Strathlachlan

EM Fest 2004

Today is the big day for EM Fest 2004 on the campus of Winthrop University. Adobe and New Riders have put up more than $2500 in prizes and it's now a day long event! EM Fest is an electronic media awards competition open to college students from across Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The goal of EM Fest is to spotlight the top electronic media design students and academic programs from across the region.

WHAT: EM Fest, a regional electronic media festival
WHEN: Friday, February 13th, 2004
WHERE: Plowden Auditorium in the Withers Building at Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC.
COST: $5 per person for the entire day.

SCHEDULE:
12pm - 1pm EM Fest Registration

1pm – 1:45pm
Ed Cone, Senior Writer, Baseline magazine and Weblogger
"Will Work for No Food: Confessions of a Professional Journalist with a Weblog"

Ed Cone is senior writer for New York-based Baseline magazine, specializing in case studies on business and technology. He is also an opinion columnist at the News & Record, the monopoly daily newspaper in his hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. Ed has worked as a contributing editor at Wired, a staff writer at Forbes, and a freelancer. He lives in Greensboro with his wife, Lisa, their two children and their dog, Luna.

2pm – 2:45pm
Steve MacLaughlin, EM Fest Organizer
"Get a Job: How to get hired in Electronic Media"

Steve MacLaughlin is an experienced Interaction Architect who has helped develop award winning sites for a variety of clients including Eli Lilly, Finish Line, the NCAA, RCA, and Verizon. His views on the technology industry have appeared in Fast Company, Business 2.0, BtoB Magazine, and USA Today. Steve has taught the fundamentals of interactive design at respected institutions like Indiana University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

3pm – 3:45pm
Samantha Bailey, VP of Information Architecture, Wachovia Corporation
"Big Company, Small Company: Working in two very different worlds"

Samantha Bailey is the lead information architect at Wachovia where she provides strategy and direction for the information architecture and interaction design of the corporate website. Prior to joining Wachovia, Samantha was Vice President of Operations at Argus Associates, a pioneering information architecture firm, where she worked with clients such as AT&T, Procter & Gamble, Ernst & Young, and Microsoft.

4pm – 4:45pm
Ron Jones, President, Symetri
"The Right Stuff: Skills needed to succeed in Web Development"

Ron Jones is the president and motivational leader of Symetri - an ebusiness company that specializes in helping clients mold technology, user research, and innovative thinking into solid business solutions that deliver an excellent customer experience and competitive advantage. Jones has more than 14 years technical experience. Prior to Symetri, Jones was a senior manager with MCI where he led development initiatives for MCI's client base.

5pm – 5:45pm
Bob DeLano, Vice President, The Film Foundry
"Life behind the Camera: Working in the Video and Film Industry"

Bob Delano is an award-winning on-line editor, now the Vice President of The Film Foundry, a digital film and video finishing facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. A video post-production veteran of over 20 years, Bob's current projects include four 3-D animated children's specials, along with episodic programs and broadcast specials for HGTV, The Food Channel, Turner South, and Speed Channel.

7pm – 8pm
EM Fest Awards Show

EM Fest Returns

Back in 2002, I started an event at UNC Charlotte called EM Fest. It was a huge success and I'm getting ready for EM Fest 2004 in February. I've moved the event to Winthrop University and both Adobe and New Riders have joined up once again as sponsors for the event.

EM Fest is an electronic media awards competition open to college students from across Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The goal of EM Fest is to spotlight the top electronic media design students and academic programs from across the region.

EM Fest 2004 will feature a day-long electronic media festival that will include a variety of speakers and workshops. The event will culminate in an awards show on the campus of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Here are the speakers that I have put together for the event:

Ed Cone, Senior Writer, Baseline magazine and Weblogger
"Will Work for No Food: Confessions of a Professional Journalist with a Weblog"

Samantha Bailey, VP of Information Architecture, Wachovia Corporation
"Big Company, Small Company: Working in two very different worlds"

Ron Jones, President, Symetri
"The Right Stuff: Skills needed to succeed in Web Development"

Bob DeLano, Vice President, The Film Foundry
"Life behind the Camera: Working in the Video and Film Industry"

Steve MacLaughlin, EM Fest Organizer
"Get a Job: How to get hired in Electronic Media"

EM Fest 2004 will be held on Friday, February 13th from 12pm to 8pm at the Withers Building on the campus of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. The lineup of speakers will be followed by the EM Fest Awards Show, beginning at 7pm. Tickets to the event will be available at the door for just $5.

Get Your Drink On

My wife and I's alma mater, Indiana University, has fallen from the top spot in Princeton Review's 2003 rankings of the top party schools in the country. The University of Colorado, Boulder is now at the top of their list followed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, IU-Bloomington, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Washington and Lee University.

It would appear that participation from the folks on North Jordan Avenue and Varsity Villas was down from last year. Though it would be hard for me to imagine tumbleweed rolling across Kirkwood Avenue or a lackluster Little 500 weekend at IU. Despite the drop in the list it was encouraging to see that 3 out of the top 5 schools come from the Big Ten. The matriculants at Madison have always known how to throw a good tailgate party rife with brats and beer, and living in Champaign alone would drive even Carrie Nation to drink.

Now the funny thing about college rankings is that every administrator and faculty member hates them, unless of course their institution is high up on the more favorable lists. Back when I was teaching at IU it was named College of the Year among research institutions by Time magazine. There was a huge billboard about it on the outskirts of Bloomington that I would pass on my way to and from Indianapolis. And there were probably inserts of the article in every admissions brochure that went out the door.

Whether these kinds of rankings are measuring alcohol consumption or the number of Nobel Prize winners on the faculty, at the end of the day they are all subject to one extent or another. That explains why one survey says IU is at the top and another says it's all bottoms up in Bloomington. I have no problem with that as long as administrators don't try and talk out of both sides of their mouths.

According to a very biased survey taken at the MacLaughlin household, which has four pieces of vellum hanging on the wall from IU, we can both attest that Indiana University is both a great institution of higher learning and a place that has many fine establishments for consuming an adult beverage. Please drink responsibly. Please read surveys responsibly as well.