What if you could match up any people in the world to discuss something and just listen?
I tweeted this morning that I wish there were a service for getting interpretations of medical imaging where you could browse any available docs or specialists across the world, book 3-4 of them, and do a live Zoom where they view your MRI results and share their opinions, debate, and discuss.
Besides the value of being on-demand, getting multiple opinions in a single meeting, and having a global marketplace to choose from, another huge value of this approach is the opportunity to hear other people discuss and converse with each other. Being a spectator on a good conversation is an incredible way to learn.
Podcasts have made this more clear than ever, by blowing the doors off the formerly controlled and scripted process of formal interviews. I tune in almost every day to hear two or more people I’ve never met have conversations about stuff. It’s engaging in a way that hearing a speech or reading an article isn’t, and 10x more valuable than formal debates or panels or interviews.
Imagine if you could take the benefits of the podcast format and add some customization based on need, person, and topic? One obvious way to do this is to start a podcast yourself, which allows you to speak with experts you’d never be able to reach without one. You can ask what you want, or even bring on others to ask with you. But it’s a lot of work. If there were more ways to create podcast-like conversations between people of your choosing, it could open amazing possibilities.
I mean hearing different surgeons, docs, and practitioners give their takes on an X-Ray and treatment approach in a real-time multi-party conversation would be so amazing and useful not just to you, but even other people who might want to listen. This is just one application.
It’s kind of like bringing the Socratic teaching method out into the broader world.