Personal essays
Smoothing out transitions
Getting there
I named my third car “Segue” (pronounced seg-way).
This is before that device you stand on and lean in the direction you want to move.
I did it because of my time in radio. There a segue is when you start a song playing while the previous song is fading out and smoothly transition from one song to another.
My car was intended to be my smooth transition from place to place. After two cars that weren’t, my well-used, brown VW Rabbit with a moon roof was. I loved that car.
I don’t know what made me think of it. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been traveling a lot lately and although I love the places I end up and the people I see there, I’m not big on the getting there part.
I’m back in Skopje in Macedonia.
My flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was completely filled. I sat in the middle section in an aisle seat. The woman on the other aisle seat asked to be moved and was told that every seat was taken. She asked to be compensated and they worked something out. I should have asked for whatever she was having.
The guy in the seat between us was not actually in the seat between us. A part of him was in her seat and the corresponding part of him on the other side was in my seat. Neither she nor I got to use the entire seat allotted to us.
This is not fat shaming and neither of us was rude to him, but neither of us got any sleep either. In addition to being to large for his seat, he was also fidgety.
It was not a smooth transition from there to here.
Radio
Although a segue is traditionally applied to music, it’s broader definition includes my notion for my car, it’s a transition without interruption from one activity to another.
You’ve no doubt met these people at parties. You ask them one thing and four stories later you wonder if they’re ever going to take a breath.
More charitably, I think back to the day that I saw the embodiment of this skill at a radio station in Boston.
Someone we know had gotten a couple of us from the college radio station permission to visit the top rock station during the morning show.
When I was getting interested in radio, my dad gave me some great advice. He told me not to just listen to the stations I was interested in. He told me to listen to all sorts of radio stations and notice what they did.
It’s a great general piece of advice that leads to broadening your taste and your knowledge.
It’s gotten harder these days where we choose our own news and entertainment and an algorithm sends us more like what we’re already consuming.
Anyway, that day at the radio station, I remember looking at the top rated rock station, but I also looked at their AM side which was even more highly rated.
I’ve talked about Jess Cain before, but it was like getting a masterclass in segue.
He came out of a song, gave us the time and told us the weather and headlines were next and before you knew it we were into commercials. We’re not switching away now, the weather and headlines are coming up.
The news sounder came right out of the commercials, but after the weather, the next song started and there was Jess again taking us into the next hour.
Lots of jocks did that. Heck, for years, I did that. But Jess did it better than anyone and, at the time, in this crowded radio market, more than 12% of Boston radio listeners were tuned in to him.
Making connections
I’m here in Skopje to give a workshop at iOSKonf.
Two weeks ago I was in Chicago at Deep Dish Swift where I gave a closing keynote.
Often I give technical sessions, but neither conference wanted one of those. Instead, iOSKonf has asked me to be an MC.
I get that a lot lately. For years I was the MC for dotSwift in Paris. I would introduce the speakers, ask them questions after their talks, make stage announcements about breaks and giveaways, and provide the smooth transition to the next element.
I like to think that my radio background helps.
When I trained at WMJI, Cleveland’s Majic 105 point 7, I stood behind Ron Foster as he prepared to come out of the commercials into the weather and back into music.
“We don’t do much personality here,” he advised, “but a well placed phrase or sentence goes a long way.”
He then turned on the mic and said, “Beautiful day for baseball today, Detroit’s in town to take on the good guys this afternoon, look for sunny skies and a high of 82. It’s 78 degrees downtown, here’s Phil Collins with …”
And that was it.
Wednesday I’ll pretty much be doing the same thing on stage, “Welcome back from your break. I hope you had time to visit our Sponsors at their booths. We’ve got the Launch Pad coming up after lunch with five great Indie developers. Here’s Chris Eidoff with …”
Perhaps that’s my role in life. The segue. Helping to provide a smooth transition from here to there.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 268. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe