http://toddmundt.com/blog convergence, public media, productivity, public engagement Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:26:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A great presentation and interview with Brad Anderson, the CEO of Best Buy, about the company's use of tools like wikis to speed up learning inside the company and improve customer service. There's some pretty innovative stuff here, like the use of prediction markets to monitor progress on projects. Peter Hishberg ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/11/17/best-buy-ceo-company-as-wiki/ I was busy Friday and didn't have time to say all that I wanted to about The Mediavore. So, another point. The blog serves a national audience, but the appeal is also local. We want listeners to our three formats (WUOL, WFPL and WFPK) to appreciate public radio more, to discover ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/11/17/more-about-the-mediavore/ We're launching "The Mediavore" today, and we're excited about where it's headed. Public media listeners and viewers have more content available to them than ever before. Hundreds of stations streaming 24/7, and a wealth of talk, newsmagazine and music shows that far exceeds the capacity of local station schedules, and time ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/11/14/launching-the-mediavore-aggregating-public-media/ Following up on the sad news I posted yesterday, this press release from Twin Cities Public Television: MEDIA ADVISORY November 10, 2008 For immediate release                                                         ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/11/11/tpt-remembers-cindy-browne/ Cindy was the most courageous person I ever knew; throughout her life, she confronted change, in her career, in her health, some of it unwelcome, and yet she was a fount of optimism, and maintained a laser-like focus on what she needed to do. Presented with the "mess" of a cancer ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/11/10/cindy-browne-2/ If you want a good, 20 minute explanation of the concept of Flow, here's Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to provide it. It's great if you've not been exposed to this idea about states of intense, sustained creativity. But even if you have a basic working knowledge of Flow, there are still nice ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/11/01/weekend-video-flow/ Is that a real term? Might be. Did I invent it or did someone else? I don't care. Whatever it is, we're experimenting with it at WFPL.org. This is the first of two posts about it. The experiment is a first stab at trying to address three problems: first, public radio web ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/31/wfpls-content-concierge/ Featuring host (and vocalist) Marion Dries of 91.9 WFPK Radio Louisville. Oh, and to illustrate how great minds think alike: from The Essential 885 XPN Songs http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/28/fpks-fundraising-dylan-tribute/ Compared to other news organizations, NPR has come late to community engagement, but it's done a good job of it. The first tools rolled out for listeners a few weeks ago, and station pages launched last week. With fundraising in full swing, we didn't fully activate the WFPL page until last ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/27/nprs-community-2/ Sullivan's piece in the November issue of The Atlantic is the best think piece about blogging I've seen, and its connections to, as well as its extension of the practice of journalism. Sullivan writes that blogging is jazz to established journalism's classical music. One doesn't replace the other, but each requires ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/22/andrew-sullivan-blogging-is-the-golden-era-of-journalism/ From this week's New Yorker: To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/21/david-sedaris-undecided-voters/ I watched Torturing Democracy last night and it's stunning - meticulously researched, utterly amazing, devastating. I don't feel like getting into the whole discussion about PBS's inability to schedule the documentary before January 21, 2009: it's perfectly understandable, given more pressing considerations, like Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns. But ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/18/weekend-video-torturing-democracy/ Canadian voters are at the polls today, after enduring (a mere) 37 days of campaigning, so little compared to so much in the US. It's been an interesting campaign, with an early Conservative lead diminishing, leaving most observers with the impression that the next Tory government will again be in ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/14/election-day-in-canada/ I'll call this my Mark Fuerst post. This graph shows pageviews for our Election 2008 page over the last 30 days, ending yesterday. As with most stations, unfortunately, our Election 2008 page has not had much traction, despite lots of on-air promotion (at least once per hour). Mark pointed this ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/09/promotion-hey-it-works/ The great folks at Weather Underground in Ann Arbor always seemed to get this Internet thing before others did, and their latest contribution is a new iPhone app: WunderRadio. When I saw news about it yesterday morning, my first thought was Wow, now I can easily listen to NOAA Weather Radio ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/08/wundergrounds-new-iphone-radio/ I realize that even small children are now shooting video, editing it, and posting it online. But I still like to show off some of our video experiments. I've talked about some of what we've been doing on Louisville's NPR News Station, but we're trying a few things on our ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/01/more-video-experiments-in-louisville/ I like Mario Batali's new show on public TV. I suppose if I dug a little deeper, I'd say I like Mario Batali more than I like his new show on public TV. But more about that further down the page. Marcella Hazan and Faith Willinger are leading lights of Italian ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/10/01/on-the-road-again-with-mario-batali/ At the end of the Denver Post's generally well done piece on Colorado Public Radio: All parties agree the long-range future is HD radio. The promise of multiple channels delivering a range of programming remains out of reach. Dana Davis Rehm, NPR senior vice president who oversees program services and audience ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/29/the-internet-a-short-term-fix/ NPR has opened up its community pages, giving users the opportunity to create their own profile, comment on stories, and recommend them to others. Dick Meyer blogs about it here. Interestingly, NPR makes special note of NPR staff who are part of the community, an attempt to foster communication between staff ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/29/nprs-community/ Mark Ramsey says when you're launching a new program, you have two options to minimize the risk: low-cost experiments or a big budget launch with a proven star. (Looks like BPP got caught in the deadly middle) Ramsey delivered Saturday's keynote at the PRPD Conference last Saturday - the audio is ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/26/mark-ramseys-prpd-keynote/ Paid Content reports this morning that Kinsey Wilson is the new head of NPR Digital Media. Wilson is the Executive Editor of USA Today. Before that, he was the editor of USAToday.com, and he played a key role in USA Today's much-talked-about web site relaunch last year. He replaces Maria Thomas, who ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/25/kinsey-wilson-named-to-npr-digital/ I forgot to mention this in my post about mobile applications, but NPR Mobile has been on a tear this summer. Right now, there are more than 40 stations participating in the project, which lets users of many different kinds of cellphones access updated newscasts, other streaming audio, as well ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/24/npr-mobile-is-taking-off/ I don't think I can post screenshots here, but if you're in public media, you've probably seen the new Public Radio Tuner iPhone app that American Public Media will release next month. I feel a little awkward because APM announced this last Thursday and I'm blogging about it a week later. ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/24/what-im-liking-apms-iphone-app/ At the Public Radio Program Director's conference this morning, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has announced a big initiative to find the best independent producers, support them, and encourage them to reinvent public radio's sound. CPB Senior Vice President for Radio Bruce Theriault made the announcement during his address to ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/19/prpd-cpb-invests-in-reshaping-the-sound-of-public-radio/ Live, or nearly live from the Public Radio Program Director's Conference, a first look at the winners of the 2008 ACE Awards (the Award for Creative Excellence in public radio), presented this morning by Kai Ryssdal of APM's Marketplace: Promotions Michigan Radio, Ann Arbor runner-ups: Oregon Public Broadcasting and WUNC, Chapel Hill Classical Programming Classical ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/19/prpd-ace-award-winners/ Notes from CPB Senior Vice President for Radio Bruce Theriault's keynote address, delivered a few minutes ago. Please excuse any typos - I'll scan and correct as I go: Our best practices are no longer enough. The one thing that will take us into the new era is to throw open ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/19/prpd-general-session-bruce-theriault/ Ike had diminished to a tropical depression by the time it came through Louisville, KY yesterday, but it was still an intense experience. We were under a wind warning from noon until 3pm, and during that time, we had winds in excess of 75mph. No rain or thunderstorm activity, just ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/15/ike-still-has-punch/ Chow.com is offering several cool video series for foodies, or the people who love food and don't want to be called foodies. The video here shows the segments of the coffee episode, featuring Arno Holschuh from Blue Bottle in San Francisco. (The podcast version knits all of these segments together.) ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/13/weekend-video-great-coffee-from-blue-bottle/ Radio people, what are you telling listeners who ask you about getting your streams on their iPhone? Are you planning to set up your own iPhone streams, as WFMU did last fall? Are you going to recommend an app? At Louisville Public Media, we've seen an increase in the number of ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/10/are-your-listeners-asking-about-iphone-streaming/ Diane Mermigas addresses the digital switch in her latest post, noting that while consumers are confused about the coming change, and many aren't ready for it... the industry is in same quandary. Broadcasters face an expected 9% loss in revenue next year, and after February 17th, 2009, every confused consumer will ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/09/mermigas-not-ready-for-digital-transition/ I watched this moment live today, just because it felt kind of important. Analog television broadcasts ended in Wilmington, NC today. At noon, they flipped the switch, and that was the end, after almost 70 years (counting from the granting of the first commercial television license on 7/1/1941 to NBC ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/08/wilmington-nc-the-big-switch/ Jesse Thorn got married last month, and that's pretty cool, but it's even more cool when the wedding makes The New York Times. Maybe it's because he's America's Radio Sweetheart. Maybe it's because the reception was catered by a taco truck. Or maybe because the wedding has been a big topic ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/07/tsoya-thorn-and-hossfeld-make-the-times/ Grant Achatz's cookbook has been released, and even if you never attempt a recipe, this is an amazing work of art. It contains more than a hundred recipes from Alinea in Chicago, along with stunning photography, and when you buy the book, you get access to an accompanying web site ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/06/alinea-a-feast-of-images/ So many people who are far smarter than me have weighed in on Google Chrome, but I still want to say a couple of things about it because it makes me excited. I have my own list of favorite things about Chrome, and they range from the complete redesign of the ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/05/loving-chrome/ Michael Gorsline at GTD Times has an excellent post that addresses a sticky issue for many who use GTD - either religiously or agnostically: priority. Many GTD-type software programs allow users to assign a priority to a to-do item. Gorsline argues (persuasively, in my opinion) that hard-assigning a priority to individual ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/09/01/gtd-priorities-and-fake-due-dates/ With CBC Radio 2 getting ready to re-launch on Monday Tuesday (I blogged about it in March), CBC is announcing details of the four new Internet streams it promised earlier this year. The new streams will focus on Jazz, Classical music, Canadian songwriters and Canadian composers. The new streams will ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/28/cbc-announces-its-new-streams/ After seeing the word "Clincial" appear in a Mesothelioma TV ad on CNN this morning, my guard was up, and I caught this lower-third error. Looks like one of my usual proofreading jobs. http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/28/cnn-gustav-could-to-stengthen-into-hurricane/ The iPhone's 2.0 software introduced a new range of capabilities to the phone and the iPod Touch, the chief of which is the platform for new applications. For the first time, I've been able to create a plan for Getting Things Done that include a true mobile workflow and not ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/28/gtd-workflow-post-iphone-20/ It's definitely a beta and there are bugs, but Gears has released a beta of its code for the Safari browser. The release brings offline access as well as a growing range of capabilities to users of Safari. I've used Gears on Firefox religiously since the day it launched, to maintain ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/27/gears-comes-to-safari/ Because I can't resist plugging a few other restaurants we visited in San Francisco and northern California on our latest trip: * Ubuntu: Amazingly good vegetarian (and vegan-friendly) restaurant in Napa, with Jeremy Fox (recently from Manresa) at the helm. The New York Times' Frank Bruni named it one of the ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/26/one-more-restaurant-post/ It didn't take long to figure out my approach to writing about our dinner at The French Laundry on Thursday. I'm not Ruth Reichl, so I can't review it and call it "the most exciting place to eat in the United States." Frankly, I can't review it at all. But ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/23/the-french-laundry/ I'm on vacation, people. I won't be blogging about work stuff until I'm back at my desk on Tuesday. 1. The new self-sorting security lines at airports. Louisville and about 50 other airports currently have them, allowing passengers to choose Expert, Casual or Family security lanes. Security has always been a relatively ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/20/two-random-things-i-love/ My concentration is straying to our vacation, which begins on Wednesday and lasts into early next week. I tried to do up a little post over the weekend on Chandler and couldn't think about it long enough to write more than a paragraph. Probably because it's kind of ugly in ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/18/preparing-to-vacate/ Content is primary, obviously, and more important than platform. But when a platform is new, you spend a lot of time thinking about the platform or even promoting it: The following program is in living color; this interview is via satellite. Or "I'm going to go online to find it." There's ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/16/weekend-video-mossberg-on-the-invisible-internet/ Alan Brandt, the quiet and capable program director of Louisville Public Media's Classical 90.5, the consummate ukulele player, graces us with this Smith's cover... featured on our 91.9 WFPK Radio Louisville blog this morning. http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/15/classical-905s-alan-brandt-unplugged/ John Proffitt has posted some of the general details of a reorganization announced yesterday at Alaska Public Telecommunications in Anchorage. The official announcement is here. The reorganization is similar to ones undertaken by a number of stations in recent years, merging the management of radio, television and web, looking for a ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/15/alaska-public-telecommunications-reorganizes/ If you're using the new (or not so new, depending on how you look at it) information manager Chandler, what do you think of it? It's rough, it's clunky, it's not all pretty, but it's interesting. I've been fooling around with it for a few days and I'll write something about ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/14/are-you-trying-chandler/ You should watch these videos. Certainly, there's some "cheese" here, but if you forget about the devices and think about the concept, you'll see where Web 3.0 is likely to take us. Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo. Web 1.0 was about web pages; Web 2.0 was, among other things, ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/09/mozilla-labs-and-adaptive-path-our-object-oriented-future/ from Wordle http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/08/my-blogs-word-cloud/ I've been meaning to post this for more than a week, but you may already have encountered it on any number of web sites. Randy Pausch passed away on July 25th, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He gave his now famous "Last Lecture" as a professor of computer science at ... http://toddmundt.com/blog/2008/08/03/weekend-video-randy-pausch/