One Year Anniversary: Interview with Jonathan Singer

[Episode 34] Today's podcast is a bit of a departure from the norm. Instead of doing a podcast on social work, we're doing a podcast on... the social work podcast. There are two reasons for this rather unusual topic. First, it is a way of celebrating the one year anniversary of the Social Work Podcast; The podcast started in February 2007 as a way to help students learn, but has grown into a resource for social workers at all stages of their careers. Second, UT-Austin's School of Social Work wanted to do an article on me because I am an alum of their social work program. Rather than doing a traditional interview over the phone, I suggested we do a podcast (big surprise, right?). Interviewing me today is Jennifer Luna-Iduñate, Director of the DiNitto Center for Career Services and Alumni Relations at the University of Texas at Austin's School of Social Work. In today's interview Jennifer and I talked about how the podcast got started, the goal of the podcast, how success is measured and what are some goals for the podcast. I thought this podcast was another example of how technology can be used to enhance communication and connection. Special thanks to Laura Wells and John Trapp at UT-Austin for the technical help in getting the interview together.

Download MP3 [29:24]



The Social Work Podcast has had a very successful first year. I consider it a success because, without advertising or promotion other than word of mouth,the number of visitors and downloads has increased significantly over the year. According to Google Analytics, a free webmetrics program, the social work podcast website has had almost 13,000 visitors – almost 10,000 unique visitors, who have viewed 25,000 pages, and downloaded over 250 gigabytes of podcasts. According to iTunes, the Social Work Podcast is the number one podcast on social work-related topics.

The most popular podcasts are on cognitive behavioral theory, developing treatment plans, person-centered therapy and DSM for social workers. People have accessed the podcast from all 50 states and the district of Columbia, and 113 additional countries and territories. Not surprisingly the most number of visitors have come from English speaking countries. But, there have also been visitors from Israel, Germany, Malaysia, Iran, Pakistan, Finland, etc.

Because the podcast is accessed internationally, it really makes me think more about how I’m contextualizing the podcasts. I’m more aware of how some topics might be very different in different parts of the country and different parts of the world. Perhaps one day we’ll have comparative podcasts, for example social workers in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain and the USA talking about what is similar and different with case management and service coordination.

Click here if you are interested in seeing a pdf file of some of the Google Analytic statistics for the Social Work Podcast, February 18, 2007 - February 18, 2008.

APA (5th ed) citation for this podcast:

Singer, J. B. (Host). (2008, February 19). One year anniversary: Interview with Jonathan Singer [Episode 34]. Social Work Podcast. Podcast retrieved Month Day, Year, from http://socialworkpodcast.com/2008/02/one-year-anniversary-interview-with.html