Tomorrow is My First Day in Community Radio

Tomorrow, I assume my position as general manager at Columbia, Missouri's community radio station, KOPN. Yep, I am pretty excited about it. KOPN has an incredibly strong, proud history, and so does community radio, overall. I really did not know much about it before applying for the job -- aside from listening to KOPN and other stations from time to time -- and I have already learned a great deal. It has me pretty excited.

As part of my community radio adventure, I have decided to keep an ongoing blog about the experience, sprinkled with information that might be helpful to others in the community radio world (not that I have any of the latter now, but surely I will have useful information as I get into the job). My hope is that I will be able to write about the great stuff and the not-so-great stuff, keeping in mind that I need to be sensitive about the feelings of others who work hard to make KOPN a great station, or who donate, or otherwise support us are just plain important to us.

My hope is that we will end up with a blog that is entertaining and valuable to the community radio, and to the community in general.

For those who want to know more about me, I have pasted below a copy of my professional bio.

Have an awesome Sunday!

Comments

10 Things I Liked About My First Day as KOPN Community Radio General Manager

Today was my first day as general manager at KOPN community radio and I was pretty excited about it. I really do think I have found a professional home where I can make a difference and where we can be a leading force for good in the community. Here are 10 things I liked about my first day. The music collection is massive and diverse. I had never seen the whole thing before, and it kind of freaked me out. Volunteers were in and out of the office all day (even when I arrived at about 7:00 am). The volunteers all had time to talk with me and share what they thought I should know on my first day, what was important to them. One volunteer, Rhett, gave me a great idea and now I am planning an informal coffee where I will sit in a coffee shop and anyone in the KOPN family is welcome to come hang out with me and help build the KOPN community. Interactions throughout the entire day reinforced the whole "KOPN is a community" idea. Great meeting with board president Dan Hemmel...

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As KOPN's new general manager, you can guess that I am thinking a lot -- and asking for a lot of opinions -- about what our future should hold. What follows are some of the key things on my list right now. I would love to hear what you think (and that includes where you disagree with me!). : ) 1. Financially successful within 12 months – Thanks to Tao and the board, we are stable today (with no overdue bills, no debt, and a few months worth of money in the bank); within 12 months, I believe we will have a steady income and at least a six-month cushion in our account. 2. Improved radio engineering and technology program – Today, we have incredible volunteers who help when they can and where they can. They really are amazing. Moving forward, we will focus on upgrading our technology and a team organiz...

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This was kind of a tough week. Not only did the station go off-air, it happened twice, for two totally different reasons (and this is not something that happens frequently). This story starts at 3:45 AM, when my phone first rang. Honestly, I mostly ignored it and fully intended to go back to sleep, but I am kind of an insomniac, so I found myself getting out of bed. Once in my living room, I checked to see who had called and soon found myself talking to one of our long time show hosts, Lee, who told me, "Sean, the station is off the air." Lee explained that the station had stopped broadcasting a few minutes earlier, he had tried a few things to reset it, those things had not worked, and now we had to get serious about figuring it out. Roughly 30 minutes from the time the phone first rang, I was at the station, doing my best to make the situation better, rather than worse (did I mention I am not a tech guy?). My first call was to Jay, our technology and facilities mana...

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