Confluence (Premium)

When Leo Laporte called me in 2006 about co-hosting a podcast, he asked me how I envisioned the show. Simple, I said: As a conversation.

What I meant was that I wasn’t comfortable dictating from on high about how people should see the world. Instead, I saw the podcast, like my website, as more of a back-and-forth with readers/listeners. That I wasn’t an expert with all the answers, but rather someone whose real strength was communicating. And that I could learn as much from those readers and listeners as they could from me.

For much of the intervening years, that notion of conversation was a bit more theoretical than real. On the web, for example, I basically wrote into a void, picking the topics that mattered most to me. I had no assumptions about or understanding of whether they would resonate with any audience. And during my time at my previous gig, the SuperSite for Windows, which ran from 1998 through the end of 2014, my parent company would occasionally try to convince me to pay attention to which articles readers liked the best, and, you know, maybe write more of those.

I never really did that: I have my own feedback loops---email mostly, in the beginning, and now some combination of email, website feedback, and Twitter---and I feel now, as then, that these forms of feedback provide with the information I need to stay on track. Others at my current company don’t necessarily agree with that, and to their credit, they’ve undertaken several efforts to better understand what works and what doesn’t work, and to include me in whatever planning and strategizing results. This is a smaller company than my last, and it’s been more hands-on than I’m used to. But one of the big and positive changes that’s happened since moving to Thurrott.com is that we’re paying much more attention to the needs of readers, and are doing so explicitly. In effect, this company has helped me realized the promise I made.

The podcast---which has since grown over the years to podcasts­---followed a similar trajectory. From day one, I intended to have a listener Q & A as part of every episode---indeed, it’s still called out as an item in the show notes for every single episode today, over 8 years later---because, again, conversation. But the conversation has shifted, if you will: I worked to bring a new voice with a different perspective in Mary Jo Foley to the show, and it has worked out wonderfully. And so now the three of us---Leo, Mary Jo, and me---each have our own voice in the conversation. But we’re also informed by our respective feedback loops, and Leo does bring in comments and questions from the chat room during each show too.

In both cases, what we see is a change from a one-man show---or, in the case of Windows Weekly, a two-man show, I guess---to more of a team effort. And that’s something I had wanted for many years. As a writer, there are certainly advantages to being alone, and I do need specific time each ...