Why Do We Have Things? a new podcast!

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Have you ever wondered about the people who made your favorite mug, shirt or chair? In Why Do We Have Things?, Rita Mehta of The American Edit and Erin Husted of Hackwith Design House interview the independent designers, artists, small business owners and creatives behind our favorite things.

One week into 2016 and I’m happy/terrified/nervous/relieved to share with you a project that was one of my 2016 resolutions – a podcast! (I’ve learned there is no point in making “stop procrastinating” resolutions – it’s just part of who I am.)

The American Edit as a blog will continue, and as of 1/18, content will be posted more consistently. I have all of the appreciation in the world for those of you that stuck by last year while posting was inconsistent due to consulting projects – I’m not going to make excuses or try to justify, but I will say that taking a break allowed me to re-think a lot of ideas I had about blogging, and I’m really excited to get back into sharing the things that I really love and believe in.

One thing that I’ve always struggled with when it came to the blog is the fact that I am NOT a good writer. I can get by, and I enjoy it, but it will never be my strong suit. I’m really fortunate to get to meet amazing people and interview them for this blog, but I often found that my best in person interviews would become my worst blog posts, because I’d get too involved in the conversation to take notes, and then spend a week thinking about the conversation, and only then would I try to channel my thoughts into a post. And the result was usually a bastardized version of the interview with a lot of gushing about how amazing the person was to offset the fact that I had lost most of the substance of our actual conversation…

Early last year I started to think about recording conversations so that I could play them back while writing blog posts, but let’s be honest, I’m way too lazy to do that! Eventually, I realized that the obvious solution was to just record the conversations and share them as a podcast. I listened to podcasts all day, my friends listened to them all day, we talked about them the way we used to talk about blogs… it just seemed to make sense.

Until I looked into what it took to launch a podcast. Man. If launching a blog was scary, launching a podcast is even scarier. It’s technical, and there is a lot to learn. It also means that I can’t hide – you hear my voice. And I hate my voice. And I often say things without thinking, and it’s kind of a pain to filter and edit yourself in a recording the way you can in writing. So, figuring out this entire process, and finding the right partners, has been daunting…

The worst part of TAE for me has always been that I’m in it alone – as many supporters and cheerleaders as I may have, it’s only me posting the posts, dealing with the website issues, brainstorming ideas, etc. I spent so many years working in huge teams, and I believe that ideas are made better through collaboration. So I knew that to make a podcast that I’d actually keep up, I’d need a partner. Luckily for me, my amazing friend, and favorite person to talk about podcasts, and ideas, and retail, and consumption, and how we hate the words creatives and makers, Erin Husted (Director of Operations at Hackwith Design House), was in.

We’ve been working on this for awhile, and still have a lot of work to do. Like this blog, the podcast will evolve. But at its core, WHY DO WE HAVE THINGS? will be conversations with the people who make our stuff and who influence our consumption decisions… all about what they do and how they got there.

Please listen to our first few episodes and let us know what you think! We’d also really appreciate it if you would subscribe and leave us a review in iTunes. I really hate to ask for stuff like this, but here’s why it matters and everyone does it – basically, the more reviews and subscriptions we get, the more likely people are to find the podcast, and then the more likely we are to be able to get rad interviewees, improve our sound, etc. So if you take the few minutes to subscribe and review, we can provide you with even better content throughout the next year.

Our amazing sponsors are also on board to make reviewing and subscribing worth your while! Through the end of the month, reviewers have a chance to win one of the following:
– $100 gift card from Hackwith Design House
– $100 gift card from Wilson & Willy’s
– a gift set from Appointed Co.

To enter the contest, subscribe and review on iTunes and then send a screenshot of your review to Podcast@theamericanedit.com. Winners will be chosen randomly at the end of the month! Thank you, so so SO much for your support!

One last thing… thank you to a few amazing people who taught me a lot and helped this come together (and who have websites – just as thankful to those of you who don’t!): Jennifer Snyder | Paul Jarvis | Podcast Motor

Podcast Graphic for The American Edit by REBECCAH ERICKSON