You’ll have to look back three years for the last time we hosted a panel. PAB2010 breaks that trend by offering 400% more geek at no extra charge when Dave Brodbeck attempts to moderate Tom Merritt, Ken Hernden and especially Scarborough Dude in a discussion titled What if my boss finds out?
Our panel will focus on our different experiences with keeping, or not keeping, our recreational podcasts separate from our work podcasts. DB does podcasting as an adjunct to his job, TM literally podcasts for a living for TWiT (and formerly CNET) and all four of us have what could be called recreational podcasts. We will discuss the challenges of having either a public podcasting persona and a recreational one or just a public persona (KH as University Librarian, represents Algoma University at national and provincial level conferences and organizations). Finally we have the Dude, perhaps the most outspoken Canadian podcaster out there. How do we keep our professional and recreational lives separate, and indeed, do we. If we hold back, does that affect the relevance of our shows and the legitimacy of our listener interactions?
So who will you be hearing from?
Dave Brodbeck is an associate professor of psychology and department chair at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie and he has podcasted every lecture he has given for the last four years. As well Dave has a number of other shows and frequently co hosts TWiT.tv’s Futures in Biotech. Not to be outdown by Tom (see below), Dave has his own Wikipedia page!
Tom Merritt hosts TWiT.tv’s daily tech show Tech News Today as well as a number of other shows inlcuding East Meets West, Fourcast and Current Geek. Tom was a web producer on Tech TV’s The Screen Savers, an executive editor at CNET and recently moved over to Leo Laprote’s TWiT network. Tom has his own Wikipedia page.
Ken Hernden is the University Librarian at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie. He (along with Robin Isard of the Algoma library and colleagues from other libraries) won two awards at the Ontario Library Association for Conifer, an open source catalogue. Ken is a co host with Dave and Robin of Tangential Convergence.
The Scarborough Dude is a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, with the most authentic voice in Canadian podcasting. Agree with him or not, he’ll still have a beer with you. He is the guy that keeps Canadian podcasting honest and always speaks his mind. He shares his life with us weekly at his DicksNJanes podcast. Scarborough Dude is proud Wikipedia doesn’t know he exists.
Speaking on behalf of the panel, Dave Brodbeck responded to five very important questions which a jury of his peers reviewed and deemed to be not plagiarized.
What is your best memory of creating media for other people to enjoy?
With my podcasted lectures I have managed to not only raise the grades of my students, but I have, it turns out, helped people around the world taking psychology classs and have even made the odd one laugh, which is cool.
Which media creator has been most inspiring to you and why?
For me, and I am not kidding here, for me it is two of the people on the panel. The Dude is perhaps the most honest person in all of podcasting, and you always know where you stand with him, but he will admit to being wrong, that is rare. Tom is a really wise broadcaster, a pro and perhaps the most literate tech broadcaster/podcaster out there. The esoteric references to books and such, and his wearing of geekdom as a badge of honour really resonate with me.
What do you think is the most important consideration to media relevance?
Wow, well for me it is being yourself. It is that simple.
If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?
What would it be? Hmm, nope.
How do you hope your PAB2010 session will change the way people think and/or act?
I hope it makes people think about what they want out of media and realize it is not simply some sort of selling tool but actually a way to meet interesting people (and drink beer with them). You can meet people you never would have met through podcasting/social media. I also think that people should have a sort of damn the torpedoes type of attitude, but let’s see what everyone else has to say during the panel.
Photo of Dave Brodbeck by Rob Lee.
