Ericast.com Podcast - DWEEB THOUGHTS

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What was this past week's adventure?  A road trip down to Mankato, Minnesota to watch two 12-story dorms known as Gage Hall be imploded.

Pretty cool.  Way totally pretty cool.

And on that trip, I had live and personal "listener feedback" from Listener Mike.  We didn't record our conversation, but I re-live it on this podcast.

By the way, do you think anyone will click that link for the Gage Hall information?  (It's a fun one.)  Find out with the bit.ly stats (which you magically get by tacking a "+" at the end.  Tip of the day.)

Other news?  The Island King Tiki Torch, and my search for video thumbnail applications. 

Questions?  Ideas?  Observations?  Leave a message on the listener feedback line (206-339-3742, a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or call my Google Voice number referenced in the show and talk to me directly.  Enjoy!

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If you know me and my background at all, you know that I spent my "formative teen years" in Cornucopia, Wisconsin -- "Wisconsin's Northernmost Village" up on the South Shore of Lake Superior.

So when we were vacationing in Duluth and drove out there this June, along Highway 13 that I know so well... The first sign was that Port Wing's two prominent churches were turned into an art gallery that's only open on weekends and a pottery shop/business that's up for sale.  And Cornucopia's businesses were mostly closed.  So much was closed, in fact, that I'm not going to bother listing anything here.  Go to CornucopiaWisconsin.net and, if what you see there isn't Ehlers' Store or the Village Inn, it was probably closed (possibly permanently).

Do you have your own personal "memory ending experiences," or anything else you'd like to share?  Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or email me (eric) at ericast.com.  Enjoy!

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This week, I had planned to do a big, deep episode about my return to Cornucopia, Wisconsin (where I spent my formative teen years)... but that'll have to wait until I have a bit more emotional bandwidth.  In the meantime, here's a rollicking chat about a Drobo RAID device that I'm trying to keep from absorbing all my time right now.

Questions, ideas, thoughts?  Related to hard drives or not?  Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or drop a note to me (eric) at ericast.com.  I'd love to hear from you!

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This week I had the privilege of interviewing Daniel Buhr, a.k.a. Cybuhr (also at twitter.com/Cybuhr if you prefer short snippets to full websites)... and you have the privilege of hearing his insights on leadership.  Be sure to check out his website and the Be-Do Model for starters.

And remember, you're supposed to tell a friend (or two?) about the Ericast...

Questions?  Ideas?  Comments on "Leadership" or anything else?  Leave a message on the Ericast Listener Feedback line at 206-339-ERIC (a.k.a. 206-339-3742) or email me (eric) at ericast.com

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You know what? I want to break from form and just let this episode stand on its own. So, here are some minimal notes:

Ignite Minneapolis 2013 lineup

Review of Ignite 2013 from Andrew Koch

Bonus unmentioned book: Pharisectomy by Peter Haas

Contact: 206-339-ERIC (206-339-3742) or @emlarson

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It's the end of the month, and that means listener feedback... and that means that we get to hear from a very special new listener to the Ericast:  Kyle Kesterson, CEO of Freak'n Genius, the folks behind the YAKiT app (and the not-quite-real Endors.ly site that we talked about in Ericast 218 - Endorsly vs. Fanshout).

Kyle was nice enough to include his contact number, and I'm nice enough to not broadcast that to the world, but you can find him as @kylekesterson on Twitter and learn more about YAKiT at the Freak'n Genius website.

Want your own personalized Ericast shout-out, dry read, dramatic reading of your text of choice, or anything else? Just ask!  Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) and I'll provide.  I may or may not provide exactly what you asked for, but I'll provide something.  (You could also email me, eric, at ericast.com... but, come on; if you're asking me to say something to you, you should do it by voice...)

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This week we're drifting back into the customer service topic, with a cautionary note that I break pretty much every guideline from this week's episode of "The Audacity to Podcast" - 5 Reasons Your Podcast Audience Isn't Growing."

...but I go ahead anyway, with a discussion of my daughter's orthodontist and the exciting waterpark extravaganza at Waterpark of America... and the fact that what's more important to me is being hit up for an extra $30-something after having been repeatedly assured that our bill was paid in full.

That's not good customer service... and that kind of thing matters to real customers.

At least, it matters to weird people like me who tend to put principle ahead of pragmatism.

And while I don't "hold a grudge," I do remember things and plan for the future accordingly.  I'm not sure what overcomes financially deceptive treatment by a business, but I'm pretty sure that being given the opportunity to frolic in chlorine isn't sufficient.

Do you have any similar stories to share?  Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or send an email to me (eric) at ericast.com and let me know what good customer service means to you.

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First of all, right up front you'll hear that I'm experimenting with "branding" the Ericast for new listeners.  Let me know what you think of that -- good, bad, confusing, accurate, waste of time, etc.  Call 206-339-ERIC (a.k.a. 206-339-3742) and leave some feedback.

Then, I get to the main topic: Paid celebrity endorsments for the average citizen.

Ordinarily I'd do a better job of getting show notes here for you, but since not a single person clicked on my Peter Brady voice change link from last time, I think I'll pass and see if anyone notices.  (That's not passive-agressive; it's simply passive.  Truth be told, I want to get out to the hot tub before I go to bed tonight.)  If you'd like to write any notes and cover things like Endors.ly and FanShout and Jason DeRusha's Land O' Lakes twitter contest from a couple years back, send them to me and I'll include them here.  (Digital Dan used to do that, and it was great... but I think that might have merely doubled the number of interested folks from one to two...?)

Comments or ideas?  206-339-3742 a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC, or send an email to me (eric) at ericast.com.  Thanks for listening!

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Someone on Facebook asked about what it was like to be homeschooled (a.k.a. "home educated") and, rather than trying to write a long-winded response, I decided to do a podcast about it. Sounds like a pretty self-motivated created act for someone who didn't go to school, doesn't it?

This episode mentions John Holt and Growing Without Schooling, which has a good Home Education FAQ, and if you just want some John Holt quotes from GoodReads you can get started there.  (I also make a reference to Brady Bunch episode "Time to Change" and, if you really need more information, you can probably figure out how to find the Peter Brady voice change video.)

By the way, have you ever wondered if anybody bothers to click on the links that you painstakingly put in your show notes, there's a way to figure that out, too.  It's that entrepreneurial home-educated spirit at work!

Anyway, the 1985 Minnesota Supreme Court case that overturned the "essentially equivalent" law (and Jeanne Newstrom's criminal prosecution and conviction under it) as unconstitutional vague is a fascinating read, in my opinion.

Questions? Comments?  Personal reflections on your own schooling?   Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or email me (eric) at ericast.com

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It's Listener Feedback Week! Again! And this time we actually catch up to the last listener feedback we had... from Chad, who explains to me that doing cutaways in iMovie 11 is actually possible.  That sends us off on tangents about the "first follower" and "leadership lessons from the dancing guy" that we discussed last fall, and then we border on a dive into the philosophy of education before I decided to stop.

How's that for an outline?

By the way, on the audio topic, I'm still using Audacity and didn't touch the levels of any of my audio at all.  No compression, no normalization, nothing.  That means, among other things, that Chad's call has audio levels that are a smidge low... but that's part of the "what does an episode sound when we do absolutely no processing" experiment.

We also mention the Podcast Answer Man (Cliff Ravenscraft) and his  LearnHowToPodcast.com course which, now that I think about it, I ought to go through to see if I can pick up any tips.

And we work in the somewhat-apocryphal tale of Nina Archabal (or was it Sharon Sayles Belton?) preserving the ruins of the Washburn Mill in Minneapolis (which became the Mill City Museum).

What a ride. But would you expect anything less from the Ericast?

Comments?  Observations?  Call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or, if you're audio-phobic and want to stick with text, send an email to me (eric) at ericast.com