Filene and podcasting / Trey and Johnny Law

By Brent Dixon on August 06, 2007

28 Comments

The Filene podcast

Trey and I spent last week in Madison, Wisconsin with The Filene Research Institute.

We were visiting because in the very near future, Filene is going to kick off a podcast (Update: The first podcast episode is live here). We were fortunate enough to help them get it going.

Filene is an idea factory and one of the major innovation catalysts in the credit union industry (for example: later this week they’re hosting a colloquium on ‘large-scale credit union collaboration’). Their podcast will make for a fascinating listen for anyone in the financial industry.

Also, George Hofheimer, Filene’s Chief Research Officer and the show’s host, has a first-rate radio voice.

Podcasting tools

In setting up the podcast, we integrated several tools that came together to make a nice little podcasting system. If you’re looking to get into podcasting yourself, here are a few tools/services we used in their setup:

Evoca -

Filene’s podcast will be interview-driven, and Evoca is the perfect tool for recording conversations and managing audio files on the web. Evoca integrates with both Skype and your standard phone line, and allows you to record conversations straight to the web.

You can manage the audio files with albums and control if a file is public or private. Evoca also generates an RSS feed of your public audio files.

Also, it’s really cheap – $5/month for a bucket of 200 minutes of collective recording time, which renews each month.

PrettyMay -

PrettyMay is a Skype plugin, also for recording conversations. We chose this as the primary recording tool and Evoca as the file management tool because PrettyMay kept the audio quality a little better.

The interface is very easy to use. You click “record call,” and go. It saves the calls as mp3s on your computer. It also manages recorded conversations by timestamping and labeling who you were talking to.

Audacity -

Audacity is very awesome open source (read: “free”) audio-editing software. It’s great for adding music, editing out any unwanted dialogue, splicing together text to make interviewees say things they didn’t really say, and generallypolishing up your show.

This site has tutorials of some of the most fundamental things you’ll need to know to use it.

Trey is a convict, or how the story ends

Also, Trey should have gone to jail this weekend.

Friday, on our way to the airport to go home, Trey was pulled over by a police officer for speeding. As Trey cursed and I snapped pictures with my Macbook’s built-in camera, the officer ran his information in the cop-car. We braced for the ticket. We were pleasantly surprised when he returned and said “I’m going to let you off without a citation.”

“Thank you so much,” said Trey.

“Well, the reason is – because of how fast you were going, I’m legally obligated to arrest you, and I’d rather not right now. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”

I’d bet that’s the first time anyone has ever gotten out of a ticket by going way too fast.

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