Fort Pierce native Juming Delmas, 35, expanding his services from video production and marketing to the new “I’m Just Here to Listen” podcast allows him to put a focus on education, ranging from law, to agriculture, politics and more, with hopes to foster individual growth.
“Our generation is slightly losing touch with knowledge,” Delmas told the Tallahassee Democrat this week. “Things are being censored. But it seems that our generation continues to lose the importance of our history and what’s going on in the world.”
In May, Delmas began leasing a 132-square-foot office space, doubling as the studio, where he hosts his podcast in the Domi Station building, 914 Railroad Ave., near Railroad Square.
For Delmas, educational reach expands beyond the walls of his podcast, as he also uses this approach when visiting detention centers to speak to the youth. This initiative was inspired by his own rough upbringing.
At 15, Delmas dropped out of school in exchange for the dangerous street life emerging in his Treasure Coast community. It wasn’t until he grew tired of seeing his friends die as a result of gun violence that he decided to change his life for the better.
“I’m definitely a walking testimony,” Delmas told the Tallahassee Democrat. "It’s not to say my way is the right way. It’s to at least tell my story and share with them the trajectory that they can go on, create their own story and turn their problems into power.”
In 2016, Delmas relocated to Tallahassee for family matters. Now, he uses his platform and personal outreach to engage the community in important discussions in multiple ways, especially through his new podcast.
Last year, he was a participant in Domi Station’s incubator participant program, in hopes that it would help grow his audience and reach. While his video production company Juming Delmas Studios was already operating for about a year and a half before then, it wasn’t until completing this program that he began to profit from it.
Domi Station is a start-up business incubator, providing educational content and resources for individuals looking to start or grow their business.
Director of Community Engagement Dacia Williams says Domi Station is excited about the partnership with Juming Delmas Studios, and hopes that its anticipated success will inspire other businesses of its kind to work with Domi.
“We have, for so long, been considered a tech hub,” Williams said. “So, it’s refreshing to see different businesses, like creative businesses, artistic businesses and podcast businesses being birthed out of our facility.”
Once Delmas was granted office member status, he was assigned his own space within their building, where he had the creative freedom to develop his podcast shooting set with vibrant yellow, gray and white decor, and state of the art audio and visual production equipment.
The first episode of the “I’m Just Here to Listen” podcast premiered at the end of May, and already this venture is growing faster than his previous work with Juming Delmas Studios, which produced documentaries and music videos, in terms of engagement on Youtube. The new channel has gained 58 subscribers and just about 450 video views in less than two months with only six episodes.
Episode 3 featuring Charles Magee, a retired Florida A&M University professor and agricultural farming expert, garnered the most traction with over 200 views discussing, "What is Agriculture?"
When selecting guests, Delmas says he looks for people who are both entertaining and well-versed in their subject matter. So far he’s had guests like Tallahassee-based family law attorney Jennifer LaVia and Freeman Jackson, a local artificial intelligence and machine learning specialist and founder of Fourth Industrial Systems, as well.
While his podcast continues to grow, Delmas hopes that it can serve as a middleman for information and inspire people to crave knowledge again.
How to watch
? The “I’m Just Here to Listen” podcast is at youtube.com/@ImJustHereToListenPodcast/featured.
Democrat Writer Mycah Brown can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Domi Station helps local entrepreneur expand outreach with podcast
