Tip the work-life balance back in your favor with a podcast

Abstract

Engineers and managers find themselves facing increasingly long hours to complete the everyday activities of their jobs. At the same time, they are pressed by the threat of technical obsolescence as they scramble to keep up with the rapid expansion of technology. Technical and professional meetings and publications can close the obsolescence gap, but they can tilt the work-life balance even further. So how do we find the time to keep up? One method of satisfying this need is the podcast. The Podcast audio, and increasingly video, files are distributed by RSS feed to subscribers. Subscribers can collect files of possible interest, then listen or view offline, when it is convenient. This removes the restrictions of time and live Internet connection associated with a streaming broadcast. With a portable player, audio files can be listened to while exercising, driving or working at a computer. Several independent productions provide timely information on a wide range of technical subjects. Publications now offer podcasts to supplement their print editions. Corporations have begun to employ podcasts as a low cost, high quality means of distributing information and training to their employees. This new mobile use of technology can enable engineers to stay current in their field, provide employers and vendors a low cost and timely channel of communication, and free a little more time each week for our personal life.