Insights From Home Office
Mark Leger is the editor and part-owner of Huddle. This is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region.
I’m like the teenager in the house, driving my family crazy with AirPods in my ears all the time – even when I’m not listening to anything because I forget they’re there. But I’m listening to podcasts, not music. Doing the dishes, preparing lunches, taking a shower (not with earbuds of course), walking to work, going to get groceries, or driving the kids to music and sports (not with earbuds of course), I’m always listening to podcasts.
Once a newspaper reader who graduated from journalism school planning to be a print journalist, I loved the feel and smell of the broadsheet and lamented the loss of the print edition of the Saturday Globe and Mail in the Maritimes. I’m now a fully digital creature, consuming news and current affairs through media outlets online, e-newsletters like this one, and podcasts. I read mostly short-form news stories and columns online and listen to long-form interviews and analysis on podcasts.
I’m also now a digital journalist, far removed from the early days of my career as a reporter and editor with the Telegraph-Journal and then co-founder and editor of the alternative newsweekly, here. Huddle, of course, is a fully digital product with a business news website, an e-newsletter, and now a growing network of podcasts.
This time last year, we launched the “Home Office” podcast, with me hosting from my home office in uptown Saint John and Cherise Letson producing from her apartment across the street, our guests in their home offices around the region. I had that same giddy feeling that I experienced when, more than 20 years ago, I’d hold a paper hot off the press that I’d helped edit or write.
On the fourth episode of the podcast, I interviewed Don Mills, a newspaper columnist and former owner of a market research firm, from his home in Chester Basin. In those early days of the pandemic, we were already talking about how to reopen the economy and Don had some provocative ideas on why we needed to that, and how to do it safely.
Around the same time, David Campbell had launched his own podcast, Growing Pains, through the Unsettled Media podcast network. An economist and economic development consultant, David had for years shared his research and insights on his blog, It’s The Economy, Stupid, and we had reshared many of his posts on Huddle’s website. On Growing Pains, he’s interviewed entrepreneurs, policymakers, researchers and economists about economic development issues in the region.
In early March, Don posted this on Twitter: “Have been thinking about doing a regular podcast recently focused on current challenges facing Atlantic Canada? What do you think? Good idea or bad idea?”
Good idea. We reached out to him right away about producing a podcast with Huddle. Later the same week, Don called David for his advice on hosting a podcast. Partway through the conversation, David asked if they might do something together. Another good idea.
On April 8, the Huddle podcast network is launching, “Insights with Don Mills and David Campbell” – a trailer with a preview of the new show is now available on Spotify and Apple and embedded at the top of this column.
“It made sense to me right away because we’re philosophically aligned on some of the things that need to happen in Atlantic Canada,” says Don in the trailer.
“We have an interest in data-driven conversations. We have an interest in changing the future prosperity for the region and we have a lot to bring from different perspectives. I bring more of a market-research perspective. David brings an economic perspective and it just seems like a good combination.”
In addition to sharing their insights on challenges and opportunities for growth in the region, they will continue the great work David has been doing with Growing Pains, and interview entrepreneurs, researchers and analysts throughout the Atlantic region.
“I have been studying economic and demographic data on Atlantic Canadians for 25 years. Don’s been in their heads for 40,” wrote David in a blog about the new podcast.
“Between the two of us we will continue to interview leading thinkers, policymakers, politicians and business leaders across Atlantic Canada to help us as we address the growing pains of building a larger, stronger and more vibrant economy and population in the region.”
Slowly but surely, podcasts are becoming an important forum for these kinds of conversations; it’s an on-demand medium that has a community-building function like current affairs radio.
According to The Canadian Podcast Listener report for 2020, the segment of people with daily listening habits like mine is relatively low (6 percent) but the weekly (18 percent) and monthly (27 percent) audience segments continued to grow.
In my conversations with other fans of podcasts, we talk mostly about the high-profile U.S. ones with large global audiences, but the Canadian ones seem to be catching on too. According to the podcast listener report, 49 percent of the podcasts consumed by Canadians were produced in the U.S., but 41 percent were produced here, up from 38 percent in 2019.
Huddle is happy to be a host to two of the growing number of podcasts in Atlantic Canada.
You can subscribe to the one hosted by me by searching for “Huddle Home Office” on podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple. You can subscribe to Don’s and David’s by searching for “Huddle Insights”.
I just subscribed myself. Now that we’ve done the work of launching the show, I look forward to being a regular listener on my walk to work or when doing chores around the house.
What are your favourite Atlantic Canadian podcasts? E-mail: [email protected].