September 29, 2024 • 34 mins
The Word Podcast was coined just over 20 years ago, and in April 2025 it will be the 20th anniversary of my first podcast episode. I really wish I could find that file. They say once something is on the internet, it is there forever. Well, not in the case of my first 35 episodes. :( I've looked high and low and even on the wayback machine. I can't find it. Benzoid Report #001. I will offer a bounty for anyone that can find it and send it to me.
As you might know already, this podcast was called the Benzoid Report for the first few years. Also, the 400 is just the episodes that I numbered. I had a lot of other mini episodes, and experimental episodes the the number is likely 500 or so. But for this purpose, 400 works!
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AI Shownotes: In this special 400th episode of "Mike Dell's World," host Mike Dell celebrates his podcasting journey and reflects on the evolution of his show and the medium. Recorded on the day before International Podcast Day, Mike reminisces about starting his podcast back in April 2005, initially under the name "The Benzoid Report," which was later changed to "Mike Dell's World" in 2008.
Mike shares his early fascination with talk radio which later transitioned into exploring podcasts as a new form of broadcasting. He recounts the technical challenges of the early days, like hand-rolling RSS feeds and filling his iPod with downloaded MP3s for entertainment during night shifts at a printing plant. Mike's interest was sparked by pioneering podcasters and the desire to create his own show, despite his assertion that it was about 'nothing in particular.'
Throughout the episode, Mike elaborates on the numerous other podcasts he has started (and sometimes stopped), covering topics from ham radio and strange news to aviation history and fast food. He highlights some enjoyable moments, like podcasting on the go and creating episodes about topics he loves. Mike also discusses his full-time role at Blueberry, grounding his career in the podcasting industry even further.
He candidly shares the challenge of maintaining a consistent podcasting schedule and advocates for keeping episodes as long or as short as the content requires, rather than stretching them to fit a time slot. Mike prefers the intimacy of audio podcasts over video, noting the unique one-on-one connection they offer with listeners.
Finally, Mike touches on broader topics, reflecting on the changing landscape of media and podcasting, sharing a desire for civility and unity amid political turmoil, and expressing optimism for the future of podcasting as a diverse and evolving field. He concludes by welcoming another 400 episodes and inviting listeners to contact him for podcasting advice, celebrating the communal and evolving nature of the medium.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
[Mike Dell]Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever the
[Mike Dell]case may be. This is Mike, and this
[Mike Dell]is Mike Dell's World Number four hundred. And,
[Mike Dell]today is the day before International Podcast Day.
[Mike Dell]It's Sunday, the twenty ninth of September twenty
[Mike Dell]twenty four. So, I figured I'd get out
(00:21):
[Mike Dell]ahead of the International Podcast Day. I guess
[Mike Dell]it's probably the thirtieth someplace in the world.
[Mike Dell]That's cool. But, yeah, I figured I would
[Mike Dell]just kind of go over a little bit
[Mike Dell]of my history in podcasting, those of you
[Mike Dell]who have been with me forever. I have
[Mike Dell]some listeners that have been listening since the
[Mike Dell]get go, or pretty close, which was in
(00:44):
[Mike Dell]April of two thousand and five. I was
[Mike Dell]living in Lake Ann, Michigan. It's a little
[Mike Dell]town a few miles west of here. I'm
[Mike Dell]in Traverse City, in case you guys didn't
[Mike Dell]know that. The pinky finger of Michigan. Everybody
[Mike Dell]in Michigan points to the back of their
(01:05):
[Mike Dell]left hand, at least if they don't live
[Mike Dell]in the UP. And, they're in the pinky
[Mike Dell]finger area, I guess. Nobody calls it that,
[Mike Dell]but that's what I call it. But, over
[Mike Dell]in Lake Ann, you know, I was well,
[Mike Dell]we'll go back a little bit further. Back
[Mike Dell]in the early two thousand's, I got really
(01:25):
[Mike Dell]interested in talk radio because I was, you
[Mike Dell]know, up at all hours of the night,
[Mike Dell]working night shift at a printing plant. And,
[Mike Dell]you know, talk radio, people like Art Bell,
[Mike Dell]and, Jimbo Ham, Larry King, and Bruce Williams,
[Mike Dell]Sally Jesse Raphael, the old NBC Talk Net,
(01:46):
[Mike Dell]and, of course, like, Paul Harvey. But, you
[Mike Dell]know, in the middle of the night, there
[Mike Dell]really wasn't a lot of of different shows
[Mike Dell]to listen to. So it was mostly Art
[Mike Dell]Bell. And then I would catch Jim Boyan
[Mike Dell]or Larry King, you know, before Art Bell.
[Mike Dell]And, I discovered this thing called an iPod.
[Mike Dell]And, back when the iPod first came out,
(02:09):
[Mike Dell]I thought, oh, this is great. I can
[Mike Dell]put stuff on here. So, what stuff? There
[Mike Dell]wasn't much to put on there other than
[Mike Dell]music. And, you know, when you're working night
[Mike Dell]shift, music's kinda boring, puts you to sleep.
[Mike Dell]So, you know, Bruce Williams was the first
[Mike Dell]I I knew of that would put MP3
[Mike Dell]files on their website that you could download.
(02:30):
[Mike Dell]So I would download those MP3 files from,
[Mike Dell]three hours of Bruce Williams and And then,
[Mike Dell]I found a couple other sites that would
[Mike Dell]do that. And before too long, I filled
[Mike Dell]up my little iPod. In fact, I have
[Mike Dell]the iPod that I used over in that
[Mike Dell]other desk behind me. One of those iPod
[Mike Dell]Shuffles. It looked like a stick of gum,
(02:50):
[Mike Dell]kind of that shape. And, I think I
[Mike Dell]could put five hundred and twelve megabytes of
[Mike Dell]MP3s on there. And, you know, back then
[Mike Dell]we didn't encode them as high as we
[Mike Dell]do now. And, that was plenty. It would
[Mike Dell]get me through an eight hour shift and
[Mike Dell]I wouldn't even have to worry about the
[Mike Dell]AM radio. Listening to Art Bell when they
(03:11):
[Mike Dell]turned the power down, and you could, you
[Mike Dell]know, have the radio at just a certain
[Mike Dell]spot and crank it up. This was a
[Mike Dell]lot easier. I could listen in earbuds, wired
[Mike Dell]earbuds. And then I heard about this thing
[Mike Dell]called podcasting. I would listen to Twit, of
[Mike Dell]course. They were one of the first ones.
(03:33):
[Mike Dell]I listened to Adam Curry, The Daily Source
[Mike Dell]Code. That one was pretty popular. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, back then there was maybe a hundred
[Mike Dell]podcasters, something like that. Listened to Todd and
[Mike Dell]Geek News Central. He was one of the
[Mike Dell]first ones that I listened to. And, I
[Mike Dell]mean, there was just all kinds of stuff,
[Mike Dell]you know, out of that hundred that was
(03:54):
[Mike Dell]worth listening to. And, definitely got into it.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, I always wanted to have
[Mike Dell]my own radio show. I didn't really have
[Mike Dell]a lot to talk about. I still don't.
[Mike Dell]But, I always wanted to do it, you
[Mike Dell]know, just for the sake of doing it.
[Mike Dell]And, this was kind of the way to
[Mike Dell]do it. So, again, April two thousand and
(04:14):
[Mike Dell]five, I got a I just bought a
[Mike Dell]Dell laptop, a little twelve inch Windows machine,
[Mike Dell]and came with a little stick microphone. I
[Mike Dell]said, well, jeez, how hard is this, podcasting
[Mike Dell]thing to do? Back then, it was it
[Mike Dell]was a bit harder. I had to, hand
[Mike Dell]roll the RSS feed. That took me a
(04:35):
[Mike Dell]little while to figure it out. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, I was hand rolling a website. And,
[Mike Dell]basically, truth be told, I stole Adam's feed
[Mike Dell]and, just changed stuff around for my stuff
[Mike Dell]and put it on the server and away
[Mike Dell]it went. And so that's how I started.
[Mike Dell]It was this show. It was named differently.
(04:56):
[Mike Dell]It was called the Benzoide Report. The reason
[Mike Dell]for that was I lived in Benzie County,
[Mike Dell]Michigan. And, some of the people out there
[Mike Dell]call themselves Benzides. It's the smallest county in
[Mike Dell]Michigan, and I don't think it's the least
[Mike Dell]populated, but it's not very populated even now.
[Mike Dell]And I think they only have one working
(05:17):
[Mike Dell]traffic light in the whole county. So, it's
[Mike Dell]mostly woods and Lake Michigan shoreline, and cute
[Mike Dell]little towns and whatnot. Lake Ann being one
[Mike Dell]of them. And, so I thought that would
[Mike Dell]be cool. A benzoed report. I didn't know
[Mike Dell]a benzoed was a class of drug, so
[Mike Dell]So, that probably slowed me down a little
(05:37):
[Mike Dell]bit or got listeners in there that, well,
[Mike Dell]what's this all about? And, you know, it
[Mike Dell]wasn't really about anything. It still isn't. And,
[Mike Dell]that's kind of what I like about it.
[Mike Dell]I've done lots of other podcasts, and I'll
[Mike Dell]go through kind of a list of that
[Mike Dell]here in a little bit. I do have
[Mike Dell]some guidelines here, so I don't forget anything.
[Mike Dell]But, about the first thirty six episodes, thirty
(06:02):
[Mike Dell]seven episodes of the Benzoin Report are lost
[Mike Dell]in the bit bucket somewhere. You know, they
[Mike Dell]always say that you put something on the
[Mike Dell]Internet and it's here forever. Well, that's not
[Mike Dell]exactly true. I cannot find the first thirty
[Mike Dell]six episodes that I did. Nowhere online, no
(06:22):
[Mike Dell]mention of it online anywhere, but, I know
[Mike Dell]I did them. And, truth be told, probably
[Mike Dell]on a hard drive somewhere in my garage
[Mike Dell]in a in a bin full of, old
[Mike Dell]hard drives. So, some point some point, I'll
[Mike Dell]get, set up to where I can search
[Mike Dell]some hard drives and see if I can't
[Mike Dell]find those. It would would be cool to
[Mike Dell]listen to how crappy that first episode was.
(06:46):
[Mike Dell]Again, I was sitting on my front porch
[Mike Dell]outside in the woods, with a stick microphone
[Mike Dell]and a laptop and, yeah, I'm sure it
[Mike Dell]was just wonderful. But, flash forward to September
[Mike Dell]of two thousand and eight, I decided that
[Mike Dell]the Benzoin Report was probably not the right
[Mike Dell]name for the podcast and switched it over
(07:07):
[Mike Dell]to Mike Dell's World with episode ninety three.
[Mike Dell]So, technically, subtract ninety two episodes and that's
[Mike Dell]my true count of Mike Dell's World, but,
[Mike Dell]we're splitting hairs here. And, I've done a
[Mike Dell]lot of unnumbered episodes. For a while there,
[Mike Dell]there was some technology that you could actually,
(07:29):
[Mike Dell]literally phone it in. You'd dial a phone
[Mike Dell]number and talk into the phone, and then
[Mike Dell]when you hung up, it created a podcast
[Mike Dell]episode and put it out. So, I did
[Mike Dell]a lot of those episodes. Done, you know,
[Mike Dell]I've podcasted a lot of places. I've podcasted
[Mike Dell]walking down the strip in Las Vegas. I've
[Mike Dell]podcasted, you know, taking a walk around my
(07:52):
[Mike Dell]neighborhood, one of my favorite episodes. I forgot
[Mike Dell]what number it is. It's still online. But,
[Mike Dell]it's called Walking with the White Squirrels. I
[Mike Dell]don't know why that's my favorite, it just
[Mike Dell]always was. I've replayed it probably two times
[Mike Dell]since. You know, it's the neighborhood I live
[Mike Dell]in. It's all nice and woods. And behind
(08:14):
[Mike Dell]my house, there was a family of white
[Mike Dell]squirrels. And, I haven't seen any in several
[Mike Dell]years now, but you know, there were albino
[Mike Dell]I guess they're albino squirrels, and, I guess
[Mike Dell]they don't last in the wild just because
[Mike Dell]they're easy to see. But used to, you
[Mike Dell]know, take a walk back there, and I'd
[Mike Dell]see three, four, five, six of them. And,
(08:34):
[Mike Dell]now I don't see them anymore. So, yeah,
[Mike Dell]I guess. But, you know, walking and talking,
[Mike Dell]you know, people look at you funny. Nowadays,
[Mike Dell]they don't because, you know, everybody's got Bluetooth
[Mike Dell]and talking on their phones all the time.
[Mike Dell]You know, you can walk around like a
[Mike Dell]crazy person and nobody would care. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, a lot of people walk around with
[Mike Dell]cameras in their face. It's just not quite
(08:55):
[Mike Dell]my thing. You know, because of my podcast,
[Mike Dell]I have the full time employment that I
[Mike Dell]have now. I went to a conference in
[Mike Dell]two thousand seven out in California and, by
[Mike Dell]chance, ran into the, Ravoice team out there.
[Mike Dell]Barry and Todd, Brian, Angelo, I don't remember
(09:19):
[Mike Dell]who else was there. But, I hit it
[Mike Dell]off with them, apparently, because, a couple years
[Mike Dell]later, I went part time with them. Everybody
[Mike Dell]was part time back then. So, in o
[Mike Dell]nine, started part time at Blueberry doing, tech
[Mike Dell]support. You know, helping them with, you know,
[Mike Dell]they just come out with a PowerPress plugin
(09:39):
[Mike Dell]for WordPress and, just started hosting shows. You
[Mike Dell]know, before that, we weren't doing any hosting.
[Mike Dell]It was all advertising. And, we pivoted. If
[Mike Dell]you want to hear the whole story about
[Mike Dell]that, the episode of Podcast Insider that came
[Mike Dell]out last Thursday. Some of the people have
(10:00):
[Mike Dell]been around Raw Voice and Blueberry all the
[Mike Dell]time. We kind of went through the history
[Mike Dell]of that. You know, celebrating twenty years of
[Mike Dell]podcasting, He said, Nearly twenty years of me
[Mike Dell]podcasting in April. That'll be twenty. Todd, I
[Mike Dell]think, just went over twenty years. Interesting stuff.
(10:21):
[Mike Dell]But, yeah. I went with Blueberry part time
[Mike Dell]in two thousand and nine. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]I've been kind of living the living the
[Mike Dell]dream, I guess. And then in twenty fifteen,
[Mike Dell]I went full time. And I've been there
[Mike Dell]ever since, of course. And, again, you know,
[Mike Dell]about four hundred episodes. The officially numbered ones
(10:42):
[Mike Dell]are four hundred for this show in nearly
[Mike Dell]twenty years. So, I figure that averages out
[Mike Dell]to about one point six episodes a month.
[Mike Dell]I always like to say I'm the king
[Mike Dell]of inconsistency in podcasting. So, that's how that
[Mike Dell]works. And if you've been with me that
[Mike Dell]whole time, you know I go two, three
(11:03):
[Mike Dell]months sometimes between episodes, and then I put
[Mike Dell]out a bunch of them, and then, stop
[Mike Dell]for a while and put out a bunch
[Mike Dell]more. I'm doing exactly you know, don't do
[Mike Dell]as I do, do as I say. My
[Mike Dell]suggestion is stay consistent. But I haven't done
[Mike Dell]that. That's okay. But, I've had a lot
[Mike Dell]of other podcasts along the way that I've
(11:25):
[Mike Dell]started and stopped. I'm also the King of
[Mike Dell]Pod Fade. And, this isn't even a full
[Mike Dell]list, but I was just, you know, going
[Mike Dell]through my head here. The second show that
[Mike Dell]I started was with a friend of mine,
[Mike Dell]John Martin. We're both ham radio operators, and
[Mike Dell]we're teaching live classes, getting your ham radio
[Mike Dell]license here in the US. We did the
(11:46):
[Mike Dell]technician and the general course. We didn't do
[Mike Dell]the extra class. We've had plans to and,
[Mike Dell]that one pod faded. But, we called it
[Mike Dell]the Ham Radio Pod Class. And, that started,
[Mike Dell]like, in September of two thousand five. And,
[Mike Dell]even got a mention on the Adam Curry's
[Mike Dell]daily source code. So that was the claim
(12:08):
[Mike Dell]to fame there. But, near as I can
[Mike Dell]tell, we we got probably seven or eight
[Mike Dell]hundred people licensed as, technician class amateur radio
[Mike Dell]operators here in the US. And, I don't
[Mike Dell]know how many generals, but, definitely had a
[Mike Dell]pretty decent following on that. Made a couple
(12:29):
[Mike Dell]enemies along the way. There was a couple
[Mike Dell]of other people that were doing cassette tape
[Mike Dell]classes for ham radio and they weren't real
[Mike Dell]happy with us. We'd go down to hamvention
[Mike Dell]and get snubbed. I won't mention any names
[Mike Dell]because, one of them is still active, doing
(12:50):
[Mike Dell]that. He does good. He sells, I don't
[Mike Dell]think he sells cassettes anymore. And, in fact,
[Mike Dell]I think he had a podcast for a
[Mike Dell]while with Leo LaPorte. But, again, I won't,
[Mike Dell]I won't say his name just because they
[Mike Dell]don't, you know, no no bad comments there.
[Mike Dell]He's a good guy, and he's trained a
(13:10):
[Mike Dell]heck of a lot more hams than I
[Mike Dell]have. But, that was that was the second
[Mike Dell]show that we did. Then I thought, oh,
[Mike Dell]let's do a daily podcast. Oh my gosh,
[Mike Dell]daily is nuts. And, I've tried it four
[Mike Dell]or five times and, it's just way too
[Mike Dell]much. No matter how short the content is.
(13:31):
[Mike Dell]A daily podcast. Shout out to James Cridland
[Mike Dell]doing, you know, daily, weekdays. We did, daily
[Mike Dell]seven days a week for, one called Strange
[Mike Dell]Today. That's where I'd find weird news and
[Mike Dell]and, you know, talk about that. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, anything strange in the news and strange
(13:52):
[Mike Dell]history stuff. I I was like history. So,
[Mike Dell]you'll see a repeating theme here on some
[Mike Dell]of these shows. But, one thing nice about
[Mike Dell]that is I had a few extra guest
[Mike Dell]hosts. So, I would write all the scripts.
[Mike Dell]They weren't really word for word scripts, but
[Mike Dell]I'd write scripts and then I'd send them
[Mike Dell]off. You know, so Trucker Tom and, I
(14:15):
[Mike Dell]can't think of the other guy that was
[Mike Dell]that would do the weekend shows for me,
[Mike Dell]but, he still does Linux and the Ham
[Mike Dell]Shack. So, shout out to you. But, had
[Mike Dell]Trucker Tom do a few of them, and
[Mike Dell]Jim Farley, my wife, Kathy. You know, so
[Mike Dell]we not always the same host every day,
[Mike Dell]but we we made that go a complete
(14:35):
[Mike Dell]year. So I did end up with three
[Mike Dell]hundred sixty five episodes of that one, called
[Mike Dell]Strange Today. And I think that one's all
[Mike Dell]gone too. I I again, I probably have
[Mike Dell]it all on hard drive somewhere. And then
[Mike Dell]Jim Farley and I, Jim's a ham radio
[Mike Dell]friend of mine and, friend, has a cottage
(14:56):
[Mike Dell]up here. We break bread, quite often. Anyway,
[Mike Dell]Jim and I did one called What's Up
[Mike Dell]With That? It was just a commentary comedy
[Mike Dell]thing. We'd just talk about whatever was going
[Mike Dell]on that day, when we would record. We
[Mike Dell]did quite a few of those episodes. And,
[Mike Dell]every once in a while, I'll get Jim
(15:16):
[Mike Dell]to record with me and we'll put one
[Mike Dell]of those episodes out on this feed. Again,
[Mike Dell]this feed stayed consistent, not consistent, but, it's
[Mike Dell]been the one where you find out everything
[Mike Dell]because I throw stuff into it from time
[Mike Dell]to time. And, I did a geek show
(15:38):
[Mike Dell]for a short time called Geek of the
[Mike Dell]North. That didn't last very long. Had that
[Mike Dell]one on a network with, Steve Lee. And,
[Mike Dell]I don't remember what the network name is,
[Mike Dell]but he's since retired. He's also one of
[Mike Dell]the founders of International Podcast Day, him and
[Mike Dell]his son. And, shout out to you, Steve.
(15:59):
[Mike Dell]Haven't heard from you in a while. Look
[Mike Dell]me up and see what's going on. And,
[Mike Dell]those of you that know me know that
[Mike Dell]I'm an aviation geek. So I did another
[Mike Dell]daily. And, it lasted a year, called Aviation
[Mike Dell]History Today. So, I would read stories that
[Mike Dell]happened back in the day, you know, about
(16:20):
[Mike Dell]aviation. It was just a little short, ten
[Mike Dell]minute daily. I did that for three hundred
[Mike Dell]sixty five days, so I stayed somewhat consistent
[Mike Dell]with that one. And then after the year,
[Mike Dell]I said, well, why don't we just do
[Mike Dell]aviation history this week? So I did a
[Mike Dell]half hour show where I would cover the
[Mike Dell]whole week and, come up with some pretty
(16:40):
[Mike Dell]pretty cool ones. On the April first, show
[Mike Dell]I remember, those of you that are Star
[Mike Dell]Trek geeks, which I am, know that in
[Mike Dell]two thousand and sixty three, the, Doctor. Zefram
[Mike Dell]Cochrane discovered or demonstrated Warp Drive. And, it's
(17:02):
[Mike Dell]known as First Contact Day. Anyway, I put
[Mike Dell]that in there and, I said that was
[Mike Dell]the great great grandson of Todd Cochrane. So,
[Mike Dell]anyway, that was funny. I tried a local
[Mike Dell]one called the Traverse City podcast. That really
[Mike Dell]didn't go very far or very long, but,
(17:24):
[Mike Dell]you know, just sorta did that for a
[Mike Dell]while and, probably did five episodes where I
[Mike Dell]thought, yeah, this is hard. It's hard work.
[Mike Dell]So I didn't, didn't stick with that one.
[Mike Dell]I did stick with this next one for
[Mike Dell]two years. And, it was a daily, seven
[Mike Dell]days a week. It was the Traverse City
(17:47):
[Mike Dell]Weather Brief. And, all I did was, read
[Mike Dell]the weather forecast. Whatever the National Weather Service
[Mike Dell]put out, I'd just read that, and, I
[Mike Dell]could record a couple days ahead of time.
[Mike Dell]It was about a one minute, if that,
[Mike Dell]podcast. And, also, was a Amazon what do
(18:07):
[Mike Dell]you call it? I can't say her name
[Mike Dell]or she'll talk to me, but, the talking
[Mike Dell]tube lady, it was one of those skills
[Mike Dell]that people could sign up for when they
[Mike Dell]got their daily news brief. They would get
[Mike Dell]the local weather. So I did that for
[Mike Dell]a couple of years, and that was fun.
[Mike Dell]But, again, even though it was very short
(18:29):
[Mike Dell]and I could record it anywhere, I just
[Mike Dell]you know, dailies are hard. Again, James, how
[Mike Dell]do you do it? That's crazy. James does,
[Mike Dell]you know, a good four minutes, five minutes
[Mike Dell]sometimes, on Pod News Daily. Check that out
[Mike Dell]if you're into podcast stuff. Then I tried
(18:51):
[Mike Dell]another one, Fast Food History. I don't know.
[Mike Dell]I got probably twenty episodes of that. It
[Mike Dell]was interesting for a while, but, you know,
[Mike Dell]again, history related. And then, podcast help desk.
[Mike Dell]I did that. I thought, wow, I'm talking
[Mike Dell]about podcasting all the time on my main
[Mike Dell]show. Let's try it as a weekly show.
(19:14):
[Mike Dell]So, I did that. And, that one went
[Mike Dell]for a while. I think I got maybe
[Mike Dell]one hundred and fifty episodes of that before
[Mike Dell]I kind of ran out of things to
[Mike Dell]talk about. Plus, I was doing Podcast Insider
[Mike Dell]for Blueberry. And, it kind of is the
[Mike Dell]same thing. So, I kind of bailed on
(19:36):
[Mike Dell]that. Now, I'm doing Podcast Insider very weekly,
[Mike Dell]very consistently. I'm not always the host of
[Mike Dell]it, but, nine times out of ten I
[Mike Dell]am. It's Mackenzie, I, and Todd, and sometimes
[Mike Dell]other people. So, that one's going. And, I
[Mike Dell]do another show that is still in the,
(19:58):
[Mike Dell]we're trying to get our sea legs, but
[Mike Dell]with Mike Wilkerson, over at Two Guys Talking
[Mike Dell]Network. We do the Auto History Podcast. And,
[Mike Dell]we've done a few episodes of it and,
[Mike Dell]kind of regrouping right now to get into
[Mike Dell]a battle rhythm of, being consistent. But that
[Mike Dell]one, I think, will go consistent and having
[Mike Dell]a co host helps. So, yeah. Why you
(20:22):
[Mike Dell]know, one of the other things I wanted
[Mike Dell]to talk about is, well, you know, why
[Mike Dell]podcasting? You know? Just do a YouTube channel.
[Mike Dell]Do, you know, blogging. Do, you know, actual
[Mike Dell]radio broadcasting. Well, I have done some radio
[Mike Dell]broadcasting. I get on, every once in a
[Mike Dell]while with the morning zoo show here, Omelette
(20:43):
[Mike Dell]and Friends. That's actually Omelette and Finster now.
[Mike Dell]I haven't been on there since they changed
[Mike Dell]the name and moved stations. But at some
[Mike Dell]point, I'll get back on there. And, also
[Mike Dell]used to do a show called Folk Air.
[Mike Dell]I gotta say that slowly. On, the local
[Mike Dell]community station, WNMC. I play folk and bluegrass
(21:06):
[Mike Dell]and roots music for three hours or two
[Mike Dell]hours. I think it was a two hour
[Mike Dell]show every Saturday and Tuesday. And, I kind
[Mike Dell]of backed off from that. But, I might
[Mike Dell]go back to that at some time. So,
[Mike Dell]I have been on the radio, but not
[Mike Dell]talk radio. Well, I guess the morning zoo
[Mike Dell]shows sort of talk. But, anyway. But, you
(21:29):
[Mike Dell]know, podcasting is is definitely a different sort
[Mike Dell]of medium. You know, now, you know, there's
[Mike Dell]a push for video now. And, as you
[Mike Dell]can tell, you know, me talking into a
[Mike Dell]microphone with headphones on in my office here
[Mike Dell]is not super compelling video. But, you know,
[Mike Dell]it's cool to do once in a while
[Mike Dell]for special occasions, whatever, and, you know, your
(21:50):
[Mike Dell]mileage may vary. Do what you want. That's,
[Mike Dell]you know, the rules. But, for me, audio
[Mike Dell]is just special. Again, you know, I'd be
[Mike Dell]listening to these people on talk radio in
[Mike Dell]the middle of the night. You know, you
[Mike Dell]you really felt that you got to know
[Mike Dell]them. And now and that was radio, and,
[Mike Dell]you know, commercials and all that stuff. Well,
(22:13):
[Mike Dell]in podcasting, you don't have to have commercials.
[Mike Dell]You know, a lot of podcasters choose to
[Mike Dell]to monetize with commercials, and I do listen
[Mike Dell]to some shows that have commercials in them.
[Mike Dell]No big deal there. In fact, I've ran
[Mike Dell]commercials before. But, you know, just audio, there's
[Mike Dell]a different vibe with audio. You know, you
(22:33):
[Mike Dell]can be doing other things while you're listening
[Mike Dell]to audio. And, with podcasting, it's even different
[Mike Dell]than, say, radio. Podcasting is one on one.
[Mike Dell]Most people are listening on their earbuds, or
[Mike Dell]they're in their car driving down the road,
[Mike Dell]listening on Bluetooth to the stereo, or Apple
[Mike Dell]CarPlay, or Android Auto, whatever. And, generally, it's
(22:58):
[Mike Dell]not a group activity to listen to a
[Mike Dell]podcast. Now, there are some exceptions to that,
[Mike Dell]I'm sure. But, it's a one on one
[Mike Dell]experience. And, you know, when you're on earbuds,
[Mike Dell]you're right in their head. Or, you're listening
[Mike Dell]to somebody, they're right in your head. You
[Mike Dell]know, if you're listening to me on earbuds
[Mike Dell]right now, I'm right in your head. Watch
[Mike Dell]out. What's all this clutter? But with radio,
(23:21):
[Mike Dell]you know, even though the content can be
[Mike Dell]very similar, with radio it's one to many.
[Mike Dell]With podcasting it's one on one. You know,
[Mike Dell]if you're listening to this after the fact
[Mike Dell]on a podcast, podcast app, chances of you
[Mike Dell]listening to me right now and somebody else
(23:42):
[Mike Dell]listening to me right now are very remote.
[Mike Dell]It's gonna be you're listening now, somebody else
[Mike Dell]is listening ten minutes later or three days
[Mike Dell]later or ten years later, whatever. It's just
[Mike Dell]a different sort of vibe. Video has its
[Mike Dell]place. Again, you know, special occasions. I'm looking
(24:04):
[Mike Dell]over at my camera or looking over at
[Mike Dell]my monitor, but, you know, I can wave
[Mike Dell]at you if you're watching on video. And,
[Mike Dell]you know, I could show you screenshots off
[Mike Dell]my computer. I could show you pictures. I
[Mike Dell]could, you know, have some actual interesting video
[Mike Dell]going on. And, that's a different vibe altogether
(24:25):
[Mike Dell]too. You know, like a YouTube channel. YouTube
[Mike Dell]is probably my number one source of video
[Mike Dell]content. I don't watch regular TV all that
[Mike Dell]much. I mean, every once in a while,
[Mike Dell]live sports is about it. And then, you
[Mike Dell]know, a lot of that, you have to
[Mike Dell]pay for cable to get to. You know,
[Mike Dell]like yesterday, the Michigan State versus Ohio State
(24:46):
[Mike Dell]game. Not that I care either you know,
[Mike Dell]care for either one of those teams. But
[Mike Dell]if I wanted to watch it, I couldn't
[Mike Dell]do it unless I paid somebody to, to
[Mike Dell]watch it. You know, the cable company. Cable
[Mike Dell]prices are ridiculous. Over the air broadcast? It
[Mike Dell]wasn't on there. I could stream it, but
(25:08):
[Mike Dell]I'd have to pay for, I think it
[Mike Dell]was Peacock for that one. But, they're all
[Mike Dell]different. And, podcasting is mostly a free experience.
[Mike Dell]Now there are exceptions to that, too. There's
[Mike Dell]people that charge for their show or charge
[Mike Dell]for an ad free version of their show.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, more power to them. But,
[Mike Dell]for the most part, free and open podcasting
(25:34):
[Mike Dell]is free and open, just like it says.
[Mike Dell]I don't know. It's just one of those
[Mike Dell]things I fell in love with and I
[Mike Dell]still am. You know, in my work at
[Mike Dell]Raw Voice Blueberry, I help a lot of
[Mike Dell]people, with the technical side. Not so much
[Mike Dell]the strategy side. You know, if I was
(25:54):
[Mike Dell]the best podcaster in the world, I'd have
[Mike Dell]a heck of a lot more audience than
[Mike Dell]I do. But, I can do this. And
[Mike Dell]I can, you know, leave the warts in
[Mike Dell]and all, as Adam once told me. I
[Mike Dell]flubbed up a voice memo I was sending
[Mike Dell]him for his show one time and, I
[Mike Dell]just left it in there and he said,
[Mike Dell]Yeah, warts and all. It was kinda cool.
(26:17):
[Mike Dell]Let's see. Am I getting any, anything going
[Mike Dell]on here? I'm just looking through some of
[Mike Dell]the comments. I don't see anything. Of course,
[Mike Dell]I'm not probably looking in the right places.
[Mike Dell]But, yeah. It's, you know, podcasting is just
[Mike Dell]different. And, you know, doing four hundred episodes,
(26:38):
[Mike Dell]okay, there's people out there that have done
[Mike Dell]way more episodes than I have in twenty
[Mike Dell]years. I mean, Todd's up there close to
[Mike Dell]two thousand episodes. Trucker Tom's well into the
[Mike Dell]two thousand's. And, he's been at it a
[Mike Dell]little longer than I have. And, yeah, for
[Mike Dell]me it's more therapeutic. You know, if I
(27:00):
[Mike Dell]want to get on and say something, I
[Mike Dell]can get on and say something. Now, you
[Mike Dell]know, I bite my tongue probably more than
[Mike Dell]I ought to. Because, you know, saying something
[Mike Dell]can have consequences. And, I'm not into that.
[Mike Dell]I have opinions, everybody does. But, the way
(27:25):
[Mike Dell]you know, if you watch the mainstream news
[Mike Dell]right now, oh my gosh, you know, you
[Mike Dell]would think that we're on the brink of
[Mike Dell]civil war here in the States. And I'm
[Mike Dell]not finding that to be true. Regardless of
[Mike Dell]what they say, people are not as divided
[Mike Dell]as everybody might think if all you do
[Mike Dell]is watch what the news reporters say or
(27:47):
[Mike Dell]the so called journalists. And, you know, I
[Mike Dell]know people from every walk of life. I
[Mike Dell]know people from every, political background or political
[Mike Dell]opinions and all that. And I'm friends with
[Mike Dell]people from every political opinion and all that.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, we don't have to argue
(28:08):
[Mike Dell]about that stuff. Whatever will happen will happen.
[Mike Dell]And people are not as divided as you
[Mike Dell]would think. You know, the news, in my
[Mike Dell]humble opinion, and this is just my opinion,
[Mike Dell]you can argue with me and that's great.
[Mike Dell]I welcome, comments to the contrary. But, you
(28:28):
[Mike Dell]know, what you see in the news is
[Mike Dell]the worst possible thing. Okay? They do that
[Mike Dell]on purpose. What bleeds leads, or whatever the
[Mike Dell]saying is. Nobody wants the good news. And
[Mike Dell]the news is, you know, man bites dog
(28:48):
[Mike Dell]stories, not the other normal good stuff that
[Mike Dell]is going on. We went to dinner last
[Mike Dell]night with family and we've got people from
[Mike Dell]DC to light as far as political opinions.
[Mike Dell]And we sat around the table and didn't
[Mike Dell]argue about politics. We weren't at each other's
[Mike Dell]throats. We all loved each other. And, it
(29:10):
[Mike Dell]was all great. And that's how the world
[Mike Dell]really is. But, if you watch the nightly
[Mike Dell]scare on the news channels, you're going to
[Mike Dell]have a warped sense of what's really going
[Mike Dell]on. I did work in television for a
[Mike Dell]while, local news. I wasn't on air. I
(29:33):
[Mike Dell]was, you know, behind the scenes pushing buttons
[Mike Dell]and whatnot. But, every story that they covered
[Mike Dell]while I was there that I knew something
[Mike Dell]about directly without the news had some material
[Mike Dell]thing wrong with it. And, I've got to
[Mike Dell]believe that, all of it's that way. You
[Mike Dell]know, I always like to say that, these
[Mike Dell]twenty four hour news channels out there, and
(29:55):
[Mike Dell]it doesn't matter which one it is, there's
[Mike Dell]not twenty four hours worth of news to
[Mike Dell]cover. Obviously, they repeat stuff, you know, top
[Mike Dell]of the hour for five minutes, whatever. And,
[Mike Dell]but, all the rest of it, they gotta
[Mike Dell]make stuff up. They have to because there's
[Mike Dell]just not twenty four hours worth of stuff
[Mike Dell]to talk about that's relevant. Or, you know,
(30:17):
[Mike Dell]it used to be the news would tell
[Mike Dell]you what happened and you got to check
[Mike Dell]and figure out what you think is true.
[Mike Dell]Now, they tell you what they want you
[Mike Dell]to think is truth, and you gotta figure
[Mike Dell]out whether they're lying or not. So, I
[Mike Dell]don't know. Anyway, boy, I got off into
[Mike Dell]a weird thing. But, anyhoo, yeah, almost twenty
(30:41):
[Mike Dell]years. You know, I I remember, you know,
[Mike Dell]when podcasting we went to that first podcast
[Mike Dell]conference out in Ontario, California, and it was
[Mike Dell]like a family reunion. You'd go in there
[Mike Dell]and, you know, everybody listened to everybody else
[Mike Dell]or at least had heard of each other.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, you'd walk up to somebody,
(31:03):
[Mike Dell]and, hey, I'm so and so. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, you'd recognize their voice, You'd know all
[Mike Dell]about them because you'd listened to them. Or,
[Mike Dell]they knew all about you because they listened
[Mike Dell]to you. And, you know, now with, you
[Mike Dell]know, there's some reports there's four million shows
[Mike Dell]out there, maybe more. Probably more. But, still
(31:23):
[Mike Dell]great going to these conferences. I went to
[Mike Dell]Podcast Movement here a couple months ago in
[Mike Dell]DC. And, I met a whole bunch of
[Mike Dell]people. Down to earth, didn't matter what political
[Mike Dell]opinion, race, sex, or any of that stuff.
[Mike Dell]They were just podcasters. And that was great.
(31:47):
[Mike Dell]You know, age didn't matter. In fact, I
[Mike Dell]am loving seeing the younger people getting into
[Mike Dell]both listening and producing podcasts. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]or videos or both. There's a little argument
[Mike Dell]amongst the oldsters about what is a podcast,
[Mike Dell]but, you know, audiences don't care. If you
[Mike Dell]do a YouTube channel and you call it
(32:09):
[Mike Dell]a podcast, then okay, call it a podcast.
[Mike Dell]Nobody really cares. I mean, you know, some
[Mike Dell]of us that like the technical stuff might,
[Mike Dell]but, ignore us. Podcast is a podcast is
[Mike Dell]a podcast. And, doing content is the whole
[Mike Dell]idea. And, in podcasting, there's no real rules.
[Mike Dell]There's some standards if you want it to
(32:30):
[Mike Dell]be distributed in certain places. Or, if you
[Mike Dell]don't want it distributed in certain places, you
[Mike Dell]can do whatever you want. And, that's okay.
[Mike Dell]So, I think I'm just going to cut
[Mike Dell]this off at about half an hour here.
[Mike Dell]I don't want to beleaguer it. You know,
[Mike Dell]a lot of podcasters say, Well, I want
(32:51):
[Mike Dell]my podcast to be exactly an hour. Well,
[Mike Dell]if you only have a half hour's worth
[Mike Dell]of stuff to talk about, well, don't stretch
[Mike Dell]it out. Don't waste people's time. People make
[Mike Dell]time to listen to you as a podcaster.
[Mike Dell]And, they build you into their schedule. That's
(33:11):
[Mike Dell]why consistency is important. I'm consistent about one
[Mike Dell]and a half episodes a month. That's not
[Mike Dell]consistent. But, that's one of those things that
[Mike Dell]people forget, that you don't accidentally listen to
[Mike Dell]a podcast in most cases. Yeah, maybe you
(33:32):
[Mike Dell]jump in an Uber and somebody's listening to
[Mike Dell]a podcast, driving the Uber, whatever, I get
[Mike Dell]that. But, you make a conscious choice to
[Mike Dell]listen to and or watch a podcast. You
[Mike Dell]don't do it by accident. And, so if
[Mike Dell]you're making compelling content, or even boring content
[Mike Dell]like I'm doing, people will make time for
(33:54):
[Mike Dell]it. They may not make time for it
[Mike Dell]every week, but, they'll make time for it.
[Mike Dell]And, they don't accidentally listen to you. So
[Mike Dell]if you ever wanna get into podcasting, hit
[Mike Dell]me up. I can help you with that.
[Mike Dell]And, otherwise, thanks for hanging out with me.
[Mike Dell]And, like I said, I I look forward
(34:15):
[Mike Dell]to, another four hundred. Hopefully, it won't take
[Mike Dell]me twenty years to do it. Catch me
[Mike Dell]Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever the
[Mike Dell]case may be. This is Mike, and this
[Mike Dell]is Mike Dell's World Number four hundred. And,
[Mike Dell]today is the day before International Podcast Day.
[Mike Dell]It's Sunday, the twenty ninth of September twenty
[Mike Dell]twenty four. So, I figured I'd get out
(00:21):
[Mike Dell]ahead of the International Podcast Day. I guess
[Mike Dell]it's probably the thirtieth someplace in the world.
[Mike Dell]That's cool. But, yeah, I figured I would
[Mike Dell]just kind of go over a little bit
[Mike Dell]of my history in podcasting, those of you
[Mike Dell]who have been with me forever. I have
[Mike Dell]some listeners that have been listening since the
[Mike Dell]get go, or pretty close, which was in
(00:44):
[Mike Dell]April of two thousand and five. I was
[Mike Dell]living in Lake Ann, Michigan. It's a little
[Mike Dell]town a few miles west of here. I'm
[Mike Dell]in Traverse City, in case you guys didn't
[Mike Dell]know that. The pinky finger of Michigan. Everybody
[Mike Dell]in Michigan points to the back of their
(01:05):
[Mike Dell]left hand, at least if they don't live
[Mike Dell]in the UP. And, they're in the pinky
[Mike Dell]finger area, I guess. Nobody calls it that,
[Mike Dell]but that's what I call it. But, over
[Mike Dell]in Lake Ann, you know, I was well,
[Mike Dell]we'll go back a little bit further. Back
[Mike Dell]in the early two thousand's, I got really
(01:25):
[Mike Dell]interested in talk radio because I was, you
[Mike Dell]know, up at all hours of the night,
[Mike Dell]working night shift at a printing plant. And,
[Mike Dell]you know, talk radio, people like Art Bell,
[Mike Dell]and, Jimbo Ham, Larry King, and Bruce Williams,
[Mike Dell]Sally Jesse Raphael, the old NBC Talk Net,
(01:46):
[Mike Dell]and, of course, like, Paul Harvey. But, you
[Mike Dell]know, in the middle of the night, there
[Mike Dell]really wasn't a lot of of different shows
[Mike Dell]to listen to. So it was mostly Art
[Mike Dell]Bell. And then I would catch Jim Boyan
[Mike Dell]or Larry King, you know, before Art Bell.
[Mike Dell]And, I discovered this thing called an iPod.
[Mike Dell]And, back when the iPod first came out,
(02:09):
[Mike Dell]I thought, oh, this is great. I can
[Mike Dell]put stuff on here. So, what stuff? There
[Mike Dell]wasn't much to put on there other than
[Mike Dell]music. And, you know, when you're working night
[Mike Dell]shift, music's kinda boring, puts you to sleep.
[Mike Dell]So, you know, Bruce Williams was the first
[Mike Dell]I I knew of that would put MP3
[Mike Dell]files on their website that you could download.
(02:30):
[Mike Dell]So I would download those MP3 files from,
[Mike Dell]three hours of Bruce Williams and And then,
[Mike Dell]I found a couple other sites that would
[Mike Dell]do that. And before too long, I filled
[Mike Dell]up my little iPod. In fact, I have
[Mike Dell]the iPod that I used over in that
[Mike Dell]other desk behind me. One of those iPod
[Mike Dell]Shuffles. It looked like a stick of gum,
(02:50):
[Mike Dell]kind of that shape. And, I think I
[Mike Dell]could put five hundred and twelve megabytes of
[Mike Dell]MP3s on there. And, you know, back then
[Mike Dell]we didn't encode them as high as we
[Mike Dell]do now. And, that was plenty. It would
[Mike Dell]get me through an eight hour shift and
[Mike Dell]I wouldn't even have to worry about the
[Mike Dell]AM radio. Listening to Art Bell when they
(03:11):
[Mike Dell]turned the power down, and you could, you
[Mike Dell]know, have the radio at just a certain
[Mike Dell]spot and crank it up. This was a
[Mike Dell]lot easier. I could listen in earbuds, wired
[Mike Dell]earbuds. And then I heard about this thing
[Mike Dell]called podcasting. I would listen to Twit, of
[Mike Dell]course. They were one of the first ones.
(03:33):
[Mike Dell]I listened to Adam Curry, The Daily Source
[Mike Dell]Code. That one was pretty popular. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, back then there was maybe a hundred
[Mike Dell]podcasters, something like that. Listened to Todd and
[Mike Dell]Geek News Central. He was one of the
[Mike Dell]first ones that I listened to. And, I
[Mike Dell]mean, there was just all kinds of stuff,
[Mike Dell]you know, out of that hundred that was
(03:54):
[Mike Dell]worth listening to. And, definitely got into it.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, I always wanted to have
[Mike Dell]my own radio show. I didn't really have
[Mike Dell]a lot to talk about. I still don't.
[Mike Dell]But, I always wanted to do it, you
[Mike Dell]know, just for the sake of doing it.
[Mike Dell]And, this was kind of the way to
[Mike Dell]do it. So, again, April two thousand and
(04:14):
[Mike Dell]five, I got a I just bought a
[Mike Dell]Dell laptop, a little twelve inch Windows machine,
[Mike Dell]and came with a little stick microphone. I
[Mike Dell]said, well, jeez, how hard is this, podcasting
[Mike Dell]thing to do? Back then, it was it
[Mike Dell]was a bit harder. I had to, hand
[Mike Dell]roll the RSS feed. That took me a
(04:35):
[Mike Dell]little while to figure it out. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, I was hand rolling a website. And,
[Mike Dell]basically, truth be told, I stole Adam's feed
[Mike Dell]and, just changed stuff around for my stuff
[Mike Dell]and put it on the server and away
[Mike Dell]it went. And so that's how I started.
[Mike Dell]It was this show. It was named differently.
(04:56):
[Mike Dell]It was called the Benzoide Report. The reason
[Mike Dell]for that was I lived in Benzie County,
[Mike Dell]Michigan. And, some of the people out there
[Mike Dell]call themselves Benzides. It's the smallest county in
[Mike Dell]Michigan, and I don't think it's the least
[Mike Dell]populated, but it's not very populated even now.
[Mike Dell]And I think they only have one working
(05:17):
[Mike Dell]traffic light in the whole county. So, it's
[Mike Dell]mostly woods and Lake Michigan shoreline, and cute
[Mike Dell]little towns and whatnot. Lake Ann being one
[Mike Dell]of them. And, so I thought that would
[Mike Dell]be cool. A benzoed report. I didn't know
[Mike Dell]a benzoed was a class of drug, so
[Mike Dell]So, that probably slowed me down a little
(05:37):
[Mike Dell]bit or got listeners in there that, well,
[Mike Dell]what's this all about? And, you know, it
[Mike Dell]wasn't really about anything. It still isn't. And,
[Mike Dell]that's kind of what I like about it.
[Mike Dell]I've done lots of other podcasts, and I'll
[Mike Dell]go through kind of a list of that
[Mike Dell]here in a little bit. I do have
[Mike Dell]some guidelines here, so I don't forget anything.
[Mike Dell]But, about the first thirty six episodes, thirty
(06:02):
[Mike Dell]seven episodes of the Benzoin Report are lost
[Mike Dell]in the bit bucket somewhere. You know, they
[Mike Dell]always say that you put something on the
[Mike Dell]Internet and it's here forever. Well, that's not
[Mike Dell]exactly true. I cannot find the first thirty
[Mike Dell]six episodes that I did. Nowhere online, no
(06:22):
[Mike Dell]mention of it online anywhere, but, I know
[Mike Dell]I did them. And, truth be told, probably
[Mike Dell]on a hard drive somewhere in my garage
[Mike Dell]in a in a bin full of, old
[Mike Dell]hard drives. So, some point some point, I'll
[Mike Dell]get, set up to where I can search
[Mike Dell]some hard drives and see if I can't
[Mike Dell]find those. It would would be cool to
[Mike Dell]listen to how crappy that first episode was.
(06:46):
[Mike Dell]Again, I was sitting on my front porch
[Mike Dell]outside in the woods, with a stick microphone
[Mike Dell]and a laptop and, yeah, I'm sure it
[Mike Dell]was just wonderful. But, flash forward to September
[Mike Dell]of two thousand and eight, I decided that
[Mike Dell]the Benzoin Report was probably not the right
[Mike Dell]name for the podcast and switched it over
(07:07):
[Mike Dell]to Mike Dell's World with episode ninety three.
[Mike Dell]So, technically, subtract ninety two episodes and that's
[Mike Dell]my true count of Mike Dell's World, but,
[Mike Dell]we're splitting hairs here. And, I've done a
[Mike Dell]lot of unnumbered episodes. For a while there,
[Mike Dell]there was some technology that you could actually,
(07:29):
[Mike Dell]literally phone it in. You'd dial a phone
[Mike Dell]number and talk into the phone, and then
[Mike Dell]when you hung up, it created a podcast
[Mike Dell]episode and put it out. So, I did
[Mike Dell]a lot of those episodes. Done, you know,
[Mike Dell]I've podcasted a lot of places. I've podcasted
[Mike Dell]walking down the strip in Las Vegas. I've
[Mike Dell]podcasted, you know, taking a walk around my
(07:52):
[Mike Dell]neighborhood, one of my favorite episodes. I forgot
[Mike Dell]what number it is. It's still online. But,
[Mike Dell]it's called Walking with the White Squirrels. I
[Mike Dell]don't know why that's my favorite, it just
[Mike Dell]always was. I've replayed it probably two times
[Mike Dell]since. You know, it's the neighborhood I live
[Mike Dell]in. It's all nice and woods. And behind
(08:14):
[Mike Dell]my house, there was a family of white
[Mike Dell]squirrels. And, I haven't seen any in several
[Mike Dell]years now, but you know, there were albino
[Mike Dell]I guess they're albino squirrels, and, I guess
[Mike Dell]they don't last in the wild just because
[Mike Dell]they're easy to see. But used to, you
[Mike Dell]know, take a walk back there, and I'd
[Mike Dell]see three, four, five, six of them. And,
(08:34):
[Mike Dell]now I don't see them anymore. So, yeah,
[Mike Dell]I guess. But, you know, walking and talking,
[Mike Dell]you know, people look at you funny. Nowadays,
[Mike Dell]they don't because, you know, everybody's got Bluetooth
[Mike Dell]and talking on their phones all the time.
[Mike Dell]You know, you can walk around like a
[Mike Dell]crazy person and nobody would care. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, a lot of people walk around with
[Mike Dell]cameras in their face. It's just not quite
(08:55):
[Mike Dell]my thing. You know, because of my podcast,
[Mike Dell]I have the full time employment that I
[Mike Dell]have now. I went to a conference in
[Mike Dell]two thousand seven out in California and, by
[Mike Dell]chance, ran into the, Ravoice team out there.
[Mike Dell]Barry and Todd, Brian, Angelo, I don't remember
(09:19):
[Mike Dell]who else was there. But, I hit it
[Mike Dell]off with them, apparently, because, a couple years
[Mike Dell]later, I went part time with them. Everybody
[Mike Dell]was part time back then. So, in o
[Mike Dell]nine, started part time at Blueberry doing, tech
[Mike Dell]support. You know, helping them with, you know,
[Mike Dell]they just come out with a PowerPress plugin
(09:39):
[Mike Dell]for WordPress and, just started hosting shows. You
[Mike Dell]know, before that, we weren't doing any hosting.
[Mike Dell]It was all advertising. And, we pivoted. If
[Mike Dell]you want to hear the whole story about
[Mike Dell]that, the episode of Podcast Insider that came
[Mike Dell]out last Thursday. Some of the people have
(10:00):
[Mike Dell]been around Raw Voice and Blueberry all the
[Mike Dell]time. We kind of went through the history
[Mike Dell]of that. You know, celebrating twenty years of
[Mike Dell]podcasting, He said, Nearly twenty years of me
[Mike Dell]podcasting in April. That'll be twenty. Todd, I
[Mike Dell]think, just went over twenty years. Interesting stuff.
(10:21):
[Mike Dell]But, yeah. I went with Blueberry part time
[Mike Dell]in two thousand and nine. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]I've been kind of living the living the
[Mike Dell]dream, I guess. And then in twenty fifteen,
[Mike Dell]I went full time. And I've been there
[Mike Dell]ever since, of course. And, again, you know,
[Mike Dell]about four hundred episodes. The officially numbered ones
(10:42):
[Mike Dell]are four hundred for this show in nearly
[Mike Dell]twenty years. So, I figure that averages out
[Mike Dell]to about one point six episodes a month.
[Mike Dell]I always like to say I'm the king
[Mike Dell]of inconsistency in podcasting. So, that's how that
[Mike Dell]works. And if you've been with me that
[Mike Dell]whole time, you know I go two, three
(11:03):
[Mike Dell]months sometimes between episodes, and then I put
[Mike Dell]out a bunch of them, and then, stop
[Mike Dell]for a while and put out a bunch
[Mike Dell]more. I'm doing exactly you know, don't do
[Mike Dell]as I do, do as I say. My
[Mike Dell]suggestion is stay consistent. But I haven't done
[Mike Dell]that. That's okay. But, I've had a lot
[Mike Dell]of other podcasts along the way that I've
(11:25):
[Mike Dell]started and stopped. I'm also the King of
[Mike Dell]Pod Fade. And, this isn't even a full
[Mike Dell]list, but I was just, you know, going
[Mike Dell]through my head here. The second show that
[Mike Dell]I started was with a friend of mine,
[Mike Dell]John Martin. We're both ham radio operators, and
[Mike Dell]we're teaching live classes, getting your ham radio
[Mike Dell]license here in the US. We did the
(11:46):
[Mike Dell]technician and the general course. We didn't do
[Mike Dell]the extra class. We've had plans to and,
[Mike Dell]that one pod faded. But, we called it
[Mike Dell]the Ham Radio Pod Class. And, that started,
[Mike Dell]like, in September of two thousand five. And,
[Mike Dell]even got a mention on the Adam Curry's
[Mike Dell]daily source code. So that was the claim
(12:08):
[Mike Dell]to fame there. But, near as I can
[Mike Dell]tell, we we got probably seven or eight
[Mike Dell]hundred people licensed as, technician class amateur radio
[Mike Dell]operators here in the US. And, I don't
[Mike Dell]know how many generals, but, definitely had a
[Mike Dell]pretty decent following on that. Made a couple
(12:29):
[Mike Dell]enemies along the way. There was a couple
[Mike Dell]of other people that were doing cassette tape
[Mike Dell]classes for ham radio and they weren't real
[Mike Dell]happy with us. We'd go down to hamvention
[Mike Dell]and get snubbed. I won't mention any names
[Mike Dell]because, one of them is still active, doing
(12:50):
[Mike Dell]that. He does good. He sells, I don't
[Mike Dell]think he sells cassettes anymore. And, in fact,
[Mike Dell]I think he had a podcast for a
[Mike Dell]while with Leo LaPorte. But, again, I won't,
[Mike Dell]I won't say his name just because they
[Mike Dell]don't, you know, no no bad comments there.
[Mike Dell]He's a good guy, and he's trained a
(13:10):
[Mike Dell]heck of a lot more hams than I
[Mike Dell]have. But, that was that was the second
[Mike Dell]show that we did. Then I thought, oh,
[Mike Dell]let's do a daily podcast. Oh my gosh,
[Mike Dell]daily is nuts. And, I've tried it four
[Mike Dell]or five times and, it's just way too
[Mike Dell]much. No matter how short the content is.
(13:31):
[Mike Dell]A daily podcast. Shout out to James Cridland
[Mike Dell]doing, you know, daily, weekdays. We did, daily
[Mike Dell]seven days a week for, one called Strange
[Mike Dell]Today. That's where I'd find weird news and
[Mike Dell]and, you know, talk about that. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, anything strange in the news and strange
(13:52):
[Mike Dell]history stuff. I I was like history. So,
[Mike Dell]you'll see a repeating theme here on some
[Mike Dell]of these shows. But, one thing nice about
[Mike Dell]that is I had a few extra guest
[Mike Dell]hosts. So, I would write all the scripts.
[Mike Dell]They weren't really word for word scripts, but
[Mike Dell]I'd write scripts and then I'd send them
[Mike Dell]off. You know, so Trucker Tom and, I
(14:15):
[Mike Dell]can't think of the other guy that was
[Mike Dell]that would do the weekend shows for me,
[Mike Dell]but, he still does Linux and the Ham
[Mike Dell]Shack. So, shout out to you. But, had
[Mike Dell]Trucker Tom do a few of them, and
[Mike Dell]Jim Farley, my wife, Kathy. You know, so
[Mike Dell]we not always the same host every day,
[Mike Dell]but we we made that go a complete
(14:35):
[Mike Dell]year. So I did end up with three
[Mike Dell]hundred sixty five episodes of that one, called
[Mike Dell]Strange Today. And I think that one's all
[Mike Dell]gone too. I I again, I probably have
[Mike Dell]it all on hard drive somewhere. And then
[Mike Dell]Jim Farley and I, Jim's a ham radio
[Mike Dell]friend of mine and, friend, has a cottage
(14:56):
[Mike Dell]up here. We break bread, quite often. Anyway,
[Mike Dell]Jim and I did one called What's Up
[Mike Dell]With That? It was just a commentary comedy
[Mike Dell]thing. We'd just talk about whatever was going
[Mike Dell]on that day, when we would record. We
[Mike Dell]did quite a few of those episodes. And,
[Mike Dell]every once in a while, I'll get Jim
(15:16):
[Mike Dell]to record with me and we'll put one
[Mike Dell]of those episodes out on this feed. Again,
[Mike Dell]this feed stayed consistent, not consistent, but, it's
[Mike Dell]been the one where you find out everything
[Mike Dell]because I throw stuff into it from time
[Mike Dell]to time. And, I did a geek show
(15:38):
[Mike Dell]for a short time called Geek of the
[Mike Dell]North. That didn't last very long. Had that
[Mike Dell]one on a network with, Steve Lee. And,
[Mike Dell]I don't remember what the network name is,
[Mike Dell]but he's since retired. He's also one of
[Mike Dell]the founders of International Podcast Day, him and
[Mike Dell]his son. And, shout out to you, Steve.
(15:59):
[Mike Dell]Haven't heard from you in a while. Look
[Mike Dell]me up and see what's going on. And,
[Mike Dell]those of you that know me know that
[Mike Dell]I'm an aviation geek. So I did another
[Mike Dell]daily. And, it lasted a year, called Aviation
[Mike Dell]History Today. So, I would read stories that
[Mike Dell]happened back in the day, you know, about
(16:20):
[Mike Dell]aviation. It was just a little short, ten
[Mike Dell]minute daily. I did that for three hundred
[Mike Dell]sixty five days, so I stayed somewhat consistent
[Mike Dell]with that one. And then after the year,
[Mike Dell]I said, well, why don't we just do
[Mike Dell]aviation history this week? So I did a
[Mike Dell]half hour show where I would cover the
[Mike Dell]whole week and, come up with some pretty
(16:40):
[Mike Dell]pretty cool ones. On the April first, show
[Mike Dell]I remember, those of you that are Star
[Mike Dell]Trek geeks, which I am, know that in
[Mike Dell]two thousand and sixty three, the, Doctor. Zefram
[Mike Dell]Cochrane discovered or demonstrated Warp Drive. And, it's
(17:02):
[Mike Dell]known as First Contact Day. Anyway, I put
[Mike Dell]that in there and, I said that was
[Mike Dell]the great great grandson of Todd Cochrane. So,
[Mike Dell]anyway, that was funny. I tried a local
[Mike Dell]one called the Traverse City podcast. That really
[Mike Dell]didn't go very far or very long, but,
(17:24):
[Mike Dell]you know, just sorta did that for a
[Mike Dell]while and, probably did five episodes where I
[Mike Dell]thought, yeah, this is hard. It's hard work.
[Mike Dell]So I didn't, didn't stick with that one.
[Mike Dell]I did stick with this next one for
[Mike Dell]two years. And, it was a daily, seven
[Mike Dell]days a week. It was the Traverse City
(17:47):
[Mike Dell]Weather Brief. And, all I did was, read
[Mike Dell]the weather forecast. Whatever the National Weather Service
[Mike Dell]put out, I'd just read that, and, I
[Mike Dell]could record a couple days ahead of time.
[Mike Dell]It was about a one minute, if that,
[Mike Dell]podcast. And, also, was a Amazon what do
(18:07):
[Mike Dell]you call it? I can't say her name
[Mike Dell]or she'll talk to me, but, the talking
[Mike Dell]tube lady, it was one of those skills
[Mike Dell]that people could sign up for when they
[Mike Dell]got their daily news brief. They would get
[Mike Dell]the local weather. So I did that for
[Mike Dell]a couple of years, and that was fun.
[Mike Dell]But, again, even though it was very short
(18:29):
[Mike Dell]and I could record it anywhere, I just
[Mike Dell]you know, dailies are hard. Again, James, how
[Mike Dell]do you do it? That's crazy. James does,
[Mike Dell]you know, a good four minutes, five minutes
[Mike Dell]sometimes, on Pod News Daily. Check that out
[Mike Dell]if you're into podcast stuff. Then I tried
(18:51):
[Mike Dell]another one, Fast Food History. I don't know.
[Mike Dell]I got probably twenty episodes of that. It
[Mike Dell]was interesting for a while, but, you know,
[Mike Dell]again, history related. And then, podcast help desk.
[Mike Dell]I did that. I thought, wow, I'm talking
[Mike Dell]about podcasting all the time on my main
[Mike Dell]show. Let's try it as a weekly show.
(19:14):
[Mike Dell]So, I did that. And, that one went
[Mike Dell]for a while. I think I got maybe
[Mike Dell]one hundred and fifty episodes of that before
[Mike Dell]I kind of ran out of things to
[Mike Dell]talk about. Plus, I was doing Podcast Insider
[Mike Dell]for Blueberry. And, it kind of is the
[Mike Dell]same thing. So, I kind of bailed on
(19:36):
[Mike Dell]that. Now, I'm doing Podcast Insider very weekly,
[Mike Dell]very consistently. I'm not always the host of
[Mike Dell]it, but, nine times out of ten I
[Mike Dell]am. It's Mackenzie, I, and Todd, and sometimes
[Mike Dell]other people. So, that one's going. And, I
[Mike Dell]do another show that is still in the,
(19:58):
[Mike Dell]we're trying to get our sea legs, but
[Mike Dell]with Mike Wilkerson, over at Two Guys Talking
[Mike Dell]Network. We do the Auto History Podcast. And,
[Mike Dell]we've done a few episodes of it and,
[Mike Dell]kind of regrouping right now to get into
[Mike Dell]a battle rhythm of, being consistent. But that
[Mike Dell]one, I think, will go consistent and having
[Mike Dell]a co host helps. So, yeah. Why you
(20:22):
[Mike Dell]know, one of the other things I wanted
[Mike Dell]to talk about is, well, you know, why
[Mike Dell]podcasting? You know? Just do a YouTube channel.
[Mike Dell]Do, you know, blogging. Do, you know, actual
[Mike Dell]radio broadcasting. Well, I have done some radio
[Mike Dell]broadcasting. I get on, every once in a
[Mike Dell]while with the morning zoo show here, Omelette
(20:43):
[Mike Dell]and Friends. That's actually Omelette and Finster now.
[Mike Dell]I haven't been on there since they changed
[Mike Dell]the name and moved stations. But at some
[Mike Dell]point, I'll get back on there. And, also
[Mike Dell]used to do a show called Folk Air.
[Mike Dell]I gotta say that slowly. On, the local
[Mike Dell]community station, WNMC. I play folk and bluegrass
(21:06):
[Mike Dell]and roots music for three hours or two
[Mike Dell]hours. I think it was a two hour
[Mike Dell]show every Saturday and Tuesday. And, I kind
[Mike Dell]of backed off from that. But, I might
[Mike Dell]go back to that at some time. So,
[Mike Dell]I have been on the radio, but not
[Mike Dell]talk radio. Well, I guess the morning zoo
[Mike Dell]shows sort of talk. But, anyway. But, you
(21:29):
[Mike Dell]know, podcasting is is definitely a different sort
[Mike Dell]of medium. You know, now, you know, there's
[Mike Dell]a push for video now. And, as you
[Mike Dell]can tell, you know, me talking into a
[Mike Dell]microphone with headphones on in my office here
[Mike Dell]is not super compelling video. But, you know,
[Mike Dell]it's cool to do once in a while
[Mike Dell]for special occasions, whatever, and, you know, your
(21:50):
[Mike Dell]mileage may vary. Do what you want. That's,
[Mike Dell]you know, the rules. But, for me, audio
[Mike Dell]is just special. Again, you know, I'd be
[Mike Dell]listening to these people on talk radio in
[Mike Dell]the middle of the night. You know, you
[Mike Dell]you really felt that you got to know
[Mike Dell]them. And now and that was radio, and,
[Mike Dell]you know, commercials and all that stuff. Well,
(22:13):
[Mike Dell]in podcasting, you don't have to have commercials.
[Mike Dell]You know, a lot of podcasters choose to
[Mike Dell]to monetize with commercials, and I do listen
[Mike Dell]to some shows that have commercials in them.
[Mike Dell]No big deal there. In fact, I've ran
[Mike Dell]commercials before. But, you know, just audio, there's
[Mike Dell]a different vibe with audio. You know, you
(22:33):
[Mike Dell]can be doing other things while you're listening
[Mike Dell]to audio. And, with podcasting, it's even different
[Mike Dell]than, say, radio. Podcasting is one on one.
[Mike Dell]Most people are listening on their earbuds, or
[Mike Dell]they're in their car driving down the road,
[Mike Dell]listening on Bluetooth to the stereo, or Apple
[Mike Dell]CarPlay, or Android Auto, whatever. And, generally, it's
(22:58):
[Mike Dell]not a group activity to listen to a
[Mike Dell]podcast. Now, there are some exceptions to that,
[Mike Dell]I'm sure. But, it's a one on one
[Mike Dell]experience. And, you know, when you're on earbuds,
[Mike Dell]you're right in their head. Or, you're listening
[Mike Dell]to somebody, they're right in your head. You
[Mike Dell]know, if you're listening to me on earbuds
[Mike Dell]right now, I'm right in your head. Watch
[Mike Dell]out. What's all this clutter? But with radio,
(23:21):
[Mike Dell]you know, even though the content can be
[Mike Dell]very similar, with radio it's one to many.
[Mike Dell]With podcasting it's one on one. You know,
[Mike Dell]if you're listening to this after the fact
[Mike Dell]on a podcast, podcast app, chances of you
[Mike Dell]listening to me right now and somebody else
(23:42):
[Mike Dell]listening to me right now are very remote.
[Mike Dell]It's gonna be you're listening now, somebody else
[Mike Dell]is listening ten minutes later or three days
[Mike Dell]later or ten years later, whatever. It's just
[Mike Dell]a different sort of vibe. Video has its
[Mike Dell]place. Again, you know, special occasions. I'm looking
(24:04):
[Mike Dell]over at my camera or looking over at
[Mike Dell]my monitor, but, you know, I can wave
[Mike Dell]at you if you're watching on video. And,
[Mike Dell]you know, I could show you screenshots off
[Mike Dell]my computer. I could show you pictures. I
[Mike Dell]could, you know, have some actual interesting video
[Mike Dell]going on. And, that's a different vibe altogether
(24:25):
[Mike Dell]too. You know, like a YouTube channel. YouTube
[Mike Dell]is probably my number one source of video
[Mike Dell]content. I don't watch regular TV all that
[Mike Dell]much. I mean, every once in a while,
[Mike Dell]live sports is about it. And then, you
[Mike Dell]know, a lot of that, you have to
[Mike Dell]pay for cable to get to. You know,
[Mike Dell]like yesterday, the Michigan State versus Ohio State
(24:46):
[Mike Dell]game. Not that I care either you know,
[Mike Dell]care for either one of those teams. But
[Mike Dell]if I wanted to watch it, I couldn't
[Mike Dell]do it unless I paid somebody to, to
[Mike Dell]watch it. You know, the cable company. Cable
[Mike Dell]prices are ridiculous. Over the air broadcast? It
[Mike Dell]wasn't on there. I could stream it, but
(25:08):
[Mike Dell]I'd have to pay for, I think it
[Mike Dell]was Peacock for that one. But, they're all
[Mike Dell]different. And, podcasting is mostly a free experience.
[Mike Dell]Now there are exceptions to that, too. There's
[Mike Dell]people that charge for their show or charge
[Mike Dell]for an ad free version of their show.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, more power to them. But,
[Mike Dell]for the most part, free and open podcasting
(25:34):
[Mike Dell]is free and open, just like it says.
[Mike Dell]I don't know. It's just one of those
[Mike Dell]things I fell in love with and I
[Mike Dell]still am. You know, in my work at
[Mike Dell]Raw Voice Blueberry, I help a lot of
[Mike Dell]people, with the technical side. Not so much
[Mike Dell]the strategy side. You know, if I was
(25:54):
[Mike Dell]the best podcaster in the world, I'd have
[Mike Dell]a heck of a lot more audience than
[Mike Dell]I do. But, I can do this. And
[Mike Dell]I can, you know, leave the warts in
[Mike Dell]and all, as Adam once told me. I
[Mike Dell]flubbed up a voice memo I was sending
[Mike Dell]him for his show one time and, I
[Mike Dell]just left it in there and he said,
[Mike Dell]Yeah, warts and all. It was kinda cool.
(26:17):
[Mike Dell]Let's see. Am I getting any, anything going
[Mike Dell]on here? I'm just looking through some of
[Mike Dell]the comments. I don't see anything. Of course,
[Mike Dell]I'm not probably looking in the right places.
[Mike Dell]But, yeah. It's, you know, podcasting is just
[Mike Dell]different. And, you know, doing four hundred episodes,
(26:38):
[Mike Dell]okay, there's people out there that have done
[Mike Dell]way more episodes than I have in twenty
[Mike Dell]years. I mean, Todd's up there close to
[Mike Dell]two thousand episodes. Trucker Tom's well into the
[Mike Dell]two thousand's. And, he's been at it a
[Mike Dell]little longer than I have. And, yeah, for
[Mike Dell]me it's more therapeutic. You know, if I
(27:00):
[Mike Dell]want to get on and say something, I
[Mike Dell]can get on and say something. Now, you
[Mike Dell]know, I bite my tongue probably more than
[Mike Dell]I ought to. Because, you know, saying something
[Mike Dell]can have consequences. And, I'm not into that.
[Mike Dell]I have opinions, everybody does. But, the way
(27:25):
[Mike Dell]you know, if you watch the mainstream news
[Mike Dell]right now, oh my gosh, you know, you
[Mike Dell]would think that we're on the brink of
[Mike Dell]civil war here in the States. And I'm
[Mike Dell]not finding that to be true. Regardless of
[Mike Dell]what they say, people are not as divided
[Mike Dell]as everybody might think if all you do
[Mike Dell]is watch what the news reporters say or
(27:47):
[Mike Dell]the so called journalists. And, you know, I
[Mike Dell]know people from every walk of life. I
[Mike Dell]know people from every, political background or political
[Mike Dell]opinions and all that. And I'm friends with
[Mike Dell]people from every political opinion and all that.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, we don't have to argue
(28:08):
[Mike Dell]about that stuff. Whatever will happen will happen.
[Mike Dell]And people are not as divided as you
[Mike Dell]would think. You know, the news, in my
[Mike Dell]humble opinion, and this is just my opinion,
[Mike Dell]you can argue with me and that's great.
[Mike Dell]I welcome, comments to the contrary. But, you
(28:28):
[Mike Dell]know, what you see in the news is
[Mike Dell]the worst possible thing. Okay? They do that
[Mike Dell]on purpose. What bleeds leads, or whatever the
[Mike Dell]saying is. Nobody wants the good news. And
[Mike Dell]the news is, you know, man bites dog
(28:48):
[Mike Dell]stories, not the other normal good stuff that
[Mike Dell]is going on. We went to dinner last
[Mike Dell]night with family and we've got people from
[Mike Dell]DC to light as far as political opinions.
[Mike Dell]And we sat around the table and didn't
[Mike Dell]argue about politics. We weren't at each other's
[Mike Dell]throats. We all loved each other. And, it
(29:10):
[Mike Dell]was all great. And that's how the world
[Mike Dell]really is. But, if you watch the nightly
[Mike Dell]scare on the news channels, you're going to
[Mike Dell]have a warped sense of what's really going
[Mike Dell]on. I did work in television for a
[Mike Dell]while, local news. I wasn't on air. I
(29:33):
[Mike Dell]was, you know, behind the scenes pushing buttons
[Mike Dell]and whatnot. But, every story that they covered
[Mike Dell]while I was there that I knew something
[Mike Dell]about directly without the news had some material
[Mike Dell]thing wrong with it. And, I've got to
[Mike Dell]believe that, all of it's that way. You
[Mike Dell]know, I always like to say that, these
[Mike Dell]twenty four hour news channels out there, and
(29:55):
[Mike Dell]it doesn't matter which one it is, there's
[Mike Dell]not twenty four hours worth of news to
[Mike Dell]cover. Obviously, they repeat stuff, you know, top
[Mike Dell]of the hour for five minutes, whatever. And,
[Mike Dell]but, all the rest of it, they gotta
[Mike Dell]make stuff up. They have to because there's
[Mike Dell]just not twenty four hours worth of stuff
[Mike Dell]to talk about that's relevant. Or, you know,
(30:17):
[Mike Dell]it used to be the news would tell
[Mike Dell]you what happened and you got to check
[Mike Dell]and figure out what you think is true.
[Mike Dell]Now, they tell you what they want you
[Mike Dell]to think is truth, and you gotta figure
[Mike Dell]out whether they're lying or not. So, I
[Mike Dell]don't know. Anyway, boy, I got off into
[Mike Dell]a weird thing. But, anyhoo, yeah, almost twenty
(30:41):
[Mike Dell]years. You know, I I remember, you know,
[Mike Dell]when podcasting we went to that first podcast
[Mike Dell]conference out in Ontario, California, and it was
[Mike Dell]like a family reunion. You'd go in there
[Mike Dell]and, you know, everybody listened to everybody else
[Mike Dell]or at least had heard of each other.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, you'd walk up to somebody,
(31:03):
[Mike Dell]and, hey, I'm so and so. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, you'd recognize their voice, You'd know all
[Mike Dell]about them because you'd listened to them. Or,
[Mike Dell]they knew all about you because they listened
[Mike Dell]to you. And, you know, now with, you
[Mike Dell]know, there's some reports there's four million shows
[Mike Dell]out there, maybe more. Probably more. But, still
(31:23):
[Mike Dell]great going to these conferences. I went to
[Mike Dell]Podcast Movement here a couple months ago in
[Mike Dell]DC. And, I met a whole bunch of
[Mike Dell]people. Down to earth, didn't matter what political
[Mike Dell]opinion, race, sex, or any of that stuff.
[Mike Dell]They were just podcasters. And that was great.
(31:47):
[Mike Dell]You know, age didn't matter. In fact, I
[Mike Dell]am loving seeing the younger people getting into
[Mike Dell]both listening and producing podcasts. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]or videos or both. There's a little argument
[Mike Dell]amongst the oldsters about what is a podcast,
[Mike Dell]but, you know, audiences don't care. If you
[Mike Dell]do a YouTube channel and you call it
(32:09):
[Mike Dell]a podcast, then okay, call it a podcast.
[Mike Dell]Nobody really cares. I mean, you know, some
[Mike Dell]of us that like the technical stuff might,
[Mike Dell]but, ignore us. Podcast is a podcast is
[Mike Dell]a podcast. And, doing content is the whole
[Mike Dell]idea. And, in podcasting, there's no real rules.
[Mike Dell]There's some standards if you want it to
(32:30):
[Mike Dell]be distributed in certain places. Or, if you
[Mike Dell]don't want it distributed in certain places, you
[Mike Dell]can do whatever you want. And, that's okay.
[Mike Dell]So, I think I'm just going to cut
[Mike Dell]this off at about half an hour here.
[Mike Dell]I don't want to beleaguer it. You know,
[Mike Dell]a lot of podcasters say, Well, I want
(32:51):
[Mike Dell]my podcast to be exactly an hour. Well,
[Mike Dell]if you only have a half hour's worth
[Mike Dell]of stuff to talk about, well, don't stretch
[Mike Dell]it out. Don't waste people's time. People make
[Mike Dell]time to listen to you as a podcaster.
[Mike Dell]And, they build you into their schedule. That's
(33:11):
[Mike Dell]why consistency is important. I'm consistent about one
[Mike Dell]and a half episodes a month. That's not
[Mike Dell]consistent. But, that's one of those things that
[Mike Dell]people forget, that you don't accidentally listen to
[Mike Dell]a podcast in most cases. Yeah, maybe you
(33:32):
[Mike Dell]jump in an Uber and somebody's listening to
[Mike Dell]a podcast, driving the Uber, whatever, I get
[Mike Dell]that. But, you make a conscious choice to
[Mike Dell]listen to and or watch a podcast. You
[Mike Dell]don't do it by accident. And, so if
[Mike Dell]you're making compelling content, or even boring content
[Mike Dell]like I'm doing, people will make time for
(33:54):
[Mike Dell]it. They may not make time for it
[Mike Dell]every week, but, they'll make time for it.
[Mike Dell]And, they don't accidentally listen to you. So
[Mike Dell]if you ever wanna get into podcasting, hit
[Mike Dell]me up. I can help you with that.
[Mike Dell]And, otherwise, thanks for hanging out with me.
[Mike Dell]And, like I said, I I look forward
(34:15):
[Mike Dell]to, another four hundred. Hopefully, it won't take
[Mike Dell]me twenty years to do it. Catch me
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com