At my 30th reunion of the MBA Class of 1977 from Harvard Business School last week, I asked 13 of my classmates what was the most important thing they had learned at HBS. The answers were as varied as the people with whom I shared the B-School experience.  Was it the people? Was it a way of thinking that amounts to applied common sense?  All of the above and more.  It was fun and enlightening to be with these folks again, and I’m grateful to everyone who spoke with me for this podcast episode.  See you in 2012!

Erin Trapp, director of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, talks about how a new cultural center could reinvigorate Denver and help establish the city’s claim as the Creative Capital of the West, as Mayor Hickenlooper likes to say. In this interview in Erin’s office today, I learned some things I didn’t know about the historic Carnegie Library/McNichols Building, where a cultural center might be created in Civic Center Park.
 
The Audio Pod Chronicles theme music is "Going to the Sun" composed and performed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon, from their Glacier Journey CD 

Rob Simon, the founder 30 years ago of Denver’s well-known alternative weekly, Westword, has in the past few years turned his creativity and entrepreneurial talent toward podcasting. His company, BurstMarketing, created the impressive Cherry Creek Arts Festival podcast and continues to help business clients find solutions in podcasting.  In this interview on Sept. 4, 2007, at Common Grounds Coffee Shop at Wazee and 17th Streets in Denver, he talked about what makes a successful podcast and about what he’s looking for in the podcasting contractors whom he’s hiring to help keep up with the opportunities.   Special thanks to Twitter friends Goldiekatsu and Genuine for suggesting questions to ask Rob!

Yesterday I took Amtrak’s Downeaster from Boston to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, hoping to capture words and sounds reflecting my lifelong love of trains. I also hoped I’d find someone to interview.  Enter Peter McHugh. I think you’ll enjoy his story.
Flickr photo by Eric Olson (username: broccolbee)
"Going to the Sun" composed and performed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon. From their Glacier Journey CD

August 4, 2007 was the 46th birthday of Barack Obama, and the New Hampshire campaign celebrated with a canvass in several cities. I answered the call to go to Portsmouth, where I spent four hours in very hot weather knocking on doors in nearby Dover.  My partner was Will Gattis of Falmouth, Maine, who happens to be a terrific singer-songwriter, as well as a young man who believes Obama is a dream candidate who just might change the country.  You can hear "Christopher," Will’s song that closes the podcast, and several others at his MySpace page .

Via phone, I caught up last night with Baratunde Thurston, a Boston-based writer, comedian and vigilante pundit whom I first met on Twitter .  It turns out that Baratunde and I share a couple of common experiences, more than twenty-five years apart in Cambridge.  In this interview, he talks about his personal history, his approach to comedy, his podcast, Twitter, and the recent Democratic presidential debate.

Intro and outro music from "Going to the Sun" composed and performed by Montana musicians Christine Dickinson, Janet Haarvig and Matthew Lyon. From their Glacier Journey CD.  Used by permission.

I’m at a board meeting of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) in Northampton, Mass., where today we focused on the organization’s new Native Arts program to support Native American artists in New England and across the country.  I was struck by the role arts and culture have played in preserving the identity of native people through centuries of incredible hardship.  Before dinner, I interviewed Pamela Kingfisher of LarsonAllen, who is working with the Ford Foundation to help create an entirely new national foundation to support native arts.  In this episode, she provides some context and emphasizes the importance of the New England initiative, also supported by the Ford Foundation.

Background music is taken from the live performance before dinner by Thawn Harris and his wife Elanor Dove Harris, members of the Narraganset tribe in Rhode Island.

I think I’ve uncovered something that connects Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, in an odd sort of way.  I’m an unabashed Obama backer, but I am also intrigued by Romney. This episode contains excerpts of a huge conference call with Obama, as well as Romney on Leno and a famous quote from Romney’s father, George.

(Note: Despite what I say in the audio, this is Episode 36)

Last week I attended my 35th reunion of the Harvard College Class of 1972. It was a lively, poignant event which featured an address by the school’s most successful dropout, a reminder by the Rev. Peter Gomes that we are a community of the living and the dead, an anti-war ditty, real good music by Livingston Taylor, and a classmate’s  words of wisdom at the final brunch in Eliot House.

http://www.maho.org/Tomorrow morning I leave for St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to spend two weeks with my wife and her family at Maho Bay Camps.  It’s a very rustic setting, and I’ve decided it’s not worth the hassle to try and keep to my weekly podcast schedule while I’m there.  So I’ll be back with the podcast in early June.