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The podcasts I record for I'd Rather Be Writing cover the latest trends in technical communication. I interview tech writing luminaries around the world as well as record STC presentations and other audio content. You can subscribe to podcast specific feeds using the subscription information below.
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My First Carcast: Driving Home from Vancouver After the Doc Train Conference
April 30th, 2007 | Posted in Podcasting, Podcasts 7 Comments »
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Duration: 83 min.
While driving home from the Documentation and Training Conference in Vancouver, B.C., I recorded my first carcast.
It was a really interesting experience. I hadn’t planned to do a carcast, and then on the way home I was a little bored and thought hey, why not try a carcast? I first heard about carcasting from a carcast Tee Morris did (see episode 3: Podcasting on the Go). Carcasting is actually a lot of fun.
And doing it post-conference is perfect, because I had a lot of ideas and thoughts swimming around in my head. The carcast helped me clarify a few things in my mind while providing an entertaining driving activity.
Of course sound quality in a car is not ideal. And I was totally holding the mic too close to my mouth. So it was a learning experience.
On the way home I drove through a little town called Burlington, which is where I grew up. Of course I drove past my old houses, school, and favorite places. That was part of the reason I flew into Seattle rather than straight to Vancouver. I included my reminiscing in the carcast, mixed with my thoughts on the conference.
The scenery in this image is how everything looked, but I didn’t have a camera so this is a pic from Flickr. I also added some music from Harry Miller’s Ceol Miner’s band at the beginning and end. I visited with Harry while I was in Seattle.
This carcast isn’t edited, and the audio quality isn’t ideal. Sorry about that. I was just using my little iRiver MP3 player with its built-in mic. If you’re ever on a long drive, you might think about trying carcasting. It’s actually a lot of fun if you’re driving alone.
Hmmm… Driving + recording a podcast = disaster waiting to happen! I haven’t listened to it yet, but do we get the ‘road rage’ expletives too, or did you edit them out?
Not much road rage in this podcast, but I do agree carcasting can be a safety hazard. But when it comes down to it, it’s similar to talking on your cell phone.
Which is banned and has a hefty fine where I live, unless it’s a ‘hands free’ one. Even then, just the act of talking/thinking about things other than driving has effects like drink driving, so whether it’s a carcast (!) or talking on a cell, the results may be the same. I guess it’s just another thing to worry about when driving, huh?
Pasting comments from a duplicate post:
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Todd Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 8:34 pm edit
Maybe people stick to the content on your homepage because that is part of the way people read blogs. They want fresh content, what’s on top is the latest.
Tags won’t necessarily make someone want to read an article from 6 months ago. It’s like reading yesterday’s newspaper.
What do you think?
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Tom Johnson Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 9:55 pm edit
I agree that the most read posts are on the home page, and that tags themselves aren’t enticing enough to motivate users into your archives. However, when you add a Related Posts section at the end of an entry, which shows the full titles of the related posts, it is often enough to get the users past the home page (at least in my opinion). Wordpress’s new tagging probably won’t included a Related Entries section, but a plugin will surely appear that builds off of the tag functionility.
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Todd Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:42 pm edit
I wonder if you are right. I guess we’ll find out when someone builds the related topics plug-in!
By the way, here is an interesting podcast from SXSW about how people use tags.
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Alistair Christie Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:50 am edit
I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed this podcast. I’m a regular listener and I enjoy the regular interviews etc. but this reflective and personal chat was great to listen to as I walked the dog on a beautiful sunny afternoon here in Edinburgh, UK.
It’s brave of you to open up and let complete strangers into your life a little, but it makes for a much more interesting podcast. So keep up the excellent work. Maybe sometime I’ll get back to podcasting about tech writing myself, but for now I’m just enjoying being a listener.
All the best
Alistair
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Tom Johnson Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:55 pm edit
Alistair, it was great to hear from you again. I wondered what happened to you. Thanks for the feedback on the podcast. You should a podcast while walking the dog sometime! (Then it would be a dog-cast?)
I remember that you switched to Flare a long time ago. Do you still like it? Do you have a lot of interesting thoughts about it, now that you’ve used it for so long?
I agree with the above posts in that you really have to be careful when doing this kind of thing. You obviously mean no harm but….
Regards,
Jeff B.
[...] it consists of his musings. He seems like a nice guy, and said one of my podcasts I did last year (coming home from Doc Train, incidentally) contributed to his desire to start his own [...]
Here are some tips to keep your dog well behaved:
1.You’ve to start training your dog as early as possible
2,Be firm but gentle when you train your dog
3,By observing the behavior of your dog inside the house you’ll realize how it will respond outside
4.You should not lose your temper
5.Timing is always important especially when you’re correcting your dog