Adventures in Podcasting

While on her break way from base, Pilar ponders on the nature of podcasts as "personal chronicles".

I hadn’t planned a show for this week, but I made an effort to keep to a regular schedule. I’m actually not at home, so the audio will sound different and the set up is not as comfortable.

The trigger for jumping behind the microphone was listening to Daniel Aragay in Haciendo el Sueco, where he talks about his time in Sweden. Recently he commented on a Twitter conversation, after a person shared a strange experience when he stayed with a Swedish family a long time ago.

As podcasters, we have the opportunity to set the record straight when people are talking about something with no access to the context - in this case, Spanish people talking about life in Sweden. In some cases, we can act as “culture bridges”, giving access to people from our country of origin to another culture.

We decide how much of ourselves we bring into our podcast, although it’s a shame when some hosts decide to leave most of themselves out of the conversation. Podcasting is such an intimate medium, that it seems like a missed opportunity. But there is no right or wrong.

Listeners also have a preference, with some enjoying those shows where they really feel like they get to know the host, while some prefer to get the information in a straight forward way.

By the way, my friend Simon and I are putting together an audio course. We’ve been working on the material as a text-based programme, but when we got to record some additional audio for it, we ended up with something that sounded more like the audio version of the course. We realised that the material would work as an audio-first course, delivered by both of us together, so we’re giving that a try.

Going back to the theme of podcasters bringing a lot of themselves and their lives to the show, I’ve recently come across Beyond Retirement, where the host started the podcast when she was about to retire, and now she’s retired. She’s talking to people at the same stage of life as she is in, and with a similar mindset. (I really like in her show how she has an interview with a guest in one episode, and then releases a solo episode with reflections on the interview.)

A podcast can be a “personal chronicle”, a kind of memoir. This show is a bit like this, and it also gives me the opportunity to talk about podcasting.

When we bring ourselves to the show, our listeners get to know us, and this is an example of “asymmetrical intimacy”, where listeners feel like they know us very well but we don’t really know them.

And don’t forget to let listeners know how they can get in touch with you! You can get in touch through the contact form here.

Get in touch if you would like some coaching and advice yourself or connect on Twitter @Inpodcasting

If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).

Marisa Eikenberry is the co-host of Long Distance Work Life.

Marisa is the web developer at the Kevin Eikenberry group, and she has been editing their podcasts Remarkable Leadership since 2016 and Talk Like a Leader since 2019.

Marisa goes into detail of how these shows are recorded, her process with the hosts and the differences working between shows, talking about how much editing she does for both shows, what she looks out for when she’s listening back, etc So this will be of interest to those of you who are starting to podcast and wander what is involved in working with an editor, and get some ideas of what to look out for when working on a show. (And I realised how much I enjoy talking about editing.)

As well as those business shows, Marisa is also part of the editing team that turns Twitch streams into podcasts for GodSquad Church.

10.52 mins

The podcast Long Distance Work Life started as a way of promoting the group’s new book - well, actually, Marissa had been waiting for a while to get her co-host Wayne to do a podcast. Once they decided to start the show, they thought of ways in which to differentiate themselves from other shows covering similar topics.

The amateur-expert dynamic or teacher-student is a fun one to listen to, and Pilar has experience of that in My Pocket Psych, where she plays the “voice of the public” to occupational psychologist Dr Richard MacKinnon. (Pilar also mentions The Story Grid, as an example of this.)

Marissa is having a lot of fun with this, asking questions that she knows other people have, but also those that she’s unsure of (for example, what’s the difference between remote-first and remote-friendly)

16.35 mins

Our guest is really enjoying working with Wayne Turmel, his co-host.

On top of that, she now feels a complete part of the podcast community, something she’s never felt even though she’s been editing podcasts for a long time. She used to say she was “just an editor”, which now she realises was not being fair to herself. This raises questions like who makes the podcasting community, etc.

Recording for this show has changed her mindset. For example, she’s more regularly on LinkedIn, mindfully asking questions about podcasting and networking with other podcasters. She now feels like she can be part of those conversations.

22.00 mins
Marisa has been listening to podcasts since 2014 (she mentions the comedy podcast My brother, my brother and me) including ones on podcasting, like Podcasting Business School. 

Pilar mentions The Audacity to Podcast, Podcasters’ Roundtable, Buzzsprout’s Buzzcast (here’s my affiliate link to Buzzsprout hosting) and Libsyn’s The Feed. 

27.05 mins
Marisa mainly listens to podcasts with more than one host, or a host n conversation. Something she’s struggling with at the moment is taking up enough space in the conversation and also delivering the intros and outros, which would be easier if they weren’t also releasing the video version. (Pilar forgets her calls to action to…)

Past guest Myriam Hadnes talked about how she’s also learned to take the space with her guests, as a way of giving guests something to bounce off of. 

It’s getting easier for Marisa with each recording, having less awkward pauses, adding to the conversation and asking better questions. 

Connect with Marisa on LinkedIn.

In today's episode, Pilar shares her process in creating a 3 part episode 300 for the 21st Century Work Life podcast.

This is another solo episode, but I've started interviewing again. And I have you, the listeners to thank for this. In voicing in the last episode my inability or reluctance, to reach out to podcasters I wanted to talk to, I realised how silly that was, so I reached out to one of my favourite podcasters, he replied within minutes, and I'm recording with him in June!

04.10 mins

You might remember that I recorded the last episode in both Audacity and Zencastr, to generate a transcript in Zencastr. I published that with the show notes so that you can have a look. It's not bad at all, but the main thing is the lack of punctuation. So it's not bad if you wanted to publish it, though you would need to do a bit of work on it, maybe an hour or so, for the half hour audio.

Let me know if you are using any transcription tools and how that's going.

06.02 mins

In the last episode, I shared how I was preparing to record he 9 interviews of 21st Century Work Life. Now I've released the first two parts of that episode but I still need to work on the third.

Recording those interviews was like being at a party, so something to consider when doing something like this, pick people you like!

The interviews were so interesting that I decided to release them as a different show, as a different podcast. So in the end I didn't use the transcripts from the conversations. As I was going to release the interviews, I needed to edit them. So as I did that, and picked up the bits I liked as I went along.

I opened different Audacity projects for each of the six questions, and cut and pasted 30sec- 2min segments.

I worked with a Google Doc, making notes and writing bits of script.

When that was done, which took about 2 sessions of 4 hours, I went through all the bits and pieces and found the ones that went better together. I laid them out one after the other.

Then I wrote the bits of script in between. I recorded those bits and then cut and posted those into the projects. Part I went quite well as I'd put everything in one project, and it lasted about 45min .

11.10 mins

But episode 2 was a different story. I had 3 projects for the episode, each covering one of the questions that made up that part. And when I listened back to it, to make some show notes and check I hadn't made any mistakes, I found out I had jiggled things around and was introducing the wrong guests. So that was fun!

But I've really enjoyed it. I do enjoy editing, playing with people's words and creating new sentences. 

In putting together a show like this, with different voices, you need to develop a sense of rhythm to gauge how long the pauses between guests should be, when you have a series of them speaking one after the other. 
As one of the questions in the interviews was what they would like to see in a show like 21st Century Work Life, it's made me rethink my approach to the show after hearing 10 people give me feedback!

Get in touch if you would like some coaching and advice yourself or connect on Twitter @Inpodcasting

If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).

[mailerlite_form form_id=2]

In today's episode, Pilar shares some of what she's learned from the first three interviews for this show, and how she's getting on with episode 300 of the 21st Century Work Life podcast. Plus ,she's got a book recommendation for you. 

I'm pausing the interviews, but will be recording more in June. 

But I think I'll have enough adventures of my own for at least another three episodes, so I'll hope you'll stay with me until then. And it's also an opportunity for you to get in touch with your questions and even, hey, why not, if you're in podcasting, maybe you can come on the show as a guest. Just drop me a quick note.

06.37 mins

First I'd like to thank all three guests,

So the three conversations are very different, and so are the points of view. For example, both Myriam and Bernie interview guests and have a completely different idea of how to interact with them.

Myriam talks about how she's learned to "bring more of herself into the space", by contributing to the conversation with her own opinions, examples, etc. This helps the guest to have someone to bounce off of, and releases the pressure of them creating most of the episode content.

On the other hand, Bernie prefers to stay out of the conversation as much as possible, to give the guest as much space to share.

One thing that struck me about Craig's interview, is how he plans for spontaneity with his co-host. Have a listen to his interview in Episode 20 for more on this. 

14.40 mins

I'm starting to record the guest contributions for the 300th episode of the 21st Century Work Life podcast. As I'm recording this episode, it's the 23rd April and the show comes out on 5 May. 

I've overdone it! 12 guests! I've recorded 3 so far. Plus Ross, the podcast polisher for that show.

I set up a Calendly for guests to book themselves in, and one of them even changed the date

I'm using Zencastr to record with and gave each person their individual link. This means I'll have transcripts to work from. 

For episode 300, I'm thinking of putting together three parts: general thoughts, personal thoughts and thoughts about the podcast. I'm also thinking of releasing all the interviews as a separate show. There are lots of free platforms now - Libsyn Studio and Buzzsprout have an option for a free show. 

28.12 mins

Today I'd like to recommend the book Big Podcast by David Hooper, which is mainly about mindset. I'm finding it similar to Julia Cameron's The Artist Way, which I read on Saturday mornings at the Riverside Studios Café.

In David's words,

"This book isn't a series of techniques, it's a philosophy." So my kind of book! Here's a quote I like:

"Softening your message is disrespectful to your audience because it doesn't allow them to hear who you really are."

And this is so true. 

And remember that I too have a book: Plan Your Podcast or if you prefer to be prompted by email, I have an email sequence to help you do just that. You can find the link at the end of the Resources pages. 

If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).

Get in touch if you would like some coaching and advice yourself or connect on Twitter @Inpodcasting

Bernie J Mitchell is currently the host of Tech London and Coworking Values, but he's hosted many other shows before. In this episode, he talks to Pilar about using podcasting to find your voice, and giving voice to others. (And we even have an owl say hello.)

Bernie started podcasting because he loved listening to podcasts and was also a fan of talk radio. He set up his first show and thought that it would be great to have Seth Godin on the show. So he invited him and guess what, he interviewed one of his heroes for his first episode.

This was not a tactic to get lots of listeners, but because he's read everything Seth's written and he's been a gateway to many other people and concepts. Bernie was determined to ask him about his lesser known books, to bring up stuff that he hardly talked about,

Bernie has hosted loads of shows, but the one that went on for longer and that Bernie enjoyed very much was Straight Out of @WorkHubs, which he hosted with friend and colleague Phil. 

The podcast fitted in very well with the coworking space's other activities, like the "anti-network" group, writer's club, etc. A lot of what they talked about centred around the conversations that took place in the space, and those events.

13.32 mins
Bernie is now working on the CoWorking Values podcast, part of the European Coworking Assembly, which started with interviewing people about co-working, but it has now evolved to include people running spaces with a community focus, inclusion and accessibility, spaces in small towns, etc. Their content centres around their values of accessibility, community, collaboration, sustainability and openness.

Bernie hosts the show, but has a great producer working with him who has organised the workflow and set up systems and processes that have enabled them to release an episode a week. The media host they use is Soundr, which allows you to search through the podcast. The search engine looks through the transcript to find the bit you want, and then points you to its place in the audio. 

25.26 mins
Coworking Values has always had an interview format and they make an effort to find those voices that are rarely visible in the industry. 

Bernie also hosts the show Tech London. He made a deliberate effort for it not to become one more podcast about start-ups, so he teamed up with the Urban MBA. The show is centred around 5G and smart cities and so it's more interesting to find guests. 

35.54 mins
One of the projects Bernie is most proud of is one that his colleague Jose has recently put together: voices from the coworking community sending their messages to those in the coworking community in the Ukraine.

To find Bernie, google his name!
Or visit berniejmitchell.com/

Get in touch if you would like some coaching and advice on podcasting yourself or connect with Pilar on Twitter @Inpodcasting
If you want to hear from me (Pilar) in between episodes, you can sign up to the Adventures in Podcasting newsletter here: https://www.adventuresinpodcasting.com/newsletter/

If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).

Myriam Hadnes is the host of the Workshops Work podcast, where she talks to guests about facilitation and collaboration. We also talk about the role the podcast has taken in developing her business and community, sponsor breaks and how she uses a visual map to guide people into her show. 

Workshops Work was part of her business communication, and a year and a half into her podcast, she actually changed the name of her business to match the podcast. 

Her first guest was her mentor, who also introduced Myriam to workshops. She then reached out to her close community and friends. 

The show structure has become freer now - Myriam has gone from scripting all her questions and following the script, to sending some questions through to give "the illusion of preparation" and be able to follow the conversation. 

17.50 mins

Through podcasting, Myriam has also learned "the art of taking space", a concept she came across through improv. By being vulnerable and sharing her own perspective, she supports her guest helping them to play with the content, instead of being responsible for creating the content for the episode. Being of service to the other person is also something that comes from facilitation. 

Myriam edited the first 25 episodes herself, which is important to do to get a real sense of your own presence and the conversation dynamics. "We don't want a thinking break to be confused with a tech issue." She used to take 4 hours per hour of episode. 

27.30 mins

When conversations are long, the episodes are split into two shows, as Myriam asked her audience about their preferred length - they said 40 minutes and that it would be good for longer episodes to be split into two. This shows there's all kind of preferences, and it's worth asking your audience. 

32.36 mins

A few years ago, Myriam went to a conference and was so dissatisfied that eventually, after being prompted by a guest, she set up her own conference. She invited her guests to do something at an event, where they would do something that had never done before.

The first 24 hour festival took place in November 2020, and now it's evolved into this whole thing, the Never Done Before community and events: https://neverdonebefore.org/

40.50mins

Myriam talks about how she decided to get her listeners used to "sponsors breaks" since the first episode so that, if at some point she could sell sponsorship onto the show, the audience would already be used to it.

46.50 mins
Myriam has a wonderful visual map on Mural for her episodes. You can find it here: https://bit.ly/podcast-map , 

Finally, Myriam talks about what she likes best about having her show: those moments when her and the guest forget that they are recording a show and have memorable, or incredibly fun conversations. Some of her favourite moments are her conversation with Meg Bolger, and Howard Gray.

You can connect with Myriam on LinkedIn, and also check out her site Workshops Work. 

If you want to hear from me (Pilar) in between episodes, you can sign up to the Adventures in Podcasting newsletter here: https://www.adventuresinpodcasting.com/newsletter/

Yay, episode 20 and I'm celebrating by bringing in my first guest, Craig Wealand, host of Aprender Inglés con Reza y Craig, a podcast that teaches English as a foreign language. I co-hosted En clave de podcast with Craig, and we learned loads, about podcasting and about the podcast-sphere in Spain, where Craig is based. 

Craig's show is aimed at mainly Spanish speakers with an intermediate or advanced level of English, who want to improve it. They cover grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, they give listening practice... 

15.05 MINS
Feedback is so important for a podcaster and Craig's show gets a lot of it. Their listeners tend to get in touch when they have a question or a suggestion for a topic. Pilar gets lots of feedback for Gastronostalgia, but it's all from friends and family, so she's waiting for the listener pool to evolve. 

19.36 MINS
Pilar wants to know what Craig's recording set up looks like, as Reza goes to his house to record. By the way, Craig is very proud that they've never missed a weekly episode in all these years! During the pandemic when they recorded online, the challenge was to get good audio quality at Reza's home, because he's not set up for recording. 

Craig has a set of PR40 microphones and some Samson Q2Us for guests. He used to have a DBX 286s audio processor, which blocks out some of the breathing sounds, but now he uses a Rodecaster Pro. He also has a portable set up. 

They sit at opposite sides of the desk, to avoid bleeding from one microphone to the next. They rely heavily on facial and body gestures to guide the conversation. The whole experience is a social occasion for them, and you can hear that in the conversation. 

30.45 MINS

Craig runs the final mp3 file through Otter.io, and offers the transcript for his Patrons. Pilar wants to know how much work Craig does on the text file to correct the script, which also has some Spanish words of course. As an English teacher, he corrects a lot of the punctuation! Craig does the quality control as he's working on the transcript. 

39.06 MINS

Craig recently hit episode 400! And they've committed to another 400 episodes more!

It's important to celebrate the different milestones as you progress through your podcast, because it's not easy to podcast consistently, but it's difficult to come up with different ways of marking these episodes. For episode 400, they talked about the different verb tenses. 

48.13 MINS 
Given that they were recording in March 2022, Pilar wants to know how Craig deals with current affairs in the show, when things happen that are very much on the public's mind. They try to avoid them as they risk not making the show evergreen. However, they did record some episodes specifically about these events after people asked for them, like Brexit or the pandemic. 

Pilar asks Craig whether he's ever thought of giving up the podcast, he hasn't! Even during difficult times, they've managed to make that weekly commitment. 

To end the episode, Craig shares a memorable moment, when he met a loyal listener from Chile when he visited Valencia. 

Connect with Craig: 

Or look for Ingles podcast in your podcast app, or visit the website https://www.inglespodcast.com/ or connect on Twitter, where he is @mansiontwit .

Get in touch with Pilar through www.adventuresinpodcasting.com
Or connect on Twitter @InPodcasting
Sign up to the Adventures in Podcasting newsletter here.

In today's episode, Pilar talks about meeting listeners, recording and tech problems xxx and I've shared a couple of things that are happening outside the English-speaking market.

The other day I went for lunch with my friend Pinar, who has a podcast in Turkish and has recently received some great feedback from listeners, asking her when she was going to release more episodes. She felt guilty... This is a great motivator isn't it? And interesting that although we do podcast for ourselves, we do feel accountable to those people out there who enjoy the content.
Her wine podcast in Turkish is  Juliette'in Kadehi.

It's important to find something we enjoy during the process to drive us through creation. Pick topics you love, take this into account when you plan your show. You'll need these moments to drive you through the quieter times and keep you podcasting.

Pilar met a listener of the 21st Century Work Life podcast the other day, and she recorded with someone who listens to the show, and referred to what she'd learned from it during the interview. It's great to be reminded that what we put out there will be of use to someone else, that there are people who have never heard what we have to say.

07.51 Adventures with the tech (of course!)

During our first recording with a guest for Gastronostalgia, my guest stopped being able to hear me. So any time I wanted to ask a question, I had to do it through my co-host Tomas, as if he was an interpreter. It was not very enjoyable.

By the way, it's interesting to know what kind of interviewer you are. I'm a conversationalist, that is, I aim to have a conversation with the guest; Tomas is more of an interviewer, with questions leading the piece.

We've started bringing guests in to be able to reach more listeners, and freshen up the show a bit, and reward our listeners with a bit of variety - and different kinds of recipes!

As podcaster, Pilar doesn't like using video during the recordings, but it's important for some guests, and co-hosts. Ask your guests, but also communicate your preference.

It was also great to go to a studio where they're not using cameras when the client is dialling in - just like in the good ol' days, when this was being done via ISDN (not Zoom or Teams) and we didn't have to worry about the camera pointing at us while we tried to immerse ourselves in the audio medium.

19.04 mins A couple of news items

The Ondas awards for podcasts took place in Spain, and most of them come from the big producers like Podium, Spotify, Audible... however, there was also a special award for a podcaster that's been around for a while. Here's the list: https://www.premiosondas.com/premiados_ondas_podcast_2022.php?utm_source=podnews.net&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=podnews.net:2022-02-25

If you want to listen to some Spanish, Pilar and her friend Craig have a show that's now ended, called En clave de podcast.

There's also a podcasting conference in Cairo on 5th March.

Any questions and comments, do pop over to https://www.adventuresinpodcasting.com/contact/ or connect on Twitter @Inpodcasting

If you want to hear from me (Pilar) in between episodes, you can sign up to the Adventures in Podcasting newsletter here: https://www.adventuresinpodcasting.com/newsletter/

I recently interviewed an "unsolicited guest" for the 21st Century Work Life podcast, who was also the founder of a product.  As a podcaster, you might want to check it out, it's a way of communicating via video, text and audio asynchronously. I said I wouldn't put the link in the show notes, but I've changed my mind, here it is. https://zipmessage.com/

I've become quite choosy in who guests on the show, so I've even turned down (with a heavy heart), some high profile people in our industry.

The more specific and narrow the topic is, the more I can avoid tangents, and the shorter I can keep the conversation. Tthe more it turns into a conversation rather than an interview.

08.40 mins

As a podcaster, I thought I could drive a conversation about anything, but that's not true. I recently realised how much it helps when I really understand a topic. I was caught short in an interview for the Next Stage Radicals podcast, when I was interviewing someone who amongst other things, coaches people at work who are autistic.

This episode was the first of a "chain reaction' that will drive the Next Stage Radicals podcast from now on, so the person I interviewed will bring in a guest for the next episode, who will the host for the episode after that, etc.  I'll be preparing a short document on how to host the show, but this document is for non-podcasters, so I have to keep it really simple!

I've suggested that every episode is run through Auphonic so that all the episodes have the same sound level.

17.30mins
I've been using the free trial of Zencastr.
Even if a guest has used the platform before, ask them to try to log in before the recording time, as one of my guests recently had problems logging on, maybe due to how the permissions were set up in Chrome. 

Zencastr records each person's audio locally, and then they're uploaded to their servers. They also produce a transcript which, although they're not ready to be published, they can be useful for people writing the show notes, or for reference if you want to share the content with someone, who might just want to browse through it, rather than listen to the whole episode.

Talking of transcripts, we've released the first one for 21st Century Work Life, for episode 293 and I'll see what the feedback is, as in, is it useful to anyone. With a limited budget and team, creating transcripts that make for a good reading experience is still costly, so I'm going to see how they go down. I'll be asking the audience for around 10 episodes. 

23.47
Yesterday I ran a Meetup for the London Podcasting Community group . It was a "build your own dilemma" session, which allows both beginners and seasoned podcasters to get something from it, as both people seeking advice and giving it.
https://www.adventuresinpodcasting.com/contact/

For your thoughts, comments and questions, contact me through Adventures in Podcasting:
If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).

 Just finished editing the bumper episode of Gastronostalgia which incorporates the 4 episodes from the month, plus the aperitif. The episode is  1.5hrs long (!) and it took me about 2.5hrs to put together, including editing of the aperitif.

This show is hosted on Buzzsprout (affiliate link) and I have a max. of 3hours in my plan. But Gastronostalgia is hosted in Anchor, which is free, with no limits. So something to check out when you're choosing a media host: how much audio can you upload a month.   

This month I released a short episode for Facilitation Stories letting listeners know that we are still around but are having to skip a couple of episodes because we're way behind. Let your listeners know, but don't stress if you have to miss an episode.

We had some tech problems with the recording app for Gastronostalgia again, including Tomas' file not recording at all. I've decided that when possible, I'm recording a back up with zoom, but record locally at each of our ends, with Audacity or even just QuickTime on the Mac.

I'm reading  Known, which talks about how to be known in your field through the production of online content. So far, all the examples are about people who've created short videos, blog posts, artwork on Instagram... The author talks about finding "your space". 

Before I forget, did you how I have a blog? The latest post is an attempt to link a well-known motivation theory to the new podcaster's priorities. Let me know what you think if you read it.

And by the way, did you know I have a newsletter too?

15.20Mins 
What's going on in the world of podcasting?

Apple Podcasts now has a form for you to submit your show to be featured.

If you're new to podcast ad here no attachment to traditional audio editing, and look at different ways of sharing your content, you might want to look at Descript. 

One bit of research worth paying attention to: in the Uk, 94% of listeners listen to podcasts alone, which is not surprising, but a good reminder of the nature of our relationship with the audience. It's a one-one experience, but you can also decide to remind the listener that there are others listening the content with them. It's a matter of choice for you, the podcaster.

Finally just wanted to remind you of how invested our audience can become in us. I've been listening to Rachel Herron's How Do You Write podcast for a few years now. It reminds me of how important we can become to our audiences.

20.49 mins 
Adventures in planning the show 

I'm having problems planning the next 8 or so episodes of 21st Century Work Life as I get to episode 300, so I just went down the list of contacts, and picked some I wanted to record again with, or some that I'd been planning to bring to the show for a while. 

For some reason, I can't get myself to record solo, on Visible Teamwork, something's stopping me... 

I rarely bring in people that have products to promote, but I am recording over the next couple of weeks with someone, because I liked the tone of his email.

If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).