I am trying to get feedback as to whether folks are interesting in hearing old stories about the business.....

I made an initial podcast which outlines how martha and I got into the business…

and then today I started with my first interview - Stephen Morris, National Marketing manager at Vermont Castings (1979-1992) talks about how he started working at vermont castings along with some other juicy tidbits.

If this works out, I have a lot of other interviews and stories in mind - so check it out!

Here are links:
http://www.hearth.com/podcast/podcast.xml (the is an XML link to the page which will hold all the podcasts and descriptions.
http://www.hearth.com/podcast/smfirst.mp3 (direct link to Stephen Morris Interview)
http://www.hearth.com/podcast/podcast040907-163742.m4a (Direct link to Craig story of starting Stoveworks).

If you have iTunes and want to go directly to the Hearth.com iTunes podcast page - then click this link - itunes should open and give you the chance to see the podcast page and listen or subscribe.

For those who do not know about Podcasts, I highly recommend that you do some reading and listening. These are simply audio programs, which can be listened to on your computer or moved to your MP3 player (any brand) for listening during a walk, in the car, etc. - everything from NPR to Hearth.com is available! You can search for podcasts on many online directories, or download Apples iTunes (free for PC or Mac) and click the podcast tab. You can search and download programs that meet your interest.

You can also “subscribe” to podcasts, which automatically informs you whenever new epidoses are published. Your internet browser may give you options as to how you want to subscribe (iTunes, Google, Yahoo)....as they all have these services.

Well, that’s all for now - please enjoy the audio programs and let me know of any suggestions for interviews and improving the service. First

Craig, the stories are great!.  Keep ‘em coming…

Thanks!

We are also now listed on Apples itunes store - so I noticed a lot of downloads of the podcasts - even though we don’t link to them yet (except this thread)........

I have almost endless possibilities for stories from both myself and also from other industry “gray beards”......

I think it would be great if you could corner Ron England and get the story of going from him and Bob building stoves in the backyard in 1975 to building 15 to 20 thousand stoves a year.

Just listened to the 4 podcasts today, I enjoyed them, look forward to more.  I don’t see why you didn’t let the VC guy give you the “six pack” version of events instead of the 5 minute version.  I would love to hear his stories.  If an interview is going well, let the guy talk for an hour or more, you can always break it up or edit it later.  Cut it off when the conversation is dying.

Thanks for the suggestion......since I was just getting started, I wanted episodes to be of the length where folks could listen to them on their computers - AND, of course their MP3 players - but it was my assumption that most folks would not listen to long interviews on their computers (maybe I’m wrong). In general, I listen to one hour podcasts when I take a walk....on my little Zen mp3 player.

Stephen is available to me anytime for longer versions and he does have MANY more stories. I am looking forward to him telling the Dutchwest Story (when VC bought them!).......

He’s a funny guy - you have to get into his dry sense of humor and irony. If you want to know more, his site is at:
http://thepublicpress.com/people/SM/

Some of his books:
http://thepublicpress.com/people/SM/writings/index.html

are pretty funny, one being set in a place where people work at a wood stove factory (guess which one?), etc.....

Thanks for the comments - looking forward to more suggestions.

I’m probably the exception here, but I have a long commute (80 miles of driving every day) so I listen to a lot of podcasts on my ipod.  I don’t really listen to anything directly from my computer.

As for Stephen - thanks for the links.  YES, by all means please do more interviews with him.  There are 100’s of hours of potential great content there.  I don’t think you should be narrow in focus. I know this is hearth net, but I think a lot of us are interested in “green living” and he is the Editor and Publisher of Green Living Magazine, I’m sure he would want to have an opportunity to plug his magazine anyway (which I had never heard of).  And the list of books and articles he has written - WOW you could do a show on every one of them and it would keep you busy for the next couple of years!  They all sound fascinating to me.

As for other ideas - I think it would be GREAT to also interview some industry experts on many of the popular topics discussed in the forums - things like EPA grams per hour measurments (and other testing), maybe you could talk to someone from the EPA or someone from Omni test labs.  Then you have things like “outside air connections” which has been a hot topic - perhaps you could interview a bunch of different people on some of these subjects.  John Gulland would probably make for a pretty good interview on various topics. 

If you talk to the Omni test labs folks - be sure to ask them what it would take to run a new study on EPA phase II stove performance in the real world (full season monitoring like they have done in the past only on a larger scale - with key metrics noted regarding fuel quality, stove maintenance, user habbits, house size, etc.).  I bet they could find lots of willing participats though hearth net. I’d love to find out how much the monitoring equipment costs.

Thanks for the suggestions again! Gulland would be a great interview. I was also thinking of some top retailers from all over the country....just to see what is happening at various shops and locales.

I think a monitoring setup could be done on the cheap - because when the “in field” tests were done, they were not done with a full lab setup. In other words, since we would not have to be “approved”, we could probably come up with reliable data for much less......the data would still be “relative” and even if it was off by 20% or more from a “real” lab, it would be useful. In other words, whether something burned at 3 grams or 2.4 is not as important as whether it burns at 10 grams plus - or how one stove compares to another - or how it works with higher moisture content wood....etc.

Loved the new story about your run in with the feds!  I wonder why they assumed that people (like you) who sold the dirty government official various things were also guilty of anything?  Hillarious that they were unable to repo the furnace ("even with a tow truck” )