Tom Salemi’s DeviceTalks Journey: From Newspaper Identity Crisis to Million-Play MedTech Podcast Network

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotus Bodie and today’s guest is Tom Salemi. Tom is the host and editorial director of device talks, the med tech platform that brings innovators together through podcasts, webinars, and live conferences. Device talks runs a network of 11 podcasts.

that has logged more than one million plays. It also hosts the popular Device Talks Tuesday series and three yearly conferences in Boston, Minnesota, and Silicon Valley. Their company’s mission is clear. Connect the medical device community, share real stories, and help new ideas move faster. Now under Tom’s guidance, the network grew from zero shows to a full slate that features leaders from firms like Medtronic,

Abbott and Striker. He also programs the live events that draw engineers, investors and clinicians who want to design better devices. Tom has spent almost 30 years covering the medtech beat for outlets such as Dow Jones and Informa. His peers praise his subject knowledge and his knack for guiding open conversations that spark fresh thinking. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency.

where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets and the companies too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year.

Results vary for each and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefits.com. Now back to our guest today, the editorial director of Device Talks, and am I pronouncing your last name correctly? it Salemi? Salemi? do I say? Salemi. Tom Salemi. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Tom Salemi (02:13)
Salami, salami, yes. Yep. Great.

Absolutely my pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Anthony Codispoti (02:21)
Yeah. OK, so you graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism. What first sparked your interest in the field overall?

Tom Salemi (02:23)
I did. Yes.

Overall, first thing that sparked my interest was when I was in high school, I went on one of those explorers kind of career thing and I spent two weeks over a span of a couple of months at the Boston Herald and got to see how they ran. And I went in that newsroom and I was just like, my brain just lit on fire. It was just exciting and it was fun. And I was a shy kid and I was like, I kind of knew at the time, like if I go into like a cubicle world, like I’m never going to come out. I’m never going to exist and be out there. So I intentionally wanted to be in an industry.

that I had to put myself forth and put myself out there and really talk to people. ⁓ And then once I kind of became involved with journalism, I realized that the other thing I really like is just building communities. And that’s a direct way to do that. that’s kind of where I see my function and my purpose right now.

Anthony Codispoti (03:18)
So it’s interesting at such a young age that you were able to be that reflective about yourself and say, hey, I recognize that I’m shy. And while it would be more comfortable for me to disappear into a cubicle somewhere, I know that that’s not going to be good for my long-term development. And so you pushed yourself into a career field where you were going to have to put yourself on that edge of discomfort all the time.

Tom Salemi (03:43)
Yeah, I I remember being vividly aware of that and also knowing I didn’t want to be that way. ⁓ and it certainly helped. mean, I can talk in front of a room of a thousand people now and I don’t care. The stage fright eventually went away as well. What I never really acquired was the, ⁓ killer instinct. need to be a good journalist, like to really, not the digging of the information, but putting that information out there and knowing that it was going to cause someone harm.

in a way, even if it’s a person who maybe deserved the harm, I didn’t like putting myself in that position. So what I found myself bumping up against six or seven years in was like, don’t have the it that a really good journalist needs. And if I can’t be the best at this, I want to find a way I can use my skills ⁓ and still really succeed.

Anthony Codispoti (04:30)
So there are probably people listening to this, like, wait a minute, your stage fright eventually went away? How did you do that?

Tom Salemi (04:37)
practice, I remember my first conference, I think there was like 14 people there. So it was a really good way to start. But I think for me, ultimately the realization I had was everyone up, everyone in that room wants me to do well. Like nobody wants me to fail. No one wants me to trip it. Well, maybe they want me to trip and fall and get back up, but nobody wants me to, cause that would be hysterical, but no one wants you to do poorly and be boring and non-engage. And once I kind of got past that,

me versus them sort of thing. And I realized we were all in this together. We all wanted a positive experience. It just kind of changed the wiring in my brain.

Anthony Codispoti (05:11)
Fascinating that was what was it for you. It wasn’t like one of those old like picture people in their underwear kind of a thing It was hey, we’re all in this together that they were on the same side

Tom Salemi (05:13)
Yeah.

No, no, never, yeah. And I believe that’s,

I believe that’s true. And I don’t know, I don’t remember like the exact moment. Like I wasn’t like lightning came from the sky or the sun, the clouds parted and the sun shone down on me. But I just remember at some point, like, what am I, like, what am I worried about? Cause maybe I just, I’m, imagine myself in the audience and I’m like, well, I wouldn’t want me to fail. I’d want me to really kick butt and really do well. So that started to change things.

Anthony Codispoti (05:41)
Nice. Okay, so you tried out journalism, there were parts of it that you were really good at and you loved. You didn’t want to be in that position where you were blowing this big expose, putting people into compromising situations, uncomfortable situations. That just wasn’t something you wanted to do.

Tom Salemi (06:01)
Yeah, that was that. And also my girlfriend, then fiance, then wife also was tired of me covering like weird night meetings and not being around when I, and I was like, you know what, this is too much, too many reasons not to do this. So I moved into business journalism, which seemed a little more civilized. And frankly, there’s some parts of journalism, some stories you have to cover that you just don’t want to cover. ⁓ So it was, it.

It was easy to move out of newspapers, out of like daily newspapers. I did though, have a really strong part of my identity tied to newspaper journalism. When I left that, I was in crisis for like a year or so, because it just, I really felt like that’s who I was. So that separation ⁓ took a while for me to work through and I’m glad I did.

Anthony Codispoti (06:47)
I want to actually hear more about that if you don’t mind, because there are so many people that go through this identity crisis that you’re talking about, but not many people actually discuss it. And so when, and I’ve been through it myself, and I remember going through it the first time and thinking, what’s wrong with me? Why am I so broken? Like, why is this so hard for me to get from here to there in my life? What did you kind of learn about yourself through that process?

Tom Salemi (06:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So I think journalists really do see themselves as like the only truth seekers in the world. they’re the ones out there like fighting the fight. And it’s a very binary sort of view of the world. And I see that even now with people I know in journalism. Obviously they’re my age now and they’re more mature. But back then in the 20s, it was like you were selling out if you were not in newspapers anymore. ⁓

Definitely had a strong identity to newspapers. I really felt like I was doing good in the world. And when I went and joined a newsletter that was centered around venture capital investment in ⁓ healthcare startups, was like, who am I? You know, the old journalism adages, you want to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Like you want to go after the, and here I was basically comforting the comfortable, comforting the VCs to give them insights.

on things they can invest in and ultimately make money in. What I think worked for me, and the newspaper thing, it took me a while to work through. think what ultimately maybe saved me or at least quickened my transition was it was MedTech and it was biotech. And they were investing in companies that were going to make people better and help people fight disease and get people healthier. So I think I was able to transfer, and I’ve never really caught this before, but transfer that sense of mission.

to the things that they were investing in. And I still hold dear to that. ⁓ That drives me every morning.

Anthony Codispoti (08:46)
this identity crisis that you were having and this feeling of perhaps selling out, was that just a story you were telling yourself or were you blowback from the folks that you worked with before?

Tom Salemi (08:57)
Uh, mostly myself. mean, my friends in newspapers, a couple of them would be like, Oh, you’re, you you’re going after the big salary. probably make like made enough. Maybe I made 30 % more, but I wasn’t making much in the newspapers. So, uh, newspaper shame on them. They’re not paying folks enough for what they do. Uh, but it was mostly internal. Uh, and once I worked through it, all my friends who were newspapers were still great friends. Like there’s no, there’s no difference there. And it feels silly remembering it and silly or talking about it, but it was a very real deal. My wife was tired of me talking.

did I make the right move? ⁓ she’s like, my God, just leave it alone.

Anthony Codispoti (09:33)
Well, and it’s good that she was there to support you up to a certain extent. And then at some point, she’s like kind of kicking you out of the nest. Like, all right, enough of this, right?

Tom Salemi (09:36)
Yeah, she was. She was great.

She let me stay in the house, but she certainly would just listen quietly as opposed to give me a there there.

Anthony Codispoti (09:49)
And so that first ⁓ step that you took kind of away from traditional journalism, what company was that? What role?

Tom Salemi (09:56)
So it was a newsletter, it was printed newsletter mailed every once a month called Venture Capital and Healthcare. And it was 1998. All of my other friends, those that did others left newspapers, but they all went to the dot com stuff where they made a lot of money and a lot of trips to Vegas. I went to medical devices, which was starting to sag at the time, which was typical of me. I’m always a contrarian. But it was very much, I had a Word document with a bunch of phone numbers and I would call Venture Capitalists.

once a month and just say, what are you investing in? What are you investing in? So was very much old school reporting journalism trying to dig stuff up. ⁓ And yeah, it was just a monthly printed newsletter that we would have a digest of investments and then a few articles sort of looking at broader trends.

Anthony Codispoti (10:42)
And these venture capitalists, were mostly willing to take your call somewhat.

Tom Salemi (10:47)
Surprisingly, I’d say,

I mean, they want, their focus is every VC wants to be the first call. They want to get the first call. When a company’s raising money, they want to be the first entity that’s called because if it’s a really good deal, they want to grab it. They don’t want to be the third or fourth because by that time someone else has already passed on it or it’s gotten so much attention that they’re going to be paying more. So by talking to me, they got their name out there and they were, they put themselves forth as someone who

invest in this area. There were some who didn’t care much about that. They were going to make money, whether I talked to them or not. And they were a little prickly, but I I respect that as well.

Anthony Codispoti (11:27)
⁓ Some of those folks you were calling on back in the late 90s, you still have relationships with them today?

Tom Salemi (11:33)
I do. mean, a few of them, they’re all probably 20 years old in me, so they’re mostly retired at this point. But if I ran into some of them, I would, and I do on occasion, it’s a good feeling. And it’s interesting now being, so I was calling them when I would have been probably in my late twenties and they were probably in their forties. So they had kids, I didn’t have kids. Like I was the young person in the dynamic. Now when I’m talking to VCs and CEOs, I’m either the same age or unfortunately slightly older.

So it’s easier to engage with them. have a lot more things to talk about, but when I was starting out, it was really hard for me to build relationships with people who, you know, there went to Stanford or they’ve got a few houses or they’ve got kids or ski trips and all this stuff. ⁓ So, but they, I think respected what I did and how I reported things and that it was always fair. So we built some good relationships.

Anthony Codispoti (12:27)
Hmm. You know, so you’ve been in this a long time. ⁓ So, you know, kind of mid to late 90s. ⁓ Geez, man, I’ve got like three questions in my brain that I want to ask at the same time. I kind of want to better understand from your perspective how this arc overall has changed in the media space, right? You used to call these folks it was a printed newsletter. No doubt if it still exists, it went online.

Tom Salemi (12:31)
I know.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (12:55)
⁓ You know, now you’re doing ⁓ podcasts and you’re conferences. Kind of step us through like a little bit of this timeline and how things unfolded.

Tom Salemi (13:05)
Well, that’s a big question. yeah, no, things definitely have changed. mean, now everything is a press release for every news, every financing is a press release. So you have to wait for that to come out. Whereas before there wasn’t that sort of demand. wasn’t that news generating industry. There certainly wasn’t the internet with all of, well, I mean, it was just starting to emerge, but not to the degree it is today. We don’t see as much with printed news stories anymore. Things are online.

But things are also changing for online. mean, now we’re at a point where just talking about the printed or the written word, you’ve got companies that are out there that put news on websites and they count on folks to click on their websites to generate business. Well, now people are going to chat GPT and they’re getting like a sentence summary of what’s on that. And maybe half of them click on the article, maybe half of them don’t. So this industry is always changing. People are always trying to

It’s like water, they’re trying to find the least resistance to news. So I’ve just seen this sort of cumbersome process become easier and easier and easier for folks, especially in the business world where efficiency and being up to date is important. So it has changed a great deal. I wouldn’t go out with a monthly printed newsletter today. ⁓ I probably wouldn’t put together a website either. ⁓

The question of what’s next is always interesting because media continues to evolve.

Anthony Codispoti (14:38)
where do you think it’s going next? mean, because this is fascinating, right? Like, you know, I used to get newspapers delivered to our front door, newspapers are failing or really struggling. The ones that are still around obviously have some combo of print and online. You know, now the online versions are starting to suffer for exactly the reason that you talked about because AI, chat, GPT, Gemini, etc. They’re making it so easy to get the little snippet of information that you want.

Tom Salemi (14:45)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (15:07)
you’re not clicking through to their website, which means that those ads aren’t getting triggered. So how do journalists stay alive in this next iteration?

Tom Salemi (15:16)
That’s a fantastic question. And I don’t have the answer. I’m, I’m snickering on the inside because my friend, ⁓ who’s still in newspapers, actually he’s a photographer for Associated Press. sent me a photo today of him and his new dog, but it’s a photo of him and the dog in his lap. And my friend is holding a printed newspaper and I’m just like, what is that in your hand? I’m like, you’re actually have a printed newspaper delivered to you. How’s it? It really seemed, ⁓ really seemed out of, out of time. So I think, I think people are looking for.

Anthony Codispoti (15:33)
I don’t think you actually have a free…

Tom Salemi (15:46)
Again, the easiest way to get information. think that’s why podcasts are growing and evolving and being in playing a big part of that role. ⁓ know, unfortunately I think TikTok and is if you talk more national news plays a big role in that as well. And that’s an area I haven’t tapped into, but it just, you just have to find a way either to make things super easy for people to get like the bare facts of information, you know, or you need to have really.

You need to become a trusted brand. And that’s where a lot of these podcasters have really gained ⁓ recognition as new sources because the folks listening just kind of trust that podcaster’s perspective on the world. And I haven’t, I don’t listen to a lot of those podcasts. ⁓ And I don’t really know if we’re going fire field. don’t really know if if I want a podcast to be sort of a podcaster to be the curator of

right or wrong or bias or not or perspective. I don’t think folks should just step within their own bubble to become informed. Although I probably do some of that as well. But it’s with all that’s going on and I know I’m rambling between podcasts and video and TikTok and I guess even websites and chat GPT going to that. There’s just, there’s so much soup, so many ingredients in the soup. don’t know what it’s gonna taste like when it’s over and I don’t know if it’s ever over.

One of the things in medtech we talk about that’s a rising area are brain computer interfaces, which is like Neuralink. Elon Musk is sort of the highest profile of them, but there’s a whole class of them where you get an implant in your brain and it can help a folk, someone who’s paralyzed walk or use a computer or someone who’s blind will help them see ultimately. We’re not there yet, but you know, does this get become plugged into your phone and your newsfeed and what about the meta glasses and what about everything else? I mean, it’s,

an exciting slash scary time out there.

Anthony Codispoti (17:48)
So when was your first introduction to the podcasting?

Tom Salemi (17:52)
I, no, it’s fine. No. I, about a little over 10 years ago, I was kind of getting wary of, I was writing for a magazine and it was, you know, writing long articles and it was still by Met Tech. So I enjoyed it, but I really was kind of getting a little tired of writing. And I also was getting tired of just being just quote unquote, being a writer. Like I wanted to be a little more engaged with things. So I, ⁓ ultimately, and, ⁓ I mean, actually

Anthony Codispoti (17:56)
on the production side.

Tom Salemi (18:22)
It was one of those situations where my kids were probably maybe like eight and five or nine and six or something like that. So you got the kids at home, you can pick them up at school. Life is comfortable. You’ve got the, you don’t want to change anything and disrupt that. But I was, I wanted to do something different. So I got laid off from my writing job, company that acquired us and I won’t get into it. Just laid all the writers off. They’re like, ⁓ we bought you because we love your coverage, but.

We don’t need you to do it. We’re going to just do it without you with freelancers.” And I was obviously upset for two days, not deeply, but I was a little annoyed like, how do you get rid of me? But it was the greatest thing that happened because it gave me a chance to reset. So I moved into, I kind of did contracting for a while, started doing conferences and then the podcast sort of became an opportunity to market our conferences and kind of build.

Anthony Codispoti (19:02)
I’m good.

Tom Salemi (19:19)
regular content and around around these events that only happened two or three times a year. ⁓ and that’s how I got into doing interviews. if my first one was called the OIS podcast, the ophthalmology innovation summit podcast. And if when I listened to it, I laughed cause I was terrible at it. was just like, and I remember I was also doing some video stuff and I had the company and I’m sorry to go on, but the company was down in Long Island and I was up in Boston. I would have to drive down and spend a couple of days to record video and first time I’ve ever had, know. We’d all do it now. We all stare into this camera.

And we’re fine with it. But when you had it, they didn’t do it before. And you’re trying to say things and you’re staring at the camera, there’s someone behind the camera recording it. was, I was rocky to start with to the point where the cameraman like went to the CEO’s office and was like, ⁓ I don’t, don’t think this guy’s going to work out. I’m like, you told him that like, come on, give me a chance here. But it was a, it was a time, it was very freeing time. so for me, that’s how I got into podcasts as sort of a marketing tool for an event. And.

It’s grown from there to now I just see it as a really, I think, powerful form of media.

Anthony Codispoti (20:22)
So when you first got into it, are we talking about the role at WTWH, the media company you’re with now? This was a prior stop. OK. So how did the opportunity to join WTWH Media, the parent company of Device Talks, how did that come about?

Tom Salemi (20:28)
No, this was before. This was prior stop.

So I was with that company that I referenced. They ultimately sold their events that I was working on to another company that was just a very nice people, but it was just a very large conference company. And I like a smaller company. So this opportunity for Device Talks came around. And so this was, had been November 2019. I, number one,

I wanted to move into sort of a bigger role, a role where I had more influence. I wasn’t just a cog in a machine, but also I wanted to really focus on just medical devices. This other company wanted me to create all these innovation summits around all these other industries like batteries and things like that, which I think is a great idea, but I’m really just a med tech guy.

Anthony Codispoti (21:19)
Sorry, and when you say create,

like innovation summits, they also want you organizing the live events.

Tom Salemi (21:24)
Yes. Yeah. So I was doing some of that with this other company. was more assisting with that. So I wasn’t just doing podcasts. It was just a small part of what I was doing. My job job was creating events. ⁓ So we did one every year in med tech, did some in respiratory. I helped with the ophthalmology one. didn’t organize that one myself. ⁓ So it was very much a conference creation business with a podcast as a marketing tool. When it came to WTWH, it would have been very much

podcast, I’m sorry, conference organization, organizing role. was the editorial director of three, the three device talks podcasts. And that was November, 2019, March, 2020, obviously the world shut down. So we were canceling our events. No one knew when we’d get back. I think we had an event in June that we canceled and then we’re like, well, maybe the one September will still happen. This was in March. And I just knew like, I just can’t sit around and do nothing.

Uh, so I immediately launched this podcast. called my coworker who I just started working with. He’s the editor of mass device. And I said, we’re doing a podcast. Let’s start doing a podcast. He was like, okay, great. So we started this device talks week podcast in March, 2020, just to initially we were just talking about the news and then we started bringing guests on and then, uh, and then it grew from there.

Anthony Codispoti (22:46)
⁓ Okay, so how many podcasts are we up to today?

Tom Salemi (22:52)
Active, so podcasts, we’ve got the number you mentioned there in our portfolio on our website if you go there. ⁓ We’re currently producing, I still do the weekly one that I started in March 2020. And we have ⁓ some focused on a few medical device companies and one focused on women in the medical device industry. So probably four or five active. And then we have a library of some, we would work with a medical device company to build a podcast with their name on it.

And it would work, it would be great for a year or two and then eventually they’d be like, you know what, think we got what we needed out of this. So we still have them on our website. You can still go listen to them, but we’re not producing new episodes from those series.

Anthony Codispoti (23:31)
So when you work with a company to produce this in conjunction with them to kind of talk about the things that they’re working on, they’re paying you some kind of a fee to do this.

Tom Salemi (23:41)
Actually not. the ⁓ code that we cracked was the larger medical advice companies didn’t really want to pay for these podcasts. And frankly, I didn’t really want them to because we wanted to have, I didn’t want when they pay, you need to send them the audio and they need to review everything. And I get it. You know, they’re paying for it. They want to make sure it’s perfect. This was kind of a journalism vehicle. So

What they would do is they would do the work to get the speakers that we wanted to get. ⁓ What we were able to do though, there are contract manufacturers, there are design shops, there are others who want to work with these large medical device companies and they want to find a way to get out in front of these medical device companies and to get their names known to these larger medical device companies. So they would sponsor each episode. Each episode would have a single sponsor. And with our first, actually the first one we did was with Medtronic. ⁓

And it was great because Medtronic, they gave us the leader of each of their different, they had 20 different businesses and these smaller entities all had different interests. One wanted to be cardiology, one wanted to focus on spine and they could sponsor the episode that was most directly appealing to their business. And it was a great model that others, and this has been interesting.

It’s getting the sponsorship for the podcast was difficult at the start. But once we got one right, Medtronic was working really well. Then the other device companies start coming to you and saying, well, why don’t you do one for us? I’d be happy to. Here’s what we do. And that’s how we worked with a lot of these other companies. It just takes one success story to kind of get everyone else behind an idea.

Anthony Codispoti (25:21)
So let me see if I’m understanding this, because

I thought you were saying that they weren’t paying for the episode, but they they respond.

Tom Salemi (25:29)
The

big companies are not the smaller suppliers that want to do business with those big companies are. I’m sorry if I’m not articulating. this was again during Medtronic was not paying for us, but they were paying us, but they were making their senior leaders available, which is a huge contribution. It kind of an in-kind ⁓ sponsorship. But the actual sponsorship dollars came from smaller companies that want to make Medtronic’s products because these larger OEMs

Anthony Codispoti (25:35)
⁓ got it. Okay. Medtronic wasn’t sponsoring.

Tom Salemi (25:58)
will often outsource work to these smaller companies. this is a way for these smaller companies to get out in front of the larger companies. For the most part, yeah, we’ve done a few custom podcasts where the big companies have paid us, but most of ours are still very much, I’d say 99 % of our sponsors are still the smaller suppliers who also sponsor our conferences, who also want to put on webinars. it’s another product in our portfolio that we can offer them.

Anthony Codispoti (26:04)
And is that still the model today?

Okay. And so when we talk about having all these different podcasts, if I were to look up on Spotify, just to pick a platform at random, am I seeing a dozen different separate ⁓ podcast names? Or are these all sort of subsets of the same thing? I don’t know if my question is making sense. Like

Tom Salemi (26:50)
We said, no, it does.

Yep. You would, I’m not sure how Spotify organizes it. We do, you are able to subscribe to our individual podcasts on our new podcast platform that we rolled out last year. But initially we were sending everything out through one ⁓ podcast channel, the Device Talks Podcast Network. So on Fridays we would send out the weekly and then on Tuesday we would send out one of the specialty podcasts.

but they’re all medical advice oriented. So I didn’t really see it.

Anthony Codispoti (27:22)
So if I want to hear

all of your podcasts, do I need to subscribe to multiple different podcasts or all the interviews?

Tom Salemi (27:28)
No, you could

just subscribe to the Device Talks Podcast Network and they’ll all go through that.

Anthony Codispoti (27:31)
Okay. Okay.

Okay, that helps me frame it in my head. Okay. So the podcasts are making money, right? Because you get to interview, you know, top leaders in the space, you’re helping them tell their stories. And then the smaller suppliers that want to work with them are sponsoring those episodes to chance to get their name heard. And then you also do these live events. Tell us about that.

Tom Salemi (27:39)
Mm-hmm.

That’s right.

So yeah, the live events were the legacy business that I got hired to do. So we have Device Talks Boston, Device Talks Minnesota, and Device Talks West, which takes place in California. And they all are centered around ⁓ designing and manufacturing and commercializing medical devices. we have ⁓ company, have, we’ll invite leaders from the big OEMs, the larger medical device companies to come and present and talk about their products. And then we’ll also, ⁓

have sponsors who are designers and engineer shops give presentations as well. So ⁓ it’s an extension of our conversations from the podcast where we’re talking about different ways to make metal devices.

Anthony Codispoti (28:41)
Okay, so what actually goes on at these conferences and like give me an idea of the size? Is it like 50 people kind of hanging out around a couple of tables? Is it like a trade show?

Tom Salemi (28:52)
We’ve got a bit of a trade show element to it. So in Boston, we’ll have over a thousand people at the Boston Convention Center ⁓ that will be there. We’ve got an expo floor with boots and things like that. And that’s happening May 27th to 28th next year. I’ll just give a little plug. ⁓ we’ll have upstairs in the session rooms, we’ll have ⁓ probably four or five sessions going on and some keynotes, including sit downs with some of the larger CEOs or CEOs of larger companies in the industry. So I’ll do those interviews.

And then in the morning and at the end of the day and then in between, we’ll have five sessions going on talking about different parts of device development.

Anthony Codispoti (29:32)
How long has had these live events existed?

Tom Salemi (29:37)
So Mass Device is the news organization that was started and they launched Device Talks, their meetings, I think 2012 or so was before I came on here. Initially, they were just sort of a dinner in one interview sort of thing and they evolved into what they are today. ⁓ Actually, post pandemic. So when I joined, there were slightly smaller two track discussions prior to…

2019 or prior to my joining. And then when the pandemic hit, we had that two year lull. The podcast really sort of helped me.

We’ll make connections with a lot of the comms groups, the communication groups at these companies also helped me sort of see how the conference could be expanded. So when we launched Device Talks Boston, that was the first one we did in 2022, we had the four tracks going on and it was a much bigger event. trying to remember how many folks we had at that one, but I think it was six or 800 at that one. I think that had been the largest Device Talks that we’d had at that point. If not the largest, it was…

very close to tying the largest of China members. ⁓ So that’s how it sort of evolved. Once I had the two years to kind of explore what it could be during the pandemic, we were able to reset and really kind of make it larger. It was also, I think, the first or second year we moved to the larger convention center, which makes those bigger meetings ⁓ more necessary. But we did.

We did wait a few years to relaunch Device Talks Minnesota. We actually just brought that back last year. And that’s actually a smaller event. That was 300 people in Minnesota ⁓ at a really cool site at the University of Minnesota. ⁓ Still multiple tracks, but it was more of an intimate conference. wasn’t an expo floor. And then West is kind of a combination of the two.

Anthony Codispoti (31:32)
And

And so now that you’re doing these bigger events, you’re doing all these podcasts, interviews, how does your thought process in terms of relationship building compared to back in 98, you know, when you have this spreadsheet of folks that you were just calling every day.

Is it pretty much a similar process or?

Tom Salemi (32:01)
Well, because I deal now with a lot of larger companies now and most of my initial communication will go through them. I will know some of the speakers myself and I may reach out to them on LinkedIn and say, Jesse, I’d love to have you speak at this meeting. I’m to go through comms to let them know. So it’s definitely more formalized than it was. Everything is more formalized than it was. As I said before, we didn’t have press releases coming out back then, at least not to the extent that we do now. So it is much more managed now.

⁓ in terms of getting speakers and sort of developing ideas and conversations, which…

I mean, it is what it is. I don’t know if it’s better or it’s worse, but it is what it is. We’ll leave it at that.

Anthony Codispoti (32:47)
All right, I’ll read between the lines there. So you guys are at the point now where you’ve got over a million plays across all your podcast episodes. How have you grown that? What are some key strategies, growth levers?

Tom Salemi (32:49)
Hahaha

Yeah.

So for the sponsorship side, I’ll just focus. I have found with podcasts that.

It’s really important to be very specific in what you’re speaking to when you’re trying to sell a B2B podcast. There was very little interest and maybe that’s evolved over last four years, but in a broader medtech podcast, what people really like to assign to is a certain technology or a certain company. So growing the sponsorship side of things really required us to think about different areas that we could focus on. ⁓

make the podcast interesting enough to everybody, specialized enough that it focused on sponsors. In terms of growth for ⁓ listeners, really feel like, well, the host certainly is a part of it. ⁓ People do ask me, what does it take to, what’s the secret to running a good podcast? And I mean, you really need to be good at sort of an…

talking with people and engaging people and being curious and asking great questions. think a lot of podcasts out there that are put on by folks ⁓ who are trying to use it as a business development tool, I hear them talking as much as their guests are talking. And I don’t think that’s the role of the podcast. And you are not doing that. You’re actually just asking questions and stepping out of the way, which is what I try to do as well. So I think that’s a great part of it. ⁓

But I have found, and I’m sure I’d love to get your take on it as well, a lot of the growth can just come from the one or two right guests. Like you get one guest who just like puts on LinkedIn, hey, I was in this podcast and either everyone listens, which is great. And it does happen, or at least they get a lot of attention on LinkedIn and a lot of thumbs up and whatnot. And it just really expands and you have enough of those little wildfire moments and eventually it builds and builds and builds.

And I think once you sort of get someone, get a listener who enjoys the show, you know, they’re going to, they may not listen to every episode, but they’re going to keep their eye out. And when there’s something that connects with them, they’re coming back. I think they learn to trust your brand and learn to trust how you will do an interview and know that when they go back, they’re, they’re, they’re going to spend their time. Well, they’re going to spend the 30 minutes. Well, they’re not going to click on something. I have a hard time listening to new podcasts like, like in.

Like just cold, pushing a podcast because I’m like, got 30 minutes. want this to be, I don’t want to waste 30 minutes getting like frustrated because they’re not editing out the ums and ahs or there’s too many deep breaths or they’re just missing obvious questions to ask. So I think once you get a relationship with a, with a listener, ⁓ it can, ⁓ it can really, you can build from there.

Anthony Codispoti (35:50)
Yeah, I found something similar, right? When you’re you’ve got a guest who’s got a big following themselves, and they’re going to promote it to their list, their group. Yeah, that brings in a whole influx of folks. And you’re right, a certain percentage of those folks are gonna be like, I like this style. And they stick around.

Tom Salemi (35:56)
Ahem.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (36:08)
From your perspective, how do you think about that storytelling part of the process? How are you trying to help your guests bring out their story the best way?

Tom Salemi (36:19)
I always like to spend the first third of a conversation talking about the guest and really understanding, and I know this is important to you as well, understanding the path they took and the reason they took that right-hand turn instead of that left-hand turn and really try to unpack who they are. I mean, we all have the medtech element. My first question to every guest is why did you get into medtech? Like, what was the one thing? Everyone has, some people would just be like, I walked by this.

parking lot with a lot of nice cars. And I said, whose cars are those? Those are usually the sales guys. And like, want to do that. But some of them are my parents were doctors or my mom was sick or I had a friend who died. There’s a lot of those stories in vet tech and I always try to.

I really respect folks in this industry a great deal because they could be doing what they do somewhere else and probably making more money doing it. ⁓ But I really want to unpack the why. And then I want to understand why folks make these decisions in their life. And one of my favorite moments was with Boston, Boston Scientific’s CEO, Mike Mahoney, who’s one of the most well-regarded CEOs in the industry.

He was at Johnson & Johnson MedTech, very big company, head of their medtech group, very established company at the time. Boston Scientific was really struggling. And he was being recruited for the CEO job of Boston Scientific. So he’d have to leave this well-established company to go to the struggling company. And people thought he was nuts. You’re like, you’re in the leader. Why would you do this? And he told this story at the Vice Talks Boston a couple of years ago.

You know, he hired a consultant to really like review both options and the consultant was basically came back and said, no way, like don’t take this job at Boston scientific. You’re you’re fine. Where you are. And he was prepared to say no. And he was talking and these are the moments I love. Like he’s talking on stage. He’s like, I can’t believe I’m telling this story, but I went, he’s like, I went into the bathroom and I looked in the mirror and I said, all right, it’s Monday. It was a Saturday. He’s like on Monday, you look at yourself and you turn this down. Like, how do you feel? And he said, I’ll regret it. So he went, he took the job.

And now he and Boston Scientific are regarded as one of the better, if not the best medical advice companies out there. Like I love those moments because just like you alluded to earlier, we all have these moments where we feel unsure and vulnerable. I think a lot of people go through life thinking those folks in those senior positions have it all figured out and every decision is easy and they’re always sure of what they’re going to do. That is not true. Like we’re all flawed and we’re all uncertain and we’re all just

Anthony Codispoti (39:03)
making it up as we go along.

Tom Salemi (39:04)
making it up as

we go along. it really, think if I can bring, and I think people like to, I think even the people and the leaders like to tell that story. I think they like to share that little piece of humanity. So I always try to pull that out of folks if I can. And some people are open to doing it, some people aren’t. And you gotta kinda, and I’m sure you’ve picked up this too, you gotta know when people are live wires and when they’re not.

Anthony Codispoti (39:27)
Yeah. I love that you shared that. I had a guest and I’m going to sort of butcher the succinct way that they put it, but something very similar where they were in a fork in the road and their career and they had to decide, you know, right or left and how they made the decision was to say, which decision when I look back on it in a year, will I be most proud of?

Tom Salemi (39:53)
Yep, that’s a point. Yep. That’s.

Anthony Codispoti (39:56)
Like,

which of those people will I look back and be like, I’m glad I was that person, right?

Tom Salemi (40:01)
Yeah,

that’s another great way to look at it. And I tell that to my kids, the whole coin flip thing. When they’re unsure, I’m like, well, imagine a coin flip. Heads is this, tails is that. What do want it to be? And they’re always like, well, heads. I’m like, well, then do heads. There you go.

Anthony Codispoti (40:13)
There you go.

Now, I’m curious in your role, whether it’s with the podcast or with the live events and the panels, discussions that you’re leading, etc. Have there been times where you feel you played like a key role in helping to bring together the right conversations at the right time in making a breakthrough happen in med tech?

Tom Salemi (40:40)
that’s a great question. don’t know if I could claim that. Maybe it’s out there, but it’s not coming to mind. But I’ve had moments where on a more personal scale. ⁓ This is last year. So after every conference, we record a live podcast. We get up on stage and me and the editors, we’ll bring one or two speakers on, and we kind of unpack the two days. And then we take questions from the audience, and we’ll run it the next day as a podcast.

At Device Talks Boston last year, ⁓ a woman stood up and she said, I can’t recall her name, ⁓ but she’s from Florida. She came up to Boston because she’s interested in leaving banking and joining MedTech. So one of our panelists who was an executive recruiter asked, well, why do you want to do that? And she shared a very similar story. My mom has been sick. She’s been in the hospital. I’ve seen these mental device folks there and I really feel like I want to do that.

It was one of those kind of affirming, this is, we’re, we’re in a good industry. You know, we’re drawing people to this industry. What I found out six months later at Device Talks West was someone else in the audience went up to her after and said, I, I had of sales at this medical device company. Like, why don’t we have a conversation? And he ultimately ended up hiring her and brought her into the medical device industry because she stood up and asked her question at a stupid podcast recording that I did at one of my dumb conferences. Like this woman’s life, her,

her dream of a career change has happened. So if I know about this one, I’m almost sure there’s probably five I don’t know about, if not more. And if I can change the world one person at a time that way, I’m fine with that. I mean, I don’t need to help anyone cure cancer, but if I can make a lot of people happier, that’s great. Hundreds, I can’t remember. Yeah, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (42:27)
Of course, of course you have. mean, how many podcasts have you recorded? Hundreds? Yeah. And how

many times has there been a listener there, like heard somebody talking and they just reached out to them on their own and you would have you would have never known? Yeah. No, that’s great. ⁓ Where do we go next here? ⁓ We have. Why don’t we do the big serious challenge here, Tom? Because I think that’s where a lot of growth happens for people.

Tom Salemi (42:39)
I hope so. Yeah, I hope so.

Covered a lot.

Anthony Codispoti (42:57)
We don’t often talk about these really hard things that we go through. And so people just see like where you are now, quote unquote, top of the hill, everything came easy, know, Tom just had this path laid out for him. It was inevitable. And it’s like, no, there have been some really hard things that have shaped you along the way. What’s an example of one of those?

Tom Salemi (43:03)
Yeah.

That’s great. I mean, I think I cheated and mentioned a few of them already. mean, the move from journalism was big. ⁓ The pandemic was, you it just took this new job and then suddenly we can’t have meetings anymore. And you’re like, okay, I’ve just got to make this work. And I ended up creating ⁓ not only the MedTech, the podcast business, but our new webinar business that’s, we was just going to be a fill in until conferences came back and then the conferences came back and our sponsors like, no, we still want to do those. So, ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (43:21)
Okay.

Tom Salemi (43:47)
But for me, going back to being laid off at that time. ⁓

It’s the only time I’ve been laid off. uh, actually that’s such, I was laid off once when I was my first newspaper job, I got laid off, but I wanted to, I was working on a Cape cod. I wanted to be up in Boston. actually told him, I’m like, I’m 21 years old. I’m like, lay me out. Like you’ve got to let someone go, let someone go. I ended up getting laid off, then someone who was kept turned down the job. they laid me off, gave me the severance and gave me a new job anyway. So it was a real win for Tom on that day. That was great. I got to keep that job, but this time I was laid off. have kids, you know, I have the family and I still remember.

Sunday night, like knowing that I didn’t have a job to go to on Monday was just the weirdest feeling. ⁓

But I don’t know if I remember doing this consciously, but I really took it as like, this is not a moment to be ⁓ frightened, but I really, I felt unencumbered and free. Like the next, like, I was really grateful, not at the time, but in retrospect, I was really grateful that the universe said, no, like you need to change and you need to evolve. And I did. And I’m like, this is my chance to change and evolve. So I didn’t see it as a

something I needed to recover from. needed something, I saw it as something I needed to really use as a transformational moment. ⁓ I mean, career-wise, that was probably the pinnacle of my life, or one of the more important tipping points of my life.

Anthony Codispoti (45:16)
And you felt that way in the moment that, this is an opportunity for change, or you only realize that looking back.

Tom Salemi (45:21)
Yes.

I felt it at the moment. remember having, I was, there was certainly.

I was certainly frightened to some degree, but I did feel at the moment, not to be crass, but I remember having lunch with a friend and I would just, for a career of journalism where you’re not making a much, much money, I was like, I think I said, Tommy’s going to get paid. ⁓ like, ⁓ I got to find a way to use my, like I had, I recognize I had skills and I had marketing and marketability. or, or I was starting to see it. I was, would have been mid thirties. ⁓

Yeah, no, I was 40. I was 40-ish. My math skills are slipping. No, mid-30s, 40s. Anyway, I’d been working enough where I knew what I was capable of doing. ⁓ But I just knew at the time that I didn’t want to go just find a writing job somewhere. In fact, I actually was recruited by one company. It a very good company. The guy’s great.

We’re talking and he’s like, do you even want to do journalism anymore? And he was kind of like, and you know what? was like, you know what? I don’t think I do. Like, thanks for the question. And he was like, okay, like, well, good luck to you. I’m like, okay, great. Thank you very much. So it was definitely, I glad I used that time to really listen to.

Anthony Codispoti (46:32)
Thank you.

Tom Salemi (46:49)
the voice that told me you want to be something different. And I’m really happy with the way things turned out. I was fortunate with the podcasting. It wasn’t something I was thinking of doing actively. I’m fortunate that I’m good at it. I mean, I’ve always been a good interviewer, but I think I’m engaging enough with listeners that they like to listen. So I always encourage people when they’re let off, especially when you see on a LinkedIn like…

It’s the most trite thing you can say about like this really is an opportunity. I know it feels bad right now, but this really is an opportunity. And I’m glad I took that opportunity at the time. I feel like I’m rambling a bit about it, but.

Anthony Codispoti (47:28)
Yeah, I think people would probably find it really helpful to hear more about how you got through some of those like really sticky days, right? Where that because there’s one thing to look in the rear view mirror and be like, okay, now I’ve got a ton of gratitude for that. And I like you were aware enough in the moment to say, hey, like, this is an opportunity for me to change. But what wasn’t immediately clear to you is what that change needed to be. And I think that’s probably the sticky place where a lot of listeners are right now, you know.

Tom Salemi (47:36)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (47:57)
recording this the end of December 2025, the economy not great for everybody, know, some people looking for work. Like what what advice kind of looking back and thinking like where you were and how you got through sort of the day to day like what were some of the key things that you did that might be helpful advice for others?

Tom Salemi (48:17)
I ran a half marathon, I trained for a half marathon. ⁓ And I was not a big runner, I was only doing some 5Ks here and there, but I was like, all right, I’ve got time during the day, now’s the time to do it. And I’m glad I did that. But in terms of the work, things came together pretty quickly for me, so I’m grateful of that. But I do remember thinking actively, I’m gonna, every day I’m gonna meet with somebody, every day I’m gonna have a phone call, every day I’m gonna try to build, try to create an opportunity.

that maybe can grow into something in the future. So I was constantly out there and this isn’t a unique piece of advice, but you really need to reach out to your network. And I do believe, and I do tell my sons this all the time, like people do want to help when they can, like especially young people. Whenever someone in college reaching out to me on LinkedIn, you know, and if they want to meet with me, I meet with them. sure.

Like I can give you a half hour. We can talk. I think people do want to help. So I do encourage people to get out there and, ⁓ and try to have a lunch every day, try to have a coffee every day. ⁓ but the most important thing for me at that time was I didn’t rush and I really valued myself and, ⁓ even said no to a job offer that I would have traditionally said yes to because I was always just.

so quick to accept other people’s value of my abilities. ⁓ I learned to say no, which is a pretty powerful thing to say. Like when you say no, it’s not the end of a conversation. just sort of gives that person that you said no to an opportunity to really assess is how much they value. And if they want to come back with more than, then it’s a stronger relationship. Then, then it’s a strong relationship. So I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m giving any other piece of advice other than just listen, don’t, don’t act out of fear.

Anthony Codispoti (50:06)
I don’t know if I’m giving you any…

Tom Salemi (50:13)
Don’t just take a job to take a job and to really, if you can, even if it sets you back financially short-term, try to set yourself up for a long-term gain.

Anthony Codispoti (50:22)
Well, here’s what you just said, Tom, that I really liked. ⁓ Do something every day, right? A coffee, a lunch every day, get out there, talk to people, just expose yourself to more opportunities for doors to open. What I’d like to hear from you is how you think about developing and nurturing your network. So that in the event something like this happens,

Tom Salemi (50:28)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (50:51)
you’ve got some folks that you can reach out to.

Tom Salemi (50:54)
Mm-hmm.

It’s such a different… No, no.

Anthony Codispoti (50:58)
And maybe that’s the sorry, I’m just gonna sorry to cut you off. Maybe that’s the wrong

way to think about it. Like, I’m going to develop my network just in case somewhere down the road, I need to pull that string. Maybe that’s not quite the right phrasing. But I think you understand what I’m getting at.

Tom Salemi (51:09)
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying.

Yeah, no, and that’s not.

LinkedIn just changes everything now, right? mean, think we all see LinkedIn as now this, ⁓

as the primary way we’re networking. is a great way to network. And I love LinkedIn and I love getting out. And it’s a good forum for me too. People like my voice and they respond to what I write often, not always. ⁓ But what I found is more broadly on a personal level is just…

I do believe people pay it forward. do try to, again, be helpful to folks, not with the idea that I’m going to get payback someday, but I think it just sort of creates an energy around you that can propel you forward. And this is getting more metaphysical or quanta than I intended to, but I really do just look for reasons to say yes to people and to try to help people when I can. If it’s something

I’m not going to respond to every PR pitch I get from folks. I try to, but there’s too many of them now. And a lot of them are AI generated, which is a whole new headache. But if the folks reach out on LinkedIn and they need time to talk about something, if I can help them, I’ll tell them. If I can’t, can’t. If I can help them, I will. If I can’t, I’ll tell them I can’t, but I’ll also always make time for them and listen. So.

I think just be kind to people, be that person that folks can count on, and I think that helps you in the long run. And that sounds a little gobbly-gookish, but it’s what I feel.

Anthony Codispoti (52:40)
No, I’m going to

kind of sum up what I think I heard you say, give first and and be a kind human. But what a great way to live life in general.

Tom Salemi (52:46)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s,

I agree with you a hundred percent. Um, I just, I just believe in it and that’s why I like what I do. mean, I like knowing that people enjoy the podcast we put together. Uh, the, conferences are an absolute headache to put together, but the two days I’m there are like, you know, it’s like a wedding. Like you’re just, you can complain about it for six months and then you have the wedding and it’s the best day of your life.

⁓ having those conferences are great because you get to see all these people that you’ve been kind of emailing with for two, two, two or three months. And then you get to see all these people who you never met before or haven’t seen since the last conference. I love that stuff. I really do enjoy being at those conferences and, ⁓ and really do enjoy just making experiences for folks.

Anthony Codispoti (53:32)
So I know a big part of what’s behind device talks, you want to create this open platform where collaboration never stops. You’ve got the podcast, you’ve got the conferences. How do you kind of fill the gaps in making sure that that ⁓ collaboration never stops in between the podcasts and the live events?

Tom Salemi (53:53)
Yeah, no, mean, the webinars kind of help with that. For sure. We do those once a week. We’re expanding those as well. And I think just being on LinkedIn and sort of connecting with folks that way is the way to do it right now. But I’m sure five years from now, we’ll be talking about something else that, you know, just kind of came out of nowhere and we’re all thinking it was the most obvious thing ever. ⁓ But folks like to be engaged and I think.

I think there’s an unquenchable desire for that kind of connection. think folks with as technology becomes more and more personal and more and more accessible, I think we’re gonna find new ways to connect with people for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (54:36)
Say more about the webinars, Tom. What do you do there? How does that fit in?

Tom Salemi (54:39)
So the webinars are, they were designed, I mean, we launched them in 2020 to basically do our conferences online. I was never a big fan of at the time, a lot of folks were just saying, oh, we’ll just have our two day conference online and folks can sit at their computer for two days and it’ll be the same thing. And I was like, no one’s going to do that. Like there’s just, we have work to do number one. Number two, it’s just uncomfortable to sit there for that long listening to other people talk. So we built the, my whole thing was TV. Like every, every Tuesday at 4 PM, we’re having a webinar. We’re calling it Device Talks Tuesdays.

because I love alliteration, and we’re just going to sell slots and folks will have these conference conversations here. So we did that, and then it just has become a thing. And it is sort of appointment TV. If you look at our registrations, there’s a lot of people who are like, it’s kind of like a radio talk show. We take questions from the audience, and I often recognize people who have asked questions before. And it’s like, oh, hey, welcome back. I’m glad you’re here. But it’s just a way to.

There are opportunities for engineering firms and for manufacturing firms and others. And we’ll have medical device companies come in as well to tell their stories on a specific topic. And I’ll treat it almost like a talk show as much as they want me to. Like I can ask folks about anything for any length of time. Or if they want to give a straight presentation, they can. But usually it’s a presentation and then some conversation with me. And then we’ll take questions from the audience. But it is every week for the most part. And it’s just sort of a regular way to keep in touch with our community.

Anthony Codispoti (56:06)
Where do you see Device Talks, WTWH media going? What’s in the future here? Projects that are either currently underway or something that you’ve got your eye on?

Tom Salemi (56:20)
⁓ it’s, a great question. mean, we’re, I mean, we’ll, we’ll be, we’ll be doing our three conferences and now that we’ve got the third one back, those do take a lot of time. The webinars, ⁓ we’re, we’re continuing to sort of introduce themes around cardiac innovation or surgical robotics. Like we’re trying to really make it more week long events as opposed to just one single day. ⁓ and the podcasts.

We need to, we’re continuing to explore sort of new ways of getting ⁓ sponsors involved ⁓ that don’t, initially we started off, it was like a five to seven minute ad and it would just be, we’d ask them questions about their business. We’ve since sort of unfolded, unrolled, rolled out rather a something we call FOMO, the future of medical device opportunities or med tech opportunities where we’ll, we’ll talk with speakers at our conferences about.

for 10 minutes about something they’re working on. But we’ll also bring in our sponsors and ask them not about how they work with customers, but really what they’re doing for technology and how they see things moving forward. to really treat them as subject matter experts ⁓ as they are and really kind of elevating them. So the FOMO is one way. And with our Women in MedTech podcast, we’re actually getting our sponsors to, they’ll start the show as a co-host with Kayleen Brown, our managing editor who hosts that.

And they’ll actually talk for 10 minutes about not about the company, but about the topic, about the guests that Kayleen talks to. And Kayleen will talk to executives in MedTech and they’ll always have some sort of message that they want to impart. And Kayleen will unpack that message with the co-host. So we’re trying to find ways to make everyone feel like, you know, the star and the guests and make everyone feel, make everyone acknowledge everyone as the expert that they are. So.

That’s sort of what we’ve been working on right now is to just get more voices in our podcast.

Anthony Codispoti (58:23)
Are there podcasts that you learned from in terms of format presentation? Or is it kind of like you guys just you’ve got a bunch of folks internally that are really good at this and you just bounce ideas off each other.

Tom Salemi (58:37)
No, mean, the guys, Kayleen and I are device docs, we’re the podcast team. I’m growing more fond of sort of longer podcasts. And one in particular, I don’t know if you listen to the acquired podcasts where they’ll have podcasts that are like two or three hours where they just unpack a story of a company. Like, and it’s really more of, they call it a…

I forget exactly the term they use, but they see themselves as almost an audio book, kind of a current event audio book. So I think with podcasts, you can find a lot of different ways to tell different stories. So I’m constantly listening to what other people are doing. Every time I listen to a podcast, and I don’t know if you do the same thing, you kind of have in my head, oh, that worked, that didn’t work, I might want to try that. That’s a great way to do it. Oh, I love that. When you sent me your questions, I’m like…

I love the way he did that. Like maybe I’ll incorporate that going forward with my guests. Cause I always worry. I try to keep it very light with my guests and really I don’t give them too many details cause I want it to be conversational. But I also know that a lot of people haven’t done this before and they want some assurances. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I’m always learning and absorbing from other podcasts, including, including yours.

Anthony Codispoti (59:43)
Yeah, some people enjoy that prep.

What’s your superpower, Tom?

Tom Salemi (59:55)
⁓ wow. ⁓

I think I’ve got, reference at the top that I enjoy building community and I think that’s really what kind of drives me. I mean, I’m involved with town government and my town, when I was in newspapers, I would always, I swore to myself, like if I’m ever at a, if I ever own a house in a town, like I’m gonna, I’m gonna get involved. I’m gonna go to a meeting. I’m gonna listen. I’m gonna try to be part of it. I’ve always been the, the, the sucker who’s been the assistant coach for whatever sport that I’m terrible at, but.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:28)
you

Tom Salemi (1:00:29)
I’m great

at telling kids to like line up or don’t run off and change, change butterflies. So I like, I like making others, I like making other people feel welcome and involved. ⁓ if they’re guests at my house or if they’re guests at my conference, I like to make sure that they’re having a good time and I’m comfortable going up and saying hello to anybody. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:50)
What’s your favorite

thing to do outside of work?

Tom Salemi (1:00:54)
I’m a really simple person. I’m so boring. I really am. I’ve got, my boys are older now, so we don’t do as much anymore. love just, I live in a town where if I walk up the hill, I’m in the woods. I walk down the hill, I’m in our downtown and I just love having quiet weekends at home, taking two or three hour hikes either in the woods or through our downtown with my dog or with my wife and, ⁓ and just, just, I don’t know, just chilling. So I don’t have any great.

I don’t own a boat. I don’t ski very much. ⁓ I just like quiet contemplation, I guess.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:31)
And how old are your kids?

Tom Salemi (1:01:33)
I’ve got a 20 year old and a 16 year old. So I’ve got a junior in college and a sophomore in high school. Yeah. Yeah, very much so.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:39)
Okay, fun stuff.

⁓ Tom, I’ve just got one more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things. First, anybody wants to get in touch with Tom, his last name, S-A-L-E-M-I, Tom Slemy, and you can find him on LinkedIn. We’ll include a link to that in our show notes. ⁓ Also, as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that actually carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at adbackbenefits.com.

And finally, if you’ll pause, take just a moment to leave us a comment or a review on your favorite podcast app and you’ll hold a special place in my heart forever. Thank you. So last question for you, Tom, you and I reconnect a year from today and you’re celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating when you’re.

Tom Salemi (1:02:32)
Wow. I liked that question. I don’t know if that was on the list that you sent over, but I liked that question. ⁓ I want to, I hope by then I will figure it out what we just talked about a few minutes ago about the next thing. I want to be able to excitedly tell you like, all right, remember when I told you about the podcast and the webinars and the conferences, like this is, this is the thing that’s going to either supplant all those or really connect those all and make them relevant. So I’m always sort of.

pushing for the what’s next. I hope I have some semblance of an idea of what’s the next way of connecting folks. And it may be a podcast, it may be something completely different, but ⁓ I’ve watched too many things unfold to know that life remains the same. Like we’re always trying to find new ways of doing things. So I hope I figured out the new thing by then.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:22)
Fun stuff. Well, it’ll give us an opportunity to check back in with each other. ⁓ Tom Salemi from Device Talks. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Tom Salemi (1:03:25)
I look forward to it.

My pleasure. This has been a very fun conversation. We’ve recorded things I don’t think I’ve ever said to friends, so this will be exciting.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:41)
I take that as a compliment. Thank you, folks. That’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.