The Original 1,000 Podcast Project Post

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This post was originally written on 3/16/2006 over at marketingmonger.com where I did the first 113 of my podcast interviews (and had my first 85,000 downloads). I've moved it here for historical purposes since marketingmonger.com now points to Jenerous.com.
The Blog Post that Launched a Thousand Podcasts
Sometimes when you're really pondering something, you enter a heightened state of awareness about anything related to it. And for the several weeks, I've been thinking intensely about podcasting, marketing, social media and being remarkable.I'm not sure exactly what started it. My first podcast had something to do with it (thanks, Steve).

But from there it has just snowballed.

What added to the momentum? A bunch of things.

In no particular order, here are some of them:
--Watching Larry King interview Jon Stewart prior to the Oscars (both of them are ridiculously articulate) and then learning that Larry King has conducted more than 40,000(!) interviews
--Going looking for podcasts about marketing and discovering one or two but not as much as I would have expected
--Tom Peter's newest ChangeThis Manifesto talks about the importance of interviewing, listening and the simple purity of taking action (#1)
--Discovering that Technorati has over 2,000 blogs tagged with word "marketing"
--Scheduling my next three podcasts/interviews (Stowe Boyd, Sean Moffitt, Joe Waters)
--The daily struggle of "adding value" to the online conversation rather than just regurgitating links

And then, on Monday, this post from Steve about a study conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism that only one percent of blog posts on any given day involve an interview of someone else and only five percent involved some other original work, such as examining documents.

So...taking a page from Greek Mythology, with this post I'm launching a project to conduct ONE THOUSAND podcast interviews of marketers, bloggers, authors, designers, entrepreneurs, and social media innovators.

I'm sure you have questions. Since I can guess at some here are my current answers.

Why do this?

I believe that social media is still in its infancy. Podcasting, tagging, blogging, gaming, social networking and similar trends have only just begun to affect our lives and marketing. In order to understand the changes, I believe that one must participate.

Why one thousand interviews?

I chose 1,000 because 100 seemed too easy and 10,000 seemed too big. A thousand interviews seems like a good "stretch" goal.

Why focus on marketing and social media?

Because that's what I'm interested in. And if I'm going to talk about something for, hmmm, let's see, 30 minutes x 1,000 interviews, carry the 2, roughly 500 hours, I want it to be interesting to me.

How long will it take?

I don't know. A couple of years.

What do you hope to get out of this?

A better understanding of how social media is changing marketing. A chance to talk with interesting people. A better professional network. A chance to share all of that with the community. Maybe, BIG MAYBE, some consulting gigs or some sponsorship.

How can I help?

I'm glad you asked. Here's my current thinking.

Subscribe - You can either simply subscribe to my blog's RSS feed or to the podcast feed. If you need help, Apple explains how to use iTunes to subscribe or you can google it.

Participate - In order to conduct one thousand interviews, I need you. I will be proactively seeking out people to interview based on news and blogs and such but I'd love a willing victim or two. If you want to participate, you need to 30 minutes or so, a phone (landline preferred) and something marketing-related that you're passionate about and want to talk about. Email me if you're interested.

Advise Me - I'm relatively new to podcasting. As this project continues, I will be continually improving the podcasts that I make. If you know more than I do and want to give me some advice, I would love it. Just email me.

Support - Life costs money. But the podcasts I'm making will be free. Eventually, I may set up a tip jar for personal donations. But if your company might want to sponsor the project with cash and/or donations of services (castingWords, are you listening?), drop me an email. If nothing else, I like link love.

Have questions? Email me or post comments. The project is a work in progress.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." ~Geothe

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