How to participate

Hello, this is Steve Donaldson, host of Thinking Out Loud. I hope you have been enjoying our ongoing series of philosophical dialogues with everyday people.

So far we have recorded 22 intellectually stimulating and philosophically insightful conversations ranging from "What is Love?" to "What are the obstacles to wisdom?".

These conversations have been released as free weekly podcasts through Apple's iTunes online music store, as well as through a host of other podcast providers. You can also download the mp3 recordings directly from this web site.

Starting this month, July, 2007, we will be switching from a weekly release schedule to a monthly schedule tied to our live recording sessions. Our live recording sessions are currently scheduled for the first Wednesday of every month at 7:00 pm. The very next session will be this Wednesday, July 4th, 2007, at 7:00 pm eastern time US.

At this point we would like to encourage your participation in our dialogues as well. You can do so by connecting to our live sessions using special software that makes use of Voice Over Internet technology. The software is free and is called Skype. Some of you may already have it. Skype is best known for its ability to allow users to make free long distance phone calls over the Internet. A lesser know feature of Skype is its ability to allow users to participate in live group conversation known as Skypecasts. This is the how we can allow you to listen in and contribute to the conversation as it is being recorded. To speak, you will need to have a microphone connected to your computer. To just listen in, all you need are your computer speakers or earphones. You can download the Skype software from www.skype.com.

I will create the Skypecast session around 6:45, so you should be able to find it listed under "On Now" in the Skypecast Directory at that time. If you run into difficulty, contact me through Skype chat. My Skype ID is citizenphilosopher.

After the recording session, I will do whatever editing might be needed and then release the recording as a podcast on iTunes and other podcast outlets, the following Sunday.

If you have any questions for me or comments to share, please post them below under "comments".

Hope you can join us on Wednesday. Until then, remember, thinking is a good thing - everyone has a right to enjoy it...