Podcasts are a life saver.  You can listen on the drive to the airport, waiting at the gate, or on the plane.  Easy to download them to you smart phone.

One of the greatest downsides of management consulting is the incessant travel.  The time-suck is enormous with 4-6 hours of getting to / sitting around the airport, 2-5 hours flying (depending on the client site).  All told, there are 6-11 hours per week of dead time.  Some great podcasts to help pass the time (click on link or logo):

Business Week – Behind the Cover Story: Weekly interviews with the author who wrote the recent cover story.  Short synopsis of the article and also interesting tidbits that were edited out of the printed version.  For blog readers who focus on Six Sigma / Lean Ops, there was a fascinating story (04/26) about a lean efficiency expert here.

The Economist:  Been a subscriber since 1992.  To those long-time readers, you might remember when it was all black and white.  Excellent analysis, simply written, very free-market, opinionated, and very British.   Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO, once said, “I used to have an opinion, now I just read the Economist.”

60 Minutes: The weekly podcast is the audio portion of the legendary show.  Now in its 44th season, it is still hard-hitting journalism with more than 100 original segments annually.  Sadly, the witty and grumpy Andy Rooney died this year.  Since people watch this on Sunday nights, it is a conversation starter on Monday.

Harvard Business Review Ideacast: This is de rigeur for most strategy consultants.  In true HBR style, lots of emphasis on innovation, leadership and management research. The free podcast provides short summaries of the key articles and is a lot cheaper than the $79 annual subscription for the magazine.

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders: This is a speaker series out of Stanford’s graduate school of engineering.  Speakers from Google, Facebook, Linkedin, FourSquare, Amazon, Baidu, Intel, Cisco, Nvdia, Microsoft, Kleiner Perkins, Spotify,  SpaceX, Tesla, Applied Materials, Electronic Arts etc. . . Full list here.

Planet Money: Awesome 20-25 min shows on the global economy.  Easy to follow – explained with middle-school logic and words.  My wife’s favorite podcast to listen to when we are on road-trips.  Excellent reporting on the financial crisis.  They even bought a toxic asset at a 99% discount to see how it worked.  “Toxie died”

Manager Tools: Perhaps the best podcast to learn the every day tactics of managing other people.  All the things they do not teach you at MBA: conducting 1-on-1 session, giving feedback, delegating effectively, etc. . .  Straight-forward advice, and very active blog community members. Excellent manager tools for free here.

What podcasts are working for you?