ITauthor podcast #27 – Rambling tech writer
April 13th, 2009 5 Comments
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I thought about calling this “the heavy breathing episode” because there’s a lot of puffing and panting in this recording: the puffing from me, the panting from my Italian Spinone, Lottie, as she sprints and I plod up the Pentland hills a few miles from where I live in Edinburgh.
In this podcast I talk about:
- My decision to try commenting on other people’s blogs
- Using twitter
- Trying to get more done
One aspect of getting more done is trying to use my time more productively. So, to that end, I thought I’d use some dog walking time to record this podcast.
I suspect some (or all?) of you may find the rambling nature of this recording tedious, but hopefully you’ll enjoy the birdsong! Let me know what you think by dropping me a comment. If no one likes this style of on-the-hoof recording I’ll stick to the indoor type in future.
The music I play at the beginning and end of the show is by Amplifico. You can hear more of their music at Podshow.
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April 22nd, 2009 at 4:28 pm (#)
Alistair, I loved this podcast. The scene and sounds and all the environmental elements made it really interesting, as well as the content of what you said.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:34 pm (#)
Tom
Thanks for that.
Maybe I'll do more of these al fresco recordings over the summer. It's good to walk the dog and knock off a podcast at the same time. I also find it's the best way to record a single-handed podcast where I haven't prepared anything beforehand. If I just sit down at my desk and try talking into the microphone nothing remotely interesting ever comes out.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 am (#)
Hey Alistair, I just read a post by Shanghaitechwriter that makes an interesting contrast to the productivity/work-time topic you talked about. <a href="http://www.shanghaitechwriter.com/2009/04/23/surfing-the-web-during-work-boosts-productivity/">Surfing the Web During Work Boosts Productivity</a>
October 27th, 2010 at 5:26 am (#)
Hi Alistair,
Well, I thought I should listen to other tech comm podcasts (Tom can't have sole hegemony here ;)) and started with this podcast of yours.
I have to admit that hearing you chat about the stupendous hilltop view, jumping over logs, escaping the wind, etc. really made me feel like I was along for the hike! Your personal and down-to-earth approach alone has made me download a few more podcasts to listen to. :)
In regards to the content of this podcast, how do you feel about Twitter over a year later (since this podcast was recorded)? Only in the last couple months have I really started to get into Twitter, and I find it a fabulous resource of information and a great way to meet and interact with other tech comm pros.
I have yet to find an optimal way to handle the flow of information - I've created a filtered folder for #techcomm labeled tweets - since I always seem to "fall behind" them. Any thoughts or advice?
Again, I enjoyed the realness of this podcast and hope some future ones I listen to are as amusing and delightful!
Gil
November 9th, 2010 at 5:55 pm (#)
Gil
Thanks for commenting. You asked: "how do you feel about Twitter over a year later?" To tell you the truth, I can't remember what I said about Twitter - I'll have to go back and have a listen to this podcast myself. What I can tell you though is that I find Twitter much more useful than I ever thought it would be. This is mainly because of hashtags. I subscribe to the #techcomm and #techwriting hashtags and I've got a lot of information from those feeds that I'd never have picked up on any other way.
I never use an RSS reader now. I just pick up on things via Twitter. As for the rest of social media - I don't get a whole lot out of it. I'm not much of a Facebook user - although I do have it in there as a column in my Tweetdeck and I guess I get to know more about my work colleagues thanks to Facebook. I don't find LinkedIn at all useful.
But Twitter is undeniably useful. I often go days without looking at it, but - unlike other tech fads I've picked up and then lost interest in - I keep coming back to Twitter. My advice on using Twitter (for what it's worth) is to use any of the good Twitter desktop applications (like Tweetdeck), don't turn it on if you're busy, and don't worry about missing stuff. It's like Dave Winer's classic river analogy for RSS: the river keeps on flowing day and night, and you just go down there for a paddle when you feel like it.