I experienced a bit of podcasting serendipity yesterday. I’m chairing ALI‘s corporate blogging and podcasting conference, which started Wednesday morning and ends this afternoon. The schedule conflicted with the schedule for recording For Immediate Release, especially given the eight-hour difference between the Bay Area and the UK, where Neville lives and works. So I set up my portable recording rig in the hallway outside the conference meeting room and recorded the podcast from there.

Neville had just returned from a Melcrum conference in London, so we hadn’t had our usual chat about the topics we’d discuss. During our news section, Neville referenced a post on the future of podcasting in investor relations on the blog IR Web Report. In the post, Dominic Jones wrote about the success IBM had experienced with its IR-produced podcast, “IBM and the Future Of…” Then, Jones wrote (and Neville cited): “Despite this apparent success, IBM has not produced a new podcast in the ???Future of series??? since April. If the podcasts were such a hit, why stop producing them?”

As Neville read that passage, I thought to myself, “Christopher Barger just presented at the conference.” Barger is IBM’s unofficial blogger-in-chief and one of the hosts of “The Future Of…” So I dashed into the meeting room and asked Christopher if he’d be willing to be on the show and answer that question. He agreed, and you can here the result on yesterday’s show. Sometimes things just work out.