Dancing, Dancing

Dancing as fast as I can. But things are moving again. SPONSOR MAGAZINE #3 should be out by the end of October. The first of the CD Disk projects should be up about the same time - possibly two of them. I'm putting off podcast production while I deal with medical and automotive problems. And a former sponsee was found dead in an abandoned building last weekend - keeps me grounded and focused on the real result from Step Twelve.

Simplification?

I have been thinking - run for the hills.

So far, as Anonymous Review, there have been two volumes of podcasts over three years (77 individual podcasts), a booklet on Inventory, which was absorbed into A Recovery Reader, and the first issue of Sponsor Magazine was released (Issue #2 will be out the first week of June).     

A third volume of the podcast is in development, and a fourth podcast is in discussion.

The third podcast will topics in depth. For example: three or four podcasts with snippets from dozens of speakers on a single topic (such as a single Step); or a single personality telling his or her story in depth by pulling various recordings together (such as Bill Wilson). This may involve reducing the size of the podcast to 30 minutes creating many more podcasts to cover the material. But who's in a big rush? The working title is "_____ in Depth".

The fourth podcast would be a meeting format that was tried locally at a meeting which is no longer around. I do not think the meeting failed because of the concept, I think it failed because it was too closely linked to an institution and wasn't perceived as a "real" AA meeting. The format is called "Speaker in a Box" and offers a speaker recording for 25-30 minutes, followed by discussion. I am used to 90 minute meetings (out West), and locally meetings are 60 minutes. There would be materials for anyone to use Speaker in a Box for either time format and it would be published as podcasts to fit the format and provide topic. The vision is to provide smaller groups, who have heard each others story over and over, some fresh input from the wonderful speakers available - or to allow a tiny meeting with 3-4 people to enjoy the benefit of hearing speakers from around the world with thousands of flavor of recovery.

Such a format would allow the people running the group to pick and choose speakers (such as women or men only, particular classification speakers only, certain topics only) or to allow the random train of speakers you would get at any big-city AA Speaker Meeting. An optional format would be available as a PDF download. The format would not link the format to anything other than an optional meeting format for a group - it would not carry a brand. (Not "Anonymous Review" and not "Sponsor Magazine." but would be available through those sites.

But as all this is being done the question comes up: does any of this Keep it Simple?

As a whole we try to focus on particular aspects of recovery - our relationships, our money, our families, our job, our sex lives, our service work, but we have to do it all. Does this collection of projects need the same isolation? Does it make sense to make them simple with a "one site fits all" approach - go to one place, get access to everything and links to more?

As the producer/editor I am in a rare position where I can devote almost full time to these projects. I'm a bad capitalist because I'm not looking at ways to cash in on recovery - just want to contribute something while I'm still around.


Anonymous Review has been a wonderful project, but the phrase "anonymous review" has a very distinct meaning in academic circles ... to review a paper without identification to allow the reviewer more latitude to speak freely. But that also means when someone goes to a search engine to look for "Anonymous Review" they get 1,050,000 results - and my project doesn't show up until around page 15. (To be fair, if they enter "anonymousreview" the home page is the #1 result - right after they ask you if you meant to search for "anonymous review" as two words.)

I am wondering if it might serve this project better to bring everything under one banner - and that banner to be "Sponsor Magazine."  Sponsor Magazine is a project that has immediately shown that it "has legs" - it can get up and walk around on its own. It has been well received and some high-powered authors have made their material available for future issues. It is a free eZine - free to download and free to share with others - and has an option for a print-on-demand hard copy (which I think is overpriced, but some people prefer to hold the magazine in their hands). The articles for the second edition have just been edited and should be available the first week of June, and #3 is in process.

Would it be simpler to offer the magazine, to make the second edition of A Recovery Reader a project of Sponsor Magazine, and then do the new podcasts as Sponsor Magazine podcasts?

So far this has all been a tiny storm in my tiny little brain, so I am asking for your thoughts; first impressions and the more sober responses after some time reflecting on the idea. I know that alcoholics don't like change, but I'm feeling the Anonymous Review banner has too much baggage to make it useful. Sponsor Magazine seems to be moving under its own steam.

But therein lies the rub - that's what I think. And my thinking got me to AA.

What do you think?  Please feel free to respond by comment or by email.

What Came Before

A wonderful organization called "archive.org" make sit possible to create a permanent repository for past web and media files. We have taken advantage of that to make the previous podcasts available - for free, of course.

Archive.org does accept donations.

VSM - Virtual Speaker Meeting (Phase II)

Archive 1 : Archive 2 : Archive 3 : Archive 4

Anonymous Review (Phase I) AA History Studies

Archive 1 : Archive 2 : Archive 3

Feel free to go there, download, burn to CDs, post to your page ... knock yourself out.

The Third Podcast

The Anonymous Review has served up two rounds of podcast so far. It is always developing a whole batch of print-on-demand (starting with Simple Directions, a nuts and bolts guide to doing Steps 4, 5, 6 and 7 with a review of 1, 2 and 3).

And I'm getting the itch again.

Over the past three years there were 27 episodes of Anonymous Review Podcast with the people key in AA history and information key to recovery. Phase II was the Virtual Speaker Meeting. Both of those are still available through archive.org and you're welcome to go listen.

The podcast is to share audio documentation of 12-Step recovery and more in depth exploration of recovery topics.

Phase III Trudge Report will offer themes where one idea is explored for several podcasts - depth rather than width. For example, Bill Wilson has taken on a mythical position in an AA pantheon, which goes against what he tried to build. Over several episodes we will hear what he actually said and his reaction to his own beautification.

After that we may explore individual Steps in depth - take key comments from 20 or 30 speakers on Step One, or Step Four, and link them together. Again, examine the Step for four or eight podcasts to get depth.

I hope that the Phase III will provide a tool for new future trudgers, maybe give an insight that even long time trudgers will find helpful in keeping Steps fresh while integrating the principles of Recovery into their daily lives.

"Principles before Personality" does not mean we can do this work without personalities. I try to keep my last name out of this and to keep the podcasts based on other people's words. Some people know my last name - I'm not trying to make it a mystery, but who I am is not important to anyone but me and the people around me. If you find my name somewhere - no big deal - but it will not appear on the podcast or as part of the podcast pages. If you don't like what I say, write me - or better, do your own podcast and challenge the idea. We can only benefit with the truth being presented, no matter whose ego is involved.

I have no illusion of being "objective." The very nature of recovery is personal and therefor subjective - my brain responds to what I think is important or significant and it may not be the same thing that others think will be important.

The idea has been running around. I ended the Virtual Speaker Meeting a few months ago and worked in others areas of Recovery. The new podcast will begin in the spring of 2011, after my next two projects are completed and out of the way.

Your comments are always invited by posting to this blog or sending an email. And you can subscribe to this blog.