Using Commuting Time: Week 1 - Interview with Dave Birss, iphone apps and more

So... Following on from my quest to utilise my commuting time.

That evening on my drive home, I fired up voice memos on my iPhone and recorded my first thoughts:

[audio src="http://blog.clock.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/20110623-180655.mp3"]

Apologies for the repetition, I am driving (you can even hear me indicating!) but hopefully you got the idea... the initial task I set myself was to work out what I can do with commuting time,  first off I wanted to phone interview (whilst commuting) a few colleagues and ask their opinion about it.

So, when I arrived home I started looking for an iphone app for recording conversations....

Learning #1 - Just because a Google search doesn't yield results after 10 or so searches, does not mean it doesn't exist.

This lesson came about as I did a good hour or so of searching for apps that record phone calls and I simply couldn't find what I was looking for, in fact I was about to blog this:

....Oh my gosh, Despite Apple's slogan "There's even an app for that" ... there wasn't! or more precisely there isn't a good one for it! I tried multiple, and they either simply didn't work, were US only, or were subscription model based which didn't appeal to me.

So Learning #1: Building a decent phone call recorder for an iPhone might be profitable!

The next morning on my way to work I dictated an email via an iPhone app 'Dragon Dictation' which was useless (but then I already knew that!) to Dave Birss and Syd Nadim asking them if they would like to be involved in an podcast interview.

Learning #2 Dragon Dictation is not adequate for writing emails.. must find other useful voice controlled apps.

After a failed recording of an interview with Dave Birss, I realised it wasn't sufficient or practical to try recording via a laptop in the car.

A few days later, after sitting with Dave and explaining the problem, he promptly fired up Google and searched for an app, and lo-and-behold the first search yielded a decent result.. ipadio.

It did exactly what I wanted (hence the life learning #1), so, on second attempt to interview Dave I managed to record my first ever podcast interview:

I apologise for my voice! As you will hear Dave has very melodic tones and is very soothing to listen to - in contrast I am driving, unaware of my volume and not well practised at sound recordings!

[audio src="http://blog.clock.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/CommutingPodcast1-DaveBirss_20110630180051.mp3"]

Alternatively, listen via ipadio:

http://www.ipadio.com/phlogs/RobArnold/2011/6/30/Commuting-Podcast-1--Dave-Birss (Subscribe to podcast RSS)

(Podcast soon to be available on iTunes too)

As you can hear, Dave is a very inspirational figure (and modest about it) - The ventures that he has pursued as a result of maximising his commuting time was exactly the kind of ammunition I was looking for.

Learning #3 You might not succeed in the ventures you undertake, but as long as you take something from that experience you'll have gained.

Learning #4 Anything is possible, and whilst it may be unlikely that you'll know how far the idea will spread, you might be surprised (e.g Dave's street poetry and Custom t-shirt ideas)

Week 2 coming soon!