Category Archives: Personal History

Seven Years Before the Blog

Posted on by

Every year on this date I pause to recall that it was way back in 2002 that I began blogging. Like many others, I was posting little rants on my website before we had the tools and the name, but this is the date I started “writing some stuff down.”

That post was a long quote from Carl Hiaasen’s novel, Basket Case. He described two types of journalists and alluded to the “slow-strangling dailies,” a number of which have finally strangled in the last year or so.

On the 4th anniversary of this blog I met some friends and had four beers. I’m afraid 7 beers would put me out of commission for several days, so we won’t do that.

Another thing I used to do was browse back through the earlier posts but with 4,000+ that is no longer practical. So this post will serve as another scratch on blog wall.

Keith Sampson’s 20th Learfield anniversary

Posted on by

Friend and co-worker Keith Sampson is celebrating (woot! woot!) his 20th year with Learfield so we took him out to lunch today. Keith is a senior producer for our sports division and only the good lord knows how many college broadcasts he’s midwifed.

I met Keith when he was program director at the radio station in Clinton, MO. I was doing affiliate relations for our news network. When they needed someone to ride herd on our growing number of sports broadcasts, I suggested they talk to Keith and he got the job. (For what it’s worth, my record in this regard ain’t that good)

While 20 years is a good run (and Keith isn’t done), we had some veterans at the table. Charlie and I are coming up on 25 years; Roger with 26 or 27; and Clarice has been with our company for 31 years.

It would be nice to think some of the young pups working for us can have that kind of staying power, but it feels a little like a Frank Capra movie, when I see it in print. And all over the country there are folks who, like us, have worked half a lifetime at one company and… poof!… it’s over.

Author’s message: enjoy what you do. Every day if you can.

Texting around the world

Posted on by

Okay, I’m still in the ooh and aah stage with the iPhone. And I’m playing with texting as alternative to email and voice calls. My brother and his family are back home in Bandar Lampung, Indonesia, and it turns out we can text back and forth.

Yeah, I know I’ll probably get some huge-ass bill at the end of the month but if this is part of my 200 text messages, it’s pretty cool. A great way to stay closer.

I’ll be i20 on January 1st

Posted on by

I have not felt my age for years. I’ve always felt (and acted?) much younger. Or so it seems to me. You might recall that I turned 60 back in March and I sure as hell don’t feel 60.

And on January 1st, 2009, I will no longer BE “sixty.” My new –more accurate age– will be i20 (“I” for Internet). My new “doi” (date of Internet) is 1/1/89:

“CompuServe was the first online service to offer Internet connectivity, albeit limited access, as early as 1989 when it connected its proprietary e-mail service to allow incoming and outgoing messages to other Internet e-mail addresses.” – Wikipedia

No presents, please.

I am not that smays

Posted on by

I was trying out the new People Search feature on Twitter and discovered another “smays.” And he is also “Steve Mays.” There should be no confusion, however, because he appears to be very smart and successful.

“Steve Mays, Chief Technical Officer — Steve has over 15 years experience in senior technology development positions. His former roles include Director of Infrastructure Services and IT Security Analyst for Semaphore Partners, Chief Information Officer for Xamplify, Inc., Director of Technology and Founder of Gloss.com and Manager of Online Operations for Vivendi Universal. Steve holds a BS in Business Management and an MBA in Global Business Management from University of Phoenix.”

Couldn’t find an email but maybe he’ll see this. We could drive up to Seattle and have a beer with the other Steve Mays West

Early Christmas gift

Posted on by

Just back from an all-too-short visit with my brother and his family. In a few days the family –all but new college freshman Ryan– heads home to Indonesia. Probably won’t see my brother again for almost four years.

We exchanged gifts and I maintained my position as the goofy uncle who comes through with cool gifts (or cash). My sister-in-law Tonya gave me this framed photo (of my brother and me). I don’t remember her taking the photo (during a visit this summer), but I love it.

blane_steveIt reminds me that money cannot purchase the best gifts. They require time and effort and love.

Lord knows there are no shortage of photos of smays.com. I’ve taken lots myself. But the the ones I like most have always been taken by someone else. And almost always without my knowledge.

Perhaps what I like about these images is they capture the me that isn’t “on,” mugging for the camera. Posing. No way to take such an honest photo of yourself.

Thank you, Tonya. I will treasure this gift.

Media 101

Posted on by

My recent visit to Central Methodist University included a tour of the campus which wound up in the studios of what was –I believe– the student radio station. I’m not sure when or why the station went off the air but the plan is to bring it back as an internet station.

During the few minutes I chatted with a couple of instructors and students about the project, I got the impression the approach will be… traditional, for lack of a better term. By that I mean, they’ll have a control room and studios with the usual assortment of recording and mixing hardware. Instead of pumping it all out to a transmitter and tower… they’ll stream it.

As for programming, they plan to do what we used to call “block programming.” An interview program followed by a news program followed by… Music licensing issues prevent them from programming music.

The way college radio stations have always been programmed. I don’t doubt the students can learn some useful skills and gain some valuable experience doing this but I’m not sure it will prepare them for the future that is already here.

So what would I do if they put me in charge of the program for a semester?

I’d start by dropping the term “radio” and go with “media.” Not “new media,” just media.

I’d assemble production teams made up of a producer and host (and co-host?). These teams would be responsible for one 25 minute program a week. Can be any topic (more on that in a moment)

A Senior Producer and Managing Editor would coordinate these teams (using Basescamp or some similar online collaboration tool) and insure quality standards and deadlines were being met.

All or most of these programs would be produced as live feeds and podcasts. Instead of a “college radio station” (Internet or otherwise), you’d have a portal site (I hate that term) that featured each of the individual programs with a link to that programs blog (where the hosts and producer interact with listener/viewers). Show notes, comments, etc.

The central feature of the portal page would be a video section. It could be a live stream of one of the shows being recorded or some live event on campus. Or just a live webcam from the student center.

Equipment. Each team would have a laptop, a digital camera (video capable) and a small webcam. All shows would be produced on location. No reason to schlep back to a studio jammed with expensive equipment.

I wouldn’t limit this project to just students. I’d open it up to the community as well, but with students producing.

Once these podcasts are up, it’s an easy matter to track which ones produce a following. If nobody downloads, you fix the podcast or replace it. But you aren’t limited to the 24 hours of a real-time station. You can have as many programs as you have people to produce and watch/listen.

So what are the students learning here?

  • How to write, edit and tell a story
  • How to shoot and edit video and share it with the world
  • How to build an online community or tribe
  • How to produce a live webcast
  • How to take and edit photos
  • How about a course in Smart Phone Reporting?

…and so on and so forth. I’m not an educator so there could be lots of things wrong with this approach. I’m pretty sure it would cost a lot less than a more traditional approach while involving many more students (in and out of the communications program). If you have suggestions on this mythical program, please include them in the comments. Or, if you see flaws, post those as well.

PS: I think this might be a powerful recruitment tool, as well.

UPDATE/12.08.08: On a recent edition of NPR’s Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep interviewed journalist Sreenath Sreenivasan who, within an hour of the attacks in Mubai, began hosting a web radio call-in show with other Indian journalists, relaying what they knew. Sreenivasan used a service called Blog TalkRadio:

“BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers.”

“10 Survival Tools for the Digital Age”

Posted on by

Professor Kristin Cherry teaches a beginning Radio course at Central Methodist University in Fayette, MO, and was kind enough to invite me come talk about… radio. I didn’t know what to say about “radio” so I made a list (“10 Survival Tools for the Digital Age”) of things I was pretty sure they already knew about. They didn’t. [Just click a slide to see the next one] The photo below was taken just as my presentation peaked.

I don’t have the opportunity to spend a lot of time around young people but I’ve come to believe they are no more web savvy than the population at large. They’re great at texting and know the ends and outs of Facebook… but very few are creating media or exploring.

In my group of about 25 students, only one had uploaded a video to YouTube and that was for a class assignment. Twitter, UStream, flickr? Never heard of them.

I tried to convey the idea that these –and similar tools– will be useful no matter what they do after college. What I forgot (it was a very long time ago) was that they had very little interest in next semester, let alone The Rest of Their Lives.

The instructors (and the administration!) were incredibly gracious hosts and the campus is really pretty. As always, I got much more out of this experience than the students. More on that in a future post. [Wikipedia entry for “film strip”]

People with news, and people who want news

Posted on by

Those are two points of view examined in a recent post by Dave Winer.

“If the people with the news can publish it themselves, and they can; what’s to stop the people who want the news from reading it directly.”

Which puts me in mind of High Street Beat, a blog written by the mayor of Jefferson City. Ultimately, his readers get to decide if what he writes is “fair and honest,” but he can speak directly to them, as well as through MSM.

“When professional news people consider the Internet they think of it replacing them. Not so. It reduces their role to a bare minimum, makes them less necessary. I still want soundbites from the sources, but I want them to link to the full blog post behind the quote.”

“If reporters are to remain relevant they have to recast themselves, more humbly. Don’t think about “deputizing” us to do what you do. Instead think of the value of your rolodex, your sources. Cultivate and develop that rolodex. To the extent that you know who to call when a bit of news breaks, that’s the extent of your value in the new world, the one we live in now.”

Most of the reporters I’ve known and worked with work very hard. For not much money. But more than a few of them have viewed the companies they work for a the necessary infrastructure that makes it possible for them to report the news.

While the people running those companies viewed the newsrooms as a cog –a BIG cog, but a cog– in a machine whose purpose was to turn a profit. A classic dog and tail situation.

I’m reminded of that classic scene in Network where Arthur Jensen explains things to Howard Beale:

Jensen: The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr.Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality –one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.

Howard: (humble whisper) Why me?

Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

One thing, not the only thing, but one important thing that has distinguished reporters from their readers/viewers/listeners is the reporters had a platform or medium from which to report. That distinction has blurred, if not disappeared.

Suffering from latent anglophilia

Posted on by

“An Anglophile is a person who is fond of English culture and England in general. In some cases, anglophilia represents an individual’s preference for English culture over their own; the belief that English culture is superior; or an appreciation of English history. American anglophiles will often use English spellings, such as ‘colour’ instead of ‘color’, ‘favourite’ instead of ‘favorite’, ‘centre’ instead of ‘center’, and ‘realise’ instead of ‘realize’. (Wikipedia)

I love getting email from Keith Povall, author of Sturdy Soapbox. But I really wish he’d send me an MP3 file instead, so I could enjoy what I’m certain is a charming accent. Same goes for Phil Powell and James Smith, charter members of the Order of the Fez. I’d love to hear those lads read the back of a cereal box.

The newest members of the OOTF are John, Andy and Clive (Clive! How perfect is that?). They’re in a band I think. Brits all, but I’ve never heard their voices.

If you’re reading this, mates… how about recording a little something and sending it along. I don’t care what. I just want to hear that music that is the Queen’s English (or whatever you happen to speak). You can reach me at SteveMays@Gmail.com