Changing Planes, Changing Plans

Changes in my life mean I'm back to flying more often.  The couple of years away from frequent air travel has reminded me how much it has changed. 

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Midfield terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport.

photo: Scott Hanley

Photo: Scott Hanley

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a very good retrospective on the "new" airport - and how the world changed in less than a decade to make for a decidedly less ambitious current state. 

The "new" Pittsburgh International was unique in its time - I liked to call it the most secure shopping mall in America, since, before "9/11," anyone could come in and peruse the scores of shopping mall-type stores at the AirMall.  I recall buying my first sound card for a computer at PIT while on a visit with my sons.   

The walk to make connections was far easier than most airports.  The baggage claim system was "state of the art," though that art had a way of not always living up the promise...

Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, 1950's

I remember flying into the old Pittsburgh airport long before I ever thought I might live in Pittsburgh.  It was a grand old place in its own way.

NPR VISITS

In January 2001, NPR's All Things Considered sent an entire production team to Pittsburgh International to follow what went on in the course of the 24 hour workdays at what was still, then, a very busy airport.

                            
Airplanes at Pittsburgh International Airport
(Photo: Ellen Weiss)

This NPR project was more than a dozen years ago.  It is interesting to hear how much like every other airport operation PIT was back then.  It is a transit hub, so there are things that have to be done.   People working at 3 in the morning face many common issues, so this was a good, generalized set of stories. 





Still active but not so busy



Pittsburgh still has a fairly busy airport for a community of its size.  It just isn't as busy as what planners had expected. PIT appears to now be serving fewer travelers than Cleveland-Hopkins International. 

The evolution over time of Detroit Metro Airport is a good indication of what a difference the travel needs of 4 to 5 million people can do for business as opposed to a market of 1 or 2 million. With more international travel and a larger base population to originate flights from, Detroit Metro continues on a pattern of increased passenger visits.

I remember coming to the "new" Pittsburgh International not just to make a connection but for business.  But it took very sad turn with the crash of USAir flight 427 taking 132 lives in September 1994. This was less than two years after the opening of the new terminal.  This was also not long after the Pittsburgh newspaper strike of 1992-93, which changed the landscape of media in that city. 

The media coverage of crash of flight 427 was a bellwether event for a city ready to head into yet another era of change.  The much investigated accident led to changes in how all Boeing 737's would be maintained, too.

The downturn in USAirways activity, the reduced air travel from several recessions and the very nature of being in a smaller city meant that whatever USAir would or would not do in Pittsburgh would have stronger impacts on the airport than one would see in a much larger market. 


I now live in Birmingham, AL, where the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport is the largest in the state and sees about half the traffic of PIT.  

Which brings me to a topic I hadn't thought of at all when I first contemplated writing this post.  As of this week, the Birmingham News is changing, too, cutting back print editions from 7 days a week to three, and renaming the enterprise the Alabama Media group. 

My station, WBHM, and our Junior Advisors Board is holding an "Issues and Ales" event this week, bringing together media experts of different backgrounds to discuss what is next in the realm of information and journalism in transition.

Thursday, Oct. 4 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Cantina at Pepper Place in Birmingham, AL.

Hope to see you there - as we get started on the future.

John Lennon wrote, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans," and I tend to agree. But if you are paying attention and choose to act, perhaps you can have a role in whatever comes next.

But fasten your seat belts, put your tray in the appropriate position, and be mindful of the exits!

..they pull me back in.

I'm back.  Back to public radio.

At first, the clip from "The Godfather, Part III" came to mind:

 

As apt as that Al Pacino moment may seem in the context of going back to the realm of coffee mugs and pledge drives, my "return" is pretty exciting.

I have accepted the position of General Manager for WBHM in Birmingham, Alabama. The people and the community impress me. It reminds me a bit of Pittsburgh - and WDUQ - in 1995. A city with a legacy in steel, evolving into a center for medicine, commerce, and education. The changing media world is offering up the potential for public media to take an even larger role in convening and informing the public.  It is a great opportunity with a dedicated, talented staff in a special city with a great university, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a strong community of listeners and supporters. I am eager to contribute to the success of what is next.

My radio career (or, should I say, my first paid radio job) started in September 1978.  The same month and year as a TV show about the business, sort of.  WKRP.

When I started, I was still a teen. From that media job to others, like Gary Sandy's character from WKRP, I moved around the country.  When I first moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, a colleague's family emergency pulled me into on-air TV pledge drives just a couple of weeks after my arrival.  Over the years, one radio and TV job to another, there wasn't a week when I wasn't on the air somewhere, somehow, either live or "transcribed." 

And so it went for more than three decades.  About a year and a half ago, I left not just public radio, but broadcasting as my full-time gig.  Things had changed and moving on made sense.  Things do end. Even good things.

The past year and a half has been a fascinating experience, working with new groups of great and diverse people doing interesting and valuable work.

Now, another hand has been dealt in the realm of radio.   WBHM in Birmingham.


I regret leaving the State Theatre in Uniontown before their hopes and ambitions for the 90th Anniversary Season are fully realized.  It is a great organization on the rise, with a dedicated board, staff and volunteers, serving a remarkable community with a fascinating history. I will continue to support them - and encourage you to, too!   (Season opens with the musical, Titanic - September 29, 2012 - call (724) 439-1360 to order tickets for that and many other great performances).

To my friends in Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Michigan, Iowa, Texas and more, up and down the dial, I leave a bit of my heart with you. It has been a privilege to have had so many people and places welcome me home.

See you on the radio in Birmingham!

Saving our history and memories, one bit at a time.

The future of our history is not assured.

In public radio, the great work by StoryCorps has done remarkable things in getting people to recall and share their stories.

Encouraging people to share their stories - and record them - is a great way to create history for the future, and to encourage people to share with one another, now.  Facebook?  Perhaps.  But not everyone "gets" facebook.... In a time when few people write letters or diaries, there is a need for alternatives.

There are important stories, already told, all around us.  A number of years ago, I wrote an article for RADIO magazine about saving old content.  

Looking at the article, I see it was written in 2002!  Back then, we were worried about losing valuable material when formats went away.  This has been an ongoing story - and as technology evolves, is getting to be an even greater concern.

One of the anecdotes I cite in the article was the lost tapes of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This week, American Masters on PBS does a documentary workup on the late-night icon. 

But there's more missing than just details of Mr. Carson's personal story. Because show was not seen as valuable as a chronicle of the era, most of the recordings of the show from 1962 to 1972 were erased or discarded.  Hundreds of hours of material that we would treasure today are lost, forever.

Today, networks are better at saving material.  But still having the tapes or disks doesn't mean you can get the recordings back. For example, by 2002, much of TV and Radio media production had switched to digital storage - on networks and computer hard drives.

Even the new fangled "Digital Audio Tape" of the 1980's and 1990's was fading away. 

Valuable material is already out there, still sitting on tapes, disks and films that we, increasingly, don't have machines to play audio and video back from.  But funding for saving archival material on a national basis has been facing challenges. 

For me, in the past 5 years, my personal and professional concerns have been on saving and storing hundreds of hours of personal and professional sights and sounds before they are lost. So, courtesy of ebay and other sources, finding the technology to playback arcane video and audio formats has become a new hobby of sorts, plus finding others who do this kind of work, too.

A find shared by a friend on Facebook, today, reminded me of how important these archives are.   NPR, November, 1982.  A very young staff in the early years of Morning Edition and so much more.  8 hours of NPR from the early days.   Next, we need to put names with all of the faces, since those of us who remember will not be here forever!
 A Day at National Public Radio - C-SPAN Video Library

Thank, you NPR, thank you CSPAN...and take a peek at www.archive.org - they have a remarkable data store of websites from the past 17 years or so.

Saving our history and memories, one bit at a time.

The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data..or is it?

1. 
   
   

   In New Orleans in 2003, at what was the last Public Radio Conference, ever, I did a presentation on Digital Radio, in the very early times of HD Radio.
   
   
   

   

   Before my session, my colleague David Liroff (formerly of WGBH and CPB) did a session on what PBS and U.S. Public TV had learned through the challenging upgrade to HDTV in the years prior. David shared a lot of great things in his session, but prefaced it with an aphorism he had borrowed from someone else:
   
   
   THE PLURAL OF ANECDOTE IS NOT DATA

1. Such and easy and true statement. One story does not make for the evidence to prove something, and a collection of stories may not be an accurate picture of reality. The use of real or apocryphal anecdotes in politics notwithstanding.
   
   
   As aphorisms go, it is a good one.
   
   
   David Liroff never claimed credit for it, but he was the first to share it with me. In looking into the history of the statement, I recently found origins going back to the 1960’s
   
   
   Oddly enough, the “source” of the quote may not have said what several of us have adopted.
   
   
   In a blog post by David Smith, the credit goes to Raymond Wolfinger (presumed to be the political scientist from Stanford and then UC-Berkeley) as the first to coin the phrase – but with a difference:
2. Share
   Over the years, in speeches, lectures and conversation, I have said, “the plural of anecdote is not data,” and have been met with nodding heads and chuckles.
3. Share
   Revolutions: The plural of anecdote is data, after all
   

   I've used the quotation "The plural of anecdote is not data" in various talks over the years, never knowing the original source.

   

   Revolutionanalytics
4. Professor Wolfinger claims to have said “the plural of anecdote is data.”

   
   

   And I guess that is true, too. Data is data. Whether it is data that allows you to make appropriate measurements or judgments is a different issue.

   
   

   This takes me to a different thought about most people. Well, not actually most people, but of the phrase, “most people.”

   
   

   That will be for another day.

   
   

The Gift of the Krumkake

A wonderful thing about traditions is they can help you rekindle good things that deserve to be repeated, especially in showing others that you care.

When I first came to Pittsburgh in 1995, I found the city filled with kind people, civil driving, and a staff at WDUQ that tended to be the generous, gift-exchanging kind of folk.

For the early years, when we were fewer in number, as I was the General Manager, I would try to find special gifts like books and things. But, over time, as the years passed and the station grew, I ran out of book ideas unique enough for a burgeoning staff. There were only so many editions of “Life’s Little Instruction Book,” after all.

So, food became the next thing to share. Cub Scout Popcorn, given my association with all of that. Then, as my sons moved on to adulthood, what next?

Little did I realize that a longstanding Hanley family tradition was in need of extending.

For decades, my mother had made Krumkake. A not-widely known Norwegian rolled cookie. Owing to my mother’s Danish heritage, she had taken up making this cookie as her primary holiday baking activity back in the 70’s. It uses a lot of eggs and butter, and has some special features.

***************************************************

Krumkake

A Scandinavian Christmas cookie from the Danish side of the family

3 well beaten eggs

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c butter

1/2 c flour

1 teaspoon extract of choice (I use vanilla and almond)

You melt the butter, blend it all together and bake it on a special iron (from Norway, of course!). Roll and let cool.

***************************************************

For years, my mother had used a single iron that was placed over a stovetop burner. While the cookie you make and then roll was perfectly round in this iron, it was also very time consuming and less than perfect at keeping precise heating.

Later, my mother bought an “electric” two-sided iron. Instead of one cookie every 90 seconds, you could make two!

(wonder of wonders, I found one of my own in Pittsburgh at Wholey’s in the strip!)

The “roll and let it cool” part is what gets you. Despite what you may see online (and in the box of my electric krumkake iron), the wooden roller is not something we’ve ever used.

Instead, you take the hot baked cookie off the iron, put it down on a counter and quickly and with some danger, roll the cookie by hand. Or should I say, by fingertips!

As cookies go, this recipe uses a LOT of eggs and butter. The batch I show here was using 9 eggs and three sticks of butter. And that cookie, when it comes off the iron, is HOT!

They can be served with whipped cream, sprinkled powdered sugar or just plain as is. I have seen variations, like the mix of flour doubled up, which makes for a doughier cookie, but this is the recipe I’ve settled on.

One trial effort this year, from Laura’s suggestion, was to take an unrolled cookie and use those tiny SOLBRÄND plastic bowls from Ikea to make a tasty pastry bowl out of the new shape.

More testing to be done…but whipped cream, ice cream, fruit – it is all good.

Krumkake is what I started to share with my “family” at WDUQ. Hundreds of cookies, a dozen or two at a time. Many plastic containers, carefully packed with festive paper towel wrapping.

That was a few years ago, also around the same time that my mother was no longer able to make these cookies, so it has been good to keep the tradition going. And share them with my mother, father and their neighbors, too.

Like my mother before me, December is now a month where eggs and butter fill the fridge, the smells of melting butter and vaporizing almond and vanilla extract fills the air. I even taught my youngest son, Jon, how to make them.

This year, with WDUQ gone, I’m not making quite so many cookies, but still in the hundreds. I’ve managed to go through several dozen eggs, share Krumkake with friends and family in Pittsburgh, Washington, DC, California and Michigan.

I don’t plan on letting the tradition fade anytime soon.

All the best of great food, friends, family and the holidays to you now and every day.

Believe in Spring - Thanks, Steve Jobs

On my facebook page (and on twitter) on August 25, 2011, I posted a special NPR story and marvelous video of the 2005 Reed College Commencement address from a very nice Bob Boilen blog about Steve Jobs.  It was the week of the announcement of Steve Jobs' retirement from Apple, and Bob Boilen, who chronicles interesting music for NPR, was taking special note of how Jobs had changed the way that we listen to music.

Steve Jobs was born not too many years before me and his perspectives on life, challenges and living are valuable to me.  His vision and persistence (even if wrong or "right" too early), too.

The Reed College Commencement speech at Stanford is a wise investment of 15 minutes.



When I got the news of Steve Jobs passing tonight (Ocober 5, 2011) I sent a message to my eldest son (who works for Apple), later we chatted.  When the call was over, up fades my audio on my iPhone.  I hear the last bit of a "THIS WEEK IN TECH" podcast....  

up next in queue in my iphone/ipod, Bill Evans/Tony Bennett:

When lonely feelings chill the meadows of your mind,
just think, if winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Beneath the deepest snows, the secret of a rose
is merely that it knows you must believe in Spring!


Just as a tree is sure its leaves will reappear,
it knows its emptiness is just a time a year,
the frozen mountain dreams of April's melting streams,
how crystal clear it seems, you must believe in Spring!


You must believe in love and trust it's on its way,
just as the sleeping rose awaits the kiss of May,
so in a world of snow, of things that come and go,
where what you think you know, you can't be certain of,
you must believe in Spring and Love.

 YOU MUST BELIEVE IN SPRING  1968
     Lyrics by: Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman
     Music by: Michel LeGrand


Steve Jobs had ups and downs in his life, in his career, many springs in the cycle of seasons.   He made a difference, as we all can in our own way.

To change the way we listen, to encourage us to listen - and for so much more -

Thanks, Steve.

The Kind Recognition of Your Peers

In May and July of 2011, some last bits of tribute were paid to the first public radio station in Pittsburgh. Before this is all-too-distant memory, I thought it a good idea to share those awards.

May 9, 2011

At the Press Association of Western Pennsylvania 2011 Golden Quill Awards, WDUQ received the "Service to Journalism" award.

The award was in recognition of the entire staff of WDUQ throughout its almost 62 year history. I was asked to say a few words on May 9. Circumstance truncated their delivery, but here they are in full:

The radio act of 1927 charged broadcasters serve the "public interest, convenience and necessity." It was the privilege of the staff of WDUQ to serve as the steward for this rare and valuable treasure for the city and the citizens that mean so much to us.

In 1946, Father Joseph Lauritis founded the journalism department at Duquesne, following up a few years later with this FM Radio experiment, at a time when pretty much no one had an FM Radio.

December 1949, Duquesne University's President, the very reverend Francis P. Smith said, "the university feels privileged to act as the instrument for educational radio in the Pittsburgh area. It looks upon this activity as a high responsibility to the community it serves."

December 15, 1949. So began the service to this community of WDUQ-FM. From then until now, there were just a handful of managers (not counting "interim"). Father Lauritis, B. Kendall Crane and Ken Duffy; Judy Jankowski and me. 61 years - that spans the earliest days of public radio, to the founding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR. At the time I left WDUQ in 2011 - nearly 200,000 listeners in Pittsburgh, about 30 million NPR listeners, nationwide.

Through all of that time, WDUQ continued to not just be a part of the public broadcasting community, but of the community of PITTSBURGH journalists and broadcasters, of citizens and participants in one of the most storied and vibrant media and journalism communities in the nation. Not just aligned with public radio, but with the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association, the Pittsburgh Radio Organization and the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters and with scores of community institutions and organizations. Hundreds of students, full-time professionals and volunteers passed through our hallways and on the airwaves.

As this honor you bestow on WDUQ tonight pays tribute to the contributions of WDUQ toward journalism, I must make note of our longest-standing employee and stalwart promoter of journalism ethics and civic engagement. WDUQ News Director Kevin Gavin. Kevin has been the guide for our telling of Pittsburgh's story on public radio since not long after NPR came to be. Starting as a student himself, Kevin has instilled the ethics and inquiry of journalism into the DNA of 90.5FM and into the minds and ideals of WDUQ's staff, plus of hundreds of students at Duquesne University, many of whom are still active as journalists.

Please accept my gratitude for this honor on behalf of Kevin Gavin, Mark Nootbaar, John Boyle, Alexandria Chaklos, Larkin Page-Jacobs, Erika Beras, Bob Studebaker, Tony Mowod, Helen Wigger, Fred Serino, Vicky Rumpf, Mary Lloyd, Bob Addleman, Nancy Wood, Mark Bertolet, Chuck Leavens, Bee Barnett, Mike Plaskett, Mark Yacovone, John Johnson, Shaunna Machosky, Joan Swanson, Sean Dougherty, and so many, many more.

It is with humility and great appreciation on behalf of all of those involved with WDUQ since 1949 that we say "thank you."


July 13, 2011

The Public Radio Regional Organization "PRRO" Award, granted to Scott Hanley, July 13, 2011.

The PRRO award was a total surprise to me, presented at a national conference for all of public radio which just happened to be held in Pittsburgh this year. The Award was delivered just before the NPR Annual Meeting on July 13, which just happens to be my birthday.

As it was a total surprise, I had nothing prepared to say but did share my great appreciation for recognition by my colleagues and peers.

But here are the remarks from the presenter that day:

Thank you…. Good afternoon, I’m Christina Kuzmych, President of Public Radio in Mid-America, and General Manager of Wyoming Public Radio.


I’d like to ask my fellow Regional Presidents to join me in presenting the PRRO Award.
· Jeanne Fisher, Eastern Region Public Media,
· Paul Stankavich, Western States Public Radio,
· Frank Lanzone, California Public Radio,
· Georgette Bronfman, President, PRRO

Each year the Regional Organizations present the PRRO award.
It given to an individual whose work has contributed significantly to the health and growth of Public Radio.

This year’s Award is a beautifully restored AM broadcast Bendix radio dating from 1946, with a built- in loop antenna, and sculpted wood cabinet.

The PRRO award honors the “unsung heroes” of public radio – the ones who often work behind the scenes, who move our industry forward-- and who deserve recognition from the system.

This year’s recipient can be called a “Renaissance Broadcaster” – an individual who is equally at home in programming, production, engineering, digital technology, fundraising, administration, teaching, governance, and whose work cuts across all radio formats of news, music, and public affairs.

Our recipient trained to be a singer, but soon embraced radio and made it into a lifelong journey and passion.

Our recipient is an innovator, an instigator, and an implementer.
All of us gathered here today have benefited directly from this individual’s work.


Our recipient was
· Twice elected to the NPR Board
· Served as Chair of the NPR Distribution/Interconnection Committee, and helped launch Content Depot .
· Served on the National Radio Systems Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Consumer Electronics Association.
· Was Co-founder of Jazzworks, the 24-hour jazz service used by many stations
· Mentored hundreds of public radio professionals
· And, combining singing, radio, and technical experience, our recipient was instrumental in producing the yearly PRC Talent Shows, remembered so fondly by many managers.


Our recipient often shared ideas with managers and shaped our thinking. Here’s an example: [quote]
“It has been remarkable to see us grow from a shy, humble, striving and earnest enterprise into a massively influential media movement.
But I fear that we have bought into some of our own hype and the hype heaped upon us. We should still be earnest. We should still be striving. We should still be humble. We aspire to do great things – but we should be very wary of the hubris of believing that it is all about us.
[It’s not.]
It is about Mission, Stewardship. Service."

It's our pleasure to introduce this year's PRRO award recipient – [who is also celebrating his birthday today]

And his name is...Scott Hanley!

And there, in a lower level conference room at the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, applause and even the singing of "happy birthday." It was a moving experience for which I remain humbled and thankful.

In 1995, President John Murray and Provost Michael Weber hired me to do a job which I was honored to perform, with people who cared about their craft, their art, their service, their listeners, the public and each other. A community grew around that service that came to trust and believe in WDUQ, even in some controversial and challenging times.

Sometimes, you get to do the good and right things because they are good and right things. Sometimes, you have to grow and evolve in times of challenge and change. In leading a fulfilling life, I believe it isn’t just what you do, but how you do it and whom you get to do it with.

To receive two marvelous nods of acknowledgement for the legacy of WDUQ this year means the world to me.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish*

Douglas Adams. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Thanks to my time in public radio, I got to meet and interview him in 1982. My time in public radio has offered me many great opportunities to meet, interview and engage with a lot of remarkable people. Authors, artists, politicians, business leaders, trouble-makers and problem solvers.

From a cowboy who was also a pilot in the Berlin airlift who lived in the Big Thicket of Texas to presidents of the United States. Public radio gave me the privilege to meet people, hear and share stories, move hearts and (sometimes) change minds.

As I finish out my last official day with WDUQ FM, I'm thinking about the past 30 years.

I leave enriched by my 16 years at WDUQ, so proud of the work I and my staff, our volunteers and listeners did, together. But, it's time.

This is not unlike the "walk away" I did as an active musical performer. Those parts of your life are always a part of your life. But life is not static. It moves. It evolves. It changes. Sometimes, when you find it repeating itself, perhaps that's a good time to seek a new perspective.

In going through old clippings, I came across some things from my first months at WDUQ in Pittsburgh in 1995.

I came in to WDUQ at the same time as the "class of 1994," when the U.S. House and Senate flipped from total control from Democrats to total control by Republicans.

Important work, treasured colleagues, conflicts and change to adapt to. It was always thus.

I have deep concerns about the NPR, the stations, the industry that I am leaving.

But as I'm still on the WDUQ payroll for a few more hours, I will still say "we."

It has been remarkable to see us grow from a shy, humble, striving and earnest enterprise into a massively influential media movement. But I fear we have bought into some of our own hype and hype heaped upon us.

We should still be earnest. We should still be striving. We should still be humble. We aspire to do great things - but we should be very wary of the hubris of believing it is about us.

It is about mission. Stewardship. Service. Otherwise, we (NPR) are just a modest sized media company that happens to file a 990.

Over the past decade, there was great fretting about how NPR was not a digital company - that people of our experience and age could only "speak digital with an accent."

I think the greater concern is having leadership that is not fully immersed in the values and vision of NPR and public media.

We cannot afford to "speak mission with an accent."

So, I wish all my colleagues in public radio the very best, encourage everyone to think about mission most of all. The devices we use to connect to our listeners and our communities are not as important as the connections themselves. And the connections are between people.

To my "family" at WDUQ, you were and are the best at the mission of public service and broadcasting I could have ever had the privilege to spend a third of my life with. You will always be in my thoughts and in my heart.




* The title of the 4th book in the increasingly inaccurately titled trilogy "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. This was also a phrase first attributed to dolphins in the late 1970's BBC radioplay that started it all. It has to do with grateful porpoises and their departing good wishes as they ducked out before the earth was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. When I met Douglas Adams, he was embarking on a book tour upon the release of the first of the comic novels derived from the radioplays. He was very tall and had a lot of hair back then. I was not tall, but also had hair at the time.

The books have a cheerier ending than the radioplay.

The balance between silicon and carbon

This past month or so has been really busy.

The future of my workplace has been in flux

My parents' health, a concern

And in the midst of it all, I witnessed an amazing confluence of things digital (silicon) and living (carbon).

About halfway through the May pledge drive for my station, WDUQ, Pittsburgh (a very important pledge drive), my father suffered a heart attack at his home in Ann Arbor. His neighbors leaped in to help and got him to the hospital, for which I am immensely grateful. Good neighbors are a wonderful thing.

Tuesday, May 26, I had put in a very long day at work and headed home for a hoped for 4 hours of sleep. Instead, it was off to Ann Arbor.

My Dad was not in immediate danger and resting. Wednesday was a day of tests and waiting. And waiting. And waiting. The news was that my father was going to need aortic valve replacement surgery and some heart bypass work. But as we were coming up on the Memorial Day weekend, probably not until the Tuesday of the next week.


Digital Guests

A couple of years ago, as my visits to my parents increased, I had installed wireless DSL at the house. Last year, I upgraded from my old Palm Treo to an iPhone 3GS.

Oh - and St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor has free Wifi.

All this plays into how I was able to be a part of the ongoing dynamic of a very important WDUQ pledge drive while 280 miles away tending to very important family business.


Almost Live

While I was with my father and often waiting, the outstanding staff and volunteers of WDUQ continued to do a great job in gaining listener support for this important one-week membership campaign.

Having wireless at my father's house and the hospital and an iPhone in my pocket, I was able to listen in to the pledge drive from Ann Arbor when I had a moment. Remote computer viewing software allowed me to see the impressive progress toward (and past) on-air fundraising goals. But being 280 miles away, while I could observe and call and e-mail back to Pittsburgh, I couldn't be in the drive.

If you ever listen to WDUQ pledge drives, you may notice that they are the one time you hear me, Scott Hanley, on the radio a lot. I used to be a journalist, a producer, am an occasionally a disc jockey. But my real job is mostly making sure that other broadcasters are given the resources, tools and time to do their work as journalists, producers and disc jockeys.

During a pledge drive, you might hear me make extemporaneous "pitches" about anything from the history of WDUQ and public radio, to my time as a member of the NPR board, the importance of independent journalism and more. Mostly, those little spoken "essays" happen as they happen. Occasionally, there are some that get recorded and played at times when I might not be there. But they are most often "in the moment," suitable for a particular instant of the pledge drive or related to timely events of the day.

With me being in Ann Arbor, WDUQ staff could play my messages that were recorded earlier, but serendipitous statements couldn't be. I wasn't there.

There are things that only the General Manager can say - and the message changes over the drive.

And I was waiting. A lot.


Waiting Room

Wednesday, my first full night in Ann Arbor, I pondered what to do from my father's quiet livingroom. With the newish iPhone, I had become impressed with the voice memo application and the microphone implementation with it.

So, in that quiet livingroom, with a decent digital recorder (the iPhone) from my pocket, I gave it a try.

The quality is not as good as the ElectroVoice RE20's we rely on at WDUQ, but the timeliness of the message seemed to outweigh the loss of fidelity.

I used my laptop to send the file back to WDUQ and hoped they could make it work. WDUQ operates a high level digital audio system (ENCO DAD) which Helen Wigger and Chuck Leavens helped make sure the new almost live "spot" could be played on the air.

It worked (you can hear it, here). I was able to spend a lot of time with my Dad and still be a part of my Pittsburgh "family" of listeners and WDUQ staff and volunteers. When I could, I recorded a few messages (one aired within minutes of my recording it). Done on an iPhone and over the Internet.


Based on the surgeon's advice, I headed back to Pittsburgh late Thursday night for a super-quick visit to take care of a few things - and participate in the last hours of the pledge drive - before heading back to Michigan with reinforcements for the weekend.

With my Dad's condition evolving, I was leery of sharing this story. But even when he was in the hospital, he got a kick out of how I was able to be with him and also take care of important things with WDUQ.

Saturday morning of that Memorial Day weekend (not the next Tuesday), I was back in Ann Arbor as my Dad went in for his open heart surgery earlier than expected. Now, eight weeks later, he is home and recovering remarkably well.

My WDUQ family is waiting and looking toward the future - but the most successful May on-air campaign, ever, certainly makes for a better prognosis, too.

So, like I've written before, people matter more than technology. But technology can help with people and things you care about. And friends, neighbors, family and outstanding colleagues are really important.