I visited the Libertarian Party national convention this past weekend in Denver.  On Sunday night I spoke with Bob Sullentrup, who the next morning was reelected national party secretary.  On Monday I returned in time to catch one of the candidates for national chair, Ernest Hancock, and in the hallways I spoke with several delegates who freely expressed their love of freedom, small government and low taxes. I found it invigorating to be among people who hold their beliefs so passionately.  It was a refreshing break from the never-ending horserace between my candidate, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, with John McCain waiting in the wings. 

The full video of my interview with Bob Sullentrup is available here.

A terrific group effort by arts organizations attending the Marketing Tune-Up workshop in Great Falls, Montana. Thank you all!

On May 13, 2008 I gave a talk on podcasting at the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. Just as we were getting started, my host Beth Dunn of the Foundation spotted smoke coming out of an electrical outlet.  Thus began an even more exciting evening than the one we’d planned.  A Delicious list of tags for the talk is here.

Thanks to Beth’s quick working of her local network, she found alternate space for my presentation at the Cape Cod Community College.  The MacBook Air was not playing nicely with the college’s AV system, so as the audience made its way into the new venue, I quickly transfered my presentation to the trusty MacBook Pro I brought along as a backup.

Chris Lopez, communications director for the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee, spoke with me two days ago about preparations for the Democratic National Convention August 25-28 in Denver.  He’s got a big job, coordinating an expected 15,000 or so journalists who will cover what he calls the Superbowl of Politics.  Our conversation provided an intriguing look inside the massive effort going on here in Denver to get ready for an historic event.

 I’m going to travel light to the islands for a break in my podcasting and other Internet life.  We’ll be on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, until April 25th.

This is the mp3 version of Episode 56, Pianocaster Mario Ajero.

Mario Ajero is Assistant Professor of Piano Pedagogy and Coordinator of Class Piano at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He also hosts The Piano Podcast. He was in Denver this week for the Music Teachers National Association conference, which gave us a chance to meet for the first time in person after two years of knowing each other on the Internet.  In this interview, he talks about how he uses technology to advance the role of music in people’s lives, especially related to the piano. He also describes a beta evaluation he’s doing for a new product making it possible to teach piano via the Internet.  After the interview, Mario took me to a performance by famed pianist Lang Lang at Trinity Methodist Church, which was incredibly great.

I first came across Mario’s music when I was looking for something to go with this video podcast from Maine nearly two years ago, and I returned to him again for this one.

Music for this episode is Mario playing Robert Schumann’s Piano Novellette in D Major, courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.