My Favorite Podcasts

Many years ago while watching the behind the scenes footage of the making of the Lord or the Rings trilogy, it showed the cast getting their daily makeup. They would sit in the chair for something like 60 – 90 minutes or more a day getting ready for filming. What did they do while sitting there day in and day out? Listened to music on their portable media devices.

I remember thinking, wow with 5 – 7.5 hours a week of sitting doing really nothing, you could learn a language, take a class or do something to expand your mind. Then I realized that for 30 minutes every morning while working out, what was I doing? Listening to a couple of random morning DJ’s prattle on about nothing interspersed with commercials. And I realized that I was wasting time just like the actors.

Within a couple of weeks I received an iPod and the same day a friend mentioned that I should check out all the podcasts that were available then he added magic words “for free”. I did and without trying to be overly dramatic, these podcasts have changed my life.

Every day while working out for 30 minutes, everywhere I drive one or more of the following podcasts are playing. These are my favorites, the ones that I regularly listen to. To get this list there were many others that were tried and discarded or that are just no longer in production.

Hope you find this list worthwhile. Here are my favorites and why:

Please leave your comments and thoughts on some which are worth listening to and why.

Business Casts

BusinessWeek – Behind this Week’s Cover Story
One of the casts I rarely miss. Keeps me current with the most important business thinking of the current week.
http://www.businessweek.com/search/podcasts/cover_stories.rss

BusinessWeek – Smart Answers
Generally good interviews with small business people who have interesting perspectives and thinking. Sometimes the interviewees are pushing their book but still there are a lot of good ideas in these casts.
http://www.businessweek.com/search/podcasts/smart_answers.rss

BusinessWeek – The Welch Way
It is too bad that with Jack Welch’s recent surgery these have been stopped for a while but it is worth anyone’s time to go back and listen to these short casts to hear Jack (and Suzie’s) thoughts and perspectives on business and current events. Facinating.
http://www.businessweek.com/search/podcasts/welchway.rss

Manager Tools
This is one I never miss and have listened for probably 80%+ of all there casts ever. These have made me a significantly more effective manager. These are a must listen for anyone working today.
http://www.manager-tools.com/premium/manager-tools-premium.rss

Career Tools
Part two of the Manager Tools podcasts which focus not on management skills but the individual’s personal career management. Important for everyone who has a job. I don’t know anyone else who is teaching this.
http://career.managertools.com/rss/rss.xml

Gartner Voice
Gartner has a lot of great research on a lot of topics. I pick and choose what I listen to on these casts. When there is an interesting topic to me I always find these worthwhile.
http://www.gartner.com/it/products/podcasting/rss/asset_137461_2635.xml

Harvard Business – IdeaCast
This is another cast I never miss. The topics are all over the board but always interesting.
http://hbsp.libsyn.com/rss

The Invisible Hand: Management, Economics and Strategy for the Thinking Person
This is a book review / interview podcast where the books are about the current thinking on economics. It may not sound interesting but Chris Gondek the host is a great interviewer and he almost always has interesting books and authors. He does a series of other podcast I have not listened to but could be worthwhile.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheInvisibleHandEnhancedVersion

Jenerous
Although there have not been any recent casts I have to put this down because I learned so much from these ~200 casts. I found this right when I took over the Marketing department and needed to understand what I was doing. Eric Mattson interviewed leaders in marketing, social media and more in these casts. There was so much information and he did such a great job with the interviews that I grew into an effective Marketer very quickly. Thank you Eric!
http://feeds.feedburner.com/marketingmongerpodcast

Marketing Voices
Jenifer Jones talks to all sorts of interesting people regarding the use of social media in marketing. I have learned a great deal from this podcast.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MarketingVoices

Marshall Goldsmith
I just wish I found this earlier. Marshall is so filled with great perspective and he gives away what he offers his coaching clients. Absolutely a goldmine.
http://coachm.hipcast.com/rss/marshall_goldsmith.xml

McKinsey on Finance Podcasts
I can’t apply a lot of what is in these podcasts but they do help me change perspective and broaden my thinking. As this group influences companies all over the globe, why not listen to their perspective.
http://ksmediaserver.net/ftp/Podcasting/MoF.xml

Negotiation Tip of the Week
These casts are only 3 – 4 minutes long. Sometimes the sound quality are not great, but the host Josh Weiss is a very respected authority on negotiation and he packages little gems on the how, what and why of negotiation into great bite size pieces. Who couldn’t afford to be a better negotiator?
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ottergroup/negotiationtip

Technology

This Week in Tech (twit)
The granddaddy of technology podcasts. I learned a lot but eventually got tired of the length and the extended dialog about non tech items. They referred to BOL (Buzz out Loud) multiple times and so I eventually started listening to that Technology cast. One day I will try this again. But I did learn a lot with Leo and company.
http://leo.am/podcasts/twit

Buzz out Loud
My technology cast of choice right now. Although it comes out daily I only listen a couple of times per week. They generally stay on track and listening does keep me current.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cnet/buzzoutloud

Personal Development and Other

43 Folders
Merlin Mann's show about finding the time and attention to do your best work. Based on his site, 43folders.com. Wow great stuff here. You have to find the right ones, but if you are looking to improve your time management and general organization skills do yourself a favor by listening and implementing Merlin’s suggestions. This certainly helped me. Another one of the shows I wish I knew about earlier. Some of the shows are several years old, but it does not matter one bit.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/43FPodcast

Stuff You Missed in History Class
Great hosts, great topics. These just make everyone who listens a more interesting person.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/podcasts/stuff-you-missed-in-history-class.rss

Stuff You Should Know
I pick and choose which casts I listen to. Again, these are topics which make us all more interesting people
http://www.howstuffworks.com/podcasts/stuff-you-should-know.rss

Pickup Podcast
I debated on including this. I can’t remember who introduced me to this but the topic was about meeting and talking to people especially in a sales situation. How do you walk into a room and make friends, get people to trust you? While this cast is all about pickup, there really are some gems about how to go out and make friends. The basis of what the hosts AJ and Jordon talk about are applicable to any sales person or to anyone who wants to make friends. There are a a lot of interviews which are way too much about pickup which you can skip but the early casts are filled with some good information about how to carry yourself and what type of attitude attracts people to you. All in all there is a lot to learn from these pickup artists.
http://www.pickuppodcast.com/podcast.xml

JapanesePod101
I travel to Japan and wanted to learn the language. It is possible. Although I have to listen over and over again. Additionally the hosts of this show have so much personality they were great to listen to. Too bad this show is still not on. Glad I downloaded a lot of shows prior to them going off the web!
http://www.japanesepod101.com/feed/

ChinesePod
John, Ken and Jenny do a great job with a very difficult language. They have gone to move of a pay model but if you want to learn Chinese this is a great way to do it. These hosts also have great personality. Very easy to listen to, just not easy to learn.
http://chinesepod.com/morganu/lessons/feed

Japanese SurvivalPhrases
Sort and sweet. Very helpful, but again, learning language takes huge amounts of time and effort.
http://survivalphrases.com/japanese/feed