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Speechwriting is a notoriously solitary profession. You might have a few conversations with a client, their staff or — if you're writing for yourself — a mirror. But a lot of your work is going to be just you, a keyboard and the unforgiving blank screen.

At least, that used to be the case. But when you're crafting a social speech, speechwriting can be a team activity. And even though you still have to do the actual writing, you can draw on the ideas, experience and ingenuity of a large networked audience.

Podcasting, as any social media guru worth her or his robes knows, is dead. Like so many social technologies, it failed to jump the adoption gap, break the hype cycle or clear the Great Hurdle of At-First-Raving-and-then-Dismissive Punditry.

Except that the common wisdom - that podcasts are the 3-1/2" floppy disk of the 2000s - has been lost on one group of people: listeners.

According to a BBC story from the summer,

[P]odcasting has continued to grow and grow.

Hi, Elections Canada. We go back a long way, you and me. I'm the kid who had your colour-coded riding map masking-taped to my bedroom wall.

So let me offer some friendly advice. You want to stop people from tweeting election results from Eastern Canada before folks in Western Canada have had a chance to cast their ballots?

Then don't use section 329 of the Canada Elections Act. The full weight of the law is way too blunt an instrument.