The Important Thing Retro 51 Tornado

The One About Pens

I’ve started a podcast.

Each episode, I find a smart person somewhere on the planet, and we talk about The Important Thing. I suspect we’re going to wander a bit, but wandering is usually the best part.

I’m just delighted to kick off the first episode1 with Tiff Arment where The Important Thing is pens2. In this first episode, we talk pen origin stories, we dive deep on fountain pens, and, uh, we talk video games, too.

Enjoy it now or download for later. Here’s a handy feed that I’m submitting to all the things.


  1. Wow. There are a lot of moving parts in setting up a podcast. This is a beta release and I continue to tinker with all the things. Special thanks to Marco Arment for saving my ass no less than three times during this process. I’m working on getting The Important Thing feed posted to all the usual places. If you’d like to discuss this podcast, please join the #theimportantthing channel on the Rands Leadership Slack and let’s chat. 
  2. Tiff provided this amazing shot of the pens we discuss. 

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6 Responses

  1. Richard 7 years ago

    Is there a feed we can subscribe to?

  2. Please ensure that this gets on Stitcher in the future….

  3. Excited to see where this goes.

    For those of us using Apple’s Podcasts app, here’s how to manually add the feed:

    Apple Podcasts App (iOS) – Tap the “My Podcasts” button. Hit the + button to add a podcast. Then paste in the URL of the feed.

  4. Tom West 7 years ago

    A couple of suggestions: start by stating the name of the podcast and your name, and then introduce your guest! All I knew about your fascinating guest before I (re)read this post was that she was called Tiff.

    I like the whole premise of the podcast – listening to people wax lyrical about their particular favourite topic area is always interesting.

  5. Brendon Cromwell 7 years ago

    I searched to Overcast directory for “Rands” & didn’t find anything. Then I scrolled to the top of the page to read the title of your podcast… (*duh*)

    That said, it might help to add the keyword “Rands” to your podcast search terms. Some of us might not know you as Michael Lopp. 😐