While depressed people are not literally in a different world, they are in a different state of consciousness.
~ Cecily Whiteley, from Depression is more than low mood – it’s a change of consciousness
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Which then leads to the question: How does one change one’s consciousness. In the moment. Right when everything feels hopeless.
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This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
~ Shakespeare
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Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
~ Pablo Picasso
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What are the challenges and opportunities in creating and sharing meaningful content in podcasting and publishing?
Podcasting shares its challenges of discovery and audience building with the world of book publishing.
If I tell you about a good podcast, that requires you to sit down, focus your attention, go to a site, put on headphones or your earbuds, and actually listen. That’s hard.
~ David Wilk (15:50)
The conversation explores the intersections between podcasting and publishing, focusing on their shared challenges in audience building and discoverability. It emphasizes how the low barrier to entry in both fields has led to an overwhelming abundance of content, creating a highly competitive environment. The discussion highlights how the “long tail” has evolved into an environment with a top-heavy market where only a few creators dominate.
Another key topic is the personal nature of consuming books and podcasts, which presents unique challenges for sharing and marketing. Podcasts are described as private experiences that lack the social visibility of books. The conversation also reflects on cultural changes, noting how digital experiences have reduced opportunities for shared moments, adding friction to the process of recommending and sharing podcasts.
Takeaways
The abundance of content – Challenges arise from an oversupply of podcasts and books, making audience building difficult.
Audience segmentation – Both industries face issues with dividing large audiences into meaningful segments.
Loss of the midlist – The “midlist” in publishing has disappeared, leaving only top earners and smaller outputs.
Personal nature of media – Podcasts, like books, are inherently personal and harder to share socially.
Curation necessity – Aggregating and curating podcasts is essential for discoverability but remains difficult to market.
Antisocial consumption – Personal consumption habits reduce opportunities for shared cultural experiences.
Marketing disparities – Marketing tools for books are more developed than for podcasts, yet both remain challenging.
Resources
Live Writers – A project curating book-related podcasts into three categories: readers, writers, and publishers.
PRX – Mentioned as a significant player in podcasting, likely referring to Public Radio Exchange.
BBC – Recognized for its role in podcasting and media production.
Field of Dreams – Cited metaphorically for its “build it, and they will come” narrative.
(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)
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The story that you tell people is the story that they’ll believe. And that’s the story that you become. And so for Parkour, we have a bunch of disparate stories that are being told right now, where you have people that are doing their own things… I just think that it’s important that the people who are doing so are taking responsibility for their impact that they have on the global community and the way that Parkour is being viewed.
~ Max Henry
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The story that you tell people is the story that they’ll believe. And that’s the story that you become. And so for Parkour, we have a bunch of disparate stories that are being told right now, where you have people that are doing their own things… I just think that it’s important that the people who are doing so are taking responsibility for their impact that they have on the global community and the way that Parkour is being viewed.
~ Max Henry
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Really! I wasn’t kidding the other day when I mentioned episode 4 This one is from episode 5.
Recently I published episode 129 of Movers Mindset. And there are 95 episodes of conversations with podcasters for the Podcaster Community’s show. And 38 episodes that I did for Art of Retreat’s SPARKs podcast. Okay, I’m panicking a little now. There are so many amazing things that people have shared!
Know anyone who wants to help me by working as an “archivist” or “research fellow” or something like that? …please forward!
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Bitter herbs have a well-deserved reputation as digestive aids in most systems of traditional medicine, and in many systems of cuisine. The ability of bitters to support balanced secretion and motility, especially in the gastric phase of digestion, relies on a few important mechanisms that are mediated through taste receptors (T2R family) and involve neuronal, hormonal, and vascular effectors.
~ Guido Masé, from Herbal Bitters (2015) Herbal bitters
Bitter herbs have a role in appetite regulation, blood glucose management, and obesity. This is something I’m only just now learning. They have been used medicinal for, pretty much, all of recorded history, and the more medical science looks the better things are looking. More recent traditions have added “bitters” to drinks (an Old Fashioned is a classic example) but—say it ain’t so western culture!—the bitters at your local bar are more for taste then for function.
Anyway. The linked PDF paper was an eye opener.
Also eye opening: We sat around our kitchen table this morning tasting various bitters—the same way you’d do beer, scotch, wine… or any other tasting. Tres interessant!
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So, I’ve been wondering—to those of you who do interviews—does anyone else find they tend to ask overly complicated questions, or do you somehow manage to make them concise?
All through my podcasting and interviewing journey it’s been illuminating to listen to my finished work after a significant amount of time has elapsed. Often I end up with many weeks or even months between when we record something and when it comes out. There’s nothing quite as motivating—at least for me—as hearing my own work… and cringing and wincing and being horrified… anyway. Along the way I’ve been sniping my most egregious problems as best I can.
…and the current issue I’m trying to work through is my use of questions structure as “A, or B?” You see I did it at the top…
So I’ve been wondering—to those of you who do interviews—does anyone else find they tend to ask overly complicated questions, or do you somehow manage to make them concise?
I do this all the time.
So no more of…
I’ve been wondering, what do you think air speed velocity of an unladen swallow, or do you think that in order to ask that we need to know if it’s the African or European variety?
No no no Craig stop asking complicated questions…
What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow? …and then shut. up.
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At worst, we apply a supernatural explanation to the whole show, because otherwise we’d have to recognize intelligence as a natural extension of the things that happen on a barren, unattended planet. For some reason we often insist nature couldn’t be that interesting or potent on its own. There has to be a super nature, to keep nature in its rightful, humble place. It makes us feel special I guess, maybe that’s why we don’t give nature the credit. We’re special either way, but we don’t need special rules to explain how we’re here. For that matter, we don’t necessarily need to explain ourselves to ourselves at all. Whatever happened, we got intelligent at some point, and that’s great. It’s okay to wonder aloud exactly how it happened, but clearly it did.
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Monism has never made sense to me. It’s interesting and I’ve spent a significant amount of time turning over its various flavors trying to understand others’ points of view. But, “that’s interesting,” is as far as I get.
When I face reality—thinking through mental models, comparing them to my personal experiences, talking to other people and listening to their experiences—I simply don’t see any deep mystery in life. Certainly, I see mind-bogglingly-huge expanses of things which are unknown (by me or anyone,) but that simply makes me more excited and more curious!
What confuses me is that the majority of people think differently, and I spend a lot of time talking to people as I try to understand how they think. I have only one point of view. I’m deeply fascinated by the universe around me and, in particular, by the conversations that come from me saying, “What does that bit of reality over there look like from your point of view?”
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Small b blogging is learning to write and think with the network. Small b blogging is writing content designed for small deliberate audiences and showing it to them. Small b blogging is deliberately chasing interesting ideas over pageviews and scale. An attempt at genuine connection vs the gloss and polish and mass market of most “content marketing”.
~ Tom Critchlow from, Small b blogging
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…and of course, my having just linked to him is one the affect he’s talking about (among several others.)
Zooming out: This reminds me to get back to writing. Several months ago, I began an intentional hiatus from writing every day… and I really miss it. Hop to it, Craig!
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In one spot in the part of the universe we can see—and probably in an infinite number of spots in the part of the universe we can’t—there’s a small blue-green planet with thin film of bio-matter on it. Among other things, this film supports some bipedal mammals who like building things they can set on fire.
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Douglas Adams meets irreverent atheist. Many smiles. Much like.
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not me in the photo, but I did climb it first, no falls/slips… about a 5.7 with chilly fingers doing some nice #crimping (not a typo)
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mike rappelling of the results of my anchor building class…
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(Part 10 of 25 in series, M. Eades' Blog)
Feedlot operators basically pack cattle together in close quarters in which they stand or lie in manure all day, feed them an unnatural diet that changes the environment within their digestive systems, make them sick, treat them with antibiotics to fight the infections such conditions cause, add growth hormones to increase weight gain a little more, and ultimately slaughter them. Most of the beef you buy has suffered this fate. Even the beef that ends up labeled ‘Organic’ pretty much goes through the same process except it gets fed ‘organic’ grain and doesn’t get the antibiotics or the hormones, which is an improvement for you but not much of one for the cow. The meat from these cattle can still be contaminated since the majority of the E. coli arises as a function of grain feeding.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/good-eating/another-reason-to-eat-grass-fed-beef/»
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Bear McCreary, who wrote the music for the BSG re-imagining, has a detailed discussion of the music for the Daybreak episode. (Boingo fans: Bartek and Avila were involved!) It even describes the meaning and derivation of the final coordinates. I wildly enjoyed the re-imangining of BSG. And the music . . . the music is epic.
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100 year old Oak, cut down by my father in 2009. Let’s see what was going on in 1909?
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