September 30, 2018

International Podcast Day

Apparently, today was International Podcast Day. I had never heard of it before but as far as made-up international holidays go, I like the sound of it!

The occasion got me thinking about my history with the podcast medium.

Warning: this message might get a little nostalgic and self-indulgent, so feel free to delete it unread ;-)

I have loved podcasts for a long time. The first one I ever heard was The Dawn & Drew Show, probably in 2005. Although I didn’t become a regular listener, I was smitten with the format immediately. My background is in music, so I have always despised the gatekeeper aspect of terrestrial radio. Podcasting felt like talk radio, but for the people. Yay!

My first real podcast addiction was Boagworld, hosted by the lovely and talented Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington. At the time, I was working from home all by myself and very much looked forward to “hanging out” with Paul and Marcus every week.

(Fun fact: After years of listening to Boagworld, I met Paul at a conference in London that we were both speaking at and he invited me on the show which was both a huge honor and completely surreal. Squee!)

Inspired by Boagworld, my good friend Kelli Shaver and I started the Nitch podcast in 2012. It was a very technical show for developers. The tagline was “A weekly podcast about building apps that run everywhere using open web standards like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, REST, and JSON” so yeah... pretty dense.

(Fun fact: My tendency to refer to the “Dear Listener” on Nitch and my other shows is a straight ripoff of Boagworld - sorry guys!)

Every once in a while, Kelli and I would do a more general episode about how tech was changing the world. Those episodes were a lot of fun and people seemed to really like them, so after 154 comically titled episodes, scores of dopey soundbites, and a hilarious (to me) highlights episode hosted by robots, we shuttered Nitch and started Terrifying Robot Dog to focus on “How technology is changing the way we interact with the world.”

(Fun fact: the Terrifying Robot Dog artwork was created by none other than Aaron Mahnke, the creator and host of the insanely creepy and incredibly popular Lore Podcast. Small world!)

Meanwhile, I was still listening to podcasts like crazy. Over the years, my regular rotation has included:

All that listening made me want to contribute, I suppose. In the last couple years, I’ve guested on more than 50 podcasts, have been a regular panelist on The Freelancers’ Show, started The Business of Authority with my fabulous co-host Rochelle Moulton, and have interviewed pricing luminaries like Ron Baker, Ed Kless, Blair Enns, and David C. Baker on my solo show Ditching Hourly.

Yikes... sorry for the “me me me” brain dump! I hope you get some value out of some of those links.

Anyway...

To wrap up, I’ll close with a wonderful quote I saw on Twitter:

In honor of #InternationalPodcastDay, do something you love with little possibility of monetary reward.—@FrankConniff

If you have been thinking about starting a podcast about something you love with little possibility of momentary reward, I say go for it! It’s fun, zero risk, and if nothing else, you’ll learn something. If you don’t know where to start, check out this episode of TBOA, or just hit reply and ask.

Happy IPD!

Yours,

—J

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