Categories: Articles

Media Hacks

How many conversations about the changing landscape of media take place during lunch, while at an unconference or during a 5-7? What if some of those conversations could be recorded and turned into a Podcast? Why couldn’t they? That was the thought and spark behind a new Podcast called, Media Hacks.

"Media Hacks is a fairly frequent audio conversation (every couple of weeks or so) that looks at media, technology, publishing, culture and how we all interact with it and build community." The idea seemed simple enough, I figured every couple of weeks I would call on some friends and have the types of conversations that I already have over lunch with people like Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, Earideas) and Julien Smith (In Over Your Head and co-author of the forthcoming book, Trust Agents). I figured it would be a nice break and a way to freshen up the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast. What’s that old saying, "be careful what you wish for"? Julien and I discussed the feasibility of the show, and managed to wrangle up McGuire along with Chris Brogan (chrisbrogan.com and co-author of the book Trust Agents), C.C. Chapman (Managing The Gray, Accident Hash and The Advance Guard) and Christopher S. Penn (Financial Aid Podcast, Marketing Over Coffee and Awaken Your Superhero) to take part.

Conversations add value.

Every two weeks we all get on the phone, choose a couple of topics or issues that are interesting to us and yack about what it means. It’s supposed to be free-spirited, raw and real. So far, the results have been great. So much so that it went from this random audio segment idea into a full-blown show. We have managed to record four episodes already. The third one, which was recorded live from the Carnegie Deli in New York City last week went live on Sunday, and episode #4 is already recorded and should be published in about two weeks.

We even gave Media Hacks a home of it’s own right here: Media Hacks.

There will be more guests who will come in and out and not all of us are on every episode, so you never what you’re going to get. So far, it’s been an amazingly fun and interesting project. The biggest surprise has been how much I learn from the other hosts and where the conversation leads. It usually sparks a lot of ideas for newer pieces of Blog and Podcasting content, which is never a bad thing.

If you’re interested in new thinking on new media, I hope you’ll give it a listen and feel free to contribute to the conversation as well.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.