Sun-caused color distortion in a red flag, 03/06/2003.

Key Communicators

Who speaks for the organizations you care about?

Sure there are the leaders, the designated spokespersons, the authorities who are usually quoted in newspapers, those who are often heard in a sound bites and seen in TV clips. But what about your voice? And the voices of the people you interact with? Here's a list from the National School Public Relations Association ranking the single best known employee at most public schools:

1. school secretary
2. custodian
3. food service employee
4. bus driver
5. school nurse
6. teacher
7. principal
8. superintendent
9. school board member

What's the point? Every member of the staff impacts community perception. If associates are unhappy or uninformed, their comments can do more harm than negative news coverage. The solution? Foster recognition that all associates contribute to the process of public communication. Empower all staff with information, instruction and involvement.

Inform. Whether news is good or bad, they should hear it first. They need to know facts behind decisions. Their friends and neighbors look to them for the "real scoop." Be sure they have it.

Instruct. Provide training, workshops, tools, publications, articles, and opportunities for expression, dialogue and creativity. Show interest in the personal and professional development of staff members.

Involve. Encourage the sharing of concerns, ideas and goals. Reward teamwork and individual contributions in staff meetings, on bulletin boards, in your school newsletter, in the faculty room, in e-mail, and on school web pages.

A slightly different version of this article is posted at: UEN News. Here's a another take on the concept of key communicators from a New Jersey school district.

"Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."
-- Henry Peter Brougham (1778-1868), Scottish-born jurist

Found while looking for something else: Race to Save the Planet

 

War Correspondence

"Hello there,

This will probably be the last e-mail that I will send for a while. We leave for ... tomorrow, and will be there until the first of May. We still have not been given our mission orders, and that might be due to the speed of which the Collation has reached Baghdad.

I am doing well. The Army life of up early and really long days, are nothing new. Over the past month ... we have been through several briefings, and classes here. We had a five-day Field Exercise where I am sure ...(some residents)...must have heard us. But I don't think that the guns were firing all night. They did shut down the range at midnight.

Later today, I should get the third of 6 Anthrax shots. And then I will go back to my bunk and finish packing my bag. I only have one left to pack. The other two are on the truck.

I am very grateful for the support that I have received from you all ... This is not an easy thing to do. But, this mission of the US- Lead collation is an important one, and I am very proud to be a part of it.

I am part of a really great unit. We are all brothers and we watch out for each other. I will be back about a year from now. Until then, have fun and be good.

Love..."

A few related quotations:

"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."
--Bob Dylan

"True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher."
-- John Petit-Senn

"Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away."
--Tom Brokaw

A few of the many related resources at UEN include:

• American Revolution - Liberty - Themepark
• Causes of the American Revolution - Lesson Plans
• War of 1812 - Liberty - Themepark
• Civil War - Liberty - Themepark
• Commemoration of the Gettysburg Battlefield - Lesson Plans
• Mexican American War
  
• Raising the Mormon Battalion - Lesson Plans
  
• World War I - Liberty - Themepark
• World War II - Liberty - Themepark
  
• Vietnam War - Liberty - Themepark
• Korean War - Liberty - Themepark
• Persian Gulf War - Liberty - Themepark

Found while looking for something else: Daily Celebrations

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Descent into Artificial Light

Not quite stairway to heaven, but rather a look down the stairs from the EBC "Penthouse" level, 04/03/2003, 4:12 p.m.

Found while looking for something else:
Five Sites Where Fun and Learning Click

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Backstory

If things look a little strange here, it's because I'm making a transition back to Blogger to generate my html for this blog. I had been using Dreamweaver, which of course wasn't specifically designed to handle blogs, but has many other bells and whistles.

Monday, April 07, 2003

Creek five miles up Millcreek Canyon, 04/06/2003, 6:06 p.m.

Found while looking for something else: Avoiding Armageddon - Utah's Role and Legacy at KUED.org.

Comment?

 

Sunday, April 6, 2003

Shadow Greetings, 03/29/2003, 8:08 a.m.

Craig Nielsen responds to an earlier entry:

The Questions in your blog of April 2 are good ones, perhaps rhetorical, but I think they are also answerable. And the answer in most cases is a resounding YES!

Printing did replace the spoken word in the sense that it dealt the
final blow to strong and dynamic oral tradition (as in Homer).
Photography did contribute to the death of representational painting as serious art (leaving aside such iconoclastic schools as "photo-realism".)

Movies are, of course, just a series of still photographs, so those are still with us. But people do prefer their visual images in motion. I don't think there is much question about that.

I don't see the analogy with newspapers and book, nor with radio and records. But I think its obvious most people get their news today from television and/or radio. And in a very real sense television has killed radio, first turning it into an almost exclusively recorded music medium, and now into inane blather, and rigidly formatted music formulae.

Broadcast television's share of ratings has declined steadily since the profusion of cable. Television and videos have affected motion picture theater attendance, and has lowered the demographic, so that the vast majority of movies that make money at the theatre box office today are marketed for 12 - 14
year old boys.

And I do think that the "Internet", especially in its future
incarnations, will incorporate newspapers, radio, and tv, and thus effectively render them superfluous as separate entities. But that is in the future.

Anyway, you got me thinking!

My reply: Thanks, Craig. I'd started to think that despite my attempts to provoke a discussion here, I wouldn't get much dialogue, so your comments are most welcome. Regarding some of your points:

Many record companies went out of business as commercial radio took hold in the early twenties. "The size of the industry in the U.S. alone declined by about one half in the early 1920's," explains David Morton in his History of Sound Recording Technology.

Record sales started to rebound in the thirties as the industry made the transition from acoustic to electrical recording which brought a dramatic improvement in sound quality. Development of the juke box also helped boost record sales.

I agree that television forced radio into a much different role, but the ubiquity of recorded music and "inane blather" also eventually helped foster a niche for public radio.

Speaking of radio, anyone remember Herb Jepko on KSL radio?

I met Jepko when I started working part-time at KSL in 1973. Herb was great at multi-tasking as he hosted the overnight Nitecap program. He'd sit in a darkened studio, smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee (which he called "Cinnamon Tea" on the air), running the audio board, talking to a caller -- all while carrying on a side conversation with me. When the caller would pause, he'd open the mike saying, "uh huh" or "yes, dear" then turn off the mike and continue our off-air discussion.

Found while looking for something else: Helping Kids Cope with War

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Friday, April 4, 2003

Dry Canyon, 04/01/2003, 5:56 p.m.

"I find it strange that people 'play' golf, 'play' tennis, and 'play' volleyball; but when they swim they 'work out.' I never work out. I 'play' swimming. I play intensely, but it is play. Beats the heck out of working out." --Dr. Keith Bell, sports psychologist and Masters Swimmer (as quoted by Terry Laughlin in Total Immersion)

Found while looking for something else: Habay wants to rename bridge after Rogers

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Thursday, April 3, 2003

The southwest corner of the Eccles Broadcast Center, 04/03/2003, approx. 8:58 a.m.

A reminder: Pola's March shows tonight at 9:00 on KULC-Channel 9.

 

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

A few questions I've considered as I hear various guesses about how rapidly any particular "new" technology X may replace and forever render as obsolete some "legacy" technology Y?

Did printing replace the spoken word?
Did photography obsolete painting?
Did movies cause the death of still photography?
Did newspapers reduce the market for books?
Did radio replace records and newspapers?
Did television kill radio?
Did cable television kill broadcast television?
Did home rental of movies wipe out movie houses?
Will the Internet kill newspapers, radio and TV?

Of course the interplay between these various media siblings, parents, cousins, etc. is as fascinating as any human dynasty.

From Steve Schoenherr's Recording Technology History:

1931 - The EMI studio that opened Nov. 12 at Abbey Road in London, was the largest sound recording studio in the world; Louis Sterling hired Alan Blumlein to install Blumlein's own electrical recording system and Sterling stopped paying royalties to Western Electric. Alan Blumlein patented the "binaural" (stereo) recording method in England.

Found while looking for something else:
Weblogs at Harvard

Monday, March 31, 2003  

Untitled, 03/28/03, 8:36 a.m.

"Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter. "
--Paul Klee

New Cancer Weblog

Welcome to the Utah Blogosphere, Dan's Cancer Welblog. As you may have read in one of my previous entries, Dan -- a long-time friend -- is contending with Myeloma, a form of bone cancer.

He writes in an e-mail, "A number of people have been urging me to write about my experiences with cancer. I've resisted that until now, realizing that cancer is not at all uncommon and that lots of people have had significant things to say. So I'm trying something Rich Finlinson suggested -- a weblog. Seems to be the personal news form of the 21st century. Take a look; let me know what you think. If it's too self-indulgent I'll pull the plug."

My feedback to Dan, "Great blog. Funny. Serious. Oh, a nice mug shot, too. How did you like writing it? Any other response yet?"

As Dan said, take a look and let him know what you think.

Found while looking for something else:
Utah Electronic College