There’s talk on the web about “thought leadership” (I prefer the term “thought inspiration”), so I felt like writing something about what sources, podcasts this time, inspire thinking with me. An obvious example would be TED, which I think most of us know, but today I’ll list a few that I listen to regularly, which you might not.

Here goes:

• The New Yorker’s Out Loud series: I find myself listening to a variety of topics through this 10 min. podcast, from Barbar the elephant and how its idea was inspired by French colonialism; to the murder of Russian investigative journalist, Anna Politkovskaya; to the history of (the horrible) auto-tune, which can make anyone a vocalist.
• Big Ideas, which is a Canadian educational broadcast on iTunes, and basically showcases some excellent lectures on topics ranging from: the sense and senselessness of stretching; to Naomi Klein on her book, The Shock Doctrine; to author Robert J. Sawyer on why Star Wars shouldn’t belong to the science fiction genre and is actually quite a devolution to that genre.
• Scene Unseen, in which two students of film go back and forth on movies that came out this week, as well as picking some pretty damn interesting DVDs to watch. A must-listen for film-lovers!

Of course, there’s also iInnovate, Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders, This American Life, and the, now finished, Game Theory podcasts, some of which I’ve written about before on this blog, and which are most definitely worth checking out.

As might be clear from this selection, to me, thought inspiration (or leadership) can come from all kinds of directions, not just technology or business expertise.

Have some podcasts that you find interesting? List them in the comments!

Vincent

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