I write about the podcast here because I know that it’s something the readers here are interested in. It’s decidedly not a money-making venture in any way, shape, or form – just another form of new media that I’m learning about.

I still recommend that you get it playing through both channels. Either convert it to mono, or duplicate the left channel into the right channel. Surely Garage Band (if you’re still on your mac) or Audacity can do that. It’s distracting when it only comes out of the left channel.

Also, I know you can’t help the throat clearing, but if you wanted to spend a few minutes cropping some of the louder ones, or ones that have silence on either end of it, it would make the show easier to listen to.

I think doing both of these would go along way to improving the perceived production quality.

In all 3 podcasts, your voice tends to trail off at the end of each sentence. This generally conveys a lack of energy or conviction; you may wish to try to avoid this.

I know you are trying to keep the podcasts interesting with the digressions and tangents, but that’s awfully dicey – unless you can anticipate exactly what your audience is interested in. My opinion: the podcasts would be stronger with less extraneous stuff.

Finally: they get better each week. I think J.D.’s suggestion that you engage with someone else – vs. a monologue – is worth consideration, though.

Keep up the good work!

PS: Hickory Park was awesome – thanks for the suggestion.

The good distraction was the *one thing* that was weighing on my mind. I went and took action on it while the podcast was playing. The good news is that my addresses are now in Access so I can print labels for Christmas cards this year instead of having to hand write them out again late in December.

It was important to me, so I dont have to think about anymore. We’ll see what pops in my head next that i can take action on.

Ultimately your post got me to move into action, so from that standpoint i’d say the post was a success.

Also, some of the tangents themselves could be formulated a lot better. For example, I’m one of those people you were talking about who’s only read the first of the Narnia books, and I would have appreciated a few words about *why* The Magician’s Nephew made you think about good decisions and right and wrong and all of those things. And if it’s so deeply philosophical, how much do you expect your son to get out of it at his age? I might be curious enough to go read the book for myself and find out, but then again I might not. I think it would have been better to fill in some of those gaps.

Also, when you described the motivational poster that you found really annoying, you didn’t say anything about why you found that particular poster particularly annoying. I almost expected it to be the set-up for a joke, or something (like “Every time I see that poster, I picture all the people in the office joining hands, ‘We Are The World’ style, waiting for their problems to magically turn into opportunities”). Instead, it falls flat.

It sort of sounds like you’re starting with some formula that you got from somewhere for what a podcast is “supposed” to be like, and you’re trying to fill in all the ingredients. And I’m wondering why you think you need to do it that way. In my opinion, your podcasts would be a lot better if they were more like your blog posts.

If anything, I’d argue that your use of that recording violates the taping policy (linked above) in that you’re using it to promote your site, which is a for-profit project.