All Things Tech! A New Podcast

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

beacon_dave — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 15:59:16 GMT

Had me in stitches 😂

...I'm still using Vim because I've logged in 20 years ago and I cannot get out...

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 13:54:20 GMT

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the feedback!

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 13:51:31 GMT

Hi Andrew,

Excellent point; we need to improve the intro to topics when they get introduced in the conversation. Agree with the huge cost-save of decent cloud approaches and that it still needs all sorts of skills and labor to support the tech: developers, test teams, network people, cyber-security people, a decent product team, etc, they are all essential. Amazing what a game-changer cloud has been for businesses over the past couple of decades as it (and companies) have evolved.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 13:35:49 GMT

Hi Mike,

Thanks for listening, and the feedback!

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

BigG — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 12:59:59 GMT

I'm still in the process of listening to your podcasts, but much like a child I keep getting distracted with other things... so have to start again. So far, I like the casual conversational style, and you and Mitko work well together.

I like that you bring in real work examples into the discussion, rather than just broad brush overviews. E.g. Royal Mail issue.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

Andrew J — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 12:52:10 GMT

Found some time to listen to both episodes today and I think the pair of you have a nice interactive style. I guess it depends on your target audience who may already be genned up on some of these topics and technologies, but It may be worth explaining a bit about them as part of an intro. Length wouldn’t bother me too much: I suppose like all media consumption these days it’s often a dip-in-and-out experience, so you could easily go into more detail. There comes a point where you have an equal number of opposing opinions on that though somImdaresay you’ll find your style.

I have been lucky enough to take early retirement so haven’t been involved in corporate IT for about 5 years now. I doubt much has changed: the purse holders had very definite non-complimentary views of technologists in the organisation and always seemed convinced that IT could be totally commoditised and delivered cheaply, forgetting how labour intensive it is. I often used to despair so I’m glad I don’t need to bang my head against the wall anymore in respect to the commercial viability and applicability of latest technology. Cloud computing seemed the most viable approach to cost-effective commoditisation as long as you could find solutioners who could break free of legacy architecture thinking.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

BigG — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 12:41:44 GMT

Yes, it just shows how our views are being impacted by large saturated media coverage. IMHO, these layoffs appear to be in very clear segments of the industry. Typically it seems to be those companies who had the means but not the common sense to grow very aggressively in an attempt to grab market share. Now they are simply cutting back aggressively.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

dang74 — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 22:23:48 GMT

You're welcome.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

kmikemoo — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 20:44:25 GMT

shabaz I was able to listen to both episodes today. I really liked the positive tone. The content topics are WAY above my skill set but the casual, upbeat flow made it feel like after supper coffee and cocktails talk. It was fantastic.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 18:40:28 GMT

Thanks for the message! It doesn't matter how good one is at their job, tech companies can be pretty severe when it comes to layoffs unfortunately.

Thanks for listening to the podcast!

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

dang74 — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 18:23:06 GMT

Excellent pod cast. I am sorry to hear that your cohoast recently lost his job. My coworker's brother-in-law was recently let go from Google. So, yes, it does indeed seem like the big tech companies are trimming their payroll which is unfortunate.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 16:19:05 GMT

The next episode is live! It is at the same links above.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 04:23:56 GMT

Hi Doug,

That's great feedback! Here a lot of job roles at some of the large orgs seem to have dried up, or are perhaps hiring only in some countries. Also, there seem to be a lot of contract roles, perhaps orgs are nervous about hiring permanently (even though it's not that difficult for firms to hire-and-fire in the UK (much the same as the US I believe, whereas in contrast it is a lot harder to fire in some countries in Europe, like France I believe). There is the cost of hiring permanent employees I guess, which would be higher than contract roles perhaps, regardless of country.

One thing we forgot to mention on the podcast, but might be worrisome, is that some smaller backward firms (or even small autonomous departments in large firms) may try to get rid of employees through performance reviews/probation type stuff. There is legislation they need to follow, but employees may not be confident enough to hire a lawyer (or might not be able to afford it).

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 04:16:34 GMT

Hi James,

Thanks for listening, and for the feedback!

We didn't get a complete consensus from an unpublished hour-long "pilot" we shared with some colleagues, some didn't mind even 2-hour podcasts since that was the length of time they listened to existing ones occasionally.

Others suggested covering just 2 or 3 core subjects with a time limit of 10 minutes or so. Another suggested short and sweet, and another mentioned that it should be mixed up, some quicker ones and then some deep dives that could be longer. From what you say, perhaps we have gone to an extreme of trying to keep it at 20 minutes, and we should just extend where needed, and as a few people also mentioned, to not switch topics so much.

The next podcast is already recorded, it ended up being close to 25 minutes because although we were keeping an eye on the time, we forgot. I'll let my colleague know that we shouldn't be afraid to extend longer instead of an artificial stop. Also with longer podcasts, we could either split and publish several in a day, or chapterize it, by writing in the written description (since it's harder doing it in the audio stream since we are not editing it, we are doing just a single take) what will be on the recording so people can fast-forward if they are not interested in one topic but are interested in another.

Thanks again for the feedback, probably we were a little nervous at the start, but hopefully it will improve rather than go downhill as it progresses!

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

dougw — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 04:01:18 GMT

I am aware of the large layoff at Microsoft and some other tech companies, but it is in sharp contrast to the situation around here. Here there is a severe shortage of people in virtually every industry. Supply chain issues are gradually easing, but the trade war between the USA and China is not over, and inflation is a factor in everything these days.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

baldengineer — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 01:13:23 GMT

I was able to listen today. Production-wise, you guys did a great job. It did not sound like your first podcast, which is no easy feat!

For what it is worth,I see no reason to limit yourselves to 20 minutes for the audience's benefit. Limiting your recording time is for your benefit, not ours. I am unsure where this notion comes from, but many podcast hosts often bring it up. "Oh, we don't want to go on too long because you are busy!" So? Personally, I have never had the expectation of listening to an entire podcast episode in a single session. I listen in 10-15 minute chunks throughout the day.

Just looking through my queue, the shortest episode I have waiting is 45 minutes, and the average is almost twice that. Just my two-pence.

Anyway, I think you guys did a great job, and I look forward to the next one!

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

Jan Cumps — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 19:53:48 GMT

I'm going to listen.

Youtube is also a good platform to post it to. The AmpHour gets a few 100 listens via that channel.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

fmilburn — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:12:05 GMT

Yes, I was thinking fewer topics per episode and keeping it to 20 minutes

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:11:15 GMT

Hi Fred,

Thanks for the feedback. This seems to be a consensus, that it's better to go deeper and not deviate into other topics. I'm thinking one way to do that will be to be more specific in what we plan to discuss, and have a Post-It note reminder stuck in front of the screen with "stick to the topic at all times" written on it.

For instance, the next podcast, although it covers AI, does deviate slightly, but in the approximate area of the subject that we started with. That needs to be controlled a lot more. There are many interesting things to talk about, and the conversation could digress, which doesn't help the listeners, who will be interested in the topic they were expecting. It would also be nice to find ways to get information URLs out somewhere, so that those who get interested in any snippet know how to dig deeper, or have ways to ask; this works both-ways, because it would be good for listeners to contribute their advice, since everyone is an expert in different areas.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

Fred27 — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 17:48:58 GMT

Nice.

I must admit I would have liked a little more depth on the subjects you were discussing. You seemed to mention a subject and before really getting started you were off onto something else. Would one topic per podcast work?

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

shabaz — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 17:39:58 GMT

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the feedback! I'm not sure why this episode zero doesn't have a more specific description on the page, however the system allows for a topic description for at least all subsequent podcasts, and the next one has already been recorded (not scheduled yet), and it definitely has a unique podcast description, i.e. not a common whole series description. That next podcast incidentally does go into ChatGPT and other AI.

The length of podcasts might be changed. It's a good point, how detailed should they be. We actually recorded a much longer first episode (1 hour) however the feedback was that it was too long. A longer podcast is also harder to do, dedicating that much time once or twice a week might be difficult to sustain. Another option could be to have less topics per podcast, to go deeper on fewer topics. It is also hard to know which direction the podcast will go during the recording period, since it is currently natural and unedited. Maybe an in-between option could be to have links to the topics in the description, for those who want to read up more; or a way to have interactivity, which I'm not familiar with, since I'm new to Spotify etc.

RE: All Things Tech! A New Podcast

fmilburn — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 17:26:56 GMT

Hi Shabaz,

I haven’t listened to a podcast in sometime and I found this interesting. One thing I noted missing was that the topic wasn’t on the podcast page - eg “This first episode includes a brief discussion on the state of tech jobs in the current climate”. It is probably your plan, but I would be interested in the deeper dive into say ChatGPT, what makes it different than previous AI, how it might be helpful in business, etc. There were many interesting topics mentioned but I was left wanting more details on your thoughts and the reasons behind them.