With my recent switch to a Motorola Droid X I’ve been able to a lot more stuff than I was using my Windows Mobile Samsung Saga. The choice of apps is incredible and most are free (or at least have limited free versions).
The first app I paid any of my actual hard earned money for was BeyondPod, a Podcast manager and RSS Feed Reader. It’s flexible, very easy to configure and use and has a bunch of cool features. (On a side note, I tried using Google Listen, but it was a bit on the flaky side for me, and would often start the podcast over halfway through.)
When I’m working I’m almost always listening to music or now, a podcast. I’m one of those people that can do that without getting too distracted. I call it “speed listening”. It’s like speed reading where you don’t pay attention to the non-important parts. I’ve trained myself to hear “trigger” words that catch my attention and make me pay attention.
A great thing about podcasts as opposed to talk radio is the ability to go back if you’ve missed something. When I first got TiVo I found myself trying to click an imaginary eight-second rewind on my car radio!
Sometimes even the podcasts I’m most interested in listening to can be boring. Thirty to sixty minutes of talking (sometimes blathering) can become a yawn-fest. Even worse, as an investor I listened to Jim Cramer’s advice to listen to the quarterly conference calls of companies you’re thinking about investing in. Talk about boring!
Whether it’s a conference call or a social media podcast though, every now and then you’ll pick out a little nugget of information that you can run with. I keep a notepad handy to jot down any concepts or quotes I find interesting.
For example, I recently listened to an interview with User Experience (UX) expert Jared Spool @jmspool comparing web design to magic:
Magic is a performing art which has a lot of similarities to web design. There are things that happen behind the scenes that are very different than the experience you want the viewer to have.
This really got me thinking about how what the user or customer sees can be vastly different from what happens behind the scenes, which may be dead simple or ridiculously complicated. Keeping the user experience consistent is the important part!
So I want you to start making podcasts a part of your daily diet and go mining for gold! I’ll leave you with what I’ve been listening to lately and hope you’ll share your favorite podcast as a comment.
