Normally Friday tends to be "round-up" day on this blog, meaning I would cover such delights as new research on social enterprise governance, my interesting meeting with Eli Malinsky from the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI Toronto?), the Acumen Fund talking about where it gets its applications from, and even, if I was immodest, Rob Greenland praising us on the Social Business blog.

But today is podcast Friday, so I’m going to attempt to round up some of the listening I’ve been doing on my "length-of-the-Central-Line" commute, both general podcasts to subscribe to, and individual episodes to download:

– First up has to be Social Innovation Conversations, which I’ve mentioned here before. Though sometimes just recordings of speeches, these are unfailingly interesting, even when skewed to the US side of things. Good shows recently include Diversity in Fundraising and Introducing the Encore Career which traces the rise of the Purpose Prize in the US. One from some time ago features David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World.

– Social Enterprise Coalition in the UK have rolled out some podcasts (with the help of an SSE Fellow I think?) as well recently: see Social Enterprise Voices, and also the audio excerpts from the Voice conference. If I had to choose, I’d listen to Tim Smit which is at least entertaining and dynamic….

– Better than listening to conference speeches after the event, though, are properly produced interviews and shows; one I ran across recently was SmallBizPod which has a nice unpretentious feel to it, and a relaxed informality which is endearing. Normally it is commercial business, but the last episode focused on social enterprise, even interviewing the marvellous Colin Crooks of GreenWorks. It’s a good introduction, particularly because the host is clearly learning as well….I hope for more on social enterprise soon (Alex, give me a call….!)

– I had high hopes of a Demos podcast of an interview with Tim Drake who’d written a book on ‘making a difference’, but found it low on quality and insight, and high on babble….still, if you want to know if you too are a ‘difference deliverer’, then try it out… (NB – maybe try the book instead; it was all just a bit too self-help-y navel-gazing for me…)

–  On a more academic plane, the INSEAD Knowledgecasts are pretty good, if commercial business-focused. No.2 is quite interesting on that  old chestnut "are entrepreneurs born or made?" and a programme that focuses on the first 100 days…

– the BBC have also hotted up their available downloads; for me it’s all about Mark Kermode’s film reviews, but (focus on work….) the In Business programme has also started to make programmes available for download. Most recently, and of direct interest, is a programme about Anil Gupta and his grassroots innovation network, HoneyBee. Amazing man, amanazing story. They also recently did a story on social enterprise, but this is only available to stream at present, so I haven’t listened to it yet (the curse of the open plan office)

– finally, Nick Booth at Podnosh and its Grassroots Channel, are doing some interesting community-related stuff in Birmingham; good for keeping the feet on (and an ear to) the ground, and Nick is also a web 2.0 wizard, so also features interesting pieces on online widgets and development, like this one from Beth Kanter on fundraising via the internet…

Happy listening, and do let me know of any other relevant podcasts. SSE’s podcast bookmarks are also available for perusal….