Professor Rupert Loyd

Class,

I am very happy to announce that Professor Rupert Loyd has accepted my invitation to discuss the topic of "Transformational Leadership".

Professor Loyd and myself had the great oppertunity to spend time together in Vancouver, Canada in November and spent time with Dr. Peter Northouse. Nothhouse, anong with Burns might be considered the great minds on the topic. Professor Loyd will speak on both these individules and discuss the topic opening it up to questions.

Here is Professor Loyd's Bio:

Rupert Loyd Jr. has a Bachelors degree in History from Miami University Ohio, a Master of Divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Union Institute and University. He has twenty-five years of pastoral leadership experience including an inner-city, multi-cultural, multi-congregational church in Miami Florida. In addition to 20 years adjunct teaching he recently completed 10 years with the Religion department at the University of Toledo and has presented papers at Union University in Cincinnati Ohio and Oxford University, Oxford, England. He has published in Leadership Journal and has co-authored a chapter in a forthcoming leadership textbook.

More to come...

-j-

Professor Donovan Myrie

Class,
I have invited Professor Donovan Myrie from Tampa University to speak to you about current media and the E-World. Professor Myrie is a amazing individual who I have had the opportunity to have met several years ago and has always impressed me with his understanding of new modes of communication and technology. I had a opportunity to co-present a paper and presentation on "Changing Technology" with Professor Myrie last year at a conference in Cincinnati. We were the one of the first to discuss the impact of the I-Phone on the digital world we live in. His bio although very impressive doesn't do justice to who he actually is.

Here you go:

Professor Donovan H. Myrie is a three-time Emmy Award winning broadcast journalist. He has worked with prestigious news outlets such as Time Inc., WNBC-TV in New York, KTVT-TV in Dallas and WFLA-TV in Tampa. Myrie was part of the management team of WAMI-TV, the Barry Diller/USA Broadcasting flagship station in Miami (recently dissolved) and New Urban Entertainment Television, a national cable outlet focusing on the diversity of all people of color in major urban communities. His experience includes work as a writer, producer (special projects, field and studio), Operations Manager, executive producer, assistant news director and news director. At WNBC-TV Myrie worked as a production assistant, photographer and live truck operator, before attending graduate school at Columbia University. He graduated with a Masters of Science in Journalism and received the Sol J. Taishoff memorial scholarship at commencement. From Columbia, he gained a summer fellowship with the International Radio & Television Society (IRTS) with an assignment at Time Warner. At Time, Myrie helped form the Magazine Production Group, a company that produced news segments by turning ideas, concepts and magazine articles into television (the forerunner of CNN Newsstand). In just seven months, he was promoted from intern to associate producer to producer to Deputy Executive Producer. Once the company was established he settled back into the role of producer, preferring the creative aspects of the job rather than the administrative. During his three-year tenure at Time, Myrie was invited back to Columbia University, not as a student, but this time as an adjunct professor. There, Myrie taught a television broadcast journalism class: bringing print students (very reluctantly!) into the world of electronic newsgathering. His experience with students in the spring of 1995 eventually led to the restructuring of the program at Columbia to include a more thorough understanding of television broadcasting from the “print perspective”. Myrie has also been invited to Howard University, the University of Texas and the University of Florida as a guest speaker. After Time Inc., He returned to WNBC-TV, this time as the News Operations Manager. At WNBC, he had extensive dealings with the network, other NBC stations and the affiliate news service (NBC News Channel). It was during this time that he started to realize the importance of strategic planning when covering a breaking news situation or disaster; planning that most television stations didn’t address until they were faced with a crisis situation. At WNBC, Myrie was the network administrator for the BASYS newsroom computer system and served as the main liaison for the station’s contracted helicopter program. A side note: he was featured in the Discover Channel 1996 documentary “Choppers on Patrol.” Myrie was with WNBC for an additional two years before moving to the CBS affiliate in Dallas Texas. KTVT was a smaller station, but with bigger opportunities and had just become a CBS affiliate after 40 years as an independent station. At KTVT, Myrie won three Emmy Awards for his work in special projects. He also had extensive dealings with two more affiliate news services, CBS NewsPath and CONUS news cooperative. In April of 1999, Myrie took a job as the News Administration Executive (Assistant News Director) with WAMI-TV, the flagship USA Broadcasting station in Miami. His news program, The Times, was originally envisioned as an alternative to the “body count” style of programming practiced by most news outlets. Later on in the year, he left WAMI-TV to work with another Miami TV station, WFOR-TV. At WFOR, he worked on creating a disaster plan for the station that specifically concentrated on Cuba. As the saying goes timing is everything: during his time at WFOR-TV, the Elian Gonzalez story broke, thrusting Miami and its Cuban politics into the national spotlight. At the close of the century, Myrie consulted with NBC News Channel to help coordinate their Y2K coverage. From there, he consulted with Video Networks Incorporated (VNI, now PathFire) in Atlanta. VNI was in the process of rolling out a new video-on-demand system for NBC News Channel affiliates (NewsTracker). The addressable system allows NBC to encode video and feed it over a satellite transponder (as computer packets instead of traditional video). The result: security and exclusivity of feed video was enhanced (you can not decode the video unless you are on an internal distribution list), affiliate newsrooms were able to view feed video from their desktops, all feed video was now placed on a server (eliminating the need for recording on to tape) and video feed times were reduced (encoded video feeds faster than linear tape based video). In May of 2000, Myrie moved to a fulltime executive producer’s position with New Urban Entertainment Television (NUE-TV). Three weeks after his hiring, he was promoted to news director, taking on the responsibilities of launching the network’s news division. NUE-TV was a Washington D.C. based cable network, targeting African Americans, Asian Americans and Hispanics as its core demographic audience. News programming for NUE-TV included a live, hourly, five night a week newscast, and the development of six regularly scheduled and special events programs over a six-month period. In just four short months of production, Myrie and his news staff were recognized with awards from the Black Filmmakers Foundation, National Association of Black Journalists and the New York Festivals. Just a year after launching, NUE-TV lost its startup financing. Myrie moved to St. Petersburg, Florida and began work on another disaster plan, this one on the 9/11 attacks and subsequent war with in Afghanistan. Battleground Afghanistan is in use at WFOR-TV (Miami), WTTG-TV (Washington), WFLA-TV (Tampa), CNN (New York) and NBC News (Washington DC). In January 2002, he Myrie signed on with WFLA-TV as the Weekend Planner/Assignment Editor. He continued to work with WFLA-TV through October 2002, even though he took on the role as an Adjunct Professor with the University of Tampa (summer 2002) and then a fulltime position as an Instructor with the same university (fall of 2002). At the University of Tampa, Myrie taught two different levels of Studio & Television, Video Production, Writing for Advertising and Public Relations, Communications & Society and Research Methods: An Analysis of 9/11. He was also part of the faculty search committee for a new department media coordinator and served as one of the driving forces to create a new television facility for the university. Myrie continues to work on America’s First War of the 21st Century with the hopes of publishing in 2003. He is also working on a book about commercial aviation called Aviation 101.


More exciting guests to come....

-j-

Getting Connected on 1-9-08

Class,

I am working with technology to get you all connected on the 9th.

It looks like we will be using a platform that will require each of you to have a headset with a microphone. I am not requiring you to buy one, but let me know if you have one(ASAP). I am looking into seeing if Medaille can provide them. If not, I can find someone who will.

In addition, I will be announcing our first of possibly many guests that evening in the days to come. As soon as this guest confirms, I will get you some bio info so you have a good idea who you will be learning with.

Feel free to post questions, or send me e-mail. I am still looking forward to seeing these great blogs that are being built. Also, let me know if you have anything that you are interested in presenting that night.

Have a SAFE and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

-j-

Overview of the Rest of the Class

Class,

This has been sent to you in e-mail form.

Have a Merry Christmas! Let me know if you have any questions.

-j-

Homework Due for Week Three...

Here you go:

Week Three Homework

Individual:
Read Chapters 4 and 6 in IT for Management Text

Work on your Blogs
Post at least 3 times
The first post is of your choice.
The second post is about your thoughts on leadership in the e-world.
The third post is on
e-mail me your blog address ( will be linking them to my blog).
most importantly, Enjoy your holiday!
Check this site every couple days for any technical updates about our class on the 9th.

Group:
First:
Work on your final presentation proposal. E-mail it to me for approval. This will take the form of a couple paragraphs giving me a overview of the company that you are proposing.
Remember, I am less concerned with the structure of the proposal and more interested in the content. This is my theory for this project. Feel free to use PowerPoint or word for the proposal. Let me know if you have any questions.

Second:
Share your blogs with your group. Talk about your experiences with blogging.

Third,
Review these five blogs as a group. Also, feel free to find your own blogs (one topics that interest you and leadership). In a short paper, what did you learn about blogging. Did your ideas about it change or stay the same? What do you think that future of blogging will be? Remember that I am again interested in your ideas. In this assignment I am interested in the learning that is taking place not in answers that are right or wrong. A perfect paper will consist of personal and group opinion of what you have experienced. Let me know if you have any questions.

Leadership Blog

Heather Hamilton

Seth Godin

Leading Blog

Oracle Blogs -Pick one of the many


I have left you with a virtual cup of coffee. The message is more important than what is in the cup. It helps us all keep things in perspective as we celebrate a end of a great year!

Stay tuned for more posts in the days to come, feel free to respond to the posts (I will be checking this blog daily and responding to questions). Also, the e-mail is always fine.


Peace,

-j-

Get Ready....

Class,

Welcome to week two.

This will be the website that you will need to check between today and 1-9-07.

This will be our interactive experience with me teaching the class from the great city of Cincinnati, Ohio.

As you begin to post your blogs, we will use this site to get the information necessary to get involved in class that evening.

See you in class!

-j-