Michael G was the first person I interviewed for my podcast, Voice Notes to the World. I sent him three questions by WhatsApp voice note, and he sent back three answers.
When I sent him the edited episode, he apologised for the sound quality, and asked what my plans were – for this one, and for the others he was sure would follow.
This was my reply, more or less as I sent it.
Ha! I thought your sound was better than mine. More alive.
It’s very early days. I’ve done one other and asked a third person, and I don’t quite know what will happen. But as I think I said, I’d like to come back to you every so often to catch up – a bit like the legendary TV thing, 7 Up, but at rather shorter intervals.
It started because I wanted to see if I could host a podcast on my own website rather than with one of the big platforms, simple enough to publish whenever I felt like it. Turns out it is possible. Often it’s just me talking for a minute or two about whatever I’m working on. Quite quickly I realised it’s much more alive when the voice is addressing a real person (duh). Hence this hardly-even-an-interview, and I knew you’d be a great person to start with.
Why my own site? I’ve been working on my digital archives: 1.2 million words on the website alone. With the podcast there too, the transcripts sit alongside everything else, so I can cross-link them and use AI to spot patterns and recurring interests I might not notice myself.
All the episodes are on my website and on Spotify. Most are a minute or two long. To hear how it began, start with What is Voice Notes to the World?
jp at this domain name.