Ericast.com Podcast - DWEEB THOUGHTS

Click here to listen to this week's episode! 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 Waterpa...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! 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 cit...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! 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 ha...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! 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...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! The Masonic Temple in St. Paul is one block away from the house I grew up in. So what did I do last week? That's right!  It was time to go see a magician illusionist who was giving a fundraising performance to support its renovation.  To say more would be to spoil this week's episode, so listen now and hear the story! Question? Comment? Simila...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! Well, this week discusses the sad news of the passing of Ruth's 95-year-old grandmother -- yes, my daughters' great -grandmother.  That, as I note, is an age span with which I'm unfamiliar. If you've got any family-related memories (or stories of remarkable lifespans) to share, feel free to call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) or email me (eric)...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! This week's title commemorates the fact that I celebrated Easter by staying home with Candela as she fights the fever and headache that Chloe overcame a few days ago... so it's not exactly the Easter tradition that we're used to.  ("He is Risen!  He is Risen Indeed! She's, on the other hand, is in bed fighting a cold...) But, what better time...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! This week I'm talking about a MOOC entitled " Surviving Disruptive Technologies ," and the fact that I was emotionally derailed as thanks to an exchange on one of the course videos. I do worry that my 2013 reflections on MOOCs are going to look like Bryant Gumel's 1994 reflections on the Internet : So, do you MOOC? Would you like to MOOC one day? ...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! Not only do we have what might be the longest Ericast title ever (I could probably figure that out, couldn't I?) but we have yet another experiment in the world of Audacity.  Good luck! (This time, I didn't compress/limit/normalize my audio at all.  No digital processing whatsoever.  But because of that, I cranked the volume of the i...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! Ready... Set... Know your meme!  Remember this video? Well...Guess who I saw last Wednesday? Yes, it was cool. (For those who want the information here in the notes rather than the podcast itself, including the search engines that are indexing this, I'm talking about driving 90 minutes north to Grand Casino in Hinckley, Minnesota to see a performan...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! Looks like I'm back in the groove with two episodes, in a row, just one week apart!  Wow!  Let me know what you think of this week's audio, because I've totally changed my recording model and have switched over to Audacity rather than the usual Adobe Audition, inspired by TheAudacityToPodcast.com . So, am I so bent on podcasting as an art and...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! The only link you really need from this week's episode is www.drinkchoffy.com/choffy4me , which will give you some information on the "chocolate coffee thing" that Digital Dan wanted to know about.  (Thanks for the comment, Dan!)  Other than that, it's just a bunch of rambling about everything from basements to Podango ShowBuilder Lite with ev...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! We're discussing an interesting journal project from a random student named Gabe, who has sent a journal traveling across the world.  Something like a note in a bottle, except with more detail and the USPS behind it. It's an interesting way of weaving together Ericast listeners, past and present... though that really wasn't Gabe's intent, I'm sure....

Click here to listen to this week's episode!   Last week at a local higher-ed IT conference I gave a presentation entitled "In Loco Parentis: Our Children are Growing Up!" As cloud-based vendors become more popular and Google can answer almost any question, IT has moved from “controlling” our clients to “guiding” them. This session proposes that a rich, respectful metaphor for technology supp...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! More than usual, this week's episode is a bit... Random? No, it's focused on one topic.  Unstructured?  Well, it has a beginning, middle, and end.  Lame?  Ah!  That might be the right word. I took the girls to the 2013 Home and Landscape Expo at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis.  It was really fun... but, at...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! Switching back to the "deep" side of the Ericast for a moment (maybe for awhile... but at least for one episode... and what a way to kick off 2013, right?) we're asking questions about whether there's a difference between appreciating something, and "maximizing our investment" in it. Wow.  It doesn't look very deep when you see it there in print, b...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! Having coined the term " zeppelinspotting " back in Ericast #173 I now feel a tad odd turning "trainspotting" into two words... but, hey, we're all entitled to botch a podcast title or two in every series, right?  Maybe you could argue that it's really a pun on "Holiday Train", so we're "spotting the Holiday Train" instead of "doing trainspotting o...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! How do we treat "Christmas" as more than a time for some vacation and a couple gift exchanges with Santa and a manger scene thrown in for decoration?  How do we live it out during the other 364 days of the year?  Here are a couple brief thoughts from Brian Hardin of the Daily Audio Bible  and Rob Ketterling of River Valley Church tha...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! This week, a strangely deep and personal reflection on who I am at the very core of my personality.  Intrigued?  Take a listen!  Then call 206-339-3742 (a.k.a. 206-339-ERIC) and let me know what you think. Before you do that, you might want to visit www. DweebThoughts.com and listen to some of the technology-related musings there... In ca...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! WE MADE IT!  Episode 200!  Which, I guess, doesn't mean a whole lot (isn't it 100 episodes that's the milestone for syndication of a television show?) but, hey, you gotta celebrate what you can while you can, right? Birthday greetings to Chad this week.  Why?  Because he's a person.  And people are special.  And it was his...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! Continuing last week's discussion of EDUCAUSE-related experiences, this time focusing on Denver itself.  The basic thesis, not to spoil the entire episode, is that Denver seems to be a lot like Minneapolis. I also branch off into all sorts of interesting tangents on diversity, which I think could turn into a fascinating series on culture and leader...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! I'm back from EDUCAUSE in Denver and trying to explain the experience.  That's quite a challenge.  So, I just randomly talk about some related things and ideas.  Would you expect any less from me?  If nothing else, and if you're not motivated enough to Google deeply for the speech I was talking about, be sure to check out the link to...

Click here to listen to this week's episode! I know I've talked about this topic before.  I have.  But I don't think I've done a full-blown episode on it.  If I have... sorry.  Consider it a "clip show" without any of the advantages of saving work by throwing old clips together. The up-shot? We're told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective. The best wa...