Podcasts

LISTEN TO THIS | Conference How To Tips

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I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a recap of my favorite tidbits, soundbites and short bursts of brilliance that I have to share with everyone who will listen. After digesting hours and hours of podcasts, here’s the best 9 minutes from this week.

ALL ARE ULTIMATELY COMPROMISED

BACK TO WORK | The Mayor of Perspective

One of the complaints of Back to Work is that Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin spend too much time on the front end of the show with irrelevant small talk. I actually think that’s the brilliance of this show. They’re tight buddies, and their weekly rambles make me feel like I’m part of that inner circle. And then out of nowhere comes a moment of clarity. This week’s best moment comes at 55:33 when Merlin compares comments from the DVD commentary on the show The Wire with the difficult choices we face at work when we have to enforce rules determined by someone else.

TWO KINDS OF EXPERIENCES: HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL

THE TOBOLOWSKY FILES | The Long Distance Relationship

Stephen Tobolowsky is an incredibly talented and hard-working character actor. He’s played multiple roles every year since the 70’s, but for me, I’ll always picture him first as the insurance salesman Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day. The Tobolowsky Files are short stories written and read by Tobolowsky from his own life. They are endearing, funny and thoughtful. The last couple of episodes have chronicled his decision to seize an opportunity to star in a Broadway production which required him to leave his family in California and live in New York during the run. To sample this podcast at its finest, jump in at 28:36 and listen to the tale of his farewell party.

VERY DIFFICULT TO START A CONVERSATION

MIKES ON MICS | Conference Conversation

Michael Schechter and Mike Vardy met online and started broadcasting Mikes on Mics before ever meeting face-to-face. This is the first episode they could physically clink their drinks when asked, “What are you drinking,” as they recorded the show while attending the World Domination Summit. If you plan on attending a conference within the next year, or if you need to convince someone that you should attend an upcoming conference, listen to the entire show. The Mikes cover several practical tips on how to select the right conference, create a pre-conference game plan, meet the right people at the conference, get the most out of the conference, and share your learning post-conference. At a minimum, make sure to catch the discussion at 6:15 where they share the benefits of connecting with people online prior to the conference. BONUS: they discuss the entire topic without saying the word “networking” once.

Podcast Test Drives (Hat tip on all three to Chris Gemignani):

Unsubscribing from:

THE BEERISTS - I would love to go drinking with this gang, but I’m not clicking with listening in on their discussion. I’m curious to better understand how I can feel included in the Back to Work private jokes, but not in the Beerist.

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What about you? What podcasts did you enjoy this week and what do you recommend? Leave your favorites in the comments below.

LISTEN TO THIS | Listener Remix

in

I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a recap of my favorite tidbits, soundbites and short bursts of brilliance that I have to share with everyone who will listen. After digesting hours and hours of podcasts, here’s the best 9 minutes from this week.

WE MUTUALLY PLEDGE

The Thomas Jefferson Hour - Fourth of July 2012 (Show 978)

I’ve only recently discovered the Thomas Jefferson Radio Hour (Hat tip: Patrick Ball), but it makes sense that they would do a special Fourth of July episode each year. I enjoyed listening to this year’s as Jefferson, played by Clay Jenkinson, talked about his perspective on the Declaration of Independence and the events surrounding it. The must-listen moment comes at 35:44 when Jefferson says, “Abigail Adams once asked why the British had invented liberty, but had lost their capacity to honor it.” He gives a surprising answer that would shock paleo enthusiasts, and right after that closes his interview with a dramatic reading of the last paragraph from the Declaration:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING CRACKERJACK?

Lexicon Valley #15: Then is Now, Now and Then

This witty (and nerdy) podcast about language usage is quickly becoming one of my favorites. It’s like the original Observation Papers that Dr. Herman Wilson had us write in Structural English Grammar. This week, they looked at the “historical present” tense - when someone describing the past switches from past tense to present tense. One of the examples they give is from Seinfeld, where Kramer recounts the story of taking control of the city bus to get his friend’s severed toe to the hospital (starts at 12:20 - I’ve listened to it 4–5 times and laughed more each time). The best point for writers comes at 26:54 when they quote Phillip Pullman critiquing the limited range of expressiveness with this technique.

WITH ALL THE EVENTS RESUFFLED IN TO A NEW ORDER

WNYC’S Radiolab: Radiolab Remix

Rabiolab did a clever contest by posting individual tracks of source material from previous shows and asking listeners to create remixed versions. They received 136 submissions, and in this show they play selections from winning edits and interview their creators. Judging by the listener comments, the grand prize winner is not for everyone. It’s different. Even the hosts couldn’t agree. Jad admired the work, but didn’t care for the broadway nature of the finished product, and Robert wanted his life to be composed in this manner. Love it or hate it, listening to this re-edit that took David Minnick over 60 hours to produce will give you a new perspective on the sound of language. If you’re short on time, skip the set up and jump to 3:05 to hear the winning remix.

Podcast Test Drives:

  • Blank on Blank is a project working with “journalists, interviewers, authors, documentarians, and publications” to take a second look at interviews that ended up on the cutting room floor. On Twitter, I asked, “Is it a good idea to resurface content that was edited out?” Blank on Blank answered “Yes” rather quickly. And I think they’re right for two reasons: they edit them beautifully in short bite-sized presentations and we can handle more information today because technology allows us to sort and search for more specific interests.
  • Twitter conversation with Blank on BlankI downloaded the new Apple Podcast app along with Stitcher, Downcast, and Pocket Cast. I’m going to test drive each over the next couple weeks. Which app do you prefer use for listening to podcasts?Podcast Apps

Unsubscribing from:

None this week. I’m on vacation for the next week, so I’m hopeful to increase my podcast consumption, and with testing driving a few new apps, I have to subscribe to something different in each of them.

OTHER PODCAST POSTS YOU MIGHT ENJOY:

What about you? What podcasts did you enjoy this week and what do you recommend? Leave your favorites in the comments below.

LISTEN TO THIS | Liar, Liar

in

I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a recap of my favorite tidbits, soundbites and short bursts of brilliance that I have to share with everyone who will listen. After digesting hours and hours of podcasts, here’s the best 9 minutes from this week.

PEOPLE SAY I’M GAGA OVER MERLIN

MAC POWER USERS | Workflows with Merlin Mann III

This episode is the third annual workflows interview with Merlin. The workflow episodes provide helpful examples of top producers and how they achieve and accomplish so much. I find myself asking a lot of people about their workflows and sometimes have to explain what I mean. Merlin does of nice of job of simply defining this silly word:

“Workflow is understanding your job, understanding your tools, and then not thinking about it any more.”

I picked up several tips for better utilizing my tools (for example, using location as a context in OmniFocus), and I think the 2-hour interview is worth every minute, but if you only have time for a quick snippet, skip to 1:32:01 and catch his comments on leaving a little of bit of capacity in your box.

LIAR, LIAR FIRST TIME CALLER

DAN PINK OFFICE HOURS | Dan Ariely

Dan Pink’s Office Hours is a new podcast for me. It’s an interview style podcast with big time authors and speakers. He broadcasts the show live old-school style, in that, to listen live, you dial in to a conference call where you have the opportunity to ask questions radio-talk-show like. It’s monthly making it an easy add to my subscriptions, and I’m eager to go back and listen to a few older ones.

This week, Dan’s guest was Dan Ariely, author of The Honest Truth About Dishonestly. He’s conducted some fascinating research about when, how, and why we lie and cheat. The section to catch comes at 32:54 when Ariely explains three reasons for moral deterioration: increased distance from money, greater awareness of how much other people are cheating, and more instances of feeling cheated.

BONUS: Check out Dan Ariely’s Conscience+ app. It takes the angel/devil approach to helping you justify many decisions.

KIDS WILL TAKE A CHANCE

TED RADIO HOUR | How do Schools Suffocate Creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson is a delight to listen to speak. He’s witty, charming, and a fantastic storyteller. We homeschool our children, and I’ve recently been pushing my youngest two to focus on punctuation. I’ve been meeting a little resistance, and at 5:48, when Robinson talks about whether literacy or creativity should come first, it was the perfect reminder that I need to ease up and let them keep writing away punctuation-free for now. Listen all the way through to his story about the little girl drawing God. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from his presentation that I used as a quotograph on ObservationPaper.com.

Sir Ken Robinson Quote from Observation Paper

Podcast Test Drives:

  • When I was trying to subscribe to Dan Pink’s Office Hours, I downloaded Office Hours produced by The Society Pages instead. Back in the 80s, we hosted a conference with the theme of “Let the Dreamers Wake the Nation” which is a line from the Carly Simon song Let the River Run that was featured in the movie Working Girl. Our keynote speaker tried to prep for the conference and thought watching the movie might give him some insight. He accidentally grabbed a different movie with a similar title - Working Girls. This Office Hours is also an interview show and has me curious enough that I plan to keep it around for a few more weeks.
  • I also test drove the app Downcast this week based on the recommendation from Tom Silk. You can increase the listening speed on Downcast to 3x (a little too fast for my taste). I’ve only listened to two shows on it so far, and I’ll continue to play with it this week. One big downside, no bookmarking feature which I use a lot for LISTEN TO THIS.

Unsubscribing from:

Science Friday. I enjoy the show, but I can’t give it two hours a week (even at double time). I’ll add the blog to my RSS feed and download any episodes that particularly catch my interest.

Other podcast posts you might enjoy:

What about you? What podcasts did you enjoy this week and what do you recommend? Leave your favorites in the comments below.