This post is my response to Nat Eliason’s tweet:

I agree with Nat but want to acknowledge one paradox and one caveat. Paradox: Conversational radio is by far the lowest time/cost medium to produce, yet, for some of us, it’s the densest in value. Caveat: “Some of us” might be the 8%-24% who learn best by listening/arguing.

Expanding on the radio/podcast paradox: Conversational “compression” (compressing a person’s point of view/expertise into a timebound conversation) takes less creation effort/time than any other summarization technique. We naturally do it when we speak to one another.

Editing conversational radio/podcasts is nicely constrained: Take out the parts that are redundant or slow things down. You lose almost nothing. Editing writing, on the other hand, can be hours of focused effort, reworking over and over, often losing quite a lot…

Conversation (with a curious partner) has built-in advantages: followup questions, emphasis, clarity checks, and specific emotional tones that require more talent and intention (time) to convey in writing.

Expanding on the the radio/podcast caveat: Most people (yes, most) get very little from listening to conversation. They are different from Nat and me. My wife is one of them. On the other hand, my wife can glance at/smell a book for 11 seconds and explain everything it says…

Books require a lot of effort for me, because my cognitive style is a conversation between warring factions in my head, and they frequently get louder than the voice narrating the book I’m reading to them.

On the other hand, listening to a conversation is effortless and natural for me. The voices on the radio lead the conversation in my head, which I engage with naturally, reacting/thinking of my own responses and immediately being brought back by the next beat in the conversation.