An excuse to buy more gear
Hey friend,
Sometimes the answer is so obvious and it took so long to get there that you want to smack your head and yell “Yadoy!”
I nearly yadoyed myself a few weeks back when I finally realized what I should make my podcast about.
See, I’ve been itching for a long time, likely over a year now, to start working on a podcast. It’s an obvious fit, right? I love podcasts as a medium, I studied and even worked briefly in broadcast journalism, I’ve got all the gear (and love excuses to buy more), and people seem to get my whole deal a lot better when I’m talking than when I’m posting on social media.
So: a podcast! But on what? I’ve got an audience of folks who care about content design and content strategy, sure. But even I get tired of hearing myself talk about that stuff all day. Writing and content is what I know. Design, in all its myriad forms, is what I love. How could I bring writing and design together without making it just another show about content design and content strategy? (Which, let’s be honest, are still pretty niche topics.) This is what I walked around thinking about, off and on, for months!
Until: Yadoy! I make it about designers who write. I already had the name, Twitter account, and URL staring right at me, thanks to the original marketing push for my book. So there it was: Designers Write.
The project is still in … pre-production, let’s call it. But I couldn’t be more locked-in on the vision. For starters, I’m hoping this podcast can do a few things:
- Shine a light on important and useful design books that could use more attention.
- Make the art of writing about design — including and especially writing with an eye toward publishing — a more approachable topic for designers of all kinds.
- Bust me out of my own web and UX design comfort bubble, and grow my network in new directions.
If this sounds like something you’d like to listen to, let me know by dropping an email on the website to get notified when the first episodes are available. If you can think of any authors you’d like to hear from, or potential partners and sponsors I should reach out to, just hit reply. If you can’t tell, I’m very stoked about this, so anything you can do to help me keep the momentum building will be appreciated.
Happenings and Goings-On
1) Ten new folks will start their journey in the Content Career Accelerator on Tuesday. There’s still time to register and come along for the ride.
2) Primarily for my own reference, I’ve created a new Events page on my website that lists upcoming classes, conferences, and other things I’m participating in.
3) Portland’s UX Content meetup community is growing fast, and I’m honored to be joining them September 22 for an online event about The UX Content Universe. Join their group and keep an eye out for the details.
4) I’m getting close to sending invites out for the Content.Events community. Nearly 300 people have expressed interest so far, and I can’t wait to see where this thing goes.
The Status Board
📚 Reading... Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism. Because life is a funny thing, I have used U.S. dollars earned under capitalism to purchase several new anti-capitalist books.
📺 Watching... Gilmore Girls, from the beginning, as our household has decided It is Autumn, Motherfuckers. On my own, I’m working through the final few seasons of Supernatural — first viewing, no spoilers, please. This is creating some weird headcanon about Jared Padalecki’s respective characters in each. Also watched The Princess which seems like it should have been funny but wasn’t? Keeping up with She-Hulk, which is...fine.
🧑🎤 Listening... to George FitzGerald and OtherLiine today, good dubby electronic stuff for focus and writing, thanks to Apple Music’s algorithms.
💻 Computing... via two new paid services, Yep.So for landing pages (as you’ll see if you followed the Content Events or Designers Write links) and Squadcast.fm for podcast recording. Too early to report on either.
🎮 Playing... the new pack of old maps for Mario Kart 8 on the Switch. Getting close to breaking controllers trying to 3-star everything at 150cc. Dicey Dungeons has been good fun, and I’ll often play it undocked in bed to wind down a bit at night.
💭 Thinking... about the cake that's waiting for me at home.
Until next time...
Hope you’re doing well out there. Remember to keep looking out for each other, supporting your local abortion funds, and punching your local fascists. (With voting, if you insist.)
-Scott