I Made a Podcast!

I've been experimenting with a few creative outlets.

The blog is one obvious endeavor. I get to express myself into the great nothing; sure, few people will see it, but it still exists. It is something that in a way affirms I was here. And I had opinions. I'm very full of those. And what are blogs for if not to tell the world what you think and why you think you're right?

Another side project is programming. I've always had a partial attraction to it; I want to create applications, websites, things that are useful. Yet I've been held back, ironically, by my lack of knowledge. I end up feeling inadequate, and quite frankly, too stupid to actually accomplish something. I've been making tiny steps with my current skunkworks application project but keep questioning myself the entire time, feeling that if a "professional" programmer saw it he or she would wonder what kind of neophyte baboon could have created such spaghettified crud, let alone something that looked like that and still compiled.

Which re-reading I suppose is somewhat ironic, since the project I plan to take up after this one is going to be based on Ruby, which doesn't compile. But that's besides the point.

A third project I've toyed with starting is podcasting. There was a time I thought of trying my hand at being on radio; after all, I'm opinionated, I'd like to think I'm reasonably articulate, and if you look at pinheads like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, they're proof that intelligence is not actually required to do well when broadcasting your opinion.

But like so many projects, this was kind of a daydream. The company I'm working for puts out a podcast on an irregular schedule, but I eagerly listen to it as it's being recorded. I had a vague idea of what was involved in creating a podcast and setting it up to distribute, but never fully dove into the steps.

My manager periodically checks in asking how the job is going and what is on my mind. One day I brought up the idea of podcasting, and he said he'd help out.

Rather than keep waiting until the "perfect moment" to do it, I borrowed a page from the "how to write a book" podcasts I've listened to in the past. I just did it.

I set a time to record with Pete, he set up some software to record a Google Hangout, we came up with a topic...a theme, really...presentations. Because part of the goal of doing the podcasts was to improve public speaking skills. And we talked for about half an hour about presentations.

A little cleaning, adding some intro and outro music, and after much fiddling with establishing accounts, I managed to get uploaded and configured as a podcast!

There's not much of an audience. You can count the downloads on two hands, actually. But that's kind of freeing at the moment because there's not much chance of anyone complaining about how offended they are. And at the moment we're trying to establish what kind of podcast it is. Geeking After Dark is basically "geeks discussing their lives," which could be about just about anything. Because we're geeks. And we're talking about our lives and stuff that interests us.

In addition I'll be working to get some of our coworkers recorded, to hone interview skills. There's room for improvement...but to be honest, as first shows go, I think the first one wasn't all that bad.

I'm a little nervous about advertising it with only one episode on the feed. This one episode doesn't really define the whole planned series; it's...well, just one episode. Things are going to change, things will hopefully improve.

In the end, I did it. That's the important thing. It's not perfect. But I did it.

Like my blog...I'm not a great writer, but I'd like to think I'm improving. And for a long time, I didn't do this because I was afraid. I was afraid it wasn't good enough. That I wasn't good enough. After many months of blogging, I still have hardly any audience, and maybe that's a sign of my lack of skill. Or it's a sign of my lack of marketing prowess. But the important thing is I did it.

And my programming project. I have an almost crippling sense of inadequacy when it comes to m programming skill. And I'm a green newbie when it comes to programming...all the time I could have been creating things as a hobby were squandered on other things. Until I finally decided I should do something about it. And I did it. Well, I started it. It's a work in progress. The important thing is there is a project file on my hard drive that compiles. I did it.

And now I have a podcast. I don't have much in the way of validation that I'm doing something right. Or wrong. I just decided I wanted to market myself and my opinions. I wanted to do it. And now...I did it.

Cross something else off the bucket list.

If someone reading this blog happens to be curious, the podcast is Geeking After Dark. You can read about it at the Geeking After Dark blog, and follow us on Twitter. Or search for Geeking After Dark on iTunes.

Listen to us and leave comments on the blog! Constructive feedback is welcome!