People are talking about backyard chickens and Bitcoin and even whether you should buy your backyard chickens with Bitcoin. But are backyard chickens and Bitcoin really a thing?

That’s the premise of β€œIs This Really a Thing?”— a new podcast from ΒιΆΉΤ­΄΄ College of Business Dean Paul Jarley. The college’s first podcast launched today in the middle of Podcast Week and looks at a variety of current topics to determine if they are just hype or if they represent fundamental change that could alter how we do business.

β€œAs a dean, it’s my job to think about what the college should look like five and 10 years from now and make sure we get there,” says Jarley, who serves as the host for the interview-style podcast. β€œThis is tough. As Bill Gates famously noted, people tend to overestimate the amount of change that will happen in the next two years and underestimate the amount of change that will happen in the next 10 years.”

The first three episodes debate whether eSports, ghosting in the workplace, and Bitcoin are really a thing.

Jarley doesn’t have to go far to find experts with something interesting to say about any of his topics.

β€œWe’re big on engagement at the college, and the podcast gives us a new way to extend that culture of engagement to our alumni and community at large,” Jarley says. β€œMany episodes will feature ΒιΆΉΤ­΄΄ faculty, alums, board members and students.”

For eSports, he tapped ΒιΆΉΤ­΄΄ Vice President and Director of Athletics Danny White, Richard Lapchick, director of the , and Ben Noel, executive director of the , ΒιΆΉΤ­΄΄β€™s nationally renowned graduate video-gaming program. In the ghosting in the workplace episode, he talks to students, a career coach and a staffing-agency executive about job candidates who stop responding to employers that are trying to hire them. In Bitcoin, ΒιΆΉΤ­΄΄ economist Sean Snaith weighs in on the viability of the cryptocurrency and whether to include it in your portfolio.

And while the topics are serious, Jarley promises that the podcast will not be a typical classroom lecture.

β€œWe hope to make you laugh a little along the way and leave you with a new way to think about the topic at hand,” he says.

β€œIs This Really a Thing?” is available through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify or by visiting .