Here's a date visualization of my graduation speech from Reno. I used the web site Manyeyes.com to create it. When I get home I want to work on some data visualization projects for OP/Ed pages. I think it would be great to take a congressman, councilman's speech or a Veterans Day address, run them through the program and see what comes out. Depending on the type of speech, the language used and the context, it could be pretty cool. Great for use online or even as a local treatment for an edit page cartoon slot.

My graduation speech is the last post to this blog from Reno. It says it all about my Maynard Institute experience.

-- Good morning. The 2009 Maynard Institute Multimedia Editing Program fellows thank you all for being here this morning, and thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

Thank you to those who made our participation in this program possible.

I’m a little stressed out today.
Just two more days until graduation from the Maynard Institute Multimedia Editing program in Reno. I have to finish my news marketing training module for presentation on Thursday afternoon, pack up the Honda for a 2200-mile trip home and say several tearful goodbyes.

Here’s a video my partner in crime, Sona Patel from San Luis Obispo, put together for a final video project. Sona handled the editing and I wrangled the interviews. The interviews and taping took an hour and editing another two hours. We --- I mean Sona --- used Final Cut Express for the editing.

Deborah Gump, one of our program directors, spends hour coming up with ways to drill proper usage into our heads -- who and whom to be specific. By the last week of this program, some of us were a little punch drunk and ready to have a little fun. Here's our attempt at some “fun.”

Try this exercise. On a slow news day (that was a joke), take an hour and hit the street with your video camera. Put together an old-school, man – or woman – on the street interview video. Choose a question to ask three or four people at your local mall or post office to find out what the peeps in your community have to say about the big news of the day.