This project is really starting to roll. Now that I have a handful of podcast conversations under my belt, I am getting booking requests from many more local political candidates. It’s nice when people are contacting you rather than the other way around. I have 3 firm bookings this week and almost certainly a 4th once we gain final agreement on the day/time. This will be a busy week! Plus I have two more sessions scheduled the first week of October, as well as my plan to live stream the Green Valley Civic Association candidate forum on October 3rd.
My hope is that as we do more episodes, we will get more sharing of content and then that exposure will start to increase exponentially. I would like to see this organically unfold rather than following my regular instincts to strongly promote it. I am still learning as I go. Lighting has been a bit too bright and I have encountered a few technical glitches along the way. All part of the process of slowly ratcheting up. So we’ll let exposure slowly build as my skills do the same.
The most recent podcast with Charlie Sellers was fantastic. He had so much to share. Amazing insight and a glimpse behind the curtain of the drama occurring at Poway Unified. I loved Charlie’s bluntness. He was, to reference Howard Cossel, “tellin’ it like it is”. I hope viewers/listeners appreciate this kind of direct talk. We spoke about the dysfunction at PUSD, the challenges of being in the minority on the board, the personalities of his fellow board members and much more. Charlie had an incredible grasp of the policies and the bigger picture. We even got in some discussion of Aztec football. Yeah, Charlie, SDSU’s weakness is their secondary and they got torched a number of times last night against Eastern Michigan. Let’s hope they get it together for the Boise St game in a few weeks.
It is very interesting comparing an incumbent with a challenger. While challengers have a refreshing approach and can identify problems with the system, they typically have no where near the knowledge of an incumbent. I have reached out to many incumbents but either get no response or a polite decline. That’s OK. I still need to reach out to more incumbents and make sure everyone is extended an invite (even though I repeatedly say this in the podcasts, on social media and in this journal).
Since we are in the thick of campaign season, working with political candidates/incumbents is completely natural. But my goal is to go well beyond politics. There are many areas I want to explore (sports, history, social issues, science, business, etc.). There are many interesting personalities here in Poway and our surrounding community. For now local politics is a great place to start. It’s also encouraging when I hear positive words from regular citizens that value these podcasts so they can become more educated about the candidates. There really is nothing available other than face-to-face meetings to get this kind of deep explanation of a candidate’s policy proposals as well as insight into their character and motivations. So while I am certainly doing this project for selfish reasons (meet interesting people, enjoy interesting conversations, learn about podcasting technology, etc.), it is great that both candidates and voters are also benefiting. How’s that for a trifecta Win-Win-Win?
It’s also interesting how much awareness of podcasting there is in the community, particularly with younger people. Today we have a carpet cleaner coming by to clean a few rooms. He saw my setup and was asked a bunch of questions about the podcast. He is a huge WWE fan and never found a really good podcast put together by knowledgeable, hardcore fans. So naturally he was thinking of doing a podcast himself. Meanwhile, an employee of one of my clients has been considering doing a podcast on rock climbing. Seems many people are dreaming about doing podcasts or at least inquiring about how they work. I will continue to share what I know as this project continues. I told my carpet cleaning guy to reference this website. In the journal I share my shopping list and the ups and downs I have had learning about the equipment.
The next improvement I hope to get dialed in is the lighting. My beautiful wife said the lighting was too bright and she could not see the color in my face or Charlie’s. So I’ll work on getting that optimized.