Our first of thirteen

The tech staff(*) at the J-school are still tightening the bolts and applying a chamois to the site, but here’s the link where you’ll find my Radio Workshop class streaming, live, our hour-long radio show, every Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. EST:

http://web.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/radio/news/index.asp

You will not hear my voice on today’s show, as I’m Senior Producing it. This simply means that I’m helping everyone else get their pieces sounding reasonable, working with the day-reporters (who are reporting on things this morning) to get their pieces together at all, and generally working behind the scenes.

Once the 3 independent Content Management Systems are all under our control, there’ll be a podcast feed for the show, as well. I’ll post it once I’ve got it.

I was at school and helping people edit last night for about five hours, once class got out. Intriguingly, during that time, I found my attention completely focused on the people and audio I was dealing with. I wasn’t flitting off to check my mail, stress about reporting, wonder what the presidential candidates were doing – I was simply and smoothly “in the zone.” It’s a mental state the nigh-unpronounceable psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi accurately calls “Flow .”

It felt awesome. It felt like the best parts of working on a theater production, or a production kitchen, when everyone’s in “The Show Must Go On” mode and working smoothly in harness together.

I’m really looking forward to the all-day process of getting this afternoon’s show on the wire. And all the shows to come.

(*) And how long has it been since I’ve been able to say ‘the tech staff’ and not have it include me? Too Effing Long, that’s how long.