On Change
On Change is a conversation podcast produced by ht.live. Each episode is a long conversation with one guest about change. Its home is onchange.show.
It is not a travel show. I usually go to wherever the guest is to record, but that is how the show gets made, not what it is about.
Three scopes of change
Every episode is placed on one of three scopes, and usually one dominates the whole hour:
- Personal. A conversation about someone's own life, such as their relationship with a sibling. It may never touch a global topic, and that is fine.
- Interpersonal. Change between people: families, communities, organisations.
- Global. An hour with someone whose expertise is a large issue, staying at that scale throughout.
Who the guests are
Four kinds of guest, with the alliteration on purpose: artists, activists and advocates, authors, and academics. Many people are several of these. Often the guest has written a book, and the conversation is about what the book is about.
How each episode is prepared
Each guest is a small project of its own. Before recording I spend something on the order of forty hours with their work: their books, their publications, their public interviews and their background, so the conversation can go somewhere worth going. Where it helps, we talk beforehand to agree on the subject and the scope.
How the show is made
I record in batches of three rather than one at a time, so making the show does not mean constantly travelling to guests.
- Three interviews scheduled close together, over one to three weeks.
- The following weeks go to the episodes themselves: clips, segments and promotion.
- Release either on a schedule across those weeks, or all three close together, so someone discovering the show has more than one episode to find.