Wednesday 25 June 2014

Top 3 Podcasts for keeping up with Tech

Whilst in education, every single lecturer would repeat the same phrase: Technology is ever changing and you must follow changes in tech. And it was true. Smart Phones and Tablets being the most notable  changes since I have left university.

So one way I keep up is through podcasting. Here are three of my favourites:

This Week in Tech - This is the flagship show of King Leo's network and is very good at summarising the weeks tech news and supplements it with insights from the panel of guests. Its these insights I find the most valuable as many of the regulars have been observing tech for many more decades than I.

It can get annoying when they talk at length about subjects that do not concern non-US listeners. Especially when Leo gets a "bee in his bonnet" and goes on and on and on.

That said I still prefer to outsource my tech news to TWiT and through the years I have acquired a TWiT bug. You might also get the TWiT bug. if you do then try out other podcasts and there are plenty more....many more . One of which is Security Now...

Security Now - WARNING - this can be extremely technical and sometimes overly paranoid, however I find myself tuning in every week. The value it offers is two fold:

Firstly I get to hear all the security news including security flaws and/or security breaches that often do not make the main media. I can then assess whether there is any risk and take action. You could stop listening after the news section and easily still get a lot of value;

Secondly, the two hosts are polar opposites in risk comfort, which means I am able to listen and decide for myself what makes sense personally and for my business.

Tech Weekly - Although TWiT does cover non-US tech news, it does it from within the US with a heavy bias to its own perspective. So to balance that I listen to UK based podcast: Tech Weekly from the guardian. Stories may be duplicate but perspectives will not be. Then similar to Security Now it's your job to decided your own opinion somewhere between them.

Another good podcast by Aleks Krotowski is the Digital Human from the BBC. This podcast looks at the human side of technology and how we are changing (for better and worse) because of it.