Centenary Special!

MYOB 2009-02-16
Show #100
Release date: 16 Feb 2009

Notes

We’ve reached our Centenary!

And since we started podcasting back in 2005 the world has become a very different place.

Strangely, though, we are more optimistic now than when we started. Listen to this show to find out why.

Plus Mind Your Own Business Podcast host Guy Kingston was recently interviewed by the BBC on the morals of going bankrupt – you can listen to that in this show.

Also, we consider some useful feedback and comment from listeners Mark Lee, Caroline Evans and Anthony Brewitt.

The Story So Far...

Most American television shows are cancelled in their first season. Few reach the milestone of the 100th Show.

So forgive us our petty vanity if we pause a moment to pat ourselves on the backs: we are rather proud of the fact that we are not only still here after three and a half years but actually find ourselves with an expanding audience, and, we trust, a podcast that is improving in quality,

In honour of our Centenary, we thought it might interest some – especially long-established listeners – if we altered the format of this newsletter a little, just this once, and went “behind the scenes” to look at how Mind Your Own Business has developed.

Think of this article as the “Making of...” documentary that comes as an Extra with most big-name film DVDs these days.

MYOB was the brainchild of Guy Kingston, who returned to Britain from entrepreneurial success in Russia in search of new investment opportunities. As he studied the small and medium enterprise sector, he became very irritated by the bad “advice” that was being given to potential entrepreneurs.

Some “advisers” obviously knew nothing about business. Others were saying what they felt they were supposed to be saying rather than telling the truth.

Guy decided to tell the truth, and, being a technological sort of chap, decided to use as his vehicle the then-revolutionary concept of the “podcast”.

Unlike some podcasters, Guy did not simply want to inflict his own opinions and the sound of his own voice on other people. He knew the great discovery of the Greek dramatist Aeschylus in the 5th Century BC that dialogue is more interesting than monologue: basically, the hero needs a sidekick to help with the exposition.

With this in mind, Guy approached John Winterson Richards, a garrulous Welsh polymath. Say what you want about him, but it is unlikely that there will be any “dead air” – embarrassing long silences – with John around.

Guy and John had met at a student party in October, 1982. After University, they had gone their separate ways – Guy eventually going East to Moscow and John eventually going West to LA. During their respective wanderings, both had become involved in a range of different businesses, usually their own.

By 2002, both were back in the United Kingdom and they met up, for the first time in a decade, in a Bristol restaurant with mutual friends. Swapping stories, they found that their experiences had been very different – but, at the same time, there were surprising similarities, not least in some of the conclusions to which they had come as a result of those experiences.

This made John the obvious choice to be Guy’s equivalent of “Exposition” from the Austin Powers films.

After Guy had explained to John what a “podcast” was – about twelve times, and very, very slowly – John agreed to be a guest on some of the earliest shows, still not really understanding what was going on but eager to help out.

Since then, John has been not so much a regular guest on the show as a permanent squatter.

Guy and John live in different cities – indeed, in different countries – so it is not always easy for them to get together to record. As a result, their sessions are usually recorded in batches of half a dozen or so. However, in order to make sure that they are not out of date, Guy adds his own pieces nearer the time of release.

Sound quality has been something of an obsession from the start.

Guy was insistent on a really professional standard – “fanatical” might be a better word. However you don’t appreciate what a small, crowded, and noisy island Great Britain really is until you try to find a spot where there is no chance of being interrupted by traffic or by aircraft flying overhead.

Various desperate venues were tried in the early days: Guy’s office. John’s garden, the music room of a primary school, and the back bedroom usually occupied by Guy’s infant son – conveniently removed for the day, courtesy of Guy’s very tolerant wife – with duvets hung from the walls for extra sound proofing.

The dialogue sessions are now held in a commercial recording studio: every few weeks two middle-aged men sit and talk in a room usually occupied by student rock bands.

The sessions are supervised by a professional sound engineer and later the podcasts as a whole are put together by a professional editor.

Whether all our listeners appreciate the difference is hard to say but we like to think so. We would love to know...

Listener participation has also been a priority from Day One.

We really do enjoy getting feedback – especially the supportive comments, which, we are pleased to say, means the vast majority, but even critical comments are taken seriously. Guy usually forwards listeners’ comments to John and the two of them discuss how to take them on board. All get a response, either on air or privately or both. There is a real commitment to developing a show which entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs find useful, and to which they want to listen – rather than the “this is what we think is good for you” broadcasts which characterise too much of the “business advice” sector.

We really want to develop something listeners can think of as their own show, rather than “our” show.

We are particularly proud of the fact that the majority of recent shows have been dedicated to subjects suggested by listeners.

Keep the suggestions coming!

Last year, we sought to expand our communication by expanding these newsletters and by launching a thrice-weekly blog on our website. Please feel free to reply to these newsletters and comment on how they might be improved – or send suggestions or questions for the podcasts. We often read e-mails out on the podcasts but please tell us if you would prefer a private reply. You can also rate our blog or comment publicly on it.

The first three years of this project has been down to Guy and to his priorities – he wants the next three to be about you and yours.