Why I Podcast

Now I know what you are thinking.  Why is Gavin making so many podcasts?  Well, I have a confession.  Lately, I have become obsessed with the medium.  Blogging is great fun, but podcast just takes it to the next level.  Let me tell you why.

You see it all stems from my passion for radio communications.  In the late 1970’s, when I was a teenager, my hobby was my CB radio.  I would spend all my spare time talking to people as far away as I could receive, and tuning my equipment perform at its peak.  This was well before the days of the Internet.

I managed to communicate to people as far away as the USA, New Zealand, and all of the Australian states.  Heck, I even managed to talk to people from Tasmania, which I thought was simply amazing!

Then I joined the Navy at the age of 16.  I knew exactly what trade I wanted to be after recruit school.  You guessed it.  A Radio Operator, and that is what I became!  At Communications School I learnt how to type at 50 wpm, how to send and receive morse code, radio telephony (voice), and radio teletype (radio telex).

Way back before the Internet, these were the only forms of long distance communication that were reliable (most of the time).  Even satellite communications was not widespread like it is today.  During my time in the Navy, I managed to visit many of those countries that I dreamed of travelling when I was a CB enthusiast.   Consider my mind blown!

Anyway, radio communications has always been part of my life, and I yearned for a long time to get back in front of a microphone and communicate with others.  With the advent of the Internet, the communications revolution took flight.  Today I can video phone friends in the US, UK, New Zealand, Canada, and all around this big wide land I call home, all for free, in the blink of an eye, just like the Thunderbirds (now I am showing my age).  Without the marvel of the Internet, even this blog, which is just a glorified personal journal, would never been able to reach the many thousands of people who read it each day.

But blogging wasn’t the same as radio.  Enter the podcast, which in reality is just Online Internet Radio that you can download anytime you like.  I believe that on iTunes alone, there are over 200,000 different podcasts that cover just about any topic you can think of.  Once I got back in front of a microphone, I felt like I had come full circle, back to my roots so to speak.  Talking to you about cool topics that are close to my heart, and hopefully yours gives me great joy.  The feedback after every show via email and voicemails have been humbling, and I love to reply to them, just like I do with the vast majority of comments on this blog.

Do you know what I like the best about podcasting?  It feels intimate, and personal.  People make a choice of downloading my audio about sustainable living and cheese making, and listening to my words when they jog, travel to work, ride their bikes, and walk down the street.  I am inside their brain for however long the episode runs for, and I have their full attention.  Unlike blog posts, people don’t skim through a podcast.  They, or at least I listen from start to finish, unless it is truly awful content.  I believe that there is no other form of communication that is more intimate other than a face to face conversation.

So dear readers and listeners, that is why I podcast.  Some people like to read, others like to listen.  It is as simple as that.  I will keep writing, and talking as long as you keep reading and listening.  The day that I feel I have not more to say, then that is when I will stop.  You will be happy to know that I have a lot more to give, and say, so I will not be stopping anytime soon.

Anyway, in case you are new to the blog, I do have two podcasts active now, with over 1500 subscribers on TGOG and over 800 on LGC (which is amazing in just 3 episodes).  It must be the favourite Uncle in me that people like, as a reader mentioned in the last post.  These podcasts are “The Greening of Gavin – Saving the Planet one episode at a time”, and “Little Green Cheese podcast”.  If you would like to subscribe to either of them, just click on the podcast logos below.  All the reader questions and voicemails with regularly feature on the shows are always greatly appreciated.

I have also been considering a weekly live show, but am still working through the details.  I can host it free my own channel via Mixlr.com, but need some ideas for content.  I have no idea how large the audience would be, but I just want to give it a go.  I would base it around sustainable living, but much broader than the TGOG podcast which focuses on a single theme each month.  Does anyone have any suggestions for live show content?

So thanks for reading my story about why I podcast.  Hopefully you have learned a little more about why I do the things I do.