Diane Audrey Ngako: The Art of Doing More with Less

Six weeks ago, I wrote an article that has almost the same title as this one. It concerned my co-writer on this platform; Tino Foy. In the article, I tried to explain my personal struggles with embarking on projects with regards to my penchant for being a little bit of a perfectionist. I tried to contrast my search for excellence that passed through having all my ducks in a row first, with Tino Foy’s search for excellence which passed through throwing himself in the hot water first, and figuring it how to cool it later.

Although we both end up getting the same thing, one gets there faster and with a larger breadth of hands-on experience. In that article, my concluding paragraph ends thus;

“What I have learned from working and collaborating with Tino is that there is no perfect time to start on a project. If you have one leg, grab a cane and start walking. It’s in moving that you will inspire someone who will offer you a crutch. And then further down the way, someone else will offer you a prosthetic leg. And then down the way some more, someone else will give you a bionic leg.

You will hardly have it all to start. Many of us are not Donald Trump. We do not have someone to give us a ‘small loan’ of a million dollars to set us off on the path of life. We grow only by moving, and we move with whatever we have. And that is how we become better.”

Diane Audrey Ngako is a living embodiment of that philosophy with regards to one particular project which she brought to life and is now feeding.

Sometime very early this year – I believe it was in January - Diane Audrey, who is a heavy user of Twitter (for all the right reasons) announced that she had been mulling over the idea of a podcast and that she was going to set things in motion. Soon enough, in late February, she released a ‘trailer’ (I would like to call it so), announcing that the date the first episode of the podcast will be streamed and what it was going to be about.

Essentially, the podcast will be called “Si Maman M’avait Dit” and it was going to be deep and personal stories told by men and by women that explored their secrets, their lives and their daily and personal struggles. The title which translates as “If Only My Mum Had Told Me,” evokes a feeling of loss, regret and disillusion with the present over things and situations that one never really thought could happen to them, or perhaps, only happens to others.

In some way, it says we are never really prepared for life and its vicissitudes and to give a tangible flagpole to that, it anchors on the wishful thinking that our parents, or mum in this case, despite them, never were really able to prepare us for life – even when it was not for lack of trying.

It is basically an ode to today’s urban quote that cynically says “life will humble you.”

The first episode, for example, featured a brave 38 year-old lady who has Adenomyosis and Endometriosis, two medical conditions can cause heavy and abnormal bleeding during menstruation, severe cramps and the difficulty/inability to bear children. It was an open and searing conversation that shook many listeners, judging from their feedback.

But it was not until the fourth episode, which featured a 35 year old woman who has been in a relationship with a married man for 8 years that things reallly took up for the podcast. The honest conversation she had with the woman sent many tongues wagging and the episode saw thousands of streams and downloads across all the platforms on which the podcast is hosted.

But the most interesting about the podcast is that, the entire first season was recorded on an iPhone!

Diane Audrey has mentioned that in a number of tweets. All she needed was a quiet room, turning on the recorder app on her phone and having the conversations that make her podcast.

Yup. When you listen to it, the sound quality is not great. You can hear some background noise, some chops in the editing and generally not the kind of production quality you will fine in a high-production podcast. But does that matter? Obviously not, judging from the great feedback and the number of streams.

Which means, at the end of the day, what matter is the raw product. What always matters is the raw product. And in this case, it is the conversations and the depth of the topic and how they are explored and discussed. It helps that Diane Audrey has a professional and scholarly training in communications and has worked in the industry for some time. So, channeling that experience into her interviews helped.

But the point is that she did not wait to have an expensive microphone set-up and a recording studio before doing the podcast. She used her phone and her competencies and created her own little piece of magic.

With time she might fine a way to monetize it and give us better production value, while maintaining the searing nature of the conversations – who knows? But the takeaway lesson is that we should learn to start with what we have. What is most important is the idea and the creativity behind it. When we are able to bring that to life, everything else is an embellishment that improves on the idea. But what is important, first is the idea.

There is no perfect time to start on a project. If you have one leg, grab a cane and start walking. It’s in moving that you will inspire someone who will offer you a crutch. And then further down the way, someone else will offer you a prosthetic leg. And then down the way some more, someone else will give you a bionic leg.

- Wandji Wilfred

**Diane Audrey Ngako is a communication specialist and an arts lover. She runs a digital marketing agency (Omenkart) in Douala and is the brain behind the Douala Digital Show and the Douala Art Fair. You can follow on Twitter and Instagram at @Voodart.