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Montreal Podcasters Raise The Bar

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Just listening to three Montreal Podcasters do their thing. The creativity and spirit in Montreal rattles my cage every day.
First off is Hugh McGuire and his incredible project at LibriVox where he is taking all public domain book titles and having them read by a large community and turning them over as Podcasts or downloadable audio programs. I was just ears deep in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin. If you read my post called, Podcasting – I Can’t Believe This Content Is Free, then LibriVox definitely fits that bill as well.
Next up, I was on the bike this morning listening to Julien Smith drop knowledge for his Podcast, In Over Your Head. I then hopped over to his other project, Listen To Your Kids where Julien has set up a website for kids to talk and a place for parents to listen (very brilliant idea and awesome use of digital audio). From In Over Your Head’s social commentary to Listen To Your Kids rawness, there’s just too much going on in Smith’s fast-forward thinking brain.
Last up, I was happy to see my new neighbor, Ben Yoskovitz – Blogger at Instigator Blog and Startup Spark – has started a Podcast titled, Your Passion Podcast. It’s short, witty and perfect for entrepreneurs.
There was never any doubt that Montreal is a hub of creative and passionate people. It’s just great to hear so many Montreal voices joining the Podcast world. One of the main ideas I like to bring forward in presentations about Podcasting is the need to “raise the bar.” It’s not enough to just Podcast because everyone else is doing it. It’s important to add to the conversation and raise the bar. It’s great to hear Hugh, Julien and Ben raising the bar.
Next up, we need to get Austin Hill from Billions With Zero Knowledge and Andy Nulman from Pow! Right Between The Eyes to put voice to mic.

4 comments

  1. I was equally impressed with Librivox and Listen to Your Kids at PodCamp Toronto. I’ve been sharing both w/lots of people outside the echo chamber.
    How can we get more women podcasting? ; )

  2. MC Turgeon was one of the first big podcasters in Canada (I don’t think she’s podcasting much any more); and nora and cathi do a great job on the sniffer. librivox has many women, prob more than men, both recording and working on the tech side. google knitting + podcast. that is, there are tons of women podcasting, about all sorts of things.
    what’s interesting, i think, as alluded to by mitch, is to stop thinking of podcasting as some kind of technical project, and look at it as a means of communicating (that seems obvious, but it isn’t). the beauty is there are no rules about what can go into a podcast – so if it is interesting to one person, it will be interesting to others. there’s some work to do to keep breaking down those preconceptions about what audio ought to be … but it’s happening.

  3. If there are so many talented Canadian women podcasting, why aren’t we hearing more about them?
    I agree with you about thinking of podcasting as a form of communication. It’s new tool in the toolbox, so to speak.
    And Hugh, Librivox may be just the place for people like me to test the podcasting waters.

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