Bob and I released our first podcast of 2012 yesterday, show 128. In this show, we continue our tradition of making predictions (and reviewing our predictions from last year). We also discuss some of the goals we are working on for 2012.

Our podcast means a lot to me, and I want to make it better. We’ve tried various things, but it’s hard. The bottom line is that improving a show like this takes a lot of work. A lot of the ideas we try don’t work (or sometimes we don’t try an idea long enough for it to stick).

What HAS worked is that we get great guests. We’re going to keep doing that.

One thing I’ve dropped the ball on personally is the production schedule. We’ve experimented with paying someone else to edit the audio, but I don’t have budget for that right now, and I actually kind of enjoy doing it – I just need to be more consistent with scheduling. I get busy and things fall behind.

Right now we have FIVE good interviews recorded waiting to be turned into shows. First I miss a production deadline, then it gets magnified when I have to push up another show for scheduling reasons (e.g., I had to get the Anlock show published as quickly as possible because it impacted my work, and I wanted Brad Feld’s marriage interview to be our holiday show – and then this week is our annual New Year’s show). I’ve got good interviews from OCTOBER sitting on the shelf. That’s insulting to our guests, and it’s simply unacceptable. I’m sorry for that – I will fix it.

Also, we’re going to be more critical about the guests we book. We primarily want to talk with startup founders – actual startup successes – so we’re not going to talk with salespeople or evangelists unless they have a product of enormous immediate interest to other startups. We’ll still have other guests from time to time, but we’ll be very specific about the benefit they provide to startups.

We’re working to figure out a way for listeners to get more value out of the shows we’ve already done. When I can get budget, we’ll get transcriptions made so that topics will start being found from search engines. Bob is working on the WordPress site itself to make content more discoverable for specific topics (e.g., Lean Startup, Bootstrapping, Marketing, etc.). We want to make it easier for people to find a show that will be useful for specific situations.

If you’re a regular or occasional listener – thanks so much for your support. Feel free to email Bob or me with feedback at any time. We’ll keep working to make the show better.