Since late last year Alastair Graham and I have been working together on a Podcast. It is something we have both been keen to explore for a while and it certainly felt that the time was right. The aim, at least for me, was to produce something that I would want to listen to. To find the balance between informative and fun. We are approaching the last episode of the series, which so far has taken in discussions on Open Data, Earth Observation analytics, the killer EO app, Timeseries, and predictions for 2018.
Alastair has done frankly a brilliant job not only in editing but setting up the infrastructure to enable us to be on itunes and available (hopefully) on all your favourite podcast apps. He has also written some great posts about the work he has done in the background…
On hosting:
Hosting and sharing the #scenefromabove podcast
On how we set out a plan (yes we do actually have a plan) for each episode:
And perhaps most importantly on the numerous ways to access the podcast:
How to listen to Scene From Above
Some thoughts on Podcasting
I feel I am a little late to Podcasts, perhaps 10 years too late. I do also feel that in the last 6 months there has been a resurgence in podcasts. I seem to hear about a new podcast on a daily basis now, or maybe I am more attuned to looking out for these things now that I am involved in one. We both have really enjoyed doing it and I think that is a good reason to continue into a second season later in the year.
Our structure comprises an introduction, discussion about news within the industry (including film reviews) and then a topic. It has struck me on more than one occasion that this is very similar to most conversations I have had at conferences or events; perhaps that is one of the subconscious reasons we have settled into this structure.
I think it is important to try and keep the length of the content to about 20-30 minutes, though with so much to cram in that makes the edit difficult. More than once we have digressed into other topics; certainly education is a topic we could both talk about at length and seems to be one of the core fundamentals of an expanding industry that Earth Observation certainly is.
Season 1 Episode 6
In our yet to be recorded final episode (at the time of writing), we plan to do some quickfire questions to each other. We’d like to then use these as a way of having others join us on a future episode. Maybe you would like to talk about Earth Observation?
What has not gone so well?
I planned on transcribing each episode, and after a promising start this has proved a larger task than I had hoped. I still think there is a great deal of value in having a transcript but due to other work commitments it is a lower priority at the moment. As the series has gone on we have become much better at staying on focus to our topic. Occasionally we have drifted off topic, which doesn’t help Alastair with the edit.
Successes!
We changed an EO tool (in a small way):
@ajggeoger @map_andrew great podcast #scenefromabove. Thanks for your feedback on #Syntool. @ESA_EO #sentinel3 portal is now better than ever: https://t.co/c3sAB6ZFOR pic.twitter.com/sa66Z1Fr3A
— oceandatalab (@oceandatalab) December 28, 2017
Inspired a blog post (or 2):
First post in ages! #scenefromabove https://t.co/LsIiLRp0hK via @wordpressdotcom
— James O'Connor (@James_O_Connor1) December 13, 2017
And, hopefully, informed and shared our combined enthuisam for all things related to Earth Observation. There are so many amazing things happening. With ever more EO data available and an increasing amount of that as open data, Open Source software making massive disruptive steps, computing power and technology continuing at a fast pace and new companies and ventures setting out to disrupt the traditional players all the time. It’s this that forms the backdrop for our podcast.
#Scenefromabove
The podcasts are all available here: http://www.acgeospatial.co.uk/podcasts/ and here: https://geoger.co.uk/podcast/. You can reach us on the hashtag on twitter #scenefromabove, you can comment below, or message me. If you have any feedback or comments or even want to be a part then please do reach out to us.
Thanks for reading & listening š
I am a freelancer able to help you with your projects. I offer consultancy, training and writing. Iād be delighted to hear from you.
I have grouped all my previous blogs (technical stuff / tutorials / opinions / ideas) at http://gis.acgeospatial.co.uk.
Feel free to connect or follow me; I am always keen to talk about Earth Observation.