Sanibel Journal

Veteran Podcaster Dean Whitbread , a founder of the UK Podcasters Association , was in town this weekend for Podcamp Boston 2 . We met online mainly through Twitter , and I enjoy following his smart and artful blogs, The Blog of Funk and Dean Whitbread .  The iTunes Music Store contains his audio podcast, the Pod of Funk, and his video podcast, deek deekster: innit, both highly recommended. He als...

I'm glad I had a quick trip scheduled to Denver this week, because it gave me a chance to experience the stunned joy of Colorado Rockies fans looking forward to the club's first-ever World Series.  I turned to two of my most baseball-savvy friends for explanations, Kes Woodward who was in town from Fairbanks, Alaska, and Michael Drummy, a longtime Red Sox fan who moved to Colorado 10 years ago.  T...

At my 30th reunion of the MBA Class of 1977 from Harvard Business School last week, I asked 13 of my classmates what was the most important thing they had learned at HBS. The answers were as varied as the people with whom I shared the B-School experience.  Was it the people? Was it a way of thinking that amounts to applied common sense?  All of the above and more.  It was fun and enlightening to b...

Erin Trapp, director of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs , talks about how a new cultural center could reinvigorate Denver and help establish the city's claim as the Creative Capital of the West, as Mayor Hickenlooper likes to say. In this interview in Erin's office today, I learned some things I didn't know about the historic Carnegie Library/McNichols Building, where a cultural center might...

Rob Simon, the founder 30 years ago of Denver's well-known alternative weekly, Westword , has in the past few years turned his creativity and entrepreneurial talent toward podcasting. His company, BurstMarketing , created the impressive Cherry Creek Arts Festival podcast and continues to help business clients find solutions in podcasting.  In this interview on Sept. 4, 2007, at Common Grounds Coff...

Yesterday I took Amtrak's Downeaster from Boston to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, hoping to capture words and sounds reflecting my lifelong love of trains. I also hoped I'd find someone to interview.  Enter Peter McHugh. I think you'll enjoy his story. Flickr photo by Eric Olson (username: broccolbee ) "Going to the Sun" composed and performed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig an...

August 4, 2007 was the 46th birthday of Barack Obama, and the New Hampshire campaign celebrated with a canvass in several cities. I answered the call to go to Portsmouth, where I spent four hours in very hot weather knocking on doors in nearby Dover.  My partner was Will Gattis of Falmouth, Maine, who happens to be a terrific singer-songwriter, as well as a young man who believes Obama is a dream...

Via phone, I caught up last night with Baratunde Thurston , a Boston-based writer, comedian and vigilante pundit whom I first met on Twitter .  It turns out that Baratunde and I share a couple of common experiences, more than twenty-five years apart in Cambridge.  In this interview, he talks about his personal history, his approach to comedy, his podcast , Twitter , and the recent Democratic presi...

I'm at a board meeting of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) in Northampton, Mass., where today we focused on the organization's new Native Arts program to support Native American artists in New England and across the country.  I was struck by the role arts and culture have played in preserving the identity of native people through centuries of incredible hardship.  Before dinner, I in...

I think I've uncovered something that connects Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, in an odd sort of way.  I'm an unabashed Obama backer, but I am also intrigued by Romney. This episode contains excerpts of a huge conference call with Obama, as well as Romney on Leno and a famous quote from Romney's father, George. (Note: Despite what I say in the audio, this is Episode 36)

Last week I attended my 35th reunion of the Harvard College Class of 1972. It was a lively, poignant event which featured an address by the school's most successful dropout, a reminder by the Rev. Peter Gomes that we are a community of the living and the dead, an anti-war ditty, real good music by Livingston Taylor , and a classmate's  words of wisdom at the final brunch in Eliot House.

http://www.maho.org/Tomorrow morning I leave for St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to spend two weeks with my wife and her family at Maho Bay Camps .  It's a very rustic setting, and I've decided it's not worth the hassle to try and keep to my weekly podcast schedule while I'm there.  So I'll be back with the podcast in early June.

This evening at the Plus Gallery at 2350 Lawrence St., Denver, three artists gave talks about their work, and afterward I spoke with gallery owner Ivar Zeile about how he groups artists in a show and what he hopes to hear in Artists' Talks.  The artists were Bruce Price, John McEnroe, and Evan Colbert.

At the Salt Lake City Airport before flying home to Denver, I begin a recap of the presentation I gave today at the Mountain West Conference on the Arts .  My talk was titled "What the Heck is Web 2.0 and Can It Save the Arts?"  The room was filled to overflowing, about 60 people, and they seemed to enjoy the tour I took them on of seven sites showing new ways the internet is being used to connect...

After Mike Daisy 's powerful one-man show, " Monopoly " last night at the Zero Garden Street Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., I spoke with him briefly about how he came to be fascinated with inventor Nicola Tesla , and I found out he makes none of his material up, including inside stories from his friend Ray who works at Microsoft. "Monopoly" continues for three more shows, followed by a final monolog...

Drawing on examples from Adam Curry , David Allen and Adam Weiss , I arrive at five rules for good podcast interviews.  Tim Donovan of Mowhawk Shade & Blind Co. in Cambridge was here at the house while I worked on the podcast, and he agreed to an interview.  This gave me a chance to practice my new rules!

Leaders of the six regional arts organizations in the U.S. gathered during the past two days at the Admiral Fell Inn, in Baltimore, for a planning meeting led by Toby Herzlich of Santa Fe.  This podcast episode comprises thoughts about the future by the executive directors of the RAOs, in this order: David J. Fraher, Arts Midwest ; Alan W. Cooper, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation ; Gerri Combs, Southe...

Yesterday I attended the first meeting of a Project Evaluation Panel at Denver International Airport, convened to guide the process of choosing three new, temporary artworks from emerging Colorado artists.  Two will be on a median strip of Pena Boulevard leading to and from the airport. The other will be on a new Regional Jet Facility nearing completion on Concourse B.  This podcast contains inter...

This book review of The Laws of Simplicity by MIT professor John Maeda follows David Tames 's compelling recommendation of the book at last week's Boston Media Makers meeting.  I loved this book and plan to read it again and maybe again.  The writing is playful and clear.  The concepts are subtle and powerful. Highly recommeded.  Flickr photo of John Maeda by Keith Jenkins , Picture Editor of the...

This week I visited the corporate headquarters of Me.dium in Boulder, Colorado, and spoke with Dean Steadman, left, community management director, and Tobias Peggs, business development director.  This startup is in beta, available by invitation . It adds a window to your browser that shows who else is visiting sites you might be interested in, and where you can follow them and chat online.  I lov...

OK, I admit it. I'm hooked on Twitter, the deceptively simple site that asks "What are you doing?" and gives you 140 characters to answer the question.  I can't help posting these microblog entries, and I look forward to receiving them from my friends on my Motorola Q phone, a steady stream of innocent little posts which delights me, especially when I hear from my "real-world" buddy Kes Woodward i...

I've been thinking about how the internet is changing what we mean by "friend," and how technology such as podcasting makes it possible to reach out to strangers despite differences in geography, ethnicity and other ways by which we separate ourselves from others.  For specifics, I turned to a new friend on the excellent Me.dium site, and to a few strangers on the Boston subway's red line this mor...