I’ve been working away for a while now on some new features for this site and specifically for the Pragmatic podcast. From about Episode 3 I’ve been determined to try different formats and approaches on the show including splitting out follow-up and more recently adding Q&A after the show from Episode 35.

A week ago in Episode 40 I announced memberships for TechDistortion. Today I’m announcing why. In future I’ll be preparing an email newsletter that people can opt into, but more immediately I’m opening up the site to a whole new section for Pragmatic listeners.

It’s located at techdistortion.com/topics. There’s also a link to it from the Pragmatic podcast main page.

Even if you’re not a member you will still be able to see the list of upcoming suggested and proposed topics for the show and their ranking in terms of votes. If you sign up and verify your email address you are able to vote on the existing list and also to suggest whatever topic you’d like to be covered on the show. All suggestions will be moderated and you’ll be notified when your suggestion is posted then everyone can see it and vote on it if they like it.

Beyond that I’ll be locking in episodes a week ahead of time, maybe two, and people can see the topic and co-host or guest-host details planned for the coming few episodes as well. For those interested in listening live you’ll now have an idea of what the topics will be ahead of time.

I’ve also wanted to give listeners a better avenue to guide where the show goes in terms of topics and whilst I do get plenty of emails with suggestions and requests (some of which are in the list already) there hasn’t been an easy way to gauge if it’s just one or two people interested in a topic or if they’re the vocal minority and lots of people want a topic covered. Now you can tell me what you want, quickly and easily, and everyone else that’s interested can let me know if they like those topics as well.

To sign up go to techdistortion.com/login and select create new account. Once you’ve verified your email address you can make suggestions on the topics page and vote on them from there.

I’ve pre-populated the list with everything on my list and will be adding a few ideas as time goes on.

I’d also like to thank my friends for helping Beta test the new functionality: Vic Hudson, Kyre Lahtinen, Sid O’Neill and Linus Edwards.

As always my most sincere thanks to the each and every listener of the show: you’re the best! Please let me know your thoughts (both good and bad) as ultimately this is about you and what you’d like to hear and see and how you’d like to interact as the show evolves in the future.