Where there's smoke

For anyone who's ever worried about their safety in a city where drivers rarely seem to pull over for emergency vehicles, here's some encouraging news -- apparently when there's a fire of any size, 10,000 firemen drive their bright red trucks in from every direction, and prepare to battle the blaze.

In the last week, I've had two opportunities to see NYFD on the job.

First, John called me from the gallery district, Chelsea, just about 10 blocks south of my office, to ask what was going on up around the AP. It was only then when I figured out the sound of helicopters overhead was because it was prime 6 o'clock news hour and there was an actual fire in progress.
I walked out on our outdoor basketball court (a leftover from when our office housed Doubleclick) and watched as flames shot out of the roof of a building one block west. Naturally in a company full of news geeks, there were dozens of us out there, including several with cameras.
Nothing can beat the melodrama of this news item on Firehouse.com.

Then last night, John was channel surfing when he came upon Brothers and Sisters on ABC, and stopped for a few minutes out of curiosity about Calista Flockhart's new show. (more about why in a minute) We caught the tail end of the show before the screen went dead air. Strange.
With no TV noise in the apartment, we tuned in on all the sirens outside -- and looked out to see them all surrounding ABC headquarters, right across the street from us.
Still a news geek, and the tiniest bit concerned that our building might be the one burning, we went downstairs to scout it out. Along with most of our neighbors, who were shooting pics on their camera phones.
By the way, I love that several ABC affiliates used our story, and not one from AP, about the fire.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=nation_world&id=5322047
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=nation_world&id=5345027

Celeb spotting

My best celebrity spotting so far was on a plane headed from New York to LA last week.

I was cutting it really close to catch this flight, thanks to a super slow cabbie, and as I raced for the gate, I thought it was a little weird that several flight attendants had their cell phones out taking pictures. Maybe it was one of their birthdays or something? Who knows. Gotta hurry onto this plane.

A group of three or four people were ahead of me and I think we were the very last ones to take our seats. I was just thankful I hadn't missed the flight, and immediately stopped thinking of the flight attendants taking pictures.

Then the group in front of me stopped abruptly in first class, and when I stopped, I recognized Calista Flockhart saying hello to the people getting on. The guy in front of me was taking his own sweet time, then started backing up, not realizing I was behind him. He very politely apologized and offered to get out of my way so I could get past, as I realized it was Rob Lowe.

Being a somewhat anti-TV snob, I didn't realize they were in a new show together until I googled them to find out why they might be traveling together.

Apparently also in their group was some girl from 24, who I'd never recognize since I haven't seen the show. And Michael Bolton, who I probably wouldn't have recognized without his mullet except my stewardess was very excited and told me he, too, was in first class.

To answer your question, Calista is just as skinny in person as you'd think. But Rob is better looking in person than I expected, even if he never took his sunglasses off.

Is it just me, or is it weird to see celebrities getting their own suitcases off the conveyor? Even if it's sort of a used-to-be celeb now having a come back, I'd sort of expect they'd have people to do that for them.

A year in the life of a New Yorker

Wednesday I marked one year of living in the city.

John and I celebrated my dad's birthday last May 8, then the next morning we headed to the airport to spend a week looking at apartments together. Surely, I deludedly thought, we'd find something that week, then we could just enjoy a little vacation time and celebrate our wedding anniversary in our adopted hometown before John headed home to tend to our house.

That seems like such a long time ago. Before I'd seen a gazillion apartments or begged Nick to show us this place, before I'd had my first day at the AP.

Here, for contrast, is us last May 9 waiting for our morning flight at Detroit Metro:










And here's us this May 9, hanging out on the patio at Tavern on the Green, about a block from our apartment, with our neighbor, Kristi.



















Helping to re-invent the AP

I've mentioned to a few of you in recent weeks that I was working hard on a high-profile project that I couldn't really talk about yet.

AP's CEO introduced it to our members at our annual meeting Monday -- a new way of offering our services:
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_050707b.html
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/wn_050707b.html

Few people outside the industry seem to understand how AP operates, but at a very simple level, we sell services to newspapers, which use them to produce their news reports. They can choose from several kinds of sports content, different flavors of elections coverage, bigger and smaller packages of business news, etc. We literally offer hundreds of different services, each with its own rate structure.

Here's the nugget about what I've been part of:
As newspapers focus increasingly on locally relevant news, Curley said the AP is proposing changes that would allow members to subscribe to a core package of breaking news and then add other news packages. Currently, it offers broader packages of news defined mainly by the volume of news delivered -- small, medium or large.

Under the proposed restructuring that would take effect in 2009, members would have access to a core breaking news service that would include, for example, news from a neighboring state that might not otherwise be available. Members also would be able to add extra content such as analytical stories and premium tiers of news in categories such as sports, lifestyle, business and entertainment.

The new system would allow news organizations to make individual purchases of stories and photos as needed, something that's not currently offered. Curley noted in his speech that some members do not want to pay for certain kinds of AP news content that they don't use.

It's probably too inside baseball to even make sense if you aren't a newspaper publisher, but the bottom line is that I'm really excited to be on a project that fundamentally looks at how we sell our services and how we serve our members.

Bragging up my friend, the author

Publishers Marketplace

25 April, 2007

Children's:
Young Adult

Lara Zielin's debut novel DONUT DAYS, in which a sixteen-year-old girl, the daughter of evangelical pastors, is faced with serious choices: creationism or evolution, faith or freedom, Harley bikers or Frodo wannabes, and, of course, cruller or glazed, to Stacey Barney at Putnam, by Susanna Einstein at LJK Literary Management (world).

An Ann Arbor deli getting attention in NYC

It felt like an inside-out experience on my way to work this morning, reading the NY Times business section on the crowded subway, and running across a huge feature about Zingerman's, the iconic deli in Ann Arbor.

Think about it for a second. New York is kinda known for its delis. And yet, I'm reading one of the biggest papers in the country, based in New York, and it's profiling the place where I first learned to like olives. The place where John and I got the goodies for our first New Year's Eve party together. The place my dad's heart almost gave out when he saw the price of a reuben, and then again when he tasted the reuben.

Tonight on gmail, I looked up and saw this: NYT Most E-mailed Articles - Small Business: A Corner Deli With International Appeal

So apparently I wasn't the only one reading that story today.

Here's the link for anyone who somehow hasn't seen it yet.

Catching up

This always happened with diaries when I was a kid.

I'd get a little behind. Then the next time I had time to write, I wouldn't because I didn't have enough time to catch up everything that happened since I last wrote. The gulf grows, the time demand to fill the void increases, and pretty soon the whole thing grinds to a halt.

So I'll just say now that I'm not going to catch up on the last month and a half. Sorry. I'll hit a few highlights, but otherwise, this task is just too daunting.

Euchre comes to Manhattan

The web site for the World Series of Euchre -- yes, there is such a thing -- says the classic card game was very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that during the Napoleonic Era in Europe, Euchre was modernized and introduced to America. Apparently it caught on like crazy, before poker was widely known, but then it lost some of its popularity.

Except in the Midwest, where euchre can be like religion. Yes, the World Series of Euchre is happening in Lansing this fall, if you'd like to plan your vacation around it.

Meantime, I helped organize a euchre tournament for University of Michigan alumni this weekend. We had two eight-team brackets, one social and one competitive, with most teams being U-M grads but also with some competitors from other schools, including Iowa and even Ohio State.

Here are some photos, starting with my co-organizer, Brett, then showing you the crowd.


















Media giants and Michigan Media

The 92nd Street Y is a really active social center that puts on a great range of events, including lectures by interesting celebs like Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons.

John and I spent three Sundays in April hearing super-huge TV news guys talking about their careers, the state of the industry and what's ahead in news, politics and the country: Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Mike Wallace.

Part of what struck me at the Mike Wallace evening was that he said some pretty bawdy things -- like he doesn't like Hillary as a candidate because she reminds him of his second wife -- but it didn't turn up in the media the next day. There's so much happening in New York that someone like Mike Wallace doing a lecture is just another ho-hum who-cares calendar listing. If that same conversation had happened at Mendelsohn Theater at U-M, I wouldn't be surprised to see it on A1 of the Ann Arbor News, maybe with a photo and a quote box.

And when we aren't going to media events someone else organized, there are the Michigan Media dinners I've put on here. The premise is one successful guest of honor in a dinner with only about 20 people, enjoying real conversation rather than a presentation from behind a podium.

Here's a shot from our first dinner, featuring Ellen Agress, a vice president at News Corp. (Oh, to be having that same dinner this week ...)












Here are a few more from our night with Larry Kirshbaum, former head of Time-Warner Books and now founder of his own company, LJK Literary. (which incidentally signed my fantastic friend Lara, and sold her first novel to Putnam!)








Somehow I got not a single picture from the dinner with Rob Roth, the CFO of HBO.

Part of what I've loved about these dinners is they've given me a chance to get to know some truly impressive alums at the height of their careers, plus a whole mix of other grads who've come out for the dinners. They've helped me feel more connected to a community here.





University of Michigan Entertainment Coalition

No one who knows me will be surprised that it didn't take long for me to fall into a leadership role with an alumni club here in New York. An extrovert who likes to throw parties and meet people seems destined to get hit up for such things.

UMEC is an organization with huge potential that's struggled some in recent years because the people heading it just didn't have enough time for it and didn't have enough support. My fervent hope is to avoid the first pitfall by working on the second one.

I'm the new president of UMEC NY, and I'm actively shaking the branches looking for enthusiastic, dedicated people who want to make UMEC thrive as a professional organization, offering networking, professional training, a crying towel, whatever people in the entertainment, media and sports fields need.

Much like the Entertainment, Media & Sports Club at business school, I hope that with a group of maybe 8 officers or so, if each person commits to organizing only one or two events each year, we can provide a pretty good calendar of activities without any one person feeling a huge strain. Plus, it is a perfect excuse to pick up the phone and contact some U-M alum you'd love to know.

Anyone want to be our web master?? http://www.um-ec.org/