The article and book archives of St. Petersburg, Florida writer, author and "Mr. Media Radio" host and producer Bob Andelman.
Friday, October 16, 2009
A history of U2 in Tampa, Part I: The Unforgettable Fire Tour (1985)
(Note from Bob: Back in the mid-1980s, I was a stringer for the St. Petersburg Times, covering pop music and interviewing musicians. A few days ago, the paper dug up my story on a very special night at the University of South Florida Sun Dome. I remember it like it was yesterday for several reasons: 1) It was probably the first time that editors trusted me to take a portable computer (too big to be a "laptop!) to a concert; 2) The strange looks said device attracted; and 3) The company of my friend Tim's wife, Bridget. I was also very proud of the enterprise reporting that went into tracking down the kid described in the story. Hope you enjoy it, almost 25 years later!)
(In celebration of U2's concert Friday at Raymond James Stadium, we're revisiting some of the band's most memorable Tampa performances over the past 30 years. Today, we present Bob Andelman's St. Pete Times review of U2's concert at the USF Sun Dome on May 2, 1985 -- the Unforgettable Fire Tour.)
For Matt Simmons, the sold-out U2 concert was one he won't soon forget.
After all, how many 15-year-old kids can brag that they played guitar with the hottest band in the world, and in front of 11,200 screaming, envious fans?
It began when U2 came out for the first of two encores during its Thursday night show at the USF Sun Dome. Lead singer Bono had been talking about learning to play guitar, and how anybody could do it. With that, the band launched into a cover of Bob Dylan'sKnockin' On Heaven's Door. (Click here to listen.)
Midway into the song, Bono asked if there weren't some guitar players in the audience. Suddenly everyone knew how to play.
"Everyone we were with knew (Matt) could play and pointed at him," explained his sister, Rosemary, 17. Bono was paying attention and soon the Lakewood High School sophomore -- dressed in Bermuda shorts and wearing a sleeveless, untucked shirt -- was accepting the singer's own guitar and slipping it over his shoulder.
"I thought I was going to freeze up," Simmons said later. "I guess I did okay."
Much to the band's surprise -- and everyone else's -- Simmons accepted the guitar without missing a beat. As he got into the song, first Bono, then lead guitarist The Edge and bassist Adam Clayton left the stage. For several minutes, Simmons -- who has played for two years and has portrayed Bono in lip sync contests -- was living out the ultimate rock fantasy.
"I was totally freakin' when they left me by myself," he said, wondering to himself, "Are they coming back, or what?"
Mary McCormack: Howard Stern Says My Boobs Are Great (BlogTalkRadio.com)
June 12th, 2009
"I feel so lucky that he's such a sweetheart," Mary (above) tells us of Howard.
It’s good to know that Howard Stern - who married longtime lady friend Beth Ostrosky in October - still loves his movie wife.
Interviewed on Mr. Media, Mary McCormack says the King of All Media to this day thinks of her as his queen.
Mary, 40, of course played Howard’s first wife, Alison, is his 1997 biopic, Private Parts.
When host Bob Andelman asks the actress, “You still in contact with Howard Stern?” she replies:
“I am. I was at his wedding this year.”
Later on, the married mother of two says she never thought that being cast as the mother of Howard’s kids would lead to a lifelong commitment to the shock jock.
“He’s been a great friend to me over the years. And I hope he always will be. I mean, who knew? You don’t expect it from Howard Stern,” says Mary, who plays U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon on In Plain Sight.
As Alison, with Howard, in "Private Parts."
“He’s everything you don’t expect… He’s so lovely to me and always has - and he says my boobs are great.
“So, you know, it could be worse.”
In Plain Sight airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on the USA Network.
You might have to squint your eyes to see my co-author's credit under that of Adrian Slywotzky and David Morrison, but it's there! The Profit Zone was translated into 16 languages and has sold more than 100,000 copies to date.
In 2005, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, Bob Andelman's authorized biography of the late American comic book master, was published by Dark Horse/M Press.
This spring, the audiobook version of the book will finally be released via Audible.com and iTunes.
In celebration of “Will Eisner Week” (March 3-7, 2009) and the release of the much anticipated film adaptation of Watchmen on March 6, 2009, Tampa Digital Studios agreed to release an exclusive audio excerpt of Will Eisner: A Spirited Life for broadcast on the BlogTalkRadio.com network.
Beginning at 10 p.m. ET on March 5, 2009, you can listen to the excerpt here: http://tinyurl.com/bqkk7e Chapter 20, from which this excerpt comes, deals with Watchmen creatorsAlan Moore and Dave Gibbons reminiscing about creating the first issueof Will Eisner’s The Spirit: The New Adventures. It was their first collaboration in a decade, since the publication of the original Watchmen comic book series in 1986.
Will Eisner: A Spirited Life audiobook is narrated by the book’sauthor, Bob Andelman. It is produced by Michael Piotrowski andengineered by Joshua Agnew for Tampa Digital Studios.
In 2005, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, Bob Andelman's authorized bioraphy of the late American comic book master, was published by Dark Horse/M Press.
This spring, the audiobook version of the book will finally be released via Audible.com and iTunes.
In celebration of “Will Eisner Week” (March 3-7, 2009) and the release of the much anticipated film adaptation of Watchmen on March 6, 2009, Tampa Digital Studios agreed to release an exclusive audio excerpt of Will Eisner: A Spirited Life for broadcast on the BlogTalkRadio.com network.
Chapter 20, from which this excerpt comes, deals with Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons reminiscing about creating the first issue of Will Eisner’s The Spirit: The New Adventures. It was the first collaboration in a decade, since the publication of the original Watchmen comic book series in 1986.
Will Eisner: A Spirited Life audiobook is narrated by the book’s author, Bob Andelman. It is produced by Michael Piotrowski and engineered by Joshua Agnew for Tampa Digital Studios.
"A Spirited Life" Review: A must for any library about comic book history (My Pull List)
"Will Eisner: A Spirited Life was written by Bob Andelman and published by M Press in 2005. I saw Andelman do a presentation about his biography at MegaCon in 2006. I finally bought it last year and was not disappointed. The book provides a window into the early years of the comic book industry. If you would like to learn about his creation The Spirit, the subject of Frank Miller's movie adaption due to be released in theaters on Christmas of this year, this is the book to check out. The book follows Eisner's varied career, both in and out of comics. Beginning just before the comic book scare of the 1950's, Eisner left comics to produce P. S., the Army maintenance magazine, which contained a comic book insert that would illustrate a different equipment maintenance procedure each month. And it explores Eisner's contribution to the evolution of the graphic novel. This book is a must for any library about comic book history." — Billy Hogan, "My Pull List" blogger (November 8, 2008)
A Sarasota company finally recognizes that women drive the car-buying market.
By Bob Andelman Biz941 Magazine October 2007
Research shows that women influence buying decisions on more than 85 percent of all new car purchases. So why do the dealerships selling the cars treat their biggest market with such disrespect?
Sarasota’s Peter Martin realized the power of the female buyer his first day on the job at a Ford dealership in Columbus, Ohio, two decades ago. His very first customers in the door that day were husband-and-wife pig farmers.
“It was a rough experience,” Martin recalls. “I tried to sell him a car. No luck. I tried to engage the wife; she wouldn’t even look at me. They left. Everybody at the dealership thought it was funny.”
The next day, the man returned—alone. He bought the car that he and his wife spent the most time with and paid for it with cash. No sales pitch, no negotiation.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Martin asked. The man nodded his assent. “What made you come back?”
“Son,” the pig farmer said wearily, “you’re not married, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” Martin said.
“You ever heard of the doghouse?” the farmer asked. “Well, it pales next to the pig house.”
That was the first insight Martin had into the power women have in the car-buying process. When the pig farmers left the day before, the wife had wanted the car; the husband had not. She made him miserable that night, and the only way he was getting out of the pig house was by buying her the car she wanted.
"Speaking of animated conversations" (St. Petersburg Times)
By ERIC DEGGANS TV/Media critic Published June 4, 2007
He only worked for the St. Petersburg Times for a few months in 1984, the beginning of an eight-year journalism career that ended when he got a job writing for Bill Nye the Science Guy.
But TV producer Kit Boss has made the most of his connections to the Tampa Bay area.
First, he featured the names of two former Times co-workers in an episode of Fox's King of the Hill, where he worked as a writer for seven years. Now his new series for CBS, Creature Comforts, features the voices of seven Tampa Bay area residents, including our deputy editor of editorials Tim Nickens and his wife, Bridget. They are among dozens whose conversations were recorded and then used as the sound track for cheeky animated vignettes.
"There's something about Florida, " said Boss, 45, calling from his office in Los Angeles. "People who grew up there are unusual and people who are drawn there are unusual."
Boss' Creature Comforts is an Americanized version of a British TV series based on the work of Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park. The creators recorded interviews across the country and drew animated animals to fit the audio. Most vignettes last about 15 seconds, poignant snippets that are funny, sentimental or striking in a flash, amplified by the stop-motion visuals.
In different scenes: A reclining pig extols the virtues of her children while a pack of piglets nurses at her belly; two birds discuss whether animals can smell the fear caused by predators, as a cat walks up behind them, unnoticed; and a nervous porcupine talks about the fight-or-flight response.
Nickens, who met Boss when the producer was an intern at the Times' Clearwater bureau, voices one of a pair of birds sitting on a statue. "Bird flu!" he exclaims, his southern Indiana-bred vocal twang lending a distinctive impact. "Nobody's going to get bird flu . . . It's all a scam. It'll kill off all the Europeans first, anyway."
"I believe I was quoted out of context, " said a bemused Nickens, laughing after viewing a clip of the appearance with his wife in my office. "But they captured Bridget's trademark eye roll perfectly."
Nickens, like most of the other voices appearing on the show, recorded his conversations more than a year ago with interviewers hired from across the country to scout for interesting voices. (Some of the bay area voices were actually recorded by a former Times correspondent, Bob Andelman.)
“Meeting Planning: More Than a Hobby” (Religious Conference Manager profile)
“Meeting Planning: More Than a Hobby” By Bob Andelman Religious Conference Manager Magazine October 2006
Hobbies? Who needs hobbies when you spend your free time planning meetings and conferences?
If Harry Schmidt has free time — when he's not in his professional capacity as president of Christian Life College in Mount Prospect, Illinois — he likes doing nothing better than reviewing site plans, sifting through contracts, and bringing order to chaos.
“Everybody has hobbies,” Schmidt says with a chuckle. “Some enjoy golfing; others, boating. I really enjoy the dynamics of meeting planning and helping organizations get the right fit.”
Schmidt's meeting planning truly is an act of service.
“I don't accept remuneration,” he says. “I know it's a great livelihood for some meeting planners on the professional side, but I have always done it as a volunteer. Hotel people are always surprised when I don't ask for a commission. Then they're a little suspicious of my motives: ‘Why do you do this? Does the organization pay you? Do you get a per diem? A kickback? A rebate?’”
And why does this gentle soul take on so much additional responsibility with no personal benefit?
“I enjoy the satisfaction of seeing a good event,” Schmidt says.
He believes he can make a difference for church groups.
“Many times, religious organizations and churches don't understand their buying power,” he says. “They have an opportunity for getting a much better product that will showcase their meeting better than they're used to. Without understanding their own power, they may relegate themselves to a third-tier hotel property, for example. I've enjoyed showing religious groups that the dollars they generate can upgrade their event and image by getting them into a better hotel or convention center for the same dollars. There's a right place and a right venue, for the right organization.”
With his devotion to meeting planning, it's no surprise to learn that Schmidt believes wholeheartedly in RCMA's mission.
“Becoming members of RCMA provides many meeting planners a ‘Wow!’” he says. “My first RCMA conference was in 1988 in Milwaukee. What I so appreciated about it was the way it brought together the entire industry. It was a fantastic opportunity under one tent to network with hundreds of suppliers all at one place. I was thoroughly energized by it.”
Over the years, Schmidt became a big fan of the conference tutorials as well.
“The tutorials provide entrée to meeting planners with little or no experience,” he says. “And, at the same time, depending on the length of your service, you can still be challenged by them. I have been a meeting planner a long time, and I still walk away feeling inspired.”
Christian Life College (formerly Chicago Bible College) is a small religious college with 135 students all studying a single major: a bachelor of arts in church ministries.
Schmidt graduated from the college in 1972 and went into the world as a church planter, initiating and establishing — as its pastor — Gateway Church in Momence, Illinois, a congregation that is now 30 years old and thriving.
“Being in the Chicago area, I kept a relationship with the college,” Schmidt says.
After 11 years with the new church, he became administrative dean at Christian Life College, eventually advancing to executive vice president before being named president in 1996. The college itself hosts Ascension Convention, an annual conference that attracts 2,500 young people over Easter weekend.
“You can't be in this environment without hosting conferences and seminars,” he says. “And in doing that over 25-plus years, I got connected with other religious organizations in the Chicago area. People found out that I enjoyed doing meeting planning and hotel negotiations. I would receive phone calls: ‘Would you lend us some expertise?’ So I just expanded that.” Getting to Know
Harry Schmidt
Background: Born and raised in Davenport, Iowa
Family: Schmidt met his wife, Donna, when they were 10 years old and growing up in Iowa. They both like to travel and antique. “As we travel, we have to hit an antique shop once in a while. How can you not like early Americana?” The couple has one child, Jennifer, who is 21 and a junior in college.
“Devoted: Miller Works Hard for RCMA” (Religious Conference Manager profile)
“Devoted: Miller Works Hard for RCMA” By Bob Andelman Religious Conference Manager Magazine December 2006
You'll have to forgive Elaine Miller if she seems a bit distracted.
After all, how focused would you be on being interviewed if you were reclining on a hotel balcony in Jamaica, eager to get on with the vacation that you recently earned?
“I won second prize from RCMA in the Member-Get-A-Member Contest,” she says. “Coming from Michigan, you can't help but enjoy this weather. I'm sitting on a deck, looking at the ocean. It's all because of RCMA and my relationship to God. That's made me what I am today.”
What she is is executive director of events and planning for New Mount Moriah Baptist Missionary Church in Pontiac, Mich. It's a job she has held since retiring from General Motors in 2002 after 30 years.
But Miller is hardly new around the church; she was its first administrator — as a weekend volunteer — when New Mount Moriah formed 17 years ago, eventually moving into event planning. “We have about 1,200 active members on any given Sunday; we have 3,000 to 3,500 on our rolls,” she says.
Jamaica, incidentally, is not the first trip Miller has won by turning folks on to RCMA. A year earlier, she earned first prize in the contest: a seven-day biblical trip to Turkey. She plans to take that one sometime in 2007.
This is a devoted RCMA member.
“I let them know that RCMA is a religious organization that gives you knowledge about event planning and hotels, and there are classes to give you information,” she says. “There are vendors you can build relationships with. I can get good rates from them and negotiate good prices.”
At General Motors, Miller began as a secretary and rose to work in engineering as an administrator with operations. “I retired from GM to do ministry,” she says, “but I use a lot of the technology and administrative skills I learned at GM here, such as how to deal with people, how to understand people, what makes people tick. Understanding the real personas, as opposed to the pretensions. I've grown a lot, helped the church to advance with technology, people skills, training, and development. My objective is to train other people.”
In her role as executive director of events and planning, Miller plans all her church's events, including conferences, meetings, and special events. Her menu of 10 events includes two big ones: the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship Regional Summits and Full Gospel Baptist Church State Conferences.
She is responsible for planning, getting speakers, and confirming engagements.
“And I support marriage retreats and women's conferences; men's conferences; and intercessory prayer conferences,” she adds.
Although she has been a factor in the development of New Mount Moriah Baptist Missionary Church since the beginning, Miller says that her life has dramatically evolved since she joined the operation full time in 2002.
“It has changed tremendously,” she says. “I travel much more. I've had a chance to network with the international ministries and meet Christian people in other states doing what I do. I've gained knowledge. I benchmark against other ministry conferences. My pastor, Bishop William H. Murphy Jr., has had a very important role in my development and in my efforts to gain knowledge. We're a team. My whole goal is to look at other ministry church functions and how they do programs. I want to be on the cutting edge of what's going on in ministry development.”
Elaine Miller
Born and raised: Liberty, Miss.
Family: One of seven children; mother of two children
Education: Business administration degree from Alcorn University in Michigan; studied psychology at Michigan State
Inspiration: “My mother was instrumental in instilling the morals and spirituality of my life. She helped me understand people and life. She's my hero.”
Hobbies: “I love golf, I love traveling, cooking, and meeting new people.”
On the Side: Miller is pursuing CMP certification. “It's a distinction that's recognized across the market,” she says.
“The Big Time: Clemmer Embraces Challenging Job” (Religious Conference Manager profile)
“The Big Time: Clemmer Embraces Challenging Job” By Bob Andelman Religious Conference Manager Magazine October 2006
Is there anything tougher than following in the footsteps of a legend?
No matter what line of work a person is in, the challenge of living up to a respected predecessor in a key role is never easy.
That's why, when RCMA board member and President's Award recipient Linda de Leon announced her plans to retire as meeting planner for the Seventh-day Adventists World Headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., it created a great opportunity — and apprehension — for her protégé and successor.
“I was honored and pleased that the organization thought I could pick up where Linda left off — not that anyone could fill her shoes,” says Sheri Clemmer, who became the church's new meeting planner in July 2002.
Fortunately for Clemmer, who assumed responsibility for the organization's day-to-day meeting needs, as well as its fall and spring meetings, de Leon stayed on until the church's general conference session in 2005.
The Seventh-day Adventists' quinquennial (occurring every five years) is a citywide, 12-day conference that attracts 60,000 attendees. As religious meetings go, it's a monster.
“Linda did not retire until after that,” Clemmer recalls. “The church allowed me to shadow her for the remaining years leading up to that event with her as a mentor, sort of on-the-job training.”
The accidental planner
Like many, Clemmer is an accidental meeting planner.
“I fell into it,” she says. “I started out as a medical secretary a number of years ago. I worked for our denomination at our hospital in the 1970s and then for a private-practice doctor, part-time for 15 years, while our children grew up.”
In 1994, with her children heading for college, Clemmer sought full-time employment again. She took a job as an administrative assistant in the Seventh-day Adventists' stewardship department and stayed in that position for six years.
Clemmer then accepted an opportunity to join the church's treasury department and worked as a volunteer coordinator, particularly assigned to 450 student missionaries headed to points far and wide around the globe. “I arranged their travels, visits, and insurance,” she recalls.
That was the job that established Clemmer's bona fides for the quinquennial. She learned the ins and outs at de Leon's elbow for three years leading up to the 2005 conference; in 2010, when the group will use the Georgia World Conference Center and Georgia Dome in Atlanta in 2010, she'll be on her own.
A year into those preparations, does she feel prepared?
“Um … No!” she says, laughing. “We won't feel prepared until it's over!” But Clemmer isn't alone in this Herculean task.
“We have a committee and 14 sub-committees and sub-subcommittees. It's not all on one person's shoulders — there's no way one person could manage it alone. We have committees for music, security, AV, platform, and the program. There are many, many people who have a lot of important tasks. We try to keep others on track; my job is to know everything that's going on.”
More Than One Meeting
As big a job as the quinquennial is, it's not Clemmer's only responsibility.
“I may review a contract from a hotel for a meeting,” she says. “I may try to negotiate that, have a breakfast included, have a space fee waived. I will work with the department that requested the contract, see if it meets their needs. I may work on the Atlanta meeting and hotels. I will contact our division officers. I attend several different committees here in the building. And I'm part of the administrative committee, so I'm aware of what's going on in the building.
“We also pay all the hotel bills out of our office,” Clemmer adds. “I have an administrative assistant who does that, but I have to sign off. We also do letters of invitation for our international guests for visa purposes. I just know that I'm busy all the time.” Thinking of Work
She often finds herself on the job even when she's not.
“I recently came up with a local artisan shop that shears its own sheep and dyes the wool,” Clemmer says. “I had seen it in a magazine while I waited for a medical appointment. I thought maybe our Shepherdess group — they're the wives of pastors — might like that.”
There are, of course, numerous perks to the job, including travel.
“As I've taken digital pictures of places to which I've traveled, I put them in my screensaver,” she says. “If I'm eating lunch, I love to see those photos. It's great to have those memories and meet people that I wouldn't meet otherwise, such as mayors. That's a nice perk.”
Still, there's no place like home.
“I am a homebody,” Clemmer says. “I miss my family greatly when I'm gone. I'm always counting the days when I'm gone. Not that I don't have a good time, but I'm always happy to come home. It's just the way I am.” Sheri Clemmer
Family: “I have a husband, Darryl, and a lovely golden retriever, Sienna, just like the color in the crayon box. We've been married 33 years and have three adult children: a daughter and two sons. I'm empty-nested but have two grandsons that I can't wait to get home to.
“My husband is the director of a retirement community; we live on the grounds. My perspective there is that I'm really young. The average age is 83. It's been a great place to raise our three kids.”
Hobbies: “Music is my strongest hobby. I enjoy playing the piano. I have conducted choir in the past. I also enjoy cooking, especially when the whole family comes over.”
Born and raised: Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Clemmer's family moved to a suburb of Silver Spring, Md., when she was 2.
"SiteFiles: Mid-South States 2006” (Corporate Meetings & Incentives Magazine Story)
"SiteFiles: Mid-South States 2006” By Bob Andelman Corporate Meetings & Incentives Magazine October 2006
What's New
Louisiana and Mississippi, in the heart of the Mid-South region, took a serious blow from Hurricane Katrina last year. But the region is coming back. New Orleans, specifically, is courting corporate business. The Marriott properties are all back up and running, the number of daily flights in and out of Louis Armstrong Airport is on the rise, and the Morial Convention Center recently welcomed its first convention since Katrina.
Baton Rouge, despite its proximity to New Orleans, remained largely unscathed by Katrina.
Meanwhile, the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center in Biloxi remains out of commission until January 1, 2007. Vicki Miller, special events marketing coordinator, says there was one fortunate turn for the Coliseum. “All of our seats in the arena were sent to Arkansas before the storm to be reupholstered. That saved nearly all the seats in the arena.” The convention center, which was completing plans to nearly double its size pre-Katrina, will resume its expansion plans after reopening.
In Huntsville, Ala., Huntsville Bicentennial Water Park, situated above Huntsville's Big Spring and intended to commemorate the city's founding at that location, opened last summer. And getting to Huntsville keeps getting easier. Nonstop air service to the city is now available from more than a dozen airports across the nation.
Riverwalk Orange Beach on Alabama's Gulf Coast will open in spring 2007. The development's first phase includes a marina, retail and restaurant space, Gulf World Marine, and a swim-with-the-dolphins experience. A 680-unit condo-hotel resort with more than 68,000 square feet of meeting space will open in early 2008. Additionally, The Wharf opened with a new 10,000-seat amphitheater. This development will involve a luxury inn and meeting space of up to 20,000 square feet.
And in Kentucky, the Northern Kentucky Convention & Visitors Bureau is exploring expansion of the NKY Convention Center. This past summer the convention center underwent a $400,000 renovation of its exhibit hall, creating additional large group meeting space and breakout space. CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING!!
“Motivating Meeting Planners: How meeting department managers keep their independent, world-traveling, Type A planners challenged, happy, and sane.” By Bob Andelman Medical Meetings Magazine September/October 2006
Are planners a tougher crew to manage than other employees?
You bet.
For starters, they need to be offered different incentives than their co-workers. Mostly what they want is some time off and a little stress relief. They need recognition for doing an arduous job that their fellow employees often misunderstand and underestimate, and they need help coping with all the regulatory changes in the medical industry that affect meetings.
We decided to approach five experienced healthcare industry meeting department managers to find out how they manage it all, and keep their staffs — and themselves — sane.
MM: What's different about managing a meeting planning department versus other departments?
JENNIFER HEGNER: We're focused on one area, but we seem to touch almost every department — research and development, clinical, sales, and finance. We're very diverse compared to some groups. People underestimate the knowledge and information that passes through a meetings department. That's why I find this so appealing. If you want to know about the company, you get many different perspectives.
JUDY BENAROCHE JOHNSON: Pharma meetings are in the spotlight more than other types of meetings, and we deal with a lot of compliance issues. Also, the types of attendees are physicians, clinical teams, and pharma company employees who generally do not know one another prior to arrival. They have different objectives versus a sales meeting at which all the attendees are from one company.
DEBBIE RICCIARDELLI: It's not as easy to “grade” a meeting planner's performance as other employees. Unless you are at the planned function, you often have to depend on the feedback of the attendees to determine how well the meeting was executed. I usually don't have to solicit feedback if the meeting did not go as well as I would have liked, as more than enough people will comment. If the meeting goes well, as 99.9 percent of them do, I ask the person who was my contact from the company side for feedback, and anyone else whom I speak with who was in attendance if I cross their path. Other jobs can be measured more objectively, with facts and figures.
MM: There have been numerous changes in the medical meeting industry: regulatory, compliance, and legal issues; and the role of procurement. How do you help your staff to handle the increased stress level?
HEGNER: We have a network of people we can reach out to for help. We have a good relationship with our corporate attorney and our regulatory and clinical departments, for example. They've helped us to understand any changes in the industry and how we may have to change our behavior [in response]. We have a positive attitude here — life changes, and you have to adapt to those changes.
I really believe that it's all about relationships. If you have a good relationship [with different departments], that keeps you ahead of the game. They can be great advocates in getting you through it as painlessly as possible. You can't be a successful meeting planner these days and be stuck in your ways. You have to keep up with trends, technology, your industry, and your company to be successful.
JOHNSON: We continue to stay abreast of issues by reading as many publications as possible, attending conferences, and viewing Web sites and then communicating the issues clearly and often. The company must be creative, and everyone needs to have a willingness to change, learn, and continue to reinvent their roles within the company.
MM: How do you compensate staff for time away and late hours?
VALERIE RICHARD: Personally, I have five weeks' vacation (when I can use it!) plus extra days off when I must work weekends. I also am allowed to keep my planner and travel points (hotel and airline programs).
JOHNSON: We offer Meeting Time Off to be used at the meeting manager's discretion. MTO is earned for weekend days worked.
RICCIARDELLI: If a planner works weekends or long days, I try to be lenient with the punctuality and time off rules. Of course, as with anything else, you have to make sure everyone is in agreement as to what constitutes “reasonable” and make sure you are both on the same page, or it can get one-sided very quickly.
MICHELLE BERRIOS: We offer an AWS (adjusted weekly schedule). If a planner is on site over the weekend, he or she has the opportunity to take a day off during the week after the event. CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING!!
“Meeting Effectiveness 101: Twenty years ago, Intel designed a training course for new hires around Andy Grove’s theories on effective meetings. Today, the program is stronger than ever” By Bob Andelman Corporate Meetings & Incentives December 2006
Many of the Greatest concepts that flowed from Intel Corp. over the past quarter century can be traced, in some way, back to the mind of Andrew S. Grove. Who would have guessed that the inspiration for effective meetings was among them?
But there it is, right in the pages of the legendary retired chairman's 1986 book, High Output Management. Grove began Chapter 4, “Meetings — The Medium of Managerial Work,” with the opening volley:
Meetings have a bad name. One school of management thought considers them the curse of the manager's existence. But there is another way to regard meetings … a meeting is nothing less than the medium through which managerial work is performed. That means we should not be fighting their very existence, but rather use the time spent in them as efficiently as possible.
When Grove's book was first published, Tracy Koon was one of the people tasked with applying his ideas about efficient meetings to an internal training course at the company's Intel University.
“We do sit in a lot of meetings,” says Koon, who recently retired from her position as Intel's director of corporate communications, laughing. “A lot of meetings.” Grove's philosophy became hers as well: “Meetings are inevitable,” she says. “Let's look at them as a way to get real work done and real decisions made.
“Intel had had a course about meetings before,” Koon adds, “but it was of the ‘why we have meetings’ variety. I took it when I first got here, and I thought, ‘This is interesting, but it doesn't help me do anything.’ It didn't do much to tell you how to make your meetings more effective.”
“Managing Meeting Pros, Part 2” By Bob Andelman Corporate Meetings & Incentives October 2006
How can meeting department managers keep their independent, world-traveling, Type A planners challenged and motivated? Last issue, five readers shared their secrets to maintaining everyone's sanity in a pressure-cooker environment. This month, we explore how they find the best talent, as well as how they evaluate and compensate their staffs.
Are Planners A Tough crew to manage?
You bet. For starters, they need to be offered different incentives than their co-workers. Let's face it. When you're working weekends and nights, what you crave most is time off and a little stress relief.
In the end, what planners are looking for is recognition for a job with demands that exceed the boundaries of most office positions, the opportunity to call some of the shots, and the chance for training and growth within their companies.
On our panel:
*
JULIE JOHNSON, CMP, CMM, DIRECTOR, EVENTS AND INCENTIVES, LENNOX INTERNATIONAL WORLDWIDE HEATING & COOLING, Richardson, Texas — Her staff of four manages 150 meetings a year; *
PAMELA WYNNE, CMP, CMM, MANAGER OF CORPORATE MEETING PLANNING, EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE, Princeton, N.J. — Wynne oversees strategic sourcing, contract negotiations, cost analysis, billing and reconciliation, and tracking of expenses for about 800 meetings per year with six full-time planners; *
MICHELLE BERRIOS, CMP, SENIOR MEETING PLANNER, KAISER PERMANENTE NATIONAL CORPORATE MEETING SERVICES, Oakland, Calif. — The majority of her company's 600 — 800 meetings each year are handled by the National Corporate Meeting Services staff of six. (Michelle left her position as this article was going to press.); *
DEBBIE RICCIARDELLI, CMP, MANAGER, SALES OPERATIONS, ESPRIT PHARMA INC., East Brunswick, N.J. — Although she recently moved to Esprit and now is the sole planner, in her previous positions with Odyssey Pharmaceuticals and Watson Pharmaceuticals, she ran 15 to 25 meetings per year, ranging from five-person meetings to semi-annual meetings for 300 people, usually handled by herself, an additional full-time planner, and two or three ad hoc planners.
CMI: How do you know when a person is not going to be right for the job?
PAMELA WYNNE: During the interview process, I focus on certain key skills: negotiating, the ability to multitask, organizational skills, risk management, and customer service. I ask questions based on specific work experiences and their ability to problem-solve. I look for people who show the greatest skill in analyzing a problem, looking at solutions, and not being afraid to take risks.
Once a person is hired, it becomes apparent that maybe he or she is good with certain meetings or clients over others. If you can make shifts to have people doing the jobs they are best suited for, the entire team will excel.
DEBBIE RICCIARDELLI: You can tell by the person's demeanor in the office as well: One person who didn't work out used to slam her fists on the desk and get totally frustrated when things weren't going her way. That was very childish behavior.
CMI: What are some signs of trouble to watch out for with meeting planners?
JULIE JOHNSON: Whininess. Lack of attention to detail. Procrastination.
RICCIARDELLI: Two important things, I think: their ethics (how they handle amenities and offers); and when logistics are not coordinated well (i.e., when someone's flight is changed and the planner never notifies the ground transportation company, things like that).
WYNNE: If they get sidetracked when dealing with clients who are asking for more or are difficult to handle, it's a sign of trouble. It's also up to the manager to make sure planners stay on track and to help with any issues that might cause them to lose focus.
CMI: Tell us about your annual review process for meeting planners.
JOHNSON: Our company has a specific process I must follow. Salary planning is done in the fall. We set an increase date then for the following year. Planners are evaluated on the quality of their programs, customer and peer reviews, and input from VPs with whom they work closely. And, primarily: Did they stay within budgetary constraints and still deliver quality programs?
RICCIARDELLI: Part of the review is also subliminal: how their personality traits match with the job. Is my contract negotiator assertive enough to get the best deal for the company? Is the meet-and-greet employee enough of a people person?
WYNNE: We evaluate the person's financial contribution to the company through cost savings and cost avoidance, improvements to processes, and customer service ratings. Objectives are reviewed quarterly, and then we conduct an annual performance review.
MICHELLE BERRIOS: We ask each employee to propose goals for the year, which are then approved by our director. At the end of the year, the director will review the personal goals and client feedback with each person on the team.
“Managing Meeting Pros, Part 1” By Bob Andelman Corporate Meetings & Incentives September 2006
Are Meeting Professionals a tough crew to manage? You bet.
Because they are on the road so much, there can be communication and comp-time issues. They are expected to work all kinds of crazy hours — so how can a manager possibly compensate them for that? Then there is the pressure-cooker environment, and Type A personalities, and occasional sleep deprivation.
We decided to approach five experienced meeting department managers to explore how they manage it all and keep their staffs — and themselves — sane.
On our panel:
*
JULIE JOHNSON, CMP, CMM, DIRECTOR, EVENTS & INCENTIVES, LENNOX INTERNATIONAL WORLDWIDE HEATING & COOLING, Richardson, Texas — Her staff of four manages 150 meetings a year. *
PAMELA WYNNE, CMP, CMM, MANAGER OF CORPORATE MEETING PLANNING, EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE, Princeton, N.J. — Wynne oversees strategic sourcing, contract negotiations, cost analysis, billing and reconciliation, and tracking of expenses for about 800 meetings per year with six full-time planners. *
MICHELLE BERRIOS, CMP, SENIOR MEETING PLANNER, KAISER PERMANENTE, Oakland, Calif. — The majority of her company's 600 to 800 meetings each year are handled by a staff of six in the national corporate meeting department. *
PEG WOLSCHON, CMP, CTP (CERTIFIED TOUR PROFESSIONAL), MANAGER OF MEETING SERVICES, TENET HEALTHCARE CORP., Dallas — Wolschon runs a fairly new department with about 115 meetings on the books for 2006, a number that is likely to reach 200 by year's end. (Peg left her position as this article went to press.) *
DEBBIE RICCIARDELLI, CMP, MANAGER, SALES OPERATIONS, ESPRIT PHARMA INC., East Brunswick, N.J. — Although she recently moved to Esprit and now is the sole planner, in her previous positions with Odyssey Pharmaceuticals and Watson Pharmaceuticals, she ran 15 to 25 meetings per year, ranging from five-person meetings to semi-annual meetings for 300 people, usually handled by herself, an additional full-time planner, and two or three ad hoc planners.
CMI: What's different about managing a meeting planning department versus other departments you have managed?
WYNNE: I find it to be a lot harder than managing a department where people are at their desks all day. Usually someone is out, and we have to fill them in later, either via e-mail or by calling them. I try to take into consideration the different learning and communication styles of my staff, but it is much harder to do that with a staff that is multitasking.
RICCIARDELLI: It's not easy to “grade” a meeting planner's performance. Other jobs can be measured more objectively, with facts and figures.
With meetings, unless you are at the planned function, you often have to depend on the feedback of the attendees to determine how well things were executed. If a meeting did not go as well as I would have liked, we will have more than enough people comment on it. If the meeting goes well — as 99.9 percent of them do — the way I get feedback is to ask everyone with whom I cross paths about it.
JOHNSON: I used to be a regional director of sales for a hotel corporation and had even more staff than I do now, but I don't see much difference. Everyone in every job is under some pressure to excel and to attain his or her objectives. Managers must put themselves in their employees' shoes and recognize the pressures that are inherent.
By Bob Andelman: Religious Conference Management Association Magazine
Engineer of Growth: Stewart Thrives in More Than One Role Apr 1, 2007 12:00 PM By Bob Andelman
George Stewart always thought he'd spend his life as an engineer, or managing engineers, or teaching engineering.
But building a Baptist church almost from scratch? And designing its growth from 20 members to 1,600 over nearly 40 years?
That, he says, is just proof that God has a plan for us, whether we recognize it at first or not.
Stewart — a recent addition to the RCMA Board of Directors — has been pastor of Zion Chapel Baptist Church in Cleveland since June 1969. He was ordained at a sister church in January of that year and sent forth to minister his own flock just six months later.
Those were dicey times, financially and spiritually, for the 3-year-old institution. With only 20 members, Stewart kept his day job at Republic Steel.
“I really wanted to be an industrial education teacher,” he recalls. “I matriculated at Savannah State College in Georgia. I was inducted into the service in 1953. I studied diesel-engine repair and became a mechanic and mastered four engines. I wanted to carry that back to the classroom with me.”
David Simon, "The Wire" creator: Mr. Media Interview by Bob Andelman
David Simon via WikipediaToday, it’s January 26, 2007, and I am sitting across from David Simon, creator of the critically-acclaimed and Peabody Award-winning HBO series, The Wire. We are speaking at The Inn at the Bay in St. Petersburg, Florida, where Simon spent the last week working with students at Eckerd College. The fiftieth episode and fourth-season finale of The Wire aired just a few weeks ago, and the fifth season goes into production in March, so Simon is hopefully enjoying a vacation of sorts.
I am an admitted late-comer to The Wire, having seen my first episode just last September in a New Jersey hotel room. I was struck by the show’s tension and extraordinarily tight script and character development, which has often been overshadowed by better-known HBO shows, such as The Sopranos and Deadwood. If you like those shows and you haven’t already caught The Wire, you should consider it assigned viewing. Fortunately, the first season of The Wire is now airing on the BET channel, so us late-comers can start catching up.
BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: So David, what is it about Baltimore? Why do you hate it so much?
SIMON: Actually, I live there. I live in the city. I have great affection for it. I am invested in the city’s future in the same way as other people who are its boosters. I just feel compelled to comment on that which I covered as a newspaper reporter and as an author and these elemental problems that are at the core of our urban experience. We are not going to solve the dilemmas and the crises and the problems of the city without first addressing them intelligently, and that really is the impulse behind The Wire and behind all of the work, and so I don’t feel as if I am targeting Baltimore or any city per se, but I am aggressively making an argument about the problems that are confronting cities.
ANDELMAN: Could it be any city that….
SIMON: It could be, although I think the problems are paramount in post-industrial places like Baltimore, where the manufacturing base has disappeared and where a large under-educated, under-skilled population is without meaningful work. I think if you look at places like in the Rust Belt – Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, these are places that are experiencing the most profound problems not only with crime and intractable drug culture but also with almost an existential crisis of the population.
ANDELMAN: It’s an interesting place, right? The hour tolling behind us.
SIMON: That’s right.
ANDELMAN: And is the city really as interesting as someone watching these shows would think, or are you compacting so much that it just seems tenser and more exciting? Exciting may not be the best word for it.
SIMON: Listen, life is, honestly, anti-drama, and if you chart people’s lives on a day-to \-day basis, I think it probably doesn’t add up to anything that could be a stage play or a teleplay or a screen play, so there is a certain dramatic hyperbole that is required in any presentation of theater, but we are really trying to root it in the real. These are all events that either have happened and that were either covered by myself or policed by my partner in writing, Ed Burns, who was a homicide detective for twenty years, or occurred to him when he was teaching school in the city school system for seven years, or were covered by Bill Zorzi, who covered city government for twenty years for the Baltimore Sun or… I could go on. It really is rooted in the experiences of the writers as either journalists or authors or people contending in Baltimore. But some of the events didn’t occur in exactly the way and shape and precision that we are describing, and we are taking some license. There is some fictionalization, and ultimately, there is almost a comfort in that, in that you can almost be more honest in a way about what you feel about events when you are not beholden to any kind of argument or dialectic with real people. In some ways, some of the most honest things I felt I have ever written about the city have been in a fictional sense.
ANDELMAN: The thing that really struck me the first time I watched it, and this week, I will admit, I have watched twelve episodes, it’s been sort of a marathon week…
SIMON: Hard week for you.
ANDELMAN: Well, I don’t want to say it’s been fun, because you would interpret that the wrong way by the type of show, but it’s been very interesting. The street corner dialogue, the drug-dealing dialogue, who’s writing that stuff? It’s an incredible…
SIMON: It’s all scripted. One of the things I am a little bit resentful for is we have a remarkable cast of African-American actors who are utterly unacknowledged by the industry. They are never nominated for anything. They are never regarded as having created any characterizations or achieved any sense of craft for what they are doing. It’s almost as if they think we turn the camera on people, and they just were being; that’s the way they are. And in fact, these are incredibly professional actors who are reading from a script. The dialogue is from the world that Ed policed, that I covered as a crime reporter in Baltimore for twelve years that is very common to us from having spent time in West Baltimore. We are who we are. I am sure we miss things because we are a couple of white guys, but what we catch we catch because we have good ears, and we are careful and pay attention and we are patient listeners.
ANDELMAN: And that’s the thing. I mean, I sit here across from you, and we are about the same age, we both have the same follicle challenges, and I look at you, and I listen to you talk, and I think about the incredible dialogue. The dialogue that I have been listening to so heavily this week before we met, the thing that really struck me is that you or I, I, as much as I like to think of myself as a pretty good writer, I couldn’t write as crisply as that dialogue on the street. I could write the stuff in the political situations, I think, and in the police station, and the classroom, but that corner stuff…
SIMON: But you could if you were exposed to it for day after day and if you… It really is the result of years of reporting. Even when we tried to acquire a new world in The Wire that we don’t know anything about, we are pretty rigorous about taking what time we do have and diving in and trying to acquire everything we can. In the second season of the show, we spent a great deal of time at the Port of Baltimore dealing with the world of longshoremen and stevedores. We hired one other former Sun reporter, Raphael Alvarez, whose family is in the maritime tradition and who knows the Port very well, and that was valuable, and Raphael was a great aid, and we leaned hard on him, but the rest of us all threw ourselves at the actual ILA, the union, and at the Maryland Port Authority and at the Steamship Trade Association and asked for all of the help we could get in the months leading up to production and the creation of the scripts, because we didn’t know enough to write that world. And that’s something that just doesn’t happen if your impulse is to create an entertainment. The average Hollywood television production is going to involve a bunch of people who will pick a story line, and then their research will consist of consulting other Hollywood productions. They will be writing the version of what other Hollywood TV shows say drug dealers sound like or stevedores sound like, or they will be channeling, it it’s stevedores, they will be channeling On The Waterfront, which is a great movie, but it’s certainly about half a century old…
ANDELMAN: Literally that old, yeah.
SIMON: And classic. I have watched it time and again, but they will not endeavor to go out into the world and acquire what I would regard as sufficient authority to speak in these voices, and it would bother me not to. I would be scared. I would be frightened of my own ignorance.
ANDELMAN: The conversation, the dialogue in The Wire puts you in that place as much as the same aspects of The Sopranos puts you there, or even Entourage or http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/. That’s the thing that… You start watching that, and you get caught on that, and you’ve just gotta keep listening.
SIMON: Right. I think what distinguishes premium cable at its best in terms of drama is writers who are absolutely committed to creating a world not as an artifice for entertainment but as an artifice to speak to larger themes and to do it in such a way that the universe is entirely credible. I believe that David Chase and his crew know these guys in North Jersey. By that, I know they are fictional, but they know that world, and they have it surrounded, and to the extent that he has created a universe around Deadwood, I think David Milch and his people have done the same thing. Partly that’s because you don’t have to play toward the lowest common denominator of television on premium cable. People are paying for it. They are going to sit there in their chairs, they are going to want to catch the nuance, they are going to want more nuance, whereas in television, in broadcast, my episodes are fifty-eight minutes, theirs are forty with commercials, and every twelve minutes, there is a break, and they start to sell you some soap, and you get up to go to the bathroom, and you get up to go to the refrigerator, and you might come back, and you might miss three minutes, and then you are busy unwrapping the ice cream bar, and pretty soon you have missed three scenes of dialogue. Television is a pretty passive experience in American culture. It is a tool not of provocation but of relaxation, and if that’s the nature of it, then nobody’s going to be able to tell an intelligent story, but premium cable has sort of changed the equation. And the other way it’s done that, not just by getting rid of commercials, but you can catch The Wire four or five times a week on HBO. You can catch it on demand at your leisure, in your time, and you can eventually buy the DVDs. At that point, it’s no longer a scheduled event, and if you miss one episode, or if you get a phone call in the middle of one, you are still going to be able to catch up on it if you choose, and that’s revolutionary for television.
ANDELMAN: Let me ask you this, and this is a basic piece of business, but now I came to the show very late, and I think part of the reason I came to it late was the name. I just couldn’t get my arms around The Wire, so I want to ask you for people who might hear this or read this or haven’t seen it, can you give us kind of the Evelyn Wood breakdown of what the show is about and where the name The Wire came from?
SIMON: Sure. The Wire is a double entendre of sorts. It specifically refers to the electronic surveillance methods used by the police to try to undermine and take apart a criminal organization. In the first season, it would have been a drug organization, the second season, it was a smuggling organization, and so forth, but that’s more the literal reason for the title. The title really refers to almost an imaginary but inviolate boundary between the two Americas, between the functional, post-industrial economy that is minting new millionaires every day and creating a viable environment for a portion of the country, and the other America that is being consigned to a permanent underclass, and this show is really about the vagaries and excesses of unencumbered capitalism and what that has wrought at the millennium and where the country is and where it is going, and it is suggestive that we are going to a much more divided and brutish place, and I think we are, and that really reflects the politics of the people making the show. It really is a show about the other America in a lot of ways, and so The Wire really does refer to almost a boundary or a fence or the idea of people walking on a high wire and falling to either side. It really is sort of a symbolic argument or symbolic of the argument we are trying to make.
ANDELMAN: And is it a show of villains, anti-heroes, or something in between? The lines are never quite clear on people.
SIMON: Well, that’s by intent. I feel that a lot of American television, particularly in the cop show milieu, we came on the scene as presumably HBO’s answer to the cop show. That’s how we were initially marketed, and I think we weren’t willing to argue the point because our ambitions, which were different, were not credible until we had been on for a couple of years, but originally, we came as a cop show, and cop shows are exactly rooted in good and evil in the Sipowiczes and Joe Fridays and Pembletons of the world, and by the way, I wrote for Homicide, that’s how I learned to do television after they made my first book into the NBC show. Some of that is very well done and not without meaning. However, it does beg a certain question as to what our compulsion is about these sorts of hour-long morality plays and why they are the preponderance of what we absorb as our entertainment, and The Wire is fairly uninterested in good and evil. It regards its characters as being, it’s more sort of social determinist. I guess to follow it all the way back, most American drama on television is rooted in the Shakespearean tradition of the angst of the individual and his own conscience and his own struggle against himself. If you took at Tony Soprano or Al Swearingen and these other shows, there is a lot of Hamlet, there is a lot of Macbeth in their construct, and we are really stealing from older, less traveled tradition, which is that of the Greeks, and The Wire is really constructed as Greek tragedy, except we, post-moderns, have a hard time believing in Olympian gods that hurl lightning bolts and hit us in the butt and are indifferent to our morality or our desires or just basically jealous and whimsical and playful with humans, with mortals. But if you supplant the idea of those old Greek gods with post-modern institutions, with the police department, with the drug organization, with government, with the union, with the Catholic Church, with Enron, you start layering over the institutions that determine how individuals are going to be served by or serve society. Now you have some really indifferent gods, and so we are stealing from Euripides and Socrates and Aeschylus. Those are the guys.
ANDELMAN: Now let me ask you. You speak very elegantly, very philosophically about your program, but it’s also a program that’s full of, it’s very violent, it’s very tense. That can almost be paralyzing. I spoke to my wife this morning, and I was describing The Wire, which she has resisted watching, and I said, you know, there have been times where she has watched The Sopranos, and she has gotten to the end and said, I can’t watch that again for a couple of weeks. It’s just too much. I am overwhelmed. Have you gotten that response from…
SIMON: From some people. I think once people get three or four episodes in, they can’t help but watch. To that, I would just suggest, to go back to the Greeks again, Oedipus kills his father and sleeps with his mother; Antigone dies a horrible death for asserting her own demands of individuality and dignity. Don’t even get me started on Medea! Tragedy and violence and a look at the, if you get later into the dramatic tradition, a look at the profane in life is elemental to what we demand of drama. It’s almost a requirement of some serious drama to address themselves to the most basic human impulses. I don’t know how to make a show about nothing, and I certainly don’t know how to make a show about sort of a light-hearted romp through the end of the 20th Century, which, by virtue of the body count alone, has to be regarded as a failed century. There is a lot to be angry about, and there is a lot to be concerned about, and there is a lot to address ourselves to. And again, that’s the impulse behind the show. We are not saying dirty words to be naughty, and we are not showing any more nudity than we feel that is warranted under the construct of the story, if it’s required for the characters to be in the world they are in, and we are not using any more violence than would otherwise be necessary to address the plot. So I am not sure it’s that violent a show, and I am not sure it’s that profane a show as people say, and I am not even sure it’s that sexualized a show. I think it’s a combination of, it feels like these are real people in this situation, and if that’s the case, if people are disturbed by some of the stuff that happens in the given hour, they ought to be.
ANDELMAN: In terms of story, when people watch most TV shows, it doesn’t have to be sitcoms or even network dramas, but you have this expectation that at some point, all of these story lines will cross somewhere, and yet, that hasn’t really happened that much on The Wire.
SIMON: I think toward the end sometimes, but it’s a very delicate web. Usually, by the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth episode, you start to see connections, stories that seemed disparate actually are headed toward each other, but having said that, we are willing to go longer and further with disparate story lines than any show, I think, before it. The ambitions of the show require that. I think, if you ask me what we are trying to do, we are not trying to do a cop show, we are trying to depict an American city. That’s a big thing, and we are trying to show how power and money route themselves through the modern city-state and why that city-state can’t solve its problems and maintain itself against its problems. That’s a lot to bite off and chew, and so we have to go far afield, and we have to trust in viewers’ ability to stay with the show.
ANDELMAN: Are there particular aspects of the story line that have changed over time in ways that you didn’t anticipate, either because maybe you are watching a character, and you are going, you know, this character should go this way in this…
SIMON: In the writer’s room, there is always a sense of discovery about what a character’s outcome should be or how they should get from point A to point Z. There is always a sense of discovery on the part of writers there, but the unique thing about the show is that we have known since, I think, the end of season one what the five, if we got five seasons, we had to beg for a couple of them, but if we got five seasons, we had five distinct themes we wanted to address. We knew what they were, we knew in order what they would be, we knew where we needed to place our characters at the beginning and the end of those themes, and we know how the show is supposed to end after this last season that we are about to start production on. That’s been a struggle to stay on that path because it’s always a struggle to follow a plan as opposed to just winging it, but it’s also been quite liberating because the nature of most TV shows, when they are designed as entertainment and not designed as specific stories about things, is that if a TV show finds success with one character or one romance or one theme, their job, the show owner’s job in Hollywood is to stay on that and keep repeating those moments that please viewers and to keep the show running for as long as possible, and our sense of what we wanted to achieve has been pretty rigorous. And we have said to ourselves, just because people love Omar or love Stringer Bell, the characters serve story, and we are really intent on executing the story that we conceived in the beginning. So it’s never about sort of appeasing the viewership and keeping the show afloat for as long as possible. When you try to keep a show afloat for as long as possible, you are eventually dishing out a thin gruel of old moments that you have already played for all they’re worth and just trying to sustain your audience. And we have sort of written without awareness of the audience.
ANDELMAN: So as you go into a fifth season, you are going into this planning on this being the final season.
SIMON: Yes. Absolutely.
Bob: There is no nine extra episodes to come at the end?
SIMON: No. I don’t think we have the… Again, we are not the money machine that some other shows are, and I don’t expect HBO to come begging us for another season, but actually, this last season, the fourth season, the one that dealt with the educational theme, the audience grew quite dramatically. Something happened. I would guess it was just people finally caught up to the show. They had the DVDs out there in advance, all seasons in advance of season four, and that was the first time they managed that, and I think the on-demand function, which became incredibly popular on HBO, helped people find the show, so it was sort of available in more platforms, and something clicked.
ANDELMAN: How has it kept going where Rome and Carnival and even Deadwood now have fallen before it?
SIMON: We’re cheaper.
ANDELMAN: That’s pretty straight-forward.
SIMON: We film in Baltimore, and that’s certainly part of it. Rome cost more than $100 million to make. You have the same number of hours of The Wire for maybe a third of the cost, and we are always under budget. We always turn a little bit of money back in almost as a good faith gesture. That earns you a certain amount of contempt in Hollywood, where everybody always goes over budget, but I learned television production, and Nina Noble, the other producer, she learned it at the foot of Tom Fontana and Jim Federdine. These are guys who played by the same rules. Tom said to me a long time ago, it’s not your money, so going over should not be a point of pride, and we have always been responsible, and by keeping the show’s budget in some proportion, I think it made it easier for them to say, “Okay, these guys, they say they can execute for x amount of dollars, let’s give them another season.” Practical economy of Hollywood.
ANDELMAN: Now, episode fifty, the last episode of the fourth season, “Final Grades,” it felt like it could have actually wrapped up the series. There were a lot of things that were wrapped. There were a lot of things that were covered. We saw….
SIMON: Although they did just pull about seventeen bodies out of some row houses.
ANDELMAN: Right.
SIMON: I think that would have been the pregnant issue. I mean, listen, you never know if you are going to get cancelled, so you try to have some sense of resolution to every season, but the one thing that is different about HBO is they have never cancelled a show in the middle of its run, so you always know you are going to get to the last episode of your season. Whether you are going to get the renewal again at the end, that’s always an open question. It is television. Nothing is guaranteed. But we did feel like we left this one a little more open than maybe… I felt season three with the end of the Barksdale story was the one where we were probably the most vulnerable to somebody saying, “Well, it’s tidy, let’s call it a day.” I think there is more to be said on the theme of Marlo and those bodies in the houses, but ultimately we had one last theme, and we pitched it to HBO. We are going to slice off one last piece of this simulated city we built and address ourselves to that, and I think that will end it.
ANDELMAN: That’s interesting, because I felt like I got some closure, because it’s these people who are still alive, not the seventeen who were on that long piece of paper………
SIMON: I think it was actually twenty-two by the end. I am trying to remember the dialogue.
ANDELMAN: Okay. Yeah. It left me feeling satisfied. I knew that, obviously, lives go on and series, the characters theoretically go on, but I felt, okay, if it stops there, I feel pretty satisfied. But it’s even better to know it goes on.
SIMON: I think that’s exactly what Chris Ulbrecht was saying when he was contemplating whether or not to give us the next season, that if he had to end it here, he felt there was enough resolution at the end of the four. I blanched at that. I wasn’t quite in agreement with him, but he felt that he could hang his hat on it, there was enough resolution at the end of four.
ANDELMAN: What will be your involvement in season five, and are you working on anything to follow The Wire?
SIMON: My involvement is the same as all the other seasons, executive producer along with Nina Noble, dealing with all facets of production and working on the writing with Ed Burns, who is the other lead writer, and we have Richard Price, George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, you know, remarkable novelists who are committed to writing for the show. And we will execute one last season, I think probably ten episodes, I don’t think we need twelve to finish, and then put it to bed. And then move on to something else. I am involved with some other projects for HBO, and they may or may not go. I was involved in adapting a book called Generation Kill by Evan Wright. He was an embedded reporter with the First Marine Recon unit in Iraq during the invasion, and I think he wrote what is one of the great pieces of war reporting to come out of Iraq and in a great metaphorical piece for the tragedy there, and I am trying to adapt that as a mini-series for HBO. It’s written, and we are sort of waiting for the decision on HBO as to when to go on it.
ANDELMAN: So your next project will not torture the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce?
SIMON: Apparently not, not unless Baltimore can dress itself up as Baghdad, but Baltimore can be a lot of things. I have to say, Baltimore, there have been some brushes with the mayor and with some civic boosters, but the truth is, they have been very professional about it, and if you want to have a film industry anywhere, you cannot start dictating terms to the storyteller and saying, we only want a certain kind of story; we are happy to film that. But the film industry exists in places like New York and L.A. and larger markets regardless of story. Nobody reviews story in New York, and the Law and Order franchise alone I think has killed more people in Manhattan in a given year than are actually killed in Manhattan in a given year. Whereas, I think what disturbed some people in Baltimore is that this is really aggressively taking on such issues as the viability of the drug war, the education system, the death of unionized labor…
ANDELMAN: Political corruption…
SIMON: I think in some ways, the fact that it is so attenuated from the real is what bothers people, and I can’t help that. It’s like you are asking me to pull punches now that I can’t pull, but having said that, I think Baltimore would be more stressed out about it if we were from Hollywood and we just sort of landed in their city and said, all right, we are now going to be hyper-critical of you guys, having parachuted from another world entirely.
ANDELMAN: Or how would they feel if you were shooting “Baltimore” in Toronto?
SIMON: Right. The truth is, you can say anything is anything, and if it’s fictional, nobody can stop you, but I mean, the truth is, it shouldn’t be a bargain over the dollars for filming versus the city’s image. Some people put it that way. I never cast it that way. The way I cast it is, we are from here. I live in south Baltimore, and I am committed to staying in Baltimore as a citizen, and if you don’t think that I have the legitimacy to comment on where our city is going and what we are facing, okay, but you are going to have a hard time stopping me, because it’s genuine, it’s not motivated by any sense of cynicism about place or about… And I am not from somewhere else, I am from Baltimore, so what else would I write about?
Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk,” “The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored History of the Porn Film Industry,” Punk Magazine)
Bob Gruen (John Lennon, The Clash, New York Dolls rock ‘n’ roll photographer)
Michael Uslan (The Dark Knight, The Spirit, Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins, Catwoman, Constantine, National Treasure, Swamp Thing, Shazam!, The Shadow, Constantine)
Abraham Foxman... (On Publishing Prospects for The Plot in the Middle East)
About Me
Name: Bob Andelman
Location: St. Petersburg, Florida, United States
Bob Andelman is the host and producer of the “Mr. Media Radio” online interview show, now in its 4th year. He is also the author or co-author of 10 books including: The Profiler; Will Eisner: A Spirited Life; Built From Scratch; Mean Business; The Profit Zone; The Corporate Athlete, Stadium For Rent and several others. Complete biography & book reviews here. Looking to hire a collaborator or writer for a book? Contact my agent, Michael Bourret. Magazine editors can contact me directly.
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif)
Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f594dc0e-3f44-4908-8d79-25d9398664e2)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=08dbaff9-22ab-4b3b-a4cd-c48414a12493)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=420fdc3e-6403-4cb1-afa4-9d9842d0b38c)
, and the subsequent HBO series, The Corner, and providing the inspiration and a number of scripts for the Baltimore-based NBC show, 
. Another of his Baltimore-based true crime books, ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e4a606c3-d981-4f5d-867b-958049be4a7a)
Seed Newsvine
