About the Podcast

The Mind of Men is billed as the podcast “For Guys, By Guys, and About Guys.”  It aspires to cover topics of interest to men with a target demographic spread of men from 20 -50.  While humor is a definite part of the show, gutter humor is not and the Mind of Men endeavors to set itself apart from much of what people traditionally associate with men’s entertainment.  This means that if you want interesting news updates and well researched pieces that cover topics of interest to guys, this is the place for you.  If however, you want girls on trampolines, then we invite you to type that phrase into Google and have fun.

The Mind of Men podcast is published on a bi-weekly basis.  During the year, special episodes are sometimes produced, which means that a typical season of the show runs 26-30 episodes.

The podcast follows a set format – the first segment covers a specific basket of topics which include:

• What’s On Our Minds (quick updates on what’s going on with us, the show, or just what may be bugging us)
• Interesting News (things we have come across since the last show that may be of interest to our audience)
• Tech News (news specifically from the world of technology)
• Technology Stuff (gadgets – electronic and otherwise that we want to talk about)
• Politics (news in the political front that is particularly interesting or irritating)

The second segment presents our “Main Topic” for the show.  These topics range all over the map to cover things guys are interested in.  Topics covered in the past include:

• BBQ Grills, Tools, and Techniques
• Ripping CDs and DVDs
• An in depth look at various libations (Scotch, Bourbon, Cognac, Gin, etc.)
• Internet Security & Privacy
• Cigars
• HDTV Buying Guide
• Digital Photography & Video Cameras
• Buying a Car
• Health Topics (Exercise, Cholesterol)
• Horseracing
• Investing
• Home Theater

History & Genesis

The Mind of Men Podcast got its start in the summer of 2006 during one of Mike & Jim’s discussions on the back deck.  Mike & Jim have known each other since college and have shared a lot of similar interests throughout the years.  We got to talking that evening about doing a podcast in which we would invite our listeners into our conversations.  We had often been asked by our wives and friends what we talked about when we got together and this podcast became our answer to those questions.

Right from the start, one of our primary areas of emphasis was on audio quality.  Many podcasters have buried their early shows, too embarrassed by the low audio quality and other factors to want them around anymore.  The Mind of Men set out to be different and whether you listen to episode 1 or episode 101, you will find that generally the quality of both the audio and the show in general is high.

Over the years, the format of the podcast has evolved.  The first season was published on a fortnight schedule meaning that it came out on the 15th and 30th of each month for a total of 24 episodes in that first year.  One of the limitations that we found with that schedule is that since we always recorded over a weekend, from time to time, it might be as much as 4-5 days between when we recorded and when we published in order to stay on that 15/30 schedule.  This led to some of our topics becoming stale before the podcast even hit the airwaves.  During our first season, we also perioidically touched on cigars and libations, but it was only one of many topics we covered and many shows were produced that did not feature either.

Season Two introduced several major changes.  First of all, we started to feature a cigar and libation as a regular segment each episode.  We also moved to a weekly schedule in an attempt to expand our audience by producing content more frequently.   We also changed the format to feature three distinct segments; the first segment covered our personal updates as well as focused on news and other interesting tidbits of information.  The second segment was our main topic which covered some area of interest to guys in a fair amount of detail.  The last segment featured a cigar and libation pairing.  During Season Two, we also launched our dedicated cigar and libation podcast, From the Havana Hut with the Mind of Men which was essentially a repackaged version of the third segment of our regular podcast.  This was done so that listeners who wanted a quick snapshot of a featured cigar or libation could grab it without having to listen to close to an hour of other content first.  We managed 51 episodes in Season Two.

Season Three pretty much followed the same format as Season Two, however, we realized that a weekly podcast was simply not possible over the long haul and went back to a bi-weekly schedule.  The key differentiation from our first seaon schedule was that in Season Three, we eschrewed the fortnight schedule and simply published an episode every other week.  Occasionally we would publish a “mini episode” between our regularly scheduled podcasts and managed to push out 28 episodes for Season Three.

Season Four (our current season) brought about a few more format changes.  We formalized the topic areas that we would cover in our opening segment and make an effort to offer content in each of these topic areas every episode.  The second segment remains our “major topic” for the episode.  Bearing in mind that many listeners are not cigar smokers, we decided to eliminate the cigar and libation segment from the Mind of Men Podcast but will continue to offer that content in our dedicated From the Havana Hut podcast.  This will also allow us to spend more time on the first two segments while keeping the overall time for the show under an hour which was one of our goals from the beginning.  Season Four will also feature some episodes with live call-in segments in which we invite our listeners to join the show.

We hope you have as much fun listening to our podcast as we have creating it and look forward to your feedback.