Memory Lane Review

Here's a great site I didn't know about that reviews podcasts and specifically took the time to review my show, "Memory Lane" and makes very valid points. Check it out.

Halley Suitt has a fairly long history in the IT industry. In addition, she's a strong voice for women in IT and an advocate for a larger contingent of women in technical fields. This is an important voice to be heard; it's good to know that my daughter will have a role model in IT and I'm glad that Halley has a public forum like this.

Halley's body of work for IT Conversations is in the format of interviews with a broad selection of people important in IT, either historically or currently (or both). Some of her subjects are important because of their technical contributions and some for their cultural ones. Much of what she discusses with her guests are issues surrounding the history of IT and the Internet, thus, I presume, the title of the series.

Halley's a good interviewer insofar as she is able to keep the conversation focussed around interesting subjects and for the most part keeps control of the conversation. She asks good leading questions to encourage her guests to talk about the subjects she thinks her listeners will find interesting. For my part I favor a slightly more challenging interview style than Halley's and that is occasionally a disappointment - her guests sometimes espouse contestable positions but Halley takes them at face value without asking the probing questions that I would like to hear answered. I'm not looking for blood, mind you, but when someone takes a position I disagree with I want to know why so that I can re-evaluate my position if that's warranted. Perhaps this is a conscious decision made for reasons of time, since a more challenging interview can also be a longer one. Still, she does get a lot of valuable commentary from her subjects, making a very worthwhile interview.

BTW, can I make another pitch for my interview with John Patrick this week and also a big warm, fuzzy, loud, "I LOVE ITCONVERSATIONS!" announcement!

And as if anyone needed me to mention it one more time -- the ipod is becoming the very viable alternative platform to a desktop computer and watch for a mobile phone, ipod, handheld platform war to unfold, as data flows in such a lovely liquid manner into all variety of portable hardware. All of us are lining up at the drive-thru window of mobile always-on content and we are leaving tethered machines behind. And yes, please supersize my ubiquitous computing. I want it everywhere all the time and don't hold back.