What are the problems that you see with your approach? If you want to discuss this in some detail, email me or if you see me on Skype give me a call. You can use me as an impartial sounding board.

Scott

Thanks for your feedback on this post. I appreciate your guiding me when I look out onto a new landscape and think about moving in that direction.

Keeping a good mix of podcasts is definitely the right thing to do. I’m an experimenter and I like to try different things, so look forward to some variety in the upcoming weeks.

Next week I’ll be heading to the STC Summit and I’m wondering what approach I should take for interviewing. I don’t like to repeat the same approach again and again. It gets boring for me.

If you have any innovative ideas for new approaches for STC Summit podcasts, let me know. Thanks again for your feedback. And Nina, I just have to say that I was pleased to hear that you listen to my podcasts while driving to work. So many people tell me they listen to podcasts while at their computer, and I can never quite understand how they manage that, unless they’re frequently engaged in endless formatting activities.

I used to listen to podcasts while I drove to work, but now I take the train and work on my laptop. So now I listen to podcasts while shooting three-pointers at the gym. Works well in both cases.

I loved that last line of your post! So true!

Ninas last blog post..My Garden, and Some Before & After Pics

I have to agree with Kai. You definitely need to mix things up a bit. Interviews are good (and yours are, trust me). Getting a little more personal and opinionated is good. But too much of one can be a bit too much.

Your recent block of interviews is understandable — you were at a conference, got a number of people on MP3, and needed to post them in a timely manner. Nothing wrong with that; you didn’t wait several months like a couple of podcasters we know …

The only way you can find out if the more personal episodes work is to try a few. It’s difficult doing that solo. Aaron and I can get away with it (most of the time) because we can play off one another. No reason not to give it a shot, though.

Scott

I think there’s a place for both types of podcasts. Your interview podcasts are better alternatives to listening to the audio of conference presentations or watching the slides on slideshare, because the podcasts provide more of a complete picture.

A good essay podcast is probably a rare and courageous thing: It has a point worth arguing about, presented in an engaging manner. It could allow for more personal, reflective topics.

From my personal experience with public speaking and presenting, I would always recommend using an outline, not a script – if you can get the nerve up at all. Outlines take less time to prepare, tempt you less to polish them and make for more lively speaking. You’ll still find out what doesn’t work while recording and can backtrack…

“… a technical manual isn’t nearly as important as Leaves of Grass.”

Amen to that (security-related manual contents to protect life and limb notwithstanding…).