HN833: The State of Packet Pushers 2026
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What is the purpose of this episode and who are the key Packet Pushers team members?
Today's episode is sponsored by Meter, delivering a complete network as a service offering. Wired, wireless, and cellular in a unified solution. Find out more at meter.com slash heavy networking. Welcome to Heavy Networking. Today's episode is going to be a bit unusual in that we're going to talk about the state of packet pushers before we take a bit of a summer break. We're going to get into this in a minute here. But first of all, I am Ethan Banks, along with a whole group of people who work behind the scenes to bring you the podcasts and videos we publish each week. Also, Drew Conray-Murray. And Drew, you're the co-host of Heavy Networking, but you're also behind the scenes because you have a... What is your fancy title?
You're the Editor-in-Chief and Industry Analyst, correct?
That is my fancy title, yes. I try not to use it because it's too fancy, but yeah.
Yeah. Well, you...
I think we said, what would you like to be? It's my fault. I shot for the stars. What can I say?
It is, in fact, an accurate description of your role here. And joining Drew and I today, we've got Robin Young. Now, Robin, you're the CEO. I am. You are. Yes, okay. We've got Nathan Jackson has joined us. Nathan, we're calling you audio engineer, but audio sweetener, I think, is another title we've kicked around.
Yes.
There's been a few. There's been a plethora of them, yes.
Yes, yes. And then Somerset Banks. Somerset, my wife, is also the production manager. Well, is that your title still? Because I know we've kicked around more titles for you, too.
Production manager.
Production manager. Okay, okay. That may morph into creative director or, you know, other things as time goes on here. So all of you listening, you're meeting people behind the scenes, and that's important because as we talk about the state of Packet Pushers, all the folks that you just met and Daniel Mudge, who could not make the recording today, have very important roles to play. And And we're gonna talk through a lot of what's going on here at Packet Pushers and what happens behind the scenes. And we're doing it on heavy networking because heavy networking is the podcast that started it all at Packet Pushers back in 2010, when we didn't have a podcast network, but we were just a podcast. We called it heavy networking.
And this channel, this RSS feed that some of you have been subscribed to since 2010 is still here. It's still this one. It's still this thread. Okay. We're going to have some opening comments about what we've been doing at Packet Pushers and then address several of your questions that have come in to the follow-up channel, packetpushers.net slash follow-up or emails or direct message comments that we've seen or was in the audience survey that many of you just filled out. and talk through it that way. So I hope you guys will find this interesting. I know it's not the usual sort of content we have here, but understanding what Packet Bushes is as a company and as a podcast network and so on is kind of a big deal and something we'd like to do every now and again.
Well, let's start at the beginning, guys. As a group, as a company, one of the things that we've talked about is we need to invite a younger audience to join the networking community, and we want to play a role in that. Drew, maybe you've got some thoughts here, because this is something we've been working really hard on.
Yeah, I feel like based on our audience survey and some other surveys we've done, we know our audience tends to be at the senior level, which also tends to mean you've been around for a while. So we are missing out folks who are early career, who we think, you know, might appreciate all of the learning that goes on here at Packet Pushers. And one of the ways to reach them is video. Like we are an audio podcast and we will always put audio first, but we realized that Yeah, the younger generation doesn't necessarily know about backup pushers in part because they're consuming things through Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. So we realized, yeah, we need to move to video.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the purpose of this episode and who are the key Packet Pushers team members?
0:00–11:26
2
Why is Packet Pushers moving from audio‑only to video and how will it attract a younger audience?
11:26–22:10
3
How does the new video workflow handle editing, assets, and audio quality standards?
22:10–32:50
4
What role does the audio engineer play in standardizing sound across all 13 podcasts?
32:50–44:29
5
How are sponsorships managed and why is listener attribution important for sponsors?
44:29–56:51
6
What challenges does the team face when covering live events and traveling?
56:51–1:07:49
7
How does the Packet Pushers community engage on Slack and encourage participation?
1:07:49–1:12:39
Speakers
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