Welcome to the 16th podcast episode of this side series, the Podcast Spotlight. In this special episode, Effy Yu (wife of the host) interviews Danny Koordi (usual host) about his podcasting journey and what goes on behind the scenes of the Economical Rice Podcast.

If you don't know much about the Economical Rice Podcast and the type of content that we produce, then this episode wouldn't probably be the best place to start. However, for long time listeners curious about what goes on behind the scenes of producing the episodes, then this episode would be the best place to get insight.

I've been on several other podcasts to talk about the podcast, and over the course of my podcasting journey I've been asked on numerous occasions about how I got started and how I produce my show, but oddly enough this interview with Effy interviewing me is likely the most comprehensive set of answers that I've ever given. For casual listeners this won't really make much sense other than to get a deeper perspective from the producer's side of the podcast, but if you are a budding podcaster there might be some bits of insight that could help you along your own journey. For what it's worth, if you ever do produce a show, please, please, please, send me a link, I'd love to check it out. =)

Some of the episodes we talked about include:

The Economics of: Freezing Office Air Conditioning
PS#6 Ling Ling talks about The Human Voice and Duolingo

P.S. ALSO, I do drop a few updates regarding the podcast, what's been happening, what's going to happen, etc, at the end, so if you are listening I hope you will look out for that.

99% Invisible

In this podcast spotlight, I recommended 99% Invisible, a prominent showpiece of the stellar Radiotopia network. The premise of this show is simple. In each episode, enigmatic and super nerdy host Roman Mars (pictured above) looks into how elements of design are integrated into our daily lives. On the surface they are deep dives into why buildings or roads are structured a certain way, the practicality and functionality of household items like clothing and furniture, and so on. But at its core, much like the vaunted Freakonomics, 99% Invisible is more than just about the esoteric or hidden nature of its subject matter. In fact, I would argue that the real strength of the show is in it's storytelling ability. How it finds relatable threads through every episode, how it weaves rich narratives, and how it is able to hook in any listener from the seemingly niche topic of design.

Besides this, the execution is what I would consider as the Podcasting Gold Standard in narrative storytelling. Each episode is interspersed with all these moving parts of sound beds, sound effects, music, interviews, producer discussions that I'm somewhat baffled about how it all comes together in such a clean and polished way. This is one of the podcasts that fed my early craze with the medium, and truthfully speaking I really couldn't have stumbled across a better option out there.

In fact, the episode that I recommend here is one of my all time favorite podcast episodes, and it is exemplary of all the things that I've mentioned above. I'm surprised that it took 16 editions of the podcast spotlight before we finally go to 99% Invisible, but I'm glad to be the one to introduce it nonetheless.

Music by:

Pandrezz: Takin' you for a ride
Broke for Free: Beyond Dazed

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