LISTEN TO THIS | Anti-Poetry Deflector Shields
I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a weekly recap my favorite tidbits, soundbites and short bursts of brilliance that I can’t help but share with anyone who will listen. This week, I digested over 12 hours of podcasts, and here’s the best 9 minutes from what I heard.
SO WHERE’S THE COHERENT VERSION OF THIS?
On Mac Power Users, David and Katie conducted a workflow interview with John Siracusa. At 2:37 in the podcast, John talks about the process of how he thinks things out in his podcast Hypercritical and compares it to the thinking exercise he goes through when writing a blog post. The two are very similar, but with podcasting he doesn’t have the opportunity or even the need to edit it down. He doesn’t say this directly, but the discussion is a perfect reminder that good writing takes lots, and lots, and lots of editing.
ANTI-POETRY DEFLECTOR SHIELDS
Next, check out the interview with Billy Collins on NPR’s TED Radio Hour. Billy’s exploration of the creative process is only twelve and half minutes long and quite stimulating, but if you’re short on time, start at 5:32 where he shares, “When you get a poem on a billboard or on the radio or on a cereal box or whatever, it happens to you so suddenly that you don’t have time to deploy your anti-poetry deflector shields that were installed in high school.” Billy’s presentation and interview reminded me of the incredible thought generating powers of poetry and the need to work a little more of it in my daily life.
“You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.”
~ John Adams
MY SORROWS COULD SWIM
Wow! Seriously, find an hour and listen to the WHAT HAPPENED AT DOS ERRES episode of This American Life because it chronicles the amazing story of one survivor of the 1982 Guatemalan military massacre of Dos Erres. WARNING it’s disturbing at times as it pieces together the events of the unthinkable genocide of an entire village, but if you can handle a deep emotional journey (yes, I cried), the payoff is well worth the trip. My favorite little nugget comes at 41:14 when an elder farmer reflects back to that day and explains how it led to him drinking.
When I posted this quote on Observation Paper, one of the most thoughtful guys I know, Joel Kidwell, shared that this is also a line in the U2 song Until the End of the World. Informal learning in action!
Podcasts Pickups:
After confessing my addiction to podcasting, my friend Ariadne came out and shared she suffers from a similar condition only she makes my 12 hours in a week look like chump change. So this week, I’m test driving a few of her recommendations:
- Tech News Today
- Get-It-Done Guy
- Stuff You Should Know,
What about you? What podcasts did you enjoy this week and what do you recommend at I should try? Leave your favorites in the comments below.
Confessions of a Podcast Junkie
One of my my most trusted curators is Michael Schechter of bettermess.com. He says I need to have an app; I get that app. He says I need to read a blog; I read that blog. And recently, he said I needed to listen to a podcast. Podcasts? That’s so 2008, that’s so 2000 and late. Sure, back in the day, I was a big books-on-tape listener and when podcasts first hit the scene, I was an early adopter and I listened to a few of them, but when YouTube came on the scene, audio-only media died for me.
But here’s the thing…
Audio podcasting didn’t die, it grew a lot stronger. The technology improved both on the recording side and the listening side. The topics became more specialized and defined. Many subject matter experts saw this as a great way to share their content and build communities. Today, there are many, many, many fantastic podcasts available.
In fact, awareness of podcasting has doubled since 2006, and so has the number of adults who have listened to a podcast (The Current State of Podcasting - Edison Research). I got distracted by other shiny objects and I missed the podcast evolution, and that was a BIG miss on my part because I am an information junkie and podcasts are an excellent way to consume information during other non-thinking activities:
- Driving in my car
- Walking the dog
- Washing dishes
- Waiting for a flight
Once I got my podcast workflow worked out, I found an extra 6–14 hours of content consumption a week. So excited! I started asking everyone, “So do you listen to any podcasts?” And while everyone seems to know what a podcast is, I am amazed at how few of my friends actually listen to them on a regular basis. Apparently, I’m not the only one who missed the evolution.
So, here is my attempt to evangelize the virtues of LISTENING TO PODCASTS by sharing my simple podcast workflow.
1. GET THE RIGHT TOOLS The major benefit of podcasts is they're mobile. According to Edison Research, “Two-thirds of podcast consumers have listened to digital audio files in their vehicles by connecting an iPod or other MP3 player to their car audio system.” Get an app for your phone that is easy and that you love to use. iTunes works well, but Instacast is my app of choice. I like the way it manages subscriptions and really appreciate the bookmarking feature on the pro version. Whatever tool you use, make sure you subscribe to the podcasts. Subscriptions make the habit effortless when episodes appear automatically.
Personally, I had to install an adapter for my 10-year-old car because it was not MP3 ready. A little bit a research, $75, and 3 hours of work on the weekend, and I was wired. Haven’t listened to my radio since.
2. RANK ORDER I subscribe to more podcasts than I can typically listen to within a week, so I rank order them for fast selection on which one to listen to next. I start at the top of the list and scan down until I find the first unplayed podcast. If one at the bottom starts to accumulate too many unplayed episodes, I unsubscribe. If I find myself skipping over one on the list to listen to something else, it moves down the list.
3. LISTEN AT A FASTER SPEED My friend Jerry Hofman taught me this trick. Listen to the podcasts at double speed to listen to twice as many. Now that gets to be a little too Mickey Mouse sounding for me, so I only crank it up to 1.5 times. It’s easy to adjust the playback speed with the Instacast settings.
4. EXPLORE I test drive a new Podcast every week. I generally browse within Instacast, but I keep my eyes and ears open for recommendations. Every once in while I find one that stays on the list and bumps something else off.
If you’re not currently subscribing to podcasts and are looking for ways to learn more each day, you gotta give them a listen. Here’s my current rank ordered list:
If you are listening to podcasts, which shows do you subscribe to? Leave me your recommendations and your podcast workflow in the comments section.
The Importance of a Volume of Work
Inspiring little clip taken from Ira Glass on Storytelling to encourage me to write and post and write and post and write and post some more. The process is the practice.
Hat tip to Erin Feldman at A Word for Living Creatures