Congratulations to two IU T'comm Alumni

Yes, Yes, Yes, it's been more than one month since my last posting.

I have no real excuse...other than perhaps trying to wrap up a busy semester and get all the loose ends tied up before going away on my first true vacation in almost 15 years.

And, you'll realize why I didn't blog from vacation when you see what else I had to stare at besides a computer screen:

This was the view from my lounge chair at Secrets Capri. My wife and I celebrated ny sucessful tenure decision and (more importantly) our 15th wedding anniversary with a vacation without kids. My mother-in-law came to watch ours...and Secrets is an adult resort which allowed for lots of relaxation.

But, now I'm back and trying to be recommitted to periodic postings on The Audioprof blog.

And, we'll start back at it with one of the primary reasons I started this blog: to brag on Indiana University's Dept. of Telecommunications...its students, faculty, and alumni.


Today, a rousing hooray to two alumni. First, IU PhD. Sam Bradley. If memory serves, Sam was initially inspired by The Audioprof blog three years ago and launched his Communication & Cognition blog. But recently, he has really taken it to the next level with incredibly relevant content and a brand new design. You should really check it out if you never have. And, if you were a regular visitor note the new address for the Communication & Cognition Blog.

And secondly, I am tremendously impressed by IU Telecom alum Brad Holtz. Brad is the Program Director of WTTS-FM. It is an Album Adult Alternative (AAA) station located in Bloomington but broadcasting into the Indianapolis market. I have know what a great PD Brad is from the two class visits he's made to my T344 course. I blogged about one of them here.

But, now he's been nationally recognized by a trade magazine, FMQB.
Holtz has been selected as this year's Program Director of the Year for the AAA format!
See the award announcement on this page at FMQB (scroll to the bottom).

Congrats to you both, thanks for doing IU-T'comm proud!

ICR alumni's research garners interest from Newsweek

Congratulations to James Angelini, a professor at University of Delaware, who was recently interviewed by Newsweek magazine about a recent publication he co-authored in Journal of Advertising.

You can read Angelini's impressions of the whole thing on his Blog: The Comm & Gender Spot.

Short Film Shows the Power of the Right Words

Many thanks to former student Jennifer Robinson, now of the Interactive Television Research Institute in her native Australia, for passing on this short film that shows the impact that good marketing can have.

It's less then 6 minutes long...

Give it a look.

The Story of a Sign

Visit to Ohio State Successful

It's been 10 days since I've updated. Sorry. Busy time.

Today, in fact, I was a part of a terrific panel as our Department's Colloquium Series.

Maybe more on that later.

But I wanted to share a little story.

Ten years ago or so I was an Assistant Professor at University of Alabama in the Telecommunication and Film Department. And, in order to continue my work I needed to get a physiology lab up and running. I had inherited all the equipment...it was in a storage room but I wasn't sure how to get it functional.

In our our lab use a program called VPM, written by a Professor Ed Cook at UAB to collect our physiology data. Because he was so geographically close to me in Tuscaloosa, I asked him to come down and consult with me. He was gracious enough to agree and soon the Media and Psychophysiology Lab was functional. I'll never forget his kindness.

And I remembered him fondly when Zheng Wang --an IU Telecomm. PhD. who is now at Ohio State--asked me if I would come and help her set up her lab in Columbus. She, too had inherited some equipment that were in somewhat a state of storage.

So, last weekend I went to visit her in Columbus and had a great time. Here I am with Brutus the OSU mascot...which is a nut as far as I can tell...but here he is dressed up as an astronaut.

And later in the weekend I was able to find my way into the OSU stadium which I understand is called "The Horseshoe." Apparently there was a big game that weekened between OSU and USC...but it was an way game as you can tell by the "crowd" around me.

And, most importantly, I'm glad to report that the Wang Lab is now all ready to collect data.

Go Zheng!

FOUR doctors in the house

Congratulations to Dr. Narine Yegiyan who today successfully defended her dissertation entitled

Experimental investigation of resource allocation and memory for central and
peripheral detail as a function of motivational activation

One of the key tenets of her disseratation was the dual-motivation systems concept which suggests that human beings have an "approach" (appetitive) system and an "avoid" (aversive) system, each of which act in different ways.

After her defense, Dr. Yegiyan presented members of her committee with T-shirts that had a well-known (at least to us) graphical representation of the activation fuctions of the appetitive and aversive systems.

Here's a picture of Drs. Yegiyan, Grabe, Potter & Lang (the latter 3 proudly wearing their new shirts).

Narine begins her new position as an Assistant Professor at UC Davis in the Fall.

Sales Professional Talks to Sales Class

Today in my Electronic Media Sales course, T343, we had a departmental alumn come and speak about his 18 year career as an Account Executive at WGN Radio. I first met Tom Bortz at last year's Multivisions Convention and he was kind enough to agree to come talk to my class this semester. (It helps that he, like so MANY IU alumni loves Bloomington...and that tonight was IU senior night for the basketball team!).

Tom did a wonderful job of connecting with the students and reinforcing some of the things that I've been teaching and that they have been reading.

For example:

1. Sales is not for the thin-skinned, but rejecction from a prospect is not a rejection of YOU. But, you need to learn how to turn the objections into positives...and the more you can practice it the better you get at it.


2. The importance of finding out as much information about the prospect as you can in the discovery meeting.


3. It is helpful to learn as much as you can about the station and its product [For example, new AEs at WGN begin by spending their first weeks sitting in on all the show hosts/talent].


4. The world of media sales is not 9-5...you are always looking for prospects, clients, ideas.


5. The client renewal starts the first day you get the order...you must service them.
   
   

But, there were also new pieces of information--things that I haven't gotten to yet (or that I might never have gotten to). For example

1. He discussed intricacies of commission...that commission is based on net sales while goals are set on gross--prior to subtracting of agency commissions etc.


2. And that even when the client goes with an ad agency it is important to retain a good direct relationship with a client. If the client likes/respects you they can influence the agency buy because the agency buyer works for the client.


3. We learned about tools like Media Monitors and how they can use it to estimate how much a prospect is spending on media in a city like Chicago.


4. That WGN radio has internships...including sales internships.

In fact, here's a picture of a student talking with Tom afterwards about an internship possibility.

Great Alumni bring Knowledge to Current Students

One of the reasons that I love working at IU is that we have great alumni. In fact, the IU Alumni Association boasts of being the largest in the world…

And, luckily, the alumni from the IU Department of Telecommunications are terrific when it comes to giving back to their alma mater. I’m talking about giving of their time and knowledge to students and faculty. I have been on the receiving end of an abundance of such giving over the past couple of weeks. So much so that I’ll need to give it to you in two blog posts. Here’s the first:

It started with a visit from Mark DeBoskey who is the General Manager of Jazz 88.3 in San Diego. Mark has spent most of his career in SoCal working in radio. But, he got his start at student radio WIUS-FM. He came to town two weeks ago for a board of directors meeting for that station (now known as WIUX). Luckily for me he contacted our department’s director of alumni relations, Legene White, and told her he was coming to town. Legene knew that, with my background in radio, I’d enjoy meeting with Mark, and she was right. The three of us spent about an hour in my office listening to his station’s stream, talking about challenges associated with creating a successful (non-NPR) non-commercial station, and how much Bloomington has changed…and how much it has stayed wonderful old Bloomington…in the years he’s been away.

Then, this past Monday, I had a double-dose of alumni relations as two former students from the department were back on campus to visit with my current students. The first was Brad Holtz, the Program Director of WTTS-FM, an Album Adult Alternative station in town broadcasting to the Indianapolis market. Early this semester I had asked him to visit my T344 class and he graciously agreed. It was tremendous. He talked about the role of a radio Program Director being that of brand manager—responsible for not only the music on the air, but also the events, concerts, live broadcasts and web content. He also was able to discuss the role of consultants in radio…which is why I love bringing in alumni to talk to my classes…they talk about stuff I would never have brought up.

The students thought Brad was great, as the line up of students getting his business card afterwards indicates. I’ll certainly ask him to return in future semesters of T344.

Later that day Norbert Mundorf was a guest in the ICR-lab meeting. Norbert received his Ph.D from our department in 1987 and I first met (face-to-face, anyway) at that meeting where he discussed his research on self-efficacy and its impact on tendency in college students to report heavy-drinking behavior. Later, I took him to the ICR in Eigenmann. When he was in the ICR, working with Dolf Zillmann, it was located in a house on Dunn Street. And, interestingly, he lived in Eigenmann! Here's a picture of Mundorf with our department chair Walt Gantz.

Now, my alumni experiences continued this week when, on Wednesday, I took a flight to New York City! I’m actually finishing writing this on Friday…sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting to fly back to Indy. More on my NYC experience next time…