This week's show comes as a direct side effect of my recent foray into professional podcast editing. Long story short, I have been using a new program for editing podcasts, but I had yet to try recording an episode on it. I literally just sat down and started talking. Of course whenever I do an audio test I start with the opening of the show, and it just progressed from there.
You could say that this whole episode is as old school ODO as it gets. I had little if any idea what I was talking about, and I let my train of thought run off the tracks more times than I can remember. Considering I forget almost everything I say during an episode almost as soon as I press stop on the recording, that's saying something. What I do know is that I get into the reasons why I took a week off from the show, the growth of the ODO VP brand, and my insecurities about the overall value of the show to the listeners.

For me, more than all the news and ramblings, the most important part of the show is the Recommended Listening segment. I personally feel like that is the one segment of the show that has any real value to my listeners beyond just listening to me rant about life. As much as this has always been a very personality driven podcast (not that I've got a lot of that,) I take a certain amount of pride in the podcast features I do. As I've said before, my recommendations aren't for sale. I only ever talk about shows I actually enjoy and listen to. Yes, some have fallen off of my regular listening habits, but that is more on account of me listening to even more shows. But above all, everything I say about a podcast is honest and genuine. I tell you why I listen to the shows and what get me hooked, but I also point out anything that I may not be a fan of on a show. I don't give "reviews" I do features. Yes, I know it's a matter of semantics, but that's not the point. The point is, if I don't actually listen to a show and enjoy, I'm not going to talk about it. That to me is the only thing of value I actually provide in this show. So I have felt lately like I am short changing the little bit of an audience I have as I have not had a real Recommended Listening feature in about a month.

Along those lines, sometimes I feel like maybe I should stop doing this podcast and try to do something with a little more substance to it. I genuinely would like to start doing that interview show that I discussed a while back, but I simply do not have the time. Between my night job, my kids, dad chores, podcasting, and podcast editing, sometimes even I wonder how I do it.

Ya know what's funny? I know I missed about 90% of what I actually talk about in this thing. Good luck!